How porn changes the way teens think about sex
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0:00 - 0:04[This talk contains mature content]
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0:05 - 0:07Six years ago,
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0:07 - 0:12I discovered something that scientists
have been wanting to know for years. -
0:12 - 0:14How do you capture the attention
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0:14 - 0:17of a roomful of extremely bored teenagers?
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0:18 - 0:22It turns out all you have to do
is mention the word pornography. -
0:22 - 0:23(Laughter)
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0:23 - 0:25Let me tell you how I first learned this.
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0:25 - 0:29In 2012, I was sitting in a crowded room
full of high school students -
0:29 - 0:32who were attending
an after-school program in Boston. -
0:32 - 0:34And my job, as guest speaker for the day,
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0:34 - 0:37was to inspire them to think
about how exciting it would be -
0:37 - 0:39to have a career in public health.
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0:40 - 0:41The problem was,
-
0:41 - 0:43as I looked at their faces,
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0:43 - 0:46I could see that their eyes
were glazing over, -
0:46 - 0:48and they were just tuning out.
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0:48 - 0:49It didn't even matter that I wore
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0:49 - 0:53what I thought was
my cool outfit that day. -
0:53 - 0:56I was just losing my audience.
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0:56 - 0:59So, then one of the two adults
who worked for the program said, -
0:59 - 1:02"Aren't you doing some research
about pornography? -
1:02 - 1:04Maybe tell them about that."
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1:05 - 1:08All of a sudden, that room
full of high school students exploded -
1:08 - 1:11into laughter, high fives.
-
1:11 - 1:14I think there were some
loud hooting noises. -
1:14 - 1:18And all anyone had done
was say that one word -- pornography. -
1:18 - 1:21That moment would prove to be
an important turning point -
1:21 - 1:24for me and my professional mission
of finding solutions -
1:24 - 1:26to end dating and sexual violence.
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1:26 - 1:29At that point, I'd been working
for more than a decade -
1:29 - 1:33on this seemingly intractable problem
of dating violence. -
1:33 - 1:36Data from the US Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention -
1:36 - 1:41demonstrate that one in five
high school-attending youth -
1:41 - 1:44experience physical and/or sexual abuse
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1:44 - 1:47by a dating partner each year in the US.
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1:47 - 1:50That makes dating violence more prevalent
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1:50 - 1:53than being bullied on school property,
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1:53 - 1:55seriously considering suicide,
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1:55 - 1:57or even vaping,
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1:57 - 1:59in that same population.
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1:59 - 2:01But solutions were proving elusive.
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2:01 - 2:03And I was working with a research team
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2:03 - 2:06that was hunting
for novel answers to the question: -
2:06 - 2:10What's causing dating abuse,
and how do we stop it? -
2:11 - 2:14One of the research studies
that we were working on at the time -
2:14 - 2:17happened to include
a few questions about pornography. -
2:17 - 2:21And something unexpected
was emerging from our findings. -
2:21 - 2:25Eleven percent of the teen
girls in our sample -
2:25 - 2:28reported that they had been
forced or threatened -
2:28 - 2:31to do sexual things that
the perpetrator saw in pornography. -
2:33 - 2:34That got me curious.
-
2:34 - 2:39Was pornography to blame
for any percentage of dating violence? -
2:39 - 2:43Or was it more like a coincidence
that the pornography users -
2:43 - 2:48also happen to be more likely
to be in unhealthy relationships? -
2:48 - 2:51I investigated by reading
everything that I could -
2:51 - 2:52from the peer-reviewed literature,
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2:52 - 2:55and by conducting my own research.
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2:55 - 2:56I wanted to know
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2:56 - 2:59what kinds of sexually explicit media
youth were watching, -
2:59 - 3:00and how often and why,
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3:00 - 3:02and see if I could piece together
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3:02 - 3:05if it was part of the reason
that for so many of them -
3:05 - 3:08dating relationships
were apparently unhealthy. -
3:08 - 3:12As I read, I tried to keep an open mind,
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3:12 - 3:15even though there were
plenty of members of the public -
3:15 - 3:17who'd already made up
their mind about the issue. -
3:17 - 3:21Why would I keep an open mind
about pornography? -
3:21 - 3:24Well, I'm a trained social scientist,
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3:24 - 3:27so it's my job to be objective.
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3:27 - 3:30But I'm also what people
call sex-positive. -
3:30 - 3:34That means that
I fully support people's right -
3:34 - 3:38to enjoy whatever kind of sex life
and sexuality they find fulfilling, -
3:38 - 3:40no matter what it involves,
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3:40 - 3:43as long as it includes
the enthusiastic consent -
3:43 - 3:45of all parties involved.
