Hi, i'm El. I'm a 24 year old Masters Student at the University of Leeds.
For my Diss Project, I wanted to cover something I am REALLY passionate about: sex education.
My experience of sex education was abmysal in secondary school, and after talking to my younger cousins I can see not a lot has changed.
For my project, I am creating an educational digital platform for parents with resources on how to talk to your children about pornography and the various issues surrounding it, for example:
Why Porn is not Sex Education
Expectations of Sex
Pornography and Female Pleasure
Body Image
Healthy Relationships and Consent
Age Verification
Sexting and Nudes
Sexuality
During my research, I found that Three-quarters of parents (75%) felt their child would not have seen pornography online, but among the children of those parents, 53% said they had in fact seen pornography. This was for the age group 11-14 year olds.
With such access to the internet, it is almost inevitable that young people will find pornography whether accidentally or on purpose.
I wanted to ask the amazing people of Mums Net their thoughts on this. Charities like Barnardos currently have open letters to the government trying to introduce age verification methods on sites like PornHub, but this keeps getting pushed back. Therefore, I think its important for parents to actually address the issues rather than turn a blind eye to it.
Have you had conversations with your child about pornography?
If yes, what did you talk about?
If no, why not?
Any other comments, opinions or insights are welcomed and would be appreciated. At the end of the day, I am not a parent, so I don't know the parents perceptive and its so important that I do.
Thank you in advance!