Talking to Your Kids About Sex Before the Internet Does
“In my experience as a sex educator, many students don’t have access to quality sex education, either at home or at school.”
“Any curriculum that addresses porn needs to be sure to include discussions of all possible sexualities and gender identities and expressions.”
Lucy Blumberg | BY-LA 2.0 Lead Associate
Porn. If the very word makes you wiggle with discomfort in your seat, you’re not alone. Even though some may not like to admit it, porn is pervasive — especially in this digital era. The average age of first exposure to porn is just 11 years old. That’s not hard to believe when you realize that 30% of all traffic on the internet is porn. At the onset of the pandemic, a moment where more people are at home, one of the most popular porn sites immediately recorded substantial increases in traffic. While minors aren’t technically allowed on those sites, they often find their way there, either by mistake or by curiosity. Now more than ever, parents and educators should be speaking with their kids about how to figure out their personal, family, and communal values around sex and sexuality so that young people will feel better equipped to think critically about the sexually explicit material they will inevitably see when they go online.
In my experience as a sex educator, many students don’t have access to quality sex education, either at home or at school. Data from a survey of Louisiana parents conducted by the Louisiana Public Health Institute in partnership with IWES show parents often assume it is happening at the school, while educators assume it's happening at home. But, as data also tells us, comprehensive sex education reduces Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs) and unplanned pregnancy, so it is vital that students receive this information. Lacking a federal or state mandate to teach comprehensive sex education, many students end up learning about sex from porn. Unfortunately, even when students do have access to comprehensive sex education, the safer sex skills they learn in those classes may be undermined by things they see online. For example, the usage of condoms and lube in porn is rare, even though these are proven measures to halt the spread of STIs, like HIV. This shows up in the sex education classes I’ve taught, with students pushing back on lube and condom use by saying “why don’t they do that in porn?” I tell them that although they might not realize it, porn is entertainment, with specialized lighting, effects, and lots of stuff happening behind the scenes that people don’t see. As one porn performer says, “You don’t look to the Fast and Furious movies to teach proper driving techniques,” so why do we expect porn to adequately teach young people about sex? Speaking honestly about taboo subjects in our lives (porn included) enables young people to figure out their own values and to feel better equipped to act on those values.
Some researchers have agreed that a more effective strategy to deal with young people encountering pornography online is to tackle the issue head-on by incorporating an analysis of gender, race, sexuality, stereotypes, and consent in porn into a sex education curriculum. One prominent researcher, Emily Rothmann, developed a curriculum of this kind for a class known as “Porn Literacy,” as she believes that avoiding the topic of porn leads to unrealistic and harmful assumptions about sex. Rothmann was moved to create lessons on porn after a study she conducted showing that teens reported porn as their main source of information about sex — more than their friends, schools, or parents.
Of course, having an open conversation about sex is not easy. As long as pornography has been around (and it’s been quite a while, in some form or another), a not-always-small group of people preferred to ignore it than address it directly. Archaeologists in the 1860s who excavated Pompeii — an Italian city flattened by a volcano in the year 79 CE — were astonished and embarrassed to find explicit depictions of Roman sexual practices on the walls of many buildings. They were so embarrassed that they hid their findings from the public for years! Fast forward to the (mostly straight and white) porn industry of the 1970s and ‘80s, which elicited a fierce debate among the feminist movements of the time, with some feminists arguing that porn encouraged women to embrace their sexuality and others decrying it as inherently degrading, with the hopes of shutting it down entirely. Today, ethical porn sites have sprouted up, trying to combat poor conditions in the mainstream industries, such as pay inequities; racism, sexism, and body stereotyping; and a lack of consent. Many are run by women, people of color, and LGBTQIA people, fighting the constant fetishization and mistreatment that is inherent in the mainstream industry. Ethical porn creators also field criticism from those with similar ideologies from years past who would rather porn didn’t exist at all, ethical or not. Many of these folk also ask for porn to be treated as a serious public health issue.
Even when conversations about pornography are included in sexuality education curricula, state limitations around LGBTQIA discussions in sex ed can leave queer and trans students feeling excluded. Louisiana, for example, explicitly prohibits homosexual material from being included in a sex education class, so a young person searching for validation around their sexuality or gender identity might turn to the internet for confirmation that their identity is valid and they are not alone. Porn can be one way that queer and trans youth learn about sex and sexuality in a way that is more affirming than what they may experience in their sex-ed class. But queer teens also need to be critical of the explicit content they might see and should learn about consent and condom use before taking its absence in porn as fact. Any curriculum that addresses porn needs to be sure to include discussions of all possible sexualities and gender identities and expressions.
Despite the differing opinions around pornography and its pervasiveness in society today, we as educators, as well as parents, have a duty to speak honestly with young people about the erotic material they may encounter online, and be sure that the information students get about these topics is not based solely on personal values, but rather in facts. Sex education curricula are the perfect means to address some of the harmful myths and practices that porn perpetuates, alongside supportive conversations at home that speak factually about sex and prepare young people for the things they might see online or in the media. Young people need a chance to think critically about the media they consume—especially surrounding sex—before they encounter it so that they can be better prepared to be safe and healthy as they grow up in the internet age.
“As one porn performer says, ‘You don’t look to the Fast and Furious movies to teach proper driving techniques,’ so why do we expect porn to adequately teach young people about sex?”
Here are some resources for parents and educators looking to start the conversation with young people in their life:
Geaux Talk - Louisiana-specific resource on talking about sex with a child, school administrator, or faith leader
The Porn Conversation - non-profit with tools on how to talk to your child about porn in an age-appropriate way
The Sexology Podcast: Episode 167 - How to talk to your kids about porn with Elizabeth Schroeder - a great podcast with a leading national sex educator on how to talk to your kids about porn
AMAZE Parents - How To Talk To Kids About Porn - AMAZE Parents has created a great and thorough YouTube video to begin “the talk” with your kids
Sex Positive Families - this website has an abundance of resources and workshops to begin or continue having the conversation around sex, puberty, relationships, and more in an age-appropriate and shame-free way