Porn: What's the Harm? Page #2

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to tell her about it.

But then, a phone bill came in

and my mum started

questioning me about it.

So what did your mum do?

How did she react? She was furious.

18-year-old Brandon is concerned

about what else his little

brother might be exposed to.

I do worry about him. I do worry

about the stuff out there

that he hasn't seen, because

of the explicit material out there.

So it's just a worry

of if he's going to see it,

when he's going to see it,

cos, one day, he most likely will

and how it's going to affect him.

I just hope that

it doesn't affect him too much.

So is it inevitable

that online porn

will become part

of every teenager's life?

To find out, I need to

hear from kids themselves.

And first, I've come

to one of the very few schools

where pornography is

openly discussed.

This workshop is run

by Rape Crisis South London.

Who watches porn? Me. Me.

I'm not going to lie, innit?

Yeah. All of us do.

We'd be lying

if we told you we didn't.

Every single teenage guy

watches porn.

You think every single guy watches

porn? Yeah, definitely. True story.

There's not a guy out there

who doesn't watch porn?

I'd be surprised.

You'd be surprised? OK.

'I'm sitting in on sessions

with boys and girls and, like me,

'they're shocked to learn that the

porn industry is worth billions!'

4 billion by the end of 2012

was spent on pornography

via mobile phones.

When young people watch pornography,

do you think young people

feel pressured?

Well, the girls watching it

might think, like,

they need to act like that,

and the same for the boys.

How do girls act in porn?

Like they're liking it.

Yeah, they put it on

a little bit, I think.

GIRL:
A little bit?!

Quite a lot, I think.

Do you think it means

that young people sometimes

have different expectations

of what sex will be like?

Yeah, because I think

young people will see it

and think they can treat

a woman in that way

and it's not right

to treat a woman in that way.

Like, with porn videos,

they last bear long, innit, yeah?

But if you're having sex

for the first time,

you're not going to last,

like, 25 minutes, are you?

No. More like 10...

Maybe. Seconds.

LAUGHTER:

And do you, young ladies, feel like

there is a pressure among girls

to maybe behave

like the porn starlets?

If we started, like,

behaving like a porn star,

we'd get called slut.

But if the boys do it...

GIGGLING:

It's true! Yeah, it is true.

When girls go around

having sex with boys,

they're called a slag,

but when boys do it...

It's like an achievement, yeah.

An achievement. They'll be like...

It's just boys!

It's like, "Good on you, mate,"

but with a girl, it's not good.

Do you think that

that promotes young people

using that language about women?

Yeah, it does.

Do you agree with it?

It depends what they've done.

Like, obviously, if you hear about

a girl sleeping with loads of boys,

you're not going to be

attracted to her, are you? Mmm.

I think some boys,

the way they speak about girls,

sometimes, they forget that,

like, when they're older,

would they want boys to speak

about their daughter like that?

That's true. I've started to

think about that recently as well.

Would I like it if another boy was

talking about my sister like that

or doing things with my sister?

'I'm amazed that

these 15 and 16-year-olds

'seem to know so much

about the porn that's out there,

'and that they understand the impact

that it's having on them.'

'But it's no surprise to people

like sex educator Lynnette Smith,

'who work with teenagers every day.'

I've been involved in sex education

for about 20 years now

and it was literally one summer,

one summer we saw a change,

and that was summer 2002.

Now most of the classes,

at that time, we worked

just in senior schools... Yeah.

..in year nines and year tens,

which is 14 and 15-year-olds,

and up until that, in a class of 30,

we would maybe have

three lads out of the 15 in the

class that had accessed pornography,

and that would have been

through Fiesta magazines,

that type of... Yeah, yeah,

top shelf. Yeah, that's the thing.

And then, after that summer,

when everybody seemed to get

the internet piped into their homes,

in the September, the October,

we found that it was only

three lads out of 15 that HADN' actually accessed pornography.

SHE CLICKS HER FINGERS

It was literally that quick.

And now, one in three

9-16 year olds in the UK

has access to the internet

via their mobile phone. So the days

when porn had an age limit that

could be enforced are long gone.

The Government says it's clamping

down on easy access to porn,

encouraging internet providers

to introduce new filters

only adults can lift.

But some say it's too late

and that countless children

have already been exposed

to shocking images

at an age when I was

still playing with dolls.

So how do we know for sure

just how much online porn

teenagers are seeing?

And what effect

does that have on them?

To find out, we've carried out

the biggest survey of its kind

ever done in the UK.

Over 1,000 people aged

between 16 and 21 took part,

answering questions on

everything to do with porn.

How old they were

when they first saw it.

How often they watch it now.

And how they think it affects

what men and women expect from sex.

Their answers were sent anonymously

to a market research company.

And then, we got two of

the country's leading experts

on pornography and sexualisation

to help us analyse the results.

What was so exciting about this was

it was an opportunity to really go

to a large number of young people

in the UK, which is

where there hasn't been

a lot of research in the past

and really get them to tell us

what they thought, what they felt.

The answers that young people

gave us in the survey were

so interesting,

so inspiring, so thoughtful.

This is the biggest survey

in the UK that has been done

of young people's experiences

and really gives them a chance

to talk about what they think

about pornography and they did.

They had really interesting,

thoughtful things to say.

At the same time, I also talked to

dozens of teenagers aged 14 and up

from all over the UK, so we could

get the most accurate picture yet

of the truth about

young people and porn.

It boosts confidence of men a lot

more, and it makes them think,

"Well," you know, "it looks quite

easy, you know, I could do that."

My brother, he's 13 and I wouldn't

like the idea of him at all,

like, looking at porn

and sexual things like that,

because I don't think

it's sort of real life.

It's all like an act

and it's not really sort of sex.

Most young boys, they, like,

before they actually go to have sex,

they do, like, watch porn

to get a bit of experience

and knowledge in the whole game.

First in our survey, we asked people

to tell us how old they were

when they first saw porn online,

including downloads.

The average age

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