WHAT IMPACT DOES IT HAVE ON CHILDREN?
There are millions of free pornographic videos on the internet which anyone, regardless of their age, can access without any restrictions. Online pornography is just as accessible as Barnkanalen. Here you can read about what pornography is like today, what impact it can have on children and how you can get started with prevention in time!
PORNOGRAPHY IN THE 2000s
Playboy versus Pornhub
Many of us who are parents today remember how giggly and exciting it was when we leafed through a porn mag for the first time at the mythical “porn hiding place” under a rock in the woods. However, the things we saw in softcore pornographic magazines then is not what children see today when they google “porn” or “xxx” – often as young as primary school age.
When we talk about pornography, we always mean the mainstream pornography that’s free to access on the large popular porn sites, because that is primarily what children are exposed to. There is often extreme material on the home pages, as soon as children enter, depicting various acts of violence, degradation and misogyny that can be frightening and traumatising for children to see. For example, it’s extremely common to see hard strangulation and pornographic videos that allude to incest in their titles.
To gain a better understanding of what it’s like to grow up today with hardcore pornography just a few clicks away on your phone, you can, for example, watch the YouTube documentary entitled “High Speed Internet pornography and the Experiment Generation” by Dani Lind and Felix Thurfjell, aged 21, who recommend it for children from the age of 13. Here you’ll also find the report entitled “Strypsex är det nya normala” [Strangulation sex is the new normal] by young girls from the organisation named SNAF – Sexualkunskapen Ni Aldrig Fick [the Sexual Education You Never Got] on what it’s like to grow up as a girl in today’s pornography culture.
Another way to get an idea of what children are exposed to today, even if you don’t want to see pornography yourself, is to read titles and categories on the start pages of the major porn sites such as Pornhub, Xvideos and Youporn.
FACTS ABOUT PORNOGRAPHY: STRANGULATION SEX
“The brain makes up just 2% of the body, but needs 20% of the body’s supply of oxygen. The effects are immediate. After 6–7 seconds, the person could lose consciousness. After 15 seconds, the person loses the ability to retain urine. After four to five minutes, the person is brain dead. It takes less pressure to cause serious and fatal injury than it does to open a soft drink can.”
Children’s and teenagers’ consumption of pornography today
Children have always been naturally curious about the body and sexuality. Whereas we learned about sex from Kropp & Knopp in Kamratposten, pornography has become the primary source of many children’s sex education today. The excitement itself and children’s natural curiosity is a strong motivator for them to Google – and there are millions of free porn sites just a few clicks away. In this way, the pornography industry has hijacked the children’s natural development process.
According to a Swedish study with 4,339 participants, around 98% of Swedish boys had looked at pornography during their childhood or adolescence (Svedin, Åkerman and Priebe 2011). (1) In another Swedish study, around 75% of girls had looked at pornography (Mattebo et al. 2016). (2)
In 2026, the brain researcher Katarina Gospic described in Malou efter tio(3) how smartphones had changed the consumption of pornography. Previously, the stimulation took place for a limited time, only in front of a computer. Today, we have access to online pornography in our pockets at all times since we almost always have our smartphones with us.
Children are often exposed to pornography as young as primary school age
There are many indications, pointed out by professionals and organisations working with children in particular, that children’s first exposure to pornography is happening at gradually younger ages. Porrfri Barndom is often contacted by school staff and parents who report that children have already been exposed to pornography at primary school age.
The exposure often takes place through them being shown pornography by an older sibling or a friend at school. It can be difficult to sit through a scary experience on your own. That means that the child often wants to share it with a friend – which can be easier than telling an adult.
Another reason for showing pornography is that you want to be seen as cool by showing your friends what the big boys and girls do. At schools we visited, they talk about peer pressure where “cooler” students egg others on to start watching pornography when they’re around ten years old.
It’s common for guys to force girls to watch pornography
Porrfri Barndom receives reports from school staff all over the country that it’s common for boys in particular to harass girls by forcing them to watch pornography. The Chairperson of the Municipal Executive Board in Falkenberg, Per Svensson, contacted us after a father had sent in our pre-written citizen proposal on pornography-free working environments for children (available to download here).
