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Some of the greatest resources to combat the normalization of porn in your home and society are education and awareness—and that includes face-to-face conversations that are open, honest, shame-free, and ongoing.
Research is showing how porn can tangibly harm the consumer, their relationships, and the world.
Fight the New Drug is all about getting these facts into the light, and equipping people to make educated decisions about watching porn. For some young consumers, it’s not a conscious decision to watch porn, because they stumble upon it or happen upon it by accident. This is how a lot of kids get exposed and potentially end up struggling with pornographic material by age 13, or younger.
And this is usually how a prolonged struggle starts.
Working toward the ideal
Kids are curious about sex and the human body. Spoiler alert: this is normal and healthy.
What’s not healthy: going to porn for all the answers. In an ideal situation, a child would feel free to tell their parents about what they heard on the playground or found on the computer by accident. Often, they can be too scared to say anything, and the issue won’t be brought up.
We think it’s important for parents to talk to their kids about what porn is before they see it for the first time, and keep the conversation open, shame-free, honest, and loving.
Instilling a total fear of porn in a young child may work for a short while, but it’s not a long-term help to keeping the lines of communication open. If kids feel their parents are open to listening to their struggles or questions, they’ll be more likely to approach the subject whenever it comes up instead of hiding their curiosity and searching for it on their own.
And to help curious minds from looking for answers in the wrong places, Fight the New Drug recommends tech-based solutions for anyone who needs help with web monitoring and filtering. This is why we highly recommend checking out our friends at Bark—an easy-to-use, smart tool that parents can use to help protect their children online. Bark uses a highly advanced algorithm to alert parents when it detects porn site visitation as well as potential threats or signs of danger, such as:
Click here to learn more about their trust-building, common sense online tools!
But back to conversations. While filters and monitoring devices are great helps to keep tabs on internet use, there’s no replacement for honest, heart-to-heart conversations between a parent and their child about the harms of porn that leaves shame at the door.
But how do these conversations start, and how do they continue? After doing hundreds of presentations around the country, and receiving thousands of emails from teens all around the world, Fight the New Drug has taken that feedback, combined it with research and produced resources on our blog that can help you navigate these conversations.
We’ve also created this interactive and personalizable resource to walk parents, friends, partners, kids, strangers—really, pretty much anyone—step-by-step through having a conversation about porn with anyone.
Check it out by clicking below:
How to have a conversation
Honestly, parents—elementary-aged kids and teens in the world today are facing issues that you and your parents never even imagined when you were growing up.
When a lot of today’s parents were young, if anyone wanted porn, they had to look pretty hard in order to get their hands on it. They’d go to the local store and have to show their ID, and actually ask a store clerk for that magazine.
Fast forward a few years, and today’s children can consume limitless amounts of it with one click of a mouse. It’s increasingly more hardcore, and increasingly more available than ever.
So if you currently have teenagers, are about to have teenagers, plan on having teenagers someday, or just want to help youth in general, reading our resources will provide you with powerful tools and insights for dealing with pornography in today’s world.
A guide to “Let’s Talk About Porn”
As a parent, it can be difficult, at times, to tap into your child’s world and have a heartfelt conversation on topics that really matter and will make a difference in their life.
Here is our suggestion on how to talk about pornography. So often, we hear parents say, “Not my kid!” and, “My kid doesn’t have access to that stuff. They don’t have a cell phone and I monitor their internet use… Even if they did have access, they wouldn’t look at it.”
That may be true, and we hope it is. However, statistically speaking, it’s pretty unlikely. If they aren’t looking at porn on their own devices, there’s always friends or classmates who are too eager to share.
So many kids under the age of 18 have been exposed to hardcore pornography, and once they’ve been exposed, many keep coming back. Many men report consuming porn, between 91–99% in this one study, and between 60–92% of women admit the same.
It’s no longer a question of if your child will be exposed to pornographic material online, but when. It’s up to parents to instill their family values backed by research into their child’s mindset.
This is why we’ve created “Let’s Talk About Porn,” an interactive website that can help you have a conversation about porn with virtually anyone—including your kids.