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3:45 - 3:51That said, I personally wasn't inclined
towards watching pornography. -
3:51 - 3:53I'd seen some, didn't really
do anything for me. -
3:53 - 3:56And as a mom of two
soon-to-be teenage children, -
3:56 - 3:58I had my own concerns
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3:58 - 4:01about what seeing pornography
could do to them. -
4:02 - 4:05I noticed that while
there were a lot of people -
4:05 - 4:06who were denouncing pornography,
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4:06 - 4:09there were also people
who were staunch defenders of it -
4:09 - 4:10for a variety of reasons.
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4:10 - 4:13So in my scholarly exploration,
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4:13 - 4:16I genuinely tried to understand:
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4:16 - 4:21Was pornography bad for you
or was it good for you? -
4:21 - 4:25Was it misogynist or was it empowering?
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4:25 - 4:29And there was not one singular answer
that emerged clearly. -
4:30 - 4:33There was one longitudinal study
that had me really worried, -
4:33 - 4:36that showed that teenagers
who saw pornography -
4:36 - 4:40were subsequently more likely
to perpetrate sexual violence. -
4:40 - 4:41But the design of the study
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4:41 - 4:44didn't allow for definitive
causal conclusions. -
4:44 - 4:47And there were other studies
that did not find -
4:48 - 4:49that adolescent pornography use
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4:49 - 4:52was associated with certain
negative outcomes. -
4:52 - 4:55Even though there were other studies
that did find that. -
4:55 - 4:57But as I spoke to other experts,
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4:57 - 5:02I felt tremendous pressure
to pick a side about pornography. -
5:02 - 5:04Join one team or the other.
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5:04 - 5:07I was even told that
it was weak-minded of me -
5:07 - 5:11not to be able to pick out the one
correct answer about pornography. -
5:12 - 5:13And it was complicated,
-
5:13 - 5:16because there is an industry
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5:16 - 5:20that is capitalizing
off of audience's fascination -
5:20 - 5:25with seeing women, in particular,
not just having sex, -
5:25 - 5:29but being chocked, gagged, slapped,
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5:29 - 5:33spit upon, ejaculated upon,
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5:33 - 5:37called degrading names
over and over during sex, -
5:37 - 5:39and not always clearly with their consent.
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5:39 - 5:43Most people would agree
that we have a serious problem -
5:43 - 5:47with misogyny, sexual violence
and rape in this country, -
5:47 - 5:52and pornography probably
isn't helping with any of that. -
5:52 - 5:55And a critically important
problem to me was that -
5:55 - 5:56for more than a century,
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5:56 - 6:00the anti-pornography position
had been used as a pretext -
6:00 - 6:04for discriminating
against gays and lesbians -
6:04 - 6:07or people who have kinks or have fetishes.
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6:07 - 6:09So I could see why, on the one hand,
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6:09 - 6:13we might be very worried about
the messages that pornography is sending, -
6:13 - 6:14and on the other hand,
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6:14 - 6:19why we might be really worried
about going overboard indicting it. -
6:19 - 6:20For the next two years,
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6:20 - 6:25I looked into every scary,
horrifying claim that I could find -
6:25 - 6:30about the average age
at which people first see pornography, -
6:30 - 6:33or what it does to their brains
or their sexuality. -
6:33 - 6:36Here's what I have to report back.
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6:36 - 6:40The free, online, mainstream pornography,
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6:40 - 6:42that's the kind that teenagers
are most likely to see, -
6:42 - 6:46is a completely terrible form
of sex education. -
6:46 - 6:52(Laughter)
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6:52 - 6:56(Applause)
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6:56 - 7:00But that's not what it was intended for.
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7:00 - 7:05And it probably is not
instantly poisoning their minds -
7:05 - 7:08or turning them into compulsive users,
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7:08 - 7:11the way that some ideologues
would have you believe. -
7:11 - 7:15It's a rare person who doesn't see
some pornography in their youth. -
7:15 - 7:17By the time they're 18 years old,
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7:18 - 7:2293 percent of first year college males
and 62 percent of females -
7:22 - 7:25have seen pornography at least once.
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7:25 - 7:27And though people like to say
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7:27 - 7:31that the internet has made
pornography ubiquitous, -
7:31 - 7:34or basically guarantees
that any young child -
7:34 - 7:38who's handed a smartphone
is definitely going to see pornography, -
7:38 - 7:40data don't really support that.
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7:40 - 7:44A nationally representative study
found that in the year 2000 -
7:44 - 7:4816 percent of 10-to-13-year-old youth
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7:48 - 7:51reported that they'd seen
pornography in the past year. -
7:51 - 7:54And by 2010, that figure had increased.