The Municipality passed a resolution in favour and, according to Per, one contributing factor was the fact that the Municipality received around ten reports per year of incidents in which boys, as young as primary school age, forced girls to watch pornography on their phones and on the school’s digital equipment. He told us that it’s an extremely widespread problem with a large number of unreported cases.
INCEST-PORN, TEEN & BARELY LEGAL*
Major trend on mainstream porn sites
A major trend on mainstream porn sites in recent years is family-themed porn, known as "incest porn". There are millions of films on this theme and various specific categories such as "stepdad", "stepmom", "stepbrother" and others. There are also categories that aim to make girls in films look like young teenagers or even younger, especially in the two categories "teen" and "barely legal". Here the girls are often portrayed in children's environments with teddy bears and toys.
When children enter popular porn sites such as Pornhub, Xvideos and XNXX, this very popular type of porn is often visible at the top of the homepage which is free and open for everyone to watch whether you are 7 years old or 70 years old.
A couple of examples of "incest porn" and "teen" are: "VIRGIN LITTLE STEPSISTER TRIES SEX - ALEX ADAM", 99% likes, 8.7 million views, (listed June 2023 on XNXX) or "STEPFATHER FUCKS TINY TEEN BECAUSE HIS WIFE WOULD NOT", 10.9M views, 87% likes, (listed January 11, 2023 on PornHub).
* Sources:
The Guardian, Gale Academic, Springer link
Teen and barely legal are mentioned in the research.
Taylor & Francis online
Here it is called "incest porn": EBSCO
Normalizing child abuse
Exposure to incest-themed pornography, and people who look like children, normalizes the sexual abuse of children. Lena Morin is Secretary General of the Unizon shelter nxtME, which provides support and assistance to victims of incest. Lena explains that children who are exposed to pornography with child-like characters and incest themes may find it more difficult to understand that it is wrong for adults or family members to sexually abuse children.
"Porn categories like 'teen' and 'family porn' lower children's resilience to abuse because it normalizes abuse. It reduces the likelihood that a child will tell a safe adult about the abuse they are experiencing", says Lena Morin.
"It also happens that children who have been exposed to porn with people who look like children legitimize the abuse to each other: 'I've seen that in porn, that's what you do with children, it's okay to do that'," says Lena Morin.
Social media and popular culture influences
MILF "Mother I Like To Fuck" is a popular porn category reflected in social media. Videos with young people flirting with older women were trending on TikTok in the fall of 2022. A search for "Mature miilf", with two i's, on TikTok gives about 1 billion hits. A famous Swedish TikTok profile has also started selling clothes that say "MILF Hunter". Many of the jokes about MILFs are aimed at friends' mothers, often as a form of teasing. It has also become common for teenagers to make jokes about attractive adults, calling "MILFs" and "DILFs" "Dad I Like To Fuck" or "Daddy".
"In our generation right now, 'MILF' and 'Daddy' porn is very normalized and widespread. If you see a good-looking parent, you often talk about them as "MILF" or "Daddy" without it being anything strange, that's what many people call a good-looking adult", says Christine Gandal 23 years old, student at Uppsala University and former intern at Porrfri Barndom.
The words "Daddy" & "Mommy" have been sexualized
What used to be a child's way of saying mom and dad in English has become sexualized and very common terms in porn. It has much the same meaning as "MILF" and "DILF" except that it alludes to the adult woman or man being more dominant and behaving like a parent regardless of whether they have children of their own.
"It's common for young people to also call other young people who behave in a dominant or nurturing way "Daddy" or "Mommy" with a sexual undertone, it's super common and rarely anyone thinks it's weird," says Christine Gandal.
Childish attributes such as braids
In the fall of 2022, NBC News reported on a TikTok trend where waitresses tried wearing two braids at work. The waitresses show in their TikTok videos how they discover that they get significantly more tips if they have braids as opposed to when they have hairstyles that are not as associated with younger girls and children.
"It's common for girls in porn to wear knee socks and put their hair in braids that allude to the "school girl" look to make them look even younger. I notice that young people who like to dress that way in everyday life often get comments about it and the sexualization means that girls don't always dare to wear the style or outfit they like", says Christine Gandal.
