Youth and Internet Pornography

The impact and influence on adolescent development

Richard Behun, Eric W. Owens

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9780429751097
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Computer Science
• Subtopic: Computer Science General
• Index: Computer Science

This much-needed book provides an in-depth, nonjudgmental look at how consumption of Internet pornography and sexually explicit Internet material (SEIM) impacts the social, physical, emotional, and sexual development of adolescents.

Youth and Internet Pornography explores some of the most contemporary issues in this field, including deepfake technology, the long-standing conflict between legal challenges to pornography versus individual rights, and the interrelationship between adolescent use of Internet pornography and the larger culture. The text outlines how different generations interact with the Internet, as well as the related legal and ethical issues around working with these different age groups. Behun and Owens use clinical illustrations and guided practice exercises to contextualise theoretical constructs and research, providing a comprehensive guide to how those working with young people should consider the impact of Internet pornography in their day-to-day practice.

This book is essential reading for professionals and policy makers hoping to mitigate outcomes in counselling, youth and social work, and education, as well as supplementary reading for courses in human sexuality and development.

1
Strange bedfellows

Adolescents and Internet pornography

I struggle quite a bit in my practice today. I’ve been a counselor for a long time, and I think I’m quite good at the work. I’ve been dealing with issues related to healthy sexuality for my entire career, and I’ve always enjoyed my work with younger people. But as I get older, they get younger, and I feel like there’s a disconnect. I mean, navigating the world of adolescent sexuality has never been easy and it is completely normal for adolescents to be working through a lot during this time of their lives. But the Internet … the Internet has changed the game. It seems like pornography has become such a bigger part of what these kids are bringing to counseling now.

Many who work in the helping professions (e.g., counselors, psychologists, social workers, nurses, physicians) find themselves engaged in conversations with adolescents about sexuality. This has been the case for as long as there have been helping professions. Adolescence is a time of normal curiosity and experimentation. It is a period of personal growth that can shape the life that is to follow. Adolescence is, in a word, challenging.

These trials are what often bring adolescents to counseling. Navigating the world of healthy sexual relationships can cause real distress in the lives of this population. Developing mature relationships during puberty is not easy and issues related to sexual behavior challenge even the most mature teenagers. Exploring sexual identity while existing in a world of close peer relationships and constant scrutiny can be harrowing. The challenge of adolescent sexual growth can result in mental health concerns, such as depression, anxiety, and so forth.

Of course no review of adolescent sexuality would be complete without considering how pornography has intersected with technology and how this intersection impacts adolescents. Just as sexuality has always been a pressing issue for this population, so has pornography. Those of us from older generations are familiar with the stories of teenagers who stole a copy of their fathers’ Playboy magazine and snuck off to do anything but read the articles. But the Internet has changed how adolescents consume pornography. The ubiquity of sexually explicit Internet material (SEIM) has forever changed how we think about adolescents and pornography.

For those who help teenagers navigate these challenges, the landscape has changed. The vignette at the beginning of this chapter demonstrates this difficulty; while this population continues to exist within their time and space, counselors, psychologists, and others may have real problems understanding what it is like to be an adolescent in the ever-expanding digital age. The Internet has changed everything, from the way we communicate to how we interact with the world. Dating apps, messaging programs, and social media have changed the game, especially for the adolescents who are native to this digital world and to the helpers who might be immigrants in this unfamiliar land. The unending supply of SEIM makes our work as helping professionals more challenging than ever.

The purpose of this book is to provide insight to the helpers who work with this population. This task can be daunting because technology is constantly changing and the research surrounding it has difficulty staying abreast. Our goal in this text is not to be all inclusive; that would likely be impossible. However, we do hope to provide the reader with an understanding of how adolescents interact with SEIM and the potential effects SEIM has on this population.

After reading this chapter you should be able to

1. Explain, in broad terms, how adolescents interact with SEIM;
2. Understand how the terms adolescent, pornography, and Internet will be used throughout this text;
3. Have an understanding of the prevalence of SEIM consumption among adolescents; and
4. Describe how the text will follow in subsequent chapters.

