Online Pornography

  1. Down the Rabbit Hole: How many clicks until your child finds hard core pornography?

    By:
    Date Published:
    Tags:
    , , , , , ,

    A few weeks ago, a client shared with me an experience he had with his child. Let me start by saying that I work with pornography addicts, and this gentleman has been in recovery for years. He is VERY knowledgeable about online pornography, it's dangers and how easy it is to access pornography online. My client related that his wife had found pornography on his son's phone. His son is in the 12 year old range. My client and his wife are savvy folks. They handled this situation and conversation with their son with grace, knowledge, compassion and most of all, lack of judgment. The point of this…Read More

  2. CAUGHT YOUR KID LOOKING AT PORN? HOW WE SHAME CHILDREN

    By:
    Date Published:

    Anyone who has heard me lecture or has been a client of my practice knows how concerned I am about how our culture shames sex and sexuality. The sex addicts I work with have such an enormous sense of shame about their addiction. Their partners have their own sense of shame about being in a relationship with a sex addict. Our culture shames sexuality all the time. I have become more and more uncomfortable about how the media is handling the topic of pornography use among adolescents. If you do a Google search about kids looking at pornography the predominant language is “caught.” “Caught…Read More

  3. What do kids worry about online?

    By:
    Date Published:
    Date Modified:

    Most research that I review is written by adults from a very adult perspective.  The research topics are based on adult concerns regarding the effects of cyber bullying, sexting and internet pornography on kids, which makes sense because the scientists who are conducting this research are no longer kids.  However, it stands to reason that the adults might be asking the wrong questions and be concerned about the wrong things.  We might wonder why the scientists don’t just ask the teens themselves. This September, a group of European scientists published a paper in the European Journal of C…Read More

  4. Teens Want Sex and Relationship Education

    By:
    Date Published:
    Tags:
    , , ,

    Yesterday, a British think tank, IPPR (ippr.org), released preliminary details of a study they conducted involving teenagers’ outlooks on pornography.  The full report will not be released until next week.  At that time, I will have a more in depth analysis. The findings of this study show that online pornography does have an impact on the lives of teenagers.  This is not an imagined impact or an impact suggested by a researcher or parent.  These teens reported that accessing pornography is seen as a typical teenage behavior that became common between 13-15 years old.  Nearly half of th…Read More

  5. How Does the Internet Affect Adolescents? What the Data Tells Us

    By:
    Date Published:
    Date Modified:

    As a sex addiction therapist, I tend to see the negative side of internet pornography.  The people that come to me have problems with cyberpornography.  The research tells us that about 10% of all users of online pornography end up having a problem (or addiction).  What about the other 90%?  Some people manage to be “recreational” pornography users and report no issues at all.  So what about adolescents?  Does this trend apply to teens as well as adults? In 2012 a group of researchers published a review of the data on the effects of online pornography on adolescents.  Though there i…Read More

  6. Tech Savvy Parenting: To Filter or Not to Filter, That is the Question

    By:
    Date Published:
    Date Modified:

    When it comes to parenting your teens through a digital age, there are some very tough decisions to make.  One of the main questions for parents is how involved do you want to be and what style of tech parenting are you going to use? When it comes to handling teens’ use of technology for accessing online pornography or cybersex, there are a number of options.  One of those options is to use an internet filter for all of the child’s devices.  Though that may seem like an easy decision, there are many options when it comes to filtering and some pros and cons to each of those options. The …Read More

  7. Pornography and Sexual Experiences in High School Students

    By:
    Date Published:
    Date Modified:

    A research study recently published in the Journal of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics studied several aspects of sexuality among high school students.  The Swedish researchers looked at the following in teens:  the use of pornography, sexual experiences, sexual abuse and perceptions of sexuality and pornography. The majority of scientific studies that have been conducted on this subject have shown both negative and positive effects of internet pornography consumption.  Previous studies have also shown that there are gender differences in attitudes toward pornography.  Additionall…Read More