PORR RACISM
In porn, you can choose people by race
Racism is often present in pornography in a way that would be unthinkable in most other contexts. For example, many porn sites such as Pornhub and Xvideos allow you to choose which people you want to watch based on race, with porn films divided into categories such as 'Latina', 'Asian', 'Arab' and others. Studies show that these categories often allude to sexual stereotypes, such as Asians being obedient like dolls, men of color being animalistic and aggressive, and women of color being willing to receive and endure more severe physical aggression (West, 2020; Pajon, 2019; Gordon, 2013; Fritz et.al 2020; Zhou & Paul, 2016).
Refugee porn, corona porn & BLM porn
The porn industry often sexualizes tragedies in society. In connection with Putin's invasion of Ukraine in spring 2022, for example, "Ukrainian girl" was among the most searched words on Pornhub. The porn industry often produces new material based on demand and hence new movies were created on the subject e.g. "Fucking this amazing Ukrainian refugee", 8.8k views, 77% likes, last listed January 1, 2023 on Pornhub.
During the corona pandemic, movies with Asians were created on the theme of coronavirus. One example is "Hardcore fuck with Chinese wearing corona virus mask" which had 797k views and 69% likes, last noted on January 1, 2023 on Pornhub.
Another example is BLM porn, Black Lives Matter, which emerged after several black people were beaten and murdered by police officers in the United States (BBC, 2023; Brors, 2021; Porter, 2020). A video with 2.5 million views on the porn site Xvideos, posted on November 16, 2022, was titled "Black Dicks Matter. Asian bitch used her head like a joystick nutted in her mouth".
Porn racism normalizes racist stereotypes & violence against people of color
Young people can be influenced by the harsh racist titles and tags under the films that normalize and portray racism as acceptable (West, 2022, Sahni, 2019). The normalized porn racism can contribute to the viewer laughing at porn racism instead of taking it seriously (West, 2020). In porn, non-white people are generally subjected to more violent sex, thus normalizing not only racist stereotypes but also violence against people of color (Parreñas, 2010; West, 2020; Shor & Golriz, 2019; Wu, 2003; Fritz et.al, 2020). Pornography may also contribute to a lack of self-perception of beauty and worth if they do not adhere to the classic body and sex stereotypes based on the portrayal of different ethnicities in pornography (West, 2022; Fritz et.al 2020; Klein, 2020; Gordon, 2013).
Sources:
Carolyn West "Racism in Porn". Faith and Feminism, Podcast (2020).
Leo Pajon "Being Black in Porn: Actors Speak Out on Racial Stereotypes" (2019).
Taylor Gordon "Black Women in the Media: Mammy, Jezebel, or Angry" (2013).
NikiFritz, Vinny Malic, Bryant Paul & Yanyan Zhou, (2020), Worse than Objects: The Depiction of Black Women and Men and Their Sexual Relationship in Pornography, Gender Issues, 38, pp: 100-120.
Yanyan Zhou and Bryant Paul, (2016), Lotus Blossom or Dragon Lady: A Content Analysis of ''Asian Women'' Online Pornography, Sexuality & Culture (2016) 20, pp: 1083-1100.
BBC, Black Lives Matter, 2023.
Helena Brors "Porn is political" (2021).
Sommer Porter "Study shows porn profits from and promotes racism" (2020).
Carolyn West "Porn and prejudice: Is racism in pornography fueled by the shame and silence of its audience?" (2022).
Ryan Sahni "Is Porn Making You Racist?" (2019).
Celine Parreñas Shimizu (2010) "Screening Sexual Slavery? Southeast Asian Gonzo Porn and US Anti-Trafficking Law, Sexualities", No: 13(2), pp:161-170.
EranShor and Golshan Golriz "Gender, Race, and Aggression in Mainstream Pornography" (2019), Archives of Sexual Behavior 48, pp: 739-751.
Joyce Wu "Not a fantasy but racial hatred and misogyny in pornography" (2003).
Jessica Klein "Your porn is racist. These Black performers are fighting back" (2020).
UNBURDEN THE CHILD OF ANY FEELINGS OF GUILT AND SHAME
It’s common for children to feel ashamed to talk about pornography with adults and therefore it’s important to always unburden the child of any feelings of guilt and shame that they may feel.