WHY have the conversation
You need to be aware that it is likely that the pornography industry is targeting your child through online games, advertisements, email spam campaigns, pop-ups, merchandise, and so much more.
Unfortunately, if you don’t educate your kids about what healthy sexuality looks like, the porn industry will. And you probably won’t like what they teach them.
WHEN to start the conversation
The short answer: earlier than you think.
If you have young children and are wondering at what age it is appropriate to start the conversation about the dangers of pornography, understand that it varies depending on specific cultural circumstances, societal influences, media exposure, and individual curiosities. However, children are being exposed to pornography at an increasingly younger age.
You may need to start talking about it sooner than you had originally planned if you want to lay the foundation before they’re exposed.
If your child is older, the time may be now.
HOW to start the conversation
The days when parents could quickly have a brief, one-time “talk” about the birds and the bees are over. Today, children are repeatedly exposed to increasingly explicit sexual content, requiring parents to have multiple open and direct conversations about the differences between healthy sexuality and its cheap, unhealthy imitations.
There may be some awkwardness at the beginning, but as you make it a regular discussion, it will get easier.
Click here for tips and tricks specifically for talking with your kids in a shame-free way.
Porn isn’t going away, but we can still fight
With constantly evolving technology, starting conversations about the harms of porn and the joys of real love and healthy sexuality is so important.
Porn isn’t going away, so it’s up to us to raise awareness on its harms and get educated on the issue.
Nothing can completely erase its existence in our technological world, but with an open, shame-free dialogue and a scientifically-backed perspective, parents of the Playboy generation can help their kids of the PornTube generation navigate the online minefield they walk through daily.
Your Support Matters Now More Than Ever
Most kids today are exposed to porn by the age of 12. By the time they’re teenagers, 75% of boys and 70% of girls have already viewed itRobb, M.B., & Mann, S. (2023). Teens and pornography. San Francisco, CA: Common Sense.Copy —often before they’ve had a single healthy conversation about it.
Even more concerning: over half of boys and nearly 40% of girls believe porn is a realistic depiction of sexMartellozzo, E., Monaghan, A., Adler, J. R., Davidson, J., Leyva, R., & Horvath, M. A. H. (2016). “I wasn’t sure it was normal to watch it”: A quantitative and qualitative examination of the impact of online pornography on the values, attitudes, beliefs and behaviours of children and young people. Middlesex University, NSPCC, & Office of the Children’s Commissioner.Copy . And among teens who have seen porn, more than 79% of teens use it to learn how to have sexRobb, M.B., & Mann, S. (2023). Teens and pornography. San Francisco, CA: Common Sense.Copy . That means millions of young people are getting sex ed from violent, degrading content, which becomes their baseline understanding of intimacy. Out of the most popular porn, 33%-88% of videos contain physical aggression and nonconsensual violence-related themesFritz, N., Malic, V., Paul, B., & Zhou, Y. (2020). A descriptive analysis of the types, targets, and relative frequency of aggression in mainstream pornography. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 49(8), 3041-3053. doi:10.1007/s10508-020-01773-0Copy Bridges et al., 2010, “Aggression and Sexual Behavior in Best-Selling Pornography Videos: A Content Analysis,” Violence Against Women.Copy .
From increasing rates of loneliness, depression, and self-doubt, to distorted views of sex, reduced relationship satisfaction, and riskier sexual behavior among teens, porn is impacting individuals, relationships, and society worldwideFight the New Drug. (2024, May). Get the Facts (Series of web articles). Fight the New Drug.Copy .
This is why Fight the New Drug exists—but we can’t do it without you.
Your donation directly fuels the creation of new educational resources, including our awareness-raising videos, podcasts, research-driven articles, engaging school presentations, and digital tools that reach youth where they are: online and in school. It equips individuals, parents, educators, and youth with trustworthy resources to start the conversation.
Will you join us? We’re grateful for whatever you can give—but a recurring donation makes the biggest difference. Every dollar directly supports our vital work, and every individual we reach decreases sexual exploitation. Let’s fight for real love: