How to Talk to Kids about Porn

This podcast will focus on talking to kids about porn. How do we raise children in a pornified culture? How does porn interrupt normal development in preteen and teen boys and girls? Parents, teachers and key adults play a huge role in helping kids grow up robust and healthy—and talking about the dangers of porn and the manipulative porn culture is imperative for healthy sexual development, connection, intimacy and relationships.

“Do you know that porn sites get more visitors each month than Netflix, Amazon, and Twitter combined?” This was the way my next guest began her Ted Talk on Growing Up in a Pornified Culture. She went on to say that “we know from studies that nearly 90% of the top-watched rented scenes have at least physical or verbal abuse against the woman.” So what does this mean for our girls who must choose to go along with this culture and be defined by this culture or risk being deemed invisible and inconsequential. And what of our boys? Who are being educated by this culture to understand that to be a man is to embrace a culture taught to him on porn sites that devalue, abuse, hypersexualize and pornify girls and women.

Dr. Gail Dines is a Professor Emerita of sociology and women’s studies at Wheelock College in Boston. She is the author of numerous books and articles, and her  latest book,  Pornland: How Porn Has Hijacked Our Sexuality, has been translated into five languages. Dr Dines is the founding president of the Non-profit, Culture Reframed.  Dedicated to building  resilience and resistance in children and youth to the harms of a hypersexualized and pornified society, Culture Reframed develops cutting-edge educational programs that promote healthy development, relationships, and sexuality. Dr. Dines is an internationally known speaker and consultant to governmental bodies here and abroad.

The podcast provides:

  • How the internet has changed porn culture—and why this change matters so much.
  • The average age of porn exposure- and how this impacts the child’s development.
  • Key tips that we can use to help provide resistance and resilience in the face of the porn industry.
  • Scripts:  What to say before your child is exposed to porn
  • Scripts: What to say if your child has been exposed to porn.
  • Scripts: What to say when we see provocative images in media
  • What teachers and coaches can do during school hours or after-school hours to help kids deal in a healthy matter with porn culture
  • What Culture Reframed is and how it can help

Important Messages:

  • Porn has changed due to the advent of the internet. It’s accessible, affordable and anonymous. (2000)
  • 2007-2008 Fabian Thiman- MindGeek owns many of the free porn sites. It’s very stealth. 
  • Very violent scenes in typical porn that can be downloaded by anyone—free and easy to access. That means that a 12 year old boy who puts “porn” into google, can get catapulted immediately to rough, violent scenes that leave the women gasping for air, crying and in pain.
  • It’s perfectly normal for the child to have sexual feelings as he is going through puberty. He is curious about sex. This is natural.
  • Why would kids stay on these porn sites when what they are seeing is so violent? **The text that goes with these scenes is likely, in part, to blame. “Are you man enough for this?” “We know what you want and we’re giving it to you?”
  • They are expecting one thing- and get another. They are feeling deep shame and yet he is aroused. It’s a toxic stew in his stomach of shame, ambivalence, anger, rage and confusion.
  • If you don’t deal with the trauma, the kids go back to it and it can create addiction. They don’t feel like they have anyone to talk to about what they saw.
  • The porn industry is making sexual curiosity developmentally inappropriate.
  • From 30 years of empirical research the more you are exposed to porn, the less capacity you have for intimacy and relationships, more likely to aggress against a girl. Some will become addicts (not all). But all will be affected. Boys are trailing behind girls developmentally. They are more likely to have hook up sex, casual sex.
  • Studies are saying that men in their 30s know no more about their own sexual development than they did when they were 18.
  • Dating is so important for boys- girls (if the boy is straight) are the people who boys learn how to connect with in their lives. If this dating isn’t happening, boys don’t have this. What do you have when you have a man who is unable to talk about his emotions? Unable to connect?
  • College boys are divulging—this is not who I am.
  • The average age of kids getting a smartphone is age 10 ½. This device has aided in parents losing all control.
  • Instagram has become a site where porn performers build a fan-base. Please note- that once you get to one of these performers on instagram, if you press on her profile link, you will immediately go to a porn site and will be exposed to hard core pornography. 5 seconds. If an adult got their in 5 seconds, a teen can get their in 3 seconds.
  • The more girls self objectify and self internalize, the more depression, anxiety, more likely to get STDs, more likely to get pregnant at an early age, drop out of school and commit suicide. (American Psychological Association)
  • 40-60% of girls who do nude selfies are bullied into it. When girls do it, they do it from the nose down and when boys do it, they do it from the neck done- girls are more identifiable.  Colleges and employers look at digital imprint to see who will they choose for jobs. Increase sexual violence and sexual bullying.
  • What will our boys look like when they become men?
  • Give boys a sense of bodily integrity.
  • We don’t expect boys to have their own sexual boundaries- isn’t that strange?
  • Don’t blame and shame these kids who are falling victim to this industry.
  • Kids are not fully working with a developmentally mature frontal cortex until early 30s.
  • Movie in Scandinavian countries on bodily integrity using hamburgers and cheese- doesn’t talk about sex at all.
  • Harvard study- what do you wish your child talk to you more about? The answer might surprise you—LOVE.
  • If you know your child has been exposed to porn, approach it in a calm matter. Be mindful.
  • Discussion questions: We need to talk about this. Is this a good time? Do you understand that the industry is trying to manipulate you? Do you understand that this is free now but the industry is trying to make you a habitual user?’ Kids hate to be manipulated. How did the images make you feel? When you are finished with this image, how does it make you feel?’ They feel terrible. How would you like to feel afterwards when you are in a relationship? Do you know that she is being paid? Remember, she doesn’t feel that she has choices.
  • Parents can come to the schools and ask them to talk to kids about porn (sex ed, human development) because it’s critical to our kids.
  • We want to be able to say that we’ve been fighting for our kids so that they can have a good life.

