6 Ways Our Community Is Addressing the Harms of Pornified Media on Youth
Over 70% of teens report having accessed online pornography. This widespread exposure is not just a cultural trend — it’s a growing public health crisis with profound consequences for young people’s emotional, cognitive, and sexual development. Culture Reframed is focused on shifting the conversation, transforming societal attitudes, and paving the way for meaningful change.
The mounting evidence of pornography’s negative impact on mental health, relationships, and well-being brings urgency to our efforts. “It is our job to create a safe environment where young people can flourish rather than being targeted by a multibillion-dollar industry that is almost completely unregulated,” said Culture Reframed founder and CEO Gail Dines.
While the challenges are significant, there is hope. Advocacy efforts are successfully increasing awareness of the risks posed by pornography and propagating strategies for protecting young people. More and more people are recognizing the scientific evidence of the harmful effects of pornography and hypersexualized media on young people and are eager to take action. With community support, we can foster a safer digital environment where children thrive free from the damaging influence of pornography.
Here, we share how our community—activists, parents, educators, lawmakers, and organizations like Culture Reframed—is coming together to address this urgent issue and protect the well-being of future generations.
1. Advocating for Policy Change and Age Verification Legislation
“The porn industry has hijacked the lives of our young people, and before age verification legislation, it operated in a virtually unregulated space.”
— Dr. Gail Dines, Culture Reframed
Governments worldwide are debating how to make the internet safer for children. For many, keeping explicit content like pornography away from youth is at the top of these agendas. Age verification technology is beginning to play a significant role. According to child protection advocate John Carr, “In almost every democracy, the question of how to protect children from exposure to pornography on the Internet is being discussed within and around policy-making circles.”
Starting in 2025, the UK will mandate age verification for porn sites, where users will have to prove their age before accessing these sites. Since 2023, states across the U.S. have been rolling out similar age verification legislation that restricts access to pornography sites by minors. Louisiana passed the first such law with the help of Dr. Dines. She was influential in driving support for the legislation, sharing with lawmakers evidence of pornography’s ease of accessibility and negative impact on young people.
Despite privacy concerns, arguments that the laws go against freedom of speech, and questions about their effectiveness, as of December 2024, 17 other states had followed in Louisiana’s footsteps, aiming to prevent young people from viewing potentially harmful sexual content.
If nothing else, age verification legislation has successfully brought awareness to pornography as a public health crisis. “[Legislation] alerts lawmakers to the ways that mainstream pornography has become more violent, cruel, and debasing,” said Dr. Dines. “The media follow-up from these laws has reached millions and has helped shift the narrative on porn, highlighting its destructive impact rather than just being seen as harmless fun.”
Regarding the state-by-state adoption of these laws in the U.S., Carr said, “The more individual states that go for it, I imagine the greater the pressure will be to sort this out in Washington, DC. It obviously would make much sense to have a federal law.”
2. Driving Awareness of Artificial Intelligence & Deepfakes
“AI websites, apps, and online services are as easy to find as The Weather Channel and visible to anybody. These sites want to be found.”
— Dr. Eric K. Silverman, Culture Reframed
The porn industry was one of the first to adopt artificial intelligence (AI) and today AI pornography is a booming $20B industry and rapidly evolving into a dangerous tool.
Deepfakes (when a real person’s photo is digitally altered to make them sexually explicit), AI-generated pornographic images, undressing or nudifying apps, virtual girlfriends, and non-consensual sexual violence in the metaverse are examples of the latest developments. Among the many dangers is the significant increase in child sexual abuse images — from manipulated photos of real children to graphic depictions of computer-generated kids.
What happens in cyberspace does not remain in cyberspace. The creation and spread of deepfakes have led to what The New York Times refers to as an epidemic for teen girls. Law enforcement and government officials are struggling to keep up with rapidly changing technology and distinguish between the use of real children’s photos and AI-generated images. In the U.S., some laws have been passed to protect children, and the seriousness of this problem is becoming a major policy issue for lawmakers, and concerned activists.
3. Equipping Medical Professionals to Safeguard Young Victims of Sexual Abuse
“Currently, when clinicians or parents see behavioral issues or problematic sexual behaviors in their patients or kids, nobody considers the role that pornography exposure plays. Therefore, we often miss the root cause of the issue.”
