Mental Health
That’s just how it is these days: exposure to online pornography in childhood and its impact on development in late adolescence.
Open Access: No.
Abstract
This paper explores the impact of exposure to online pornography in childhood on aspects of development in late adolescence, with a particular focus on sexual development. Three composite cases are used to outline some common themes found in treatment with young people, drawn from the experience of clinicians in the child and adolescent team at the Portman Clinic. The discussion is focused on how developmental processes in adolescence can be disrupted and corrupted by viewing sexualised images online in childhood, and how this might vary depending on the degree of trauma in the young person’s history. This paper was originally presented at the 2025 ACP conference, ‘Sexuality through a modern lens’.
Relevance
“In our experience at Portman, early exposure to online pornography can have an impact on an adolescent’s sexual development, but also on other areas, such as their developing self-esteem, their negotiation of risks and attempts at separation. This paper aims to set out how we understand the overall picture – not only the symptom of problematic sexual behaviour – and how we address this in treatment. Questions about viewing pornography have always been part of assessments at the Portman as our patients’ sexual development is a core focus of our enquiry. However, it is important to emphasise our view that, given the prolific nature of sexualised images online nowadays, it is crucial that clinicians ask about a young person’s exposure to pornography as part of a standard assessment in all child and adolescent mental health settings, not only in specialist services. ”
“Separation, sexual development, aggression, boundaries, group life, self-esteem and self-actualisation; helping young people navigate these developmental challenges are core to our work as child psychotherapists, no matter what clinical area we work in. Clearly, their corruption and disruption following exposure to sexualised material online is of urgent concern to us all.”
Citation
Newell, E. (2026). ‘That’s just how it is these days’: exposure to online pornography in childhood and its impact on development in late adolescence. Journal of Child Psychotherapy. https://doi.org/10.1080/0075417X.2026.2638381
