Supporting Children to Understand Porn-Influenced Sexual Abuse

Dr Tamasine Preece is Curriculum Lead for Health and Wellbeing at a secondary school in South Wales. She is also a freelance consultant and researcher. You can find out more about Tamasine at www.seewhatworks.co.uk.

In this blogpost she is writing in a personal capacity.

Ambiguity regarding the legality and acceptability of abusive behaviour during sex, including sexual asphyxiation (choking), is just one of a whole host of consequences of children being exposed not only to porn but a pornified culture. Porn and porn culture has also led, in my professional experience, to uncertainty for many children regarding aspects of puberty such as whether or not females develop pubic hair, have sexual feelings, have orgasms and, if they do, whether or not they ejaculate.

Without getting too deep into the porn weeds, porn impacts on children’s constructions of their own bodies and those of the opposite sex, sexual orientation and sexual consent. Exposure to porn is linked to body dysmorphia, dysphoria, and subsequent eating disorders and cosmetic surgeries.[1] Porn use is thought to correlate with a propensity to carry out sexually predatory behaviour, a failure to intervene should they witness sexual abuse, and an increased likelihood of believing rape myths.[2]

Porn also perpetuates and reinforces sex-based, race, disability and class stereotypes.[3] [4] [5] Therefore, talking to children about the reality of the wider context of porn as a form of exploitation and creating opportunities to think critically not only about the inaccuracies but also the abuse that porn promotes is a matter of safeguarding.

This isn’t children’s fault; I don’t put this on them at all. Puberty is difficult enough – the raging hormones, the identity formation, the boundary pushing, the curiosity and confusion around sexual feelings and sexual orientation – without the hijacking by porn and porn culture of children’s natural curiosity about sex and bodies, while selling them a distorted, bastardised non-truth.

So what on earth should we say when a child asks about any type of abusive behaviour in a sexual context, be it choking[6] or anything else? First of all we need to be completely unambiguous about how the behaviour can lead to serious injury or death. Totally clear messaging. No grey areas. The child needs to leave the conversation absolutely bulletproof against any misinformation that they might encounter about ‘breathplay’[7] or other dangerous activities. Secondly, it’s against the law. Nobody is able to consent to their own abuse. Some TikTok-ing self-appointed sex educators advise getting consent in writing. Nope. Nobody can consent to their own abuse.[8]

Next – and this is probably the most important reason, alongside the, y’know, not wanting to murder someone or cause them a life changing injury issue – Is this really who we are and what we want?  We don’t physically hurt people because that’s not how we want to treat people; it’s not what we find sexy and arousing. And if they’re asking for it, begging for it, mad for it, it’s all their idea? Again, Is this really who we are? What our values are? We don’t exploit others. If someone is asking to be hurt then they’re not okay and we don’t take advantage of people who aren’t okay. We don’t collude in other people’s self-harm. We make sure they’re safe and then we get out of there – protecting them, protecting ourselves. And no, that doesn’t mean that anyone’s ‘vanilla’ or a ‘kink-shamer’. Upholding safety and boundaries doesn’t need any special names or terms.

Really interesting things happen when we speak to children about porn-influenced behaviours in these terms. This dialogue appeals to the best possible person that we believe the child to be rather than, in ignoring or minimising the harm of porn, insinuating that porn and porn-influenced behaviour is in any way good enough for our amazing children. To do otherwise is to promote ‘the soft bigotry of low expectations’[9] rather than believing that all children are deserving of future intimate relationships that are safe, physically and emotionally healthy, respectful and legal.

Furthermore, pornography is often used as part of the grooming process prior to child sexual abuse by predators. If professionals working with children are anything other than unequivocal about the harms of pornography, then they are undermining the possibility of a child recognising that they are being abused and are instead empowering the abuser.

I really do believe that many children are onto pornography – they have their suspicions that something’s up; that’s why they’re using it as ‘bantz’ and to shock and offend one another in the first place. It undermines not only our relationship with children but our credibility as safe and trusted adults if we can’t have honest conversations about the exploitative and abusive context by which porn is created, as well as its inaccuracy, its misogyny, racism, ableism, homophobia, classism and so on.

And this isn’t about being judgemental or shaming children, as I’ve previously stated; this isn’t their fault. So fair play to them for asking questions – it’s the ones who aren’t asking questions that we should be worried about, frankly – and for beginning to think critically about porn’s messaging in relation to the nature of exploitation, bodies, sex and relationships, consent and abuse. Now, if only the tech regulators, legislators, policy makers and RSE training and resources providers could do the same.

[1] McElligott, E. (2023). ‘Pornography, Negative Body Image, & Eating Disorders: The Connections’. National Center on Sexual Exploitation, available at:  https://endsexualexploitation.org/articles/pornography-negative-body-image-eating-disorders-the-connections/#:~:text=Pornography%20Fuels%20Body%20Dissatisfaction%2C%20a,how%20people%20looked%20in%20pornography.

[2] DeKeseredy & Funk (2022) The Role of Adult Pornography in Intimate Partner Sexual Violence Perpetrators’ Offending, available at https://fightthenewdrug.org/porn-can-worsen-real-cases-domestic-violence/

[3] Sanz-Barbero, B., Estévez-García, J.F., Madrona-Bonastre, R. et al. Pornography, sexual orientation and ambivalent sexism in young adults in Spain. BMC Public Health 24, 374 (2024), available at: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-024-17853-yhttps://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s12889-024-17853-y

[4] Racism in Porn.(2024). CEASE, available at: https://cease.org.uk/facts/pornography/racism-in-porn/

[5] BBC. (2023). ‘TRANSCRIPT OF “FILE ON 4” – “DISABILITY AND THE ADULT INDUSTRY. Radio 4. Transmission Date Tuesday 7th November, available at: chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://downloads.bbc.co.uk/rmhttp/fileon4/PAJ_1234_PG00_Disability_in_the_Adult_Industry.pdf

[6] Herbenick, D., Fu, T. chieh, Patterson, C., Rosenstock Gonzalez, Y. R., Luetke, M., Svetina Valdivia, D., … Rosenberg, M. (2021). Prevalence and characteristics of choking/strangulation during sex: Findings from a probability survey of undergraduate students. Journal of American College Health, 71(4), 1059–1073. https://doi.org/10.1080/07448481.2021.1920599

[7] #Breathplay. TikTok, available at: https://www.tiktok.com/tag/breathplay?lang=en

[8] About Us. We Can’t Consent to This, available at: https://wecantconsenttothis.uk/aboutus

[9] Gerson, M. (2000). ‘George W. Bush's Speech to the NAACP’, available at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/onpolitics/elections/bushtext071000.htm