Great Sex Vs Porn Sex
Facts: Can Porn Affect Us?
Porn: The Facts
Talking with Children
Talking with Teens
We Need Help
Talking with Youth
Culture, Community & Connection
Porn 101
Tools & Guidelines
Porn Use Self Check
Support Services, Apps, Filters & Links
Porn appears to be thought of as innocent fun and normal for young men – but we see the issues it causes around body issues and self-esteem and young men searching out increasingly violent themes.
— Participant, NZ Youth Stakeholder Survey (25)
Kia ora and thank you for joining the conversation about porn and young people…
You're probably aware that the porn landscape for young people has changed dramatically over the last five years. It's changed in terms of how much porn is available, it's ease of access, how frequently young people watch it and the type of porn that is considered normal.
Porn has now become a primary sex educator for young people (7, 19), influencing youth sexual culture in new and unprecedented ways – which is why it's more important than ever that health professionals are equipped to be part of the porn conversation with young people in their workplace.
The porn industry isn't going away anytime soon…
so health professionals can play an important role in helping young people navigate it, by equipping them with porn literacy skills. Sounds complicated? It's not really… Porn literacy is simply a set of skills to help young people unpack and analyse porn. It enables them to critically examine and identify the negative messages in porn and understand how porn messaging relates to real life sexuality in terms of consent, respect, emotional connection, safety and health.
By helping young people to develop their own porn literacy, we're equipping them with the knowledge and tools to make informed and healthy decisions around porn, minimising potential long-term harm.
We've put together some resources …
to help with this based on feedback we received from New Zealand schools in a recent youth stakeholder survey: Porn and Young People – what do we know? The survey indicated that most of the youth stakeholders (95%) felt porn was an issue for young people, but many felt ill-equipped to engage with the issue in their workplace (25). They identified key resources they felt could be useful, and we've made a start on these below and if you would like to direct youth to this site, click here for a graphic to use on your social media platforms.
A Porn 101 for dummies and experts alike, with an overview of the new porn landscape and current research on the potential impacts on young people (created for adults).
A youth resource to help start conversations and build porn literacy in young people by discussing great sex compared to porn sex in terms of pleasure, consent, emotional connection and safety.
A helpful summary of recommended websites, books, research articles, YouTube videos and guidelines.
The basics for starting that awkward conversation about porn with young people including talk preparation, key considerations, conversation starters, links and how to keep the conversation going.
A great go-to youth resource that can help with conversations when young people ask if and how porn can affect them.
An I need help resource for young people who may be struggling with their own porn use, as well as a We need help resource for professionals, whānau and friends who may be worried about a young person.
A youth friendly fact sheet with information on the new porn landscape and recent research on the potential impacts of porn on young people's attitudes, behaviours and relationships.
A recommended 'culture, community & connection' approach to engage wider school communities in the porn conversation with young people. Some of the strategies could be helpful for youth organisations, youth groups and youth projects that work with young people and their whānau.
Please note: we acknowledge these resources may not meet all the specific needs of some cultural or religious groups and/or sexual or gender diverse communities in New Zealand. Please feel free to tailor these resources to meet the unique needs of the communities you work with or contact us if there are other specific resources you think could be helpful.
© THE LIGHT PROJECT 2018.
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