Sexuality Education & Therapy with Children
The New Talk: An Exploration of Caregivers’ Discussions About Pornography and Sexual Harassment with Adolescents
Open Access: No.
Abstract
Although there is a rich literature on parents’ discussion of sexual behavior broadly, little is known regarding how parents communicate to adolescents about pornography and experiences of peer sexual harassment. This knowledge is particularly crucial as parental communication is an important part of adolescents’ sexual socialization. In the current study we sought to investigate adolescents’ perception of parental communication about pornography and sexual harassment, through a mixed methods approach. The current study consisted of recent high school graduates (N = 247; 78.9% adolescent women, 17.4% adolescent men) currently in their first semester of college (Mage = 19.16, Modeage = 18). Results suggested that viewing pornography and experiencing sexual harassment was common. However, qualitative content analyses suggest that conversations with caregivers about these topics are not common. When these conversations did occur, the content often reflected heteronormative ideals and sexual double standards. Our findings suggest that parents’ messages may be perpetuating gender norms and stereotypes that minimize the harm of sexual violence (including harassment) as well as promote victim blaming and the sexual double standard. Therefore, parents may be a key target that violence prevention groups should consider focusing on when aiming to reduce harmful gender norms predictive of sexual harassment.
Relevance
The average age that participants first viewed pornography was 13 years old – and the average age of first viewing violent pornography was 14 years old.
Parents never talked about pornography with 75% of the youth. Only 8% of participants About 8% of participants “indicated their parents gave them information about pornography, talked about why they were concerned about pornography use, and/or discussed online safety as it related to pornography.” In other words, parents are not teaching their children sexual media literacy.
Parents discussed pornography (and sexual harassment) differently depending on the gender of the child, which can reinforce gender stereotypes.
Citation
Biefeld, S. D., Maas, M. K., & Brown, C. S. (2025). The New Talk: An Exploration of Caregivers’ Discussions About Pornography and Sexual Harassment with Adolescents. Journal of Adolescent Research, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1177/07435584251322688