— Heidi Olson, Paradigm Shift Training and Consulting
Culture Reframed and Child Advocacy Centers across the U.S. are partnering to address the increasing incidence of child-on-child sexual abuse, specifically as it relates to pornography exposure. With the help of Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner Heidi Olson, we’ve developed a multidisciplinary task force of front-line child protection professionals, sexual assault nurse examiners, forensic nurses, and allied healthcare professionals who are training staff on the role of pornography in their approach to the sexual abuse of children. Early next year, we will have new resources available for medical professionals on screening for internet safety and pornography exposure, as well as resources they can share with their patients and parents/caregivers.
Read more about Culture Reframed’s partnership with Child Advocacy Centers.
4. Empowering Parents & Caregivers to Talk to Kids About Porn
“In many cases, parents aren’t always worried about the things they need to be worried about because they don’t know what’s out there. The first job we have is bringing the awareness of what is going on.”
— Christy Keating, The Heartful Parent Collective
One of the biggest misconceptions among parents and caregivers is that their child hasn’t seen porn. Yet one in three kids report having seen porn by age 12. The best way to protect young people from the potential harms of pornography is by talking to them. Young people need trusted adults to help them build resilience and resistance to hypersexualized media and porn. Starting the conversation is often the most challenging part. “Parents feel unprepared. They say, ‘This is not what I want to talk about. This is so discomforting,’” said Dr. Elizabeth Milovidov, founder of DigitalParentingCoach.com.
Parents and caregivers play the most critical role in offering young people healthy and accurate messages about sex that instill respect in themselves and others. Keating urges parents and caregivers to discuss the issue of pornography with other parents to drive more awareness and create a cycle of education and information. This can normalize these conversations and make it feel more approachable with kids. She said, “We can have a cultural movement if we put our energy and effort into it.”
Equally important is empowering young people to advocate for themselves, which is at the forefront of the work of organizations like Digital4Goodx#ICANHELP and Wired Human. “What youth need is continued support — mentorship and platforms to amplify their voices,” says Lola Bessis, Liaison Manager at Digital4Goodx#ICANHELP. Jason Frost, CEO of Wired Human, agrees. Youth advocacy is a focus of Wired Human’s programs, including a Youth Coalition that enables young people to speak up for policy and industry change. “If we had an army of youth rising up, they would shut the industry down,” said Frost. “Their voices are powerful.”
5. Protecting Young Women From Dangerous, Life-Threatening Sexual Trends
“Over the past 15 years, we have seen sexual behavior trends change in important ways that impact people’s safety and well-being. These changes have happened so quickly that many parents, educators, and healthcare providers are frankly unaware of them.”
— Dr. Debby Herbenick, Sexual Health Researcher
Research shows that 88% of porn contains violence, the vast majority of which is directed at female performers. What influence might this have on young viewers?
Rough sex and dangerous sexual trends are on the rise, coinciding with the same trends depicted in pornography and hypersexualized media. Dr. Debby Herbenick, a sexual health researcher and Director of the Center for Sexual Health Promotion at Indiana University, has studied rough sex for years. Through nationally represented surveys in the U.S., interviews with adults, analyses of social media and related content, and neurological research, her team has discovered that sexual choking, a form of strangulation, is the most prevalent of today’s sexual behaviors.
Dr. Herbenick’s research finds that nearly 40% of young adult women have been choked during sex. Studies show that the leading way young people are introduced to it is through friends, partners, and, most commonly, pornography.
In addition to being the most common rough sex behavior, sexual choking also presents the most significant health risks. Choking restricts blood flow and airflow, which leads to dangers such as brain damage, miscarriage, thyroid injuries, and, in the most serious instances, death. Raising awareness of this issue is imperative and potentially lifesaving.
Read Dr. Herbenick’s book, Yes, Your Kid: What Parents Need to Know About Today’s Teens and Sex.
6. Building Coalitions for Action Against Pornography
“Because this has reached crisis levels, we need to adopt a public health approach that brings to the table all of the groups that are tasked with taking care of young people.”
— Dr. Gail Dines, Culture Reframed
To effectively combat the harms of pornography and shape a safer digital environment, we must break down silos that hinder collaboration, allowing us to enhance our knowledge, share resources, and work together to identify solutions.
There is a widespread, passionate community of individuals and organizations worldwide whose work is dedicated to countering the effects of hypersexualized media and porn on young people. Collaboration is the key to creating meaningful social change. We aim to break down the barriers preventing us from working together to build coalitions for action that will move the needle further than we can alone.
We look forward to a safe digital world for children, where the harms of hypersexualized media and pornography no longer threaten their well-being.
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