Our experts will help you strengthen, support & protect your child!
Talk, support & protect!
Here are some simple expert tips on how to talk in an individual and age-appropriate way to children in preschool class & at primary school, junior school and secondary school.
THE IMPACT OF PORNOGRAPHY
ON CHILDREN & TEENAGERS
As we well know, children often learn by watching adults and copying what we do. It’s clear that pornography is no exception to this, as indicated in witness statements and reports such as Ett år med ungarelationer.se (4) and Det här är inte ok! (5) from Unizon. Just as cigarette advertising can normalise smoking among children and encourage them to smoke, the content of pornographic videos can normalise and encourage children to copy what they see in pornography. Research shows that around 70% of boys who watched pornography more or less every day would like to try out what they’d seen in the videos (Svedin, Åkerman and Priebe 2011). (6)
In what ways can children be affected by pornography?
A large European study found a link between continuous exposure to online porn and some form of intimate partner violence (Stanley et al. 2016) (7). Boys' use of sexual coercion and abuse was significantly linked to regular porn consumption. It also significantly increased the likelihood that they would have sent sexual images or messages. The likelihood of carrying gender stereotypes was also significantly higher for boys who regularly consumed porn.
CONVERSATIONS ABOUT CONSENT
Adults who are around children need to provide a clear counterweight to pornography and show the equal and inviolable value of all people. We need to make it clear that no-one may abuse another person and anyone who takes the initiative to physically touch another person must always get consent first.
In the video, Nikita Uggla and Stefan Popov discuss the impact of pornography on young people's sexual relationships.
The impact of violent pornography on young people's sexual relationships
Young people’s own voices
In spring 2020, the national support and knowledge platform Unga Relationer, which received over 216,000 unique visitors between the ages of 15 and 20 in 2019, issued the report entitled Ett år med ungarelationer.se (8) – experiences and knowledge about boys’ violence against girls and violence in young people’s relationships as partners. The report shows that unregulated spaces in which children come into contact with pornography are a significant generator of violence by boys against girls.
Through previous experience of support work and work to prevent violence, Unga Relationer has clearly seen that pornography is a constant factor in young people’s lives. Nevertheless, what emerged in the report, through the stories of over 1,600 young people, was remarkable and needs to be noted and paid specific attention – particularly with regard to the sexualised violence to which the girls are subjected.
Some quotes from the report entitled “Ett år med ungarelationer.se”:
“I’m afraid of my boyfriend. He sometimes hurts me when we’re having sex. And it’s also tough because he watches a lot of porn and wants us to do what he’s seen in the videos. Sometimes it can be very nasty stuff.”
“He kind of makes me say yes, persuades me somehow, to do a lot of weird sexual stuff – strangulation, peeing in my mouth, sitting on my face, shoving various dildos in my mouth until I throw up, and so on. Sometimes he even strangles me when we’re not having sex.”
“He’s addicted to porn. He says he feels like a man when he does those things to me. I told him to stop but he got angry. He sat on me and got me in a stranglehold. Then he spat at me and told me not to resist so much, for my own good."
It’s clear that pornography is also present in same-sex relationships:
“I want to strangle my boyfriend when we have sex but he doesn’t want me to and then we argue. It started when I began watching porn. I get turned on from having that power, so I kind of can’t stop because in that moment it feels so good to be the one who finally gets to kick someone."
GET STARTED WITH PREVENTION IN TIME
Have the talk before the first exposure
The younger children are when they’re exposed to pornography, the greater the discomfort they feel, according to research by (Livingstone et al, 2014) (9). It’s therefore important for adults to start talking to children in a preventive way before they risk being exposed, i.e. before they gain access to the internet and search engines. But always in an individual and age-appropriate way, without mentioning the word “porn” to the youngest.
Many adults think that it seems premature and uncomfortable to have to build up resilience to pornography in children as young as primary school age. We agree that it’s unpleasant and sad that children are at risk of exposure at such a young age. There’s no optimal solution to the problem, but we can work together to find a way that works as well as possible.
