More and more children come into contact with pornographic material long before puberty. Free access to the Internet and a child’s simple curiosity about sex can make a child, when typing “sex” in the popular Google search engine, experience contact with pornography by accident. Therefore, it is worth asking the parent whether he knows with whom his child maintains online relationships, whether he is aware of what websites his child is browsing and what information he or she is looking for on the Internet.
Porn as a false sex image
A young man, who does not have any information about sex yet, or who does not have much of it, when he sees a pornographic film extracts a lot of information from it, and above all learns that this is what sex is like. Therefore, they may have unrealistic expectations of themselves or their partner. There may also be negative thoughts about the appearance of your genitals or the quality of your relationship. Most of all, such a person builds stereotypes, which in the future may significantly affect their sexual life or a negative assessment of this aspect of life.
What example knowledge will the child gain from a pornographic film?
- people are always ready to have sexual intercourse, even with strangers,
- neither women nor men need any prior stimulation or closeness,
- no need to use a condom,
- partners should be treated as objects,
- partners always make loud noises,
- orgasm occurs with every intercourse and is very easy to achieve,
- everyone has anal and oral sex,
- intercourse must always last a long time,
- no one has sexual difficulties with, for example, maintaining an erection or lubrication.
How to deal with the problem?
One of the ways that parents can use is to set a parental lock on the phone and computer, which will prevent access to any sites with pornographic material or other content unsuitable for the child. It is worth remembering that this is a preventive action that will not completely eliminate the possibility of contact with pornography, because such films can be shown to children, for example, by their peers.
Another aspect is providing the child with age-appropriate knowledge and emotional and cognitive development. Knowledge should anticipate the period in which the child is. The more we are open to conversations about the body, maturation and sexuality, the greater the chance that a child will turn to us with questions in this area and will not search for this information on the Internet. It is in this early period of a child’s psychosexual development that his beliefs are built, with which he will remain for many years. The first information that a young person receives from parents / peers / from the Internet has the greatest impact on the formation of knowledge about sexuality. Pornographic films are not a good source of this knowledge, because often the scenes they show are very different from what the actual sexual intercourse looks like.
Pornography and emotions
Sometimes it also happens that a child who has not yet passed adolescence experiences very difficult emotions after accidentally coming into contact with pornography. These emotions should be taken care of, and discussing with the sexologist what the child has seen and experiences is very important for its proper psychosexual development. If you have difficulty talking freely about sexuality, or you don’t know what information to give your child and how to do it, it is also worth visiting a sexologist to discuss these difficulties.
Read more: Child Sexologist Warsaw
Author: Nadia Urbańska