The Porn Conversation: The Effects of Pornography on Youth and How to Talk About It

In the new digital age, it’s easy for our young people to find pornography, even when they aren’t looking for it. For many teens, pornography is a primary source of sex education and can have lasting consequences for mental health, sexual health, and relationships. Productive conversations with tweens and teens about pornography are crucial, but it can be an uncomfortable, tricky, and difficult topic for families. Children and Screens held the #AskTheExperts webinar “The Porn Conversation: The Effects of Pornography on Youth and How to Talk About It” on Wednesday, August 5th, 2020 at 12:00pm EDT to address these issues.

Dr. Gail Dines, founder and president of Culture Reframed, a non-profit devoted to building resilience to hypersexualized media and porn, and author of Pornland: How Porn Has Hijacked Our Sexuality, moderated a dynamic discussion and Q&A, featuring an interdisciplinary panel of the world’s top researchers, clinicians and parenting experts in the effects of pornography. In addition to demonstrating, through role-playing, ‘the porn conversation,’ the panel discussed research on pornography’s effects on adolescent development, provided evidence-based, practical suggestions for parents, educators and health providers, and answered parents’ questions in real-time.