Teens are a horny species, that’s a fact.
But the teens of today? They may very well be the horniest on record.
A new study into the porn watching habits of young people has shown that more Aussie teens are watching porn than ever before, and they’re starting to do so even younger.
The research, conducted by Burnet Institute researcher Dr Megan Lim, focused on the habits of 940 young people and found the average age for boys to view porn for the first time was 13, and 16 for girls.
“All the young men in our study said they’d seen pornography, and so did the majority of women,” Dr Lim said.
How often are we all rubbing one out to smut?
“Around 80 per cent of young men said they watched weekly, and among the women who watched pornography, nearly two-thirds viewed at least monthly,” Dr Lim said.
Dr Lim also noted a link between porn use and mental health problems, though it’s a bit of a ‘what came first, the chicken or the egg?’ situation.
“We’re not out to prove that watching porn is a bad thing. But definitely watching pornography more frequently is associated with some negative outcomes such as poor mental health, though we can’t say from this study if one is causing the other,” Dr Lim said.
Pornography is obviously not a new phenomenon; however, the rise of the WWW means that pornography is more accessible, diverse and normalised than ever before.
Researchers also found young people who did not identify as heterosexual often felt excluded from sexual education at school, which is often focused on heterosexual behaviour. This would explain why youngings who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, and queer watched pornography more frequently, and from a younger age.
More than anything, the research proves we need a more comprehensive sex ed system in schools that reflects these findings.
“While we’re not clear on what kind of influence it might be having on [young people’s] sexual development, with such high rates of use pornography needs to be considered in teaching people about sex in a changing world,” Dr Lim said.“I’m not suggesting schools provide details about how to have anal sex, but they need to acknowledge it does exist in the real world as well as in porn and to discuss the differences in how it’s portrayed in pornography as opposed to how it’s practiced in the real world.”
Our take?
Give us Safe Schools gosh darn it!
Source: ABC.
Photo: American Pie.