If it’s difficult to initiate the conversation, bear in mind that it’s worse for a child to be exposed without having received any help from an adult to build up as much resilience as possible before exposure and to make it as easy as possible for the child to dare to tell an adult when it happens and be able to get support by talking to an adult. As parents, we’re all in the same boat – but we help one another!
The Barnombudsmannen [Child Ombudsman] “Kartläggning av kunskap om pornografins inverkan på barn och unga“ (10) [Survey of knowledge on the impact of pornography on children and young people] report from 2021 states as follows:
Young people think that critical conversations about pornography and its content and production need to be held at an early stage to enable them to make informed choices about their consumption. Adult stakeholders in civil and public society also see a need for this.
They also write that:
Children and young people point to parents’, guardians’ and others’ responsibility to protect children when something happens and to increase children’s skills and knowledge by creating a space for learning, being there to support them by talking to them and building up trusting relationships.
Don’t expect someone else to have the talk for you
The conversations won’t happen if adults don’t initiate them. According to Swedish research from 2016 (Mattebo et al. 2016) (11) “almost none” of the respondents had talked to an adult about pornography. Nor had the vast majority of children in Sweden received digital child protection in 2016.
Students need good sex education in school to act as a counterweight against pornography, but it often comes several years too late and sometimes not at all. From autumn 2022, consent and criticism of pornography will be included in the new sex education programme, which will be renamed “Sexualitet, samtycke och relationer” [Sexuality, consent and relationships] (read more at Skolverket [the Swedish National Agency for Education]). We have put in a great deal of work to promote it and are very pleased to have contributed to it. But not all teachers have received training in this or feel comfortable teaching about sexuality, consent and pornography.
Unfortunately, sex education also sometimes falls through the cracks because it’s not a subject in its own right. So don’t expect anyone else to have the important conversations about bodily privacy, consent, sex, pleasure, relationships, abuse and pornography with your child.
Here you’ll find some expert tips on how parents can talk regularly in an individual and age-appropriate way to children at preschool class & primary school, junior school and secondary school. Together!
THE PORNOGRAPHY TALK
Age-appropriate pornography prevention
There are millions of hardcore pornography videos online that are free and can be accessed and watched by anyone. Get started with age-appropriate porn prevention for your child with our simple expert tips. Let's help each other!
WATCH OUR INFORMATIVE VIDEOS WITH EXPERTS & YOUNG PEOPLE
References:
1) Svedin, Carl Göran; Åkerman, Ingrid and Priebe, Gisela (2011). Frequent users of pornography. A population based epidemiological study of swedish male adolescents, Journal of Adolesence, no: 34 (4), pp: 779-788.
2) Mattebo, Magdalena; Tydén, Tanja; Häggström-Nordin, Elisabet; Nilsson, Kent and Larsson, Margareta (2016). Pornography consumption among adolescent girls in Sweden, The European Journal of Contraception and Reproductive Health Care, no: 21(4), pp: 1-8.
3) The TV program Malou efter tio (2016)
4) Unga Relationer's report "Ett år med ungarelationer.se" (2020)
5) Unizon's report "Det här är ikke ok!" (2020).
6) Svedin, Carl Göran; Åkerman, Ingrid and Priebe, Gisela (2011). Frequent users of pornography. A population based epidemiological study of swedish male adolescents, Journal of Adolesence, no: 34 (4), pp: 779-788.
7) Stanley, Barter, Wood, Aghtaie, Larkins, Lanau, and Överlien (2016). Pornography, Sexual Coercion and Abuse and Sexting in Young People's Intimate Relationships: A European Study. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 1-26.
8) Unga Relationer's report "Ett år med ungarelationer.se" (2020)
9) Livingstone, Smith (2014). Annual Research Review: Harms experienced by child users of online and mobile technologies: the nature, prevalence and management of sexual and aggressive risks in the digital age, p: 643.
10) Barnombudsmannens "Kartläggning av kunskap om pornografins inverkan på barn och unga" (2021)
11) Mattebo, Magdalena; Tydén, Tanja; Häggström-Nordin, Elisabet; Nilsson, Kent and Larsson, Margareta (2016). Pornography consumption among adolescent girls in Sweden, The European Journal of Contraception and Reproductive Health Care, no: 21(4), pp: 1-8.
