Half of children watched porn before they turned 13: Survey

London: In a shocking revelation, half of the children have watched porn by the time they reach their teenage, according to a survey on pornography.

Out of those surveyed, almost half of young people think that girls expect sex to involve physical aggression. The survey — conducted in England — has warned that now is a “vital moment” to to take precautions to shield youngsters from harmful online content, Independent reported.

“We find that pornography exposure is widespread and normalised – to the extent that ‘opting-out’ isn’t an option for many young people. The average age at which children first see pornography is 13. By age nine, 10 per cent had seen pornography, 27 per cent had seen it by age 11 and half of children who had seen pornography had seen it by age 13,” as per the survey.

“We also find that young people are frequently exposed to violent pornography, depicting coercive, degrading or pain-inducing sex acts; 79 per cent had encountered violent pornography before the age of 18… Indeed, this report finds that frequent users of pornography are more likely to engage in physically aggressive sex acts,” it added.

The survey has expressed deep concern over the normalisation of sexual violence in online pornography, and the role it plays in “shaping children’s understanding of sex and relationships.”

It was further found that micro-blogging site Twitter is the platform where the highest percentage of children (41 per cent) had seen pornography. It was followed by dedicated pornography sites (37 per cent), Instagram (33 per cent), Snapchat (32 per cent) and search engines (30 per cent).

Children’s Commissioner for England Dame Rachel de Souza said, “Let me be absolutely clear: online pornography is not equivalent to a ‘top-shelf’ magazine. The adult content which parents may have accessed in their youth could be considered ‘quaint’ in comparison to today’s world of online pornography… Depictions of degradation, sexual coercion, aggression and exploitation are commonplace, and disproportionately targeted against teenage girls.”

Pornography banned in India

Pornographic websites have been banned by the Indian government in compliance with the new IT Rules 2021. The most recent prohibition came in September 2022, when the Indian government added 63 more websites to its list of prohibited websites.

Back in 2018, Centre directed the Internet Service Providers to block 827 websites that hosted pornographic content, following an order by the Uttarakhand High Court.

(With inputs from agencies)

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