Young people in Australia are looking at porn earlier and more than ever before, finds a new study.
The study, published in Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health revealed that a shocking 90 per cent of Victorians aged between 15 and 29 had accessed sexual content.
The sexual content is being accessed most frequently by well-educated teenage boys, and age of first exposure now sits at 13 years for males and 16 years for girls.
Those who conducted the study were surprised by the high number of young people who had accessed sexual content, a much larger amount than first thought.
Burnet Institute researcher Dr Megan Lim led the study and said in a statement:
“All the young men in our study said they’d seen pornography, and so did the majority of women. They also reported seeing pornography at quite high frequency.”
“Around 80 per cent of young men said they watched weekly, and among the women who watched pornography, nearly two-thirds viewed at least monthly,” Dr Lim continued.
“Our hypothesis is that these teenagers are being missed in traditional sex education and even in the media,” Dr Lim said.
“There’s very little information out there for diverse groups.
“So young people may be seeking further information about things they’re curious about, and one of the only ways they’re able to access that is through pornography.”
The ease of access to online pornography was also recently blamed for a surge in the sexual abuse of schoolgirls.
Figures from the UK show that up to a third of sixth-form girls (aged 16 – 18) had been touched inappropriately by boys in their school, and fingers were being pointed at the internet.
Ann Coffey, from the all-party parliamentary group on runaway and missing children, told British MPs that porn was distorting teenage boys’ views of sex.
“There is a problem that boys are accessing adult websites which gives them a distorted attitude,” she said.
“It gives them a sense of entitlement, which means they may touch a girl inappropriately and use bullying or coercive behaviour.
Both the new study out of Australia and the study from the UK found the accessibility of online porn is difficult to regulate, the shocking statistics have led to a push for compulsory sex education in UK schools in order to give children and teenagers a more realistic sexual education, and to give those being abused the courage to speak out.
“To speak out, first children need to feel confident that what is happening to them is wrong and that is why sex and relationship education education in schools is so important,” Ms Coffey said.
“They need to know, indeed they are entitled to know, about issues such as sexual consent, what sexual coercion and exploitation is and how to shape healthy relationships and respect for each other as well as alerting them to the signs that they are being sexually groomed.”
A similar push is underway in Australia, where sex education is part of the curriculum but is not compulsory.
A national survey of 15-29 year olds released earlier this year showed that while some schools teach sex and relationship education comprehensively, other don’t teach it at all.
Australian figures show that 64 per cent of young people got information about sex from pornography, and most young people have an appetite for better sex education.
The push for more comprehensive compulsory sex education is not only coming from MPs, young people have an appetite for it too.
Eighty per cent of those surveyed supporting standardised sex education across the country, highlighting things like sex and pleasure, and sexuality, that they felt needed to be discussed in schools.