Notable Quotables:

  • “The average boy starts looking at porn between the ages of 11 and 13.”
  • “The abstinence-only movement is the biggest gift to the porn industry. Absent of good education around sex, relationships and intimacy, kids will go to porn.”
  • “When a 12-year-old boy accesses porn for the first time, he is expecting one thing and getting another. He is told that this is what he wants. He is feeling deep shame and yet he is aroused. It’s like a toxic stew in his stomach- of shame, ambivalence, anger, rage and confusion. We are traumatizing a generation.”
  • “Kids who have been exposed to porn don’t feel they have anyone to talk to about it because often parents are likely to have a fit. This is the worst thing you can do because you just add shame onto those 11-year-old shoulders and the shame should be put very firmly on the porn industry- not on that boy.”
  • “We are traumatizing our boys. And when we traumatize our boys and lay waste to them, we are actually going to lay waste to our girls. And when we lay waste to our next generation of boys and girls, we actually lay waste to the culture.”
  • “What are the long-term implications of this massive social experiment of bringing up boys who are just a click away from hard core porn?”
  • “The porn industry is cheating boys and girls out of becoming authors of their own sexuality.”
  • “Feminists are thought to be man-haters. This is a complete upside-down analysis. The truth is that feminists are men’s best friends. We are the only group rooting for their humanity.”
  • “We don’t need to say ‘boys will be boys.’ This is too low of a bar. We need to say that ‘we believe in your humanity and we’re going to fight for it.’”
  • “As a mother, I refuse to believe that my son was born with less capacity for intimacy than girls. If I fight on behalf of my son’s humanity, then I will fight on behalf of your son’s humanity.”
  • Do you remember when we used to take pictures of other people?
  • “Due to this selfie culture, where no photo is good enough, we are bringing up a generation of girls who are narcissistic voyeurs of their own bodies.”
  • “Porn is violence against women.”
  • “From a public health perspective, the best protective factor for anything to do with kids, is having well-educated, skilled parents.”
  • “The average tween is going to want to be anywhere else than talking to you about porn.”
  • “Girls are being told she has only two choices—she is either fuckable or invisible.”
  • “What do you want from our girls? We can’t ask her to choose invisibility.”
  • “If you look at porn, they are going to steal away the ability to be the author of your own sexuality.”
  • “Your penis is connected to your head and your heart and any decision you make about your penis, you have to make with your head and your heart because you are all in this one beautiful body and you can’t separate the body.
  • “It’s very important to give boys a sense of bodily integrity because this culture says to boys that your masculinity can be weighed by how many girls you can screw.”
  • “Porn destroys all of the things that makes life meaningful.”
  • “In porn, men make hate to women, not love.”
  • “We need to talk about this. Is this a good time? Do you understand that the industry is trying to manipulate you? Do you understand that this is free now but the industry is trying to make you a habitual user?’ Kids hate to be manipulated. ‘How did the images make you feel? When you are finished with this image, how does it make you feel?’ They feel terrible.”
  • How would you like to feel afterwards when you are in a relationship?
  • “Do you think there is any woman who wakes up one day and says, “doctor, lawyer, social worker, teacher, porn performer—I think I’ll go for the porn performer? You do that when you have no other choices.”
  • “We need to resource the boy, not de-resource him. We must help him find his moral compass.”
  • “When you lose your integrity and your moral compass, how do you stand to live in that body of yours?
  • “Porn dehumanizes.”
  • “Stand up for your kid and stand up for other people’s kids. Every single one of us is a stakeholder in other people’s kids.”

Resources:

CultureReframed.org (For parents of tweens)

Pornland by Dr. Gail Dines (book)

The Body Keeps Score by Bessel van der Kolk M.D. (book mentioned in podcast)

Gail Dines’ Ted Talk

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