An introduction to adolescents and SEIM

Over the past three decades, pornography has become far more commonplace than at any other point in history (Löfgren-Mårtenson & Månsson, 2010; McNair, 2002; Paul, 2005; Peter & Valkenburg, 2007). The Internet has played a significant role in this mainstreaming of pornography, providing unequaled access to encounter, consume, create, and distribute sexually explicit content. Because the Internet is global and accessible worldwide, this phenomena is not isolated to any one country or community; data suggest adolescents across the globe are engaging with SEIM more than ever (Flood, 2007; Häggström-Nordin, Sandberg, Hanson, & Tydén, 2006; Lo & Wei, 2005; Wolak, Mitchell, & Finkelhor, 2007; Sabina, Wolak, & Finkelhor, 2008).

When compared to more traditional media (e.g., radio, print, television, movies), the Internet is a highly sexualized environment (Cooper, Boies, Maheu, & Greenfield, 1999; Peter & Valkenburg, 2006a). Research demonstrates significant increases in the number of youth who are intentionally or accidentally encountering pornographic material online (Mitchell, Wolak, & Finkelhor, 2007; Wolak et al., 2007). We can safely assume that adolescents’ access to SEIM is unmatched by any other medium; the sheer amount of SEIM available and the vast diversity in content is unparalleled (Coopersmith, 2006; Mitchell, Wolak, & Finkelhor, 2007). Additionally, the risk of online bullying, sexual victimization, or harassment from others is real and pervasive.

Furthermore, the Internet is present and prioritized in the lives of many youth (Lenhart, Ling, Campbell, & Purcell, 2010; Lenhart, Purcell, Smith, & Zickur, 2010; Mitchell et al., 2007). For example, in the United States, 93% of all adolescents ages 12 to 17 use the Internet, 63% go online daily, and 36% are online several times a day (Lenhart, Purcell, et al., 2010). The World Internet Report surveyed 12- to 14-year-olds from 13 different countries and found that 100% of British youth, 98% of Israeli youth, 96% of Czech youth, and 95% of Canadian youth reported using the Internet regularly (Lawsky, 2008). Another survey found that 98% of youth from Spain are engaged online, with the majority using the Internet on a daily basis (Gómez, Rial, Braña, Golpe, & Varela, 2017). Given that the average American teen owns 3.5 mobile devices (Lenhart, Purcell, et al., 2010), it can be assumed that a great deal of their online activity is portable and, therefore, largely unmonitored (Roberts, Foehr, & Rideout, 2005). While the statistics available in the literature are somewhat dated, we can be sure that young people live in the digital age (see Chapter 2 for more information about these topics).

The unsurpassed access to the Internet that we see today has many positive influences. In the area of sexuality, people across the life span look online for information on sexual health and education (Barak & Fisher, 2001). Through social media sites, such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and so many others, people can connect socially with people in their own communities or across the world. We seek out entertainment and news online, and we use technology to work, learn, and even shop for groceries.

However, unfettered access to the online world is not without its problems. Adolescents are most often still grappling with tasks related to executive functioning and may have difficulty prioritizing, making good decisions, and mitigating potential risks. When confronted with the vast amount of information, as well as the many risks inherent in navigating the Internet, adolescents often lack the skills necessary to do so safely and in healthy ways (Delmonico & Griffin, 2008). There is also a burgeoning body of research that has found that adolescents are increasingly struggling with compulsive Internet use (CIU) and compulsive behaviors related to Internet pornography and cybersex (Delmonico & Griffin, 2008; Lam, Peng, Mai, & Jing, 2009; Rimington & Gast, 2007; van den Eijnden, Spijkerman, Vermulst, van Rooij, & Engels, 2010; Villella et al., 2011; Rumpf et al., 2014; Kawabe, Horiuchi, Ochi, Oka, & Ueno, 2016; Gómez, Rial, Braña, Golpe, & Varela, 2017).

A review of the literature during this period indicates significant increases in the volume of research examining CIU and compulsive adolescent sexual behavior related to pornography, as well as a diversity in the areas of the world studying these phenomenon, such as China (Fu, Chan, Wong, & Yip, 2010), the Netherlands (van den Eijnden et al., 2010), the United Kingdom (Gillespie, 2008), the United States (Sussman, 2007), and Taiwan (Yen et al., 2009). Consequently, it may be inferred that the impact of Internet pornography on adolescents, including compulsive, addictive, and even criminal behavior, is a global trend not isolated to any one particular culture or region.