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7:54 - 7:56But only to 30 percent.
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7:56 - 7:58So it wasn't everybody.
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7:58 - 8:02Our problems with adolescents
and sexual violence perpetration -
8:02 - 8:05is not only because of pornography.
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8:05 - 8:06In fact, a recent study
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8:06 - 8:10found that adolescents
are more likely to see sexualized images -
8:10 - 8:13in other kinds of media
besides pornography. -
8:14 - 8:16Think about all those
sexualized video games, -
8:16 - 8:19or TV shows, or music videos.
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8:19 - 8:25And it could be exposure
to a steady stream of violent media -
8:25 - 8:29that instead of or in addition to
the sexualized images -
8:29 - 8:31is causing our problems.
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8:31 - 8:36By focusing on the potential harms
of pornography alone, -
8:36 - 8:40we may be distracting ourselves
from bigger issues. -
8:40 - 8:44Or missing root causes
of dating and sexual violence, -
8:44 - 8:47which are the true public health crises.
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8:47 - 8:50That said, even my own research
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8:50 - 8:54demonstrates that adolescents
are turning to pornography -
8:54 - 8:56for education and information about sex.
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8:56 - 8:59And that's because they can't find
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8:59 - 9:02reliable and factual
information elsewhere. -
9:02 - 9:05Less than 50 percent of the states
in the United States -
9:05 - 9:09require that sex education
be taught in schools, -
9:09 - 9:12including how to prevent coerced sex.
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9:12 - 9:14And less than half of those states
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9:14 - 9:19require that the information presented
be medically accurate. -
9:20 - 9:23So in that Boston after-school program,
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9:23 - 9:25those kids really wanted
to talk about sex, -
9:25 - 9:28and they really wanted
to talk about pornography. -
9:28 - 9:30And they wanted to talk about those things
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9:30 - 9:34a whole lot more than they wanted
to talk about dating or sexual violence. -
9:34 - 9:35So we realized,
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9:35 - 9:39we could cover all of the same topics
that we might normally talk about -
9:39 - 9:42under the guise of healthy
relationships education, -
9:42 - 9:45like, what's a definition
of sexual consent? -
9:45 - 9:49Or, how do you know
if you're hurting somebody during sex? -
9:49 - 9:53Or what are healthy boundaries to have
when you're flirting? -
9:53 - 9:56All of these same things we could discuss
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9:56 - 9:59by using pornography
as the jumping-off point -
9:59 - 10:01for our conversation.
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10:01 - 10:04It's sort of like when adults
give kids a desert like brownies, -
10:04 - 10:08but they secretly baked a zucchini
or something healthy inside of it. -
10:08 - 10:09(Laughter)
-
10:09 - 10:13We could talk to the kids
about the healthy stuff, -
10:13 - 10:15the stuff that's good for you,
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10:15 - 10:17but hide it inside a conversation
that was about something -
10:17 - 10:20that they thought
they wanted to be talking about. -
10:20 - 10:22We also discovered something
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10:22 - 10:25that we didn't necessarily
set out to find, -
10:25 - 10:29which is that there's a fantastic way
to have a conversation with teenagers -
10:29 - 10:31about pornography.
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10:31 - 10:33And that is,
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10:33 - 10:36keep the conversation true to science.
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10:36 - 10:39Admit what we know and what we don't know
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10:39 - 10:41about the impact of pornography.
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10:41 - 10:45Talk about where there are mixed results
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10:45 - 10:49or where there are weaknesses
in the studies that have been conducted. -
10:49 - 10:52Invite the adolescents
to become critical consumers -
10:52 - 10:55of the research literature on pornography,
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10:55 - 10:58as well as the pornography itself.
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10:58 - 11:01That really fits
with adolescent development. -
11:01 - 11:04Adolescents like to question things
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11:04 - 11:07and they like to be invited
to think for themselves. -
11:07 - 11:10And we realized by starting to experiment,
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11:10 - 11:14teaching some classes in consent,
respect and pornography, -
11:14 - 11:20that trying to scare adolescents
into a particular point of view -
11:20 - 11:26or jam a one-sided argument
down their throat about pornography -
11:26 - 11:30not only probably does not work,
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11:30 - 11:34but really doesn't model
the kind of respectful, -
11:34 - 11:37consensual behavior
that we want them to learn. -
11:37 - 11:41So our approach, what we call
pornography literacy, -
11:41 - 11:45is about presenting the truth
about pornography -
11:45 - 11:47to the best of our knowledge,
-
11:47 - 11:51given that there is
an ever-changing evidence base. -
11:51 - 11:55When people hear that we teach
a nine-session, 18-hour class -
11:55 - 11:58in pornography literacy to teenagers,
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11:58 - 12:01I think that they either think
that we're sitting kids down -
12:01 - 12:03and trying to show them
how to watch pornography, -
12:03 - 12:06which is not what we do,
-
12:06 - 12:09or that we're part of
an anti-pornography activist group -
12:09 - 12:12that's trying to convince them
that if they ever saw pornography, -
12:12 - 12:15it would be the number one
worst thing for their health ever. -
12:15 - 12:17And that's not it, either.
