"They are looking at porn as a sex education handbook, which can only have damaging impacts." "They cannot develop healthy respectful relationships when pornography is their formative environment. "I go to schools where 12- and 13-year-olds will show me on their mobile phones the number of requests they've had that day for sexual images boys," Ms Tankard-Reist said. Watch Tracy Bowden's report (Tracy Bowden) "If a young person who is 13 or 14 years old has been looking at porn for maybe a year, most likely hasn't had any sexual activities or sexual interaction with anyone, really why wouldn't they believe it?" he said.ĭo you know more about this story? Email doesn't look gentle, it doesn't look particularly loving and it doesn't look like much fun. Psychologist Russell Pratt said many young men believe the fantasy they see on the screen is real, and that the common porn script often includes violence or aggression towards women. "They're seeing a normalisation of sex acts that most people in the real world aren't engaging in or are not keen on." "Porn is arguably the most prominent sexual educator for many, perhaps all young people," she told 730. Thanks to modern technology, pornography has become more accessible and more normal than ever, and sex educator Maree Crabbe says it is a pervasive problem. These are the words of a teenage girl, and similar statements are leading experts to warn that internet pornography is fast becoming the primary way young people learn about, and understand, sex. "Some boys or girls, they expect that sex is violent - it is OK to use chains or whips, to hurt someone."