Sexuality Education & Therapy with Children
Unavoidable, unwanted and uncomfortable: Teenagers’ unintentional encounters with online pornography and their desire for porn education.
Open Access: No.
Abstract
Research has shown that unintentionally encountering online pornography is a common experience for children and teenagers. Drawing on six one-hour online text-based focus groups with 32 Australian teenagers, this study explored what it is like for them to unintentionally encounter online pornography, and what they want in relation to these encounters. Thematic analysis of the data revealed that Australian teenagers feel that they are frequently encountering online pornography without intending to view it. They described these encounters as unwanted, uncomfortable and unavoidable. Teenagers viewed education as the best tool to equip them with the skills they needed to navigate unintentional encounters with online pornography safely.
Relevance
Online pornography is “highly visible and present in children’s and teenagers’ worlds whether they want it to be, or not.” It is “so unavoidable that they feel desensitised to it.” Some “expressed the view that teenagers becoming desensitised to online pornography risked the normalisation of this content as an accurate depiction of sex in lieu of guidance provided by other sources of information.”
“Teenagers want online platforms and the government to put an end to their unintentional encounters with online pornography.” They “expressed enthusiasm for government regulation and enforcement measures, such as legislative controls and fines, to stop people seeing pornography when they do not want to.” They “want online platforms to be held accountable for viewers’ experiences online.”
“Teenagers in our focus groups were overall very enthusiastic about receiving education about online pornography. Many saw a place for pornography education within the broader sex and relationships education curriculum, and some noted that this kind of education should start early due to their understanding that children were likely to encounter pornography online at young ages.” “Some teenagers in our focus groups expressed that they felt it was vital that porn education should be sex positive, rather than reinforcing shame and stigma that can increase children and teenagers’ negative experiences when they encounter online pornography unintentionally.”
“When we asked the teenagers what they thought good quality porn education should look like, they said that it should give them the tools to interpret the pornographic content they encountered online. Many teenagers felt that existing sex and relationships education did not offer them enough neutral information to help them understand or contextualise the pornographic content they saw…For a number of teenagers we spoke with, it was important for people their age to be taught about the potentially harmful ideas, acts and scenarios depicted in online pornography. For teenagers in the focus groups, these harmful messages included unrealistic expectations about sex, the objectification of women, and unhealthy body image standards.”
Citation
Giunta, K., Burton, M., Nicholas, M., Villegas, L., & Minihan, S. (2025). Unavoidable, unwanted and uncomfortable: teenagers’ unintentional encounters with online pornography and their desire for porn education. Sex Education. https://doi.org/10.1080/14681811.2025.2594597