-
12:17 - 12:21Our secret ingredient
is that we're nonjudgmental. -
12:21 - 12:24We don't think that youth
should be watching pornography. -
12:24 - 12:29But, above all, we want them
to become critical thinkers -
12:29 - 12:31if and when they do see it.
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12:31 - 12:32And we've learned,
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12:32 - 12:36from the number of requests
for our curriculum and our training, -
12:36 - 12:39from across the US and beyond,
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12:39 - 12:42that there are a lot of parents
and a lot of teachers -
12:42 - 12:46who really do want to be having
these more nuanced -
12:46 - 12:50and realistic conversations
with teenagers about pornography. -
12:50 - 12:55We've had requests from Utah to Vermont,
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12:55 - 12:57to Alabama, to Hawaii.
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12:58 - 13:00So in that after-school program,
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13:00 - 13:05what I saw, is that from the minute
we mentioned the word pornography, -
13:05 - 13:08those kids were ready
to jump in to a back-and-forth -
13:08 - 13:12about what they did
and didn't want to see in pornography, -
13:12 - 13:16and what they did
and didn't want to do during sex. -
13:16 - 13:18And what was degrading to women
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13:18 - 13:22or unfair to men or racist, all of it.
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13:22 - 13:24And they made some
really sophisticated points. -
13:24 - 13:28Exactly the kinds of things that
we would want them to be talking about -
13:28 - 13:30as violence prevention activists.
-
13:31 - 13:36And as teachers, we might leave
the class one day and think, -
13:36 - 13:39"It is really sad that there's
that one boy in our class -
13:39 - 13:44who thinks that all women
have orgasms from anal sex." -
13:45 - 13:48And we might leave class
the next week and think, -
13:48 - 13:52"I'm really glad that there's
that one kid in our class who's gay, -
13:52 - 13:58who said that seeing his sexuality
represented in pornography -
13:58 - 13:59saved his life."
-
13:59 - 14:02Or, "There's that one girl in our class
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14:02 - 14:05who said that she's feeling
a lot better about her body, -
14:05 - 14:10because she saw someone shaped like her
as the object of desire -
14:10 - 14:12in some tame pornography."
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14:13 - 14:19So this is where I find myself
as a violence prevention activist. -
14:19 - 14:22I find myself talking about
and researching pornography. -
14:23 - 14:24And though it would be easier
-
14:24 - 14:27if things in life
were all one way or the other, -
14:27 - 14:31what I've found in my conversations
with teenagers about pornography -
14:31 - 14:35is that they remain engaged
in these conversations -
14:35 - 14:40because we allow them
to grapple with the complexities. -
14:40 - 14:43And because we're honest
about the science. -
14:44 - 14:47These adolescents may not be adults yet,
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14:47 - 14:50but they are living in an adult world.
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14:50 - 14:54And they're ready for adult conversations.
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14:54 - 14:55Thank you.
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14:55 - 14:59(Applause)
- Title:
- How porn changes the way teens think about sex
- Speaker:
- Emily F. Rothman
- Description:
-
"The free, online, mainstream pornography that teenagers are most likely to see is a completely terrible form of sex education," says public health researcher Emily F. Rothman. She shares how her mission to end dating and sexual violence led her to create a pornography literacy program that helps teens learn about consent and respect -- and invites them to think critically about sexually explicit media.
- Video Language:
- English
- Team:
- closed TED
- Project:
- TEDTalks
- Duration:
- 15:12
Brian Greene edited English subtitles for How porn changes the way teens think about sex | ||
Brian Greene edited English subtitles for How porn changes the way teens think about sex | ||
Brian Greene edited English subtitles for How porn changes the way teens think about sex | ||
Brian Greene approved English subtitles for How porn changes the way teens think about sex | ||
Brian Greene edited English subtitles for How porn changes the way teens think about sex | ||
Joanna Pietrulewicz accepted English subtitles for How porn changes the way teens think about sex | ||
Joanna Pietrulewicz edited English subtitles for How porn changes the way teens think about sex | ||
Joanna Pietrulewicz edited English subtitles for How porn changes the way teens think about sex |