As Internet use increases, it is important to understand the systemic impact of SEIM on adolescents. Adolescent development, for the purposes of this book, includes the predictable and significant changes that occur across various domains: physical, emotional, cognitive, social, spiritual, and sexual. Consequently, adolescents are considered one of the most susceptible audiences to sexually explicit content.

A few caveats

While it is developmentally normal for adolescents to have sexual curiosity, the extent of easy, free, and unmonitored access to pornography on the Internet begs the question: what impact, if any, does exposure to Internet pornography have on adolescents? Our goal here is to answer this question across the various developmental domains mentioned previously.

This text explores two challenging and highly controversial topics: pornography and the impact of technology on youth. Daily headlines discuss both of these topics and most people have an opinion on each. While technology is still a developing area of study, pornography is not. Personal beliefs about sexually explicit media are often based in moral beliefs and personal experiences. While we do not discount either, it is important for a text such as this one to steer clear of the subjective and focus on the objective. While research still has its subjective elements, we have tried, as best as we can, to avoid moral judgments and focus on scientific inquiry.

Learning Activity 1.1 invites readers to explore their own opinions about the topics of technology and pornography.

Learning Activity 1.1

Exploring our opinions

Read the following case study and consider your responses to the questions that follow.

Dr. Scott is a licensed psychotherapist working in private practice. She works primarily with adolescents and their families, especially around issues related to behavioral change. She began working with a young man named Rich. Rich is a 15-year-old, straight, cisgendered male who has recently started dating and has become sexually active with his girlfriend of five weeks.

Rich’s parents have “required” him to seek counseling because they found “pornography” on his laptop computer. Specifically, through a search of Rich’s online browsing history, they found that he had been looking at photographs of college-aged, female cheerleaders. These photographs depicted the women fully clothed and engaged in typical activities that would be found at sporting events.

During your first sessions with Rich, he argues vehemently that he was not seeking to view pornography and was not looking at the images for the purpose of sexual arousal. “I was thinking about going out for the cheerleading team,” he pleads. “My parents think I’m looking at these pictures as a way of getting off, but really I just want to understand what cheerleaders do.”

Consider the following:

1. Is this pornography? Why or why not?
2. Do you believe Rich’s explanation of his reason for viewing these images?
3. Are the answers to these questions important? If so, what makes them important? Why does your opinion as a counselor matter (consider your own biases as well as how these biases may impact your work)?

Our purpose is to highlight the direct influences pornography has on the developmental processes of children and on adolescents specifically. One challenge in a text such as this is the dearth of literature that examines the impact of pornography and SEIM on minors. While the literature is rich with studies exploring the impact on adults, children and adolescents have received far less attention, in large part due to the ethical and legal considerations involved when examining these issues. In the United States, as in many other countries, it is illegal to distribute sexually explicit material to minors or knowingly expose them to it, thereby creating significant challenges when trying to explore these topics. Asking about a teenager’s illegal behavior, or helping to facilitate it, is understandably difficult.

Two issues regarding this review are worthy of note; first, we have included research in which the authors may not have examined online pornography specifically but pornography in various media. We did this with the assumption that the Internet has become a universally accepted source of information, especially for adolescents, and that exposure to pornography may be assumed to occur on the Internet as frequently, if not more frequently, than through any other medium. Also, a book that examines these issues could take m...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• 1 Strange bedfellows: adolescents and Internet pornography
• 2 The digital divide: strangers in a strange land
• 3 Thoughts and values: pornography and attitudes and beliefs
• 4 From thinking to doing: the impact on behavior and sexual decision making
• 5 Thoughts of the self: pornography and adolescent self-image
• 6 From the self to the world: the intersection of pornography and culture
• 7 Potential pitfalls: legal and ethical issues in the field
• 8 What’s new? Current issues in youth and internet pornography
• 9 Conclusion: making sense of it all
• Index