Understanding how adolescents make sense of sexually explicit internet material : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Psychology at Massey University, Albany, New Zealand

Abstract

Debate over the effects of pornography exposure on young people has intensified with the ubiquitous use of the Internet, mobile phones and digital devices that allow adolescents easy access to pornography. Research exploring adolescent pornography use has predominantly focused on concerns about the potential negative impacts of such use, with positive experiences typically ignored. Furthermore, adolescent perspectives about pornography are often overlooked or considered questionable. In light of this, I sought to explore adolescent perceptions of pornography use endeavouring to leave space for the sharing of both negative and positive experiences. This was undertaken via in-depth exploratory interviews with 13 adolescents, 14 to15 years of age. Two interviews were conducted with each participant to build trust and openly discuss this private and sensitive topic. Interpretive thematic analysis was used to abstract five dominant dilemmas: Participants positioned pornography as dilemmatic through regarding it as being both natural and unnatural, normal to view but not normal representations of sexual relationships, fake and real, harmful and harmless, and good and bad. These dilemmas often remained unresolved for participants, although they proactively negotiated them using various strategies to manage and control perceived risks, such as restricting their viewing behaviours. The dilemmatic processes that adolescents engage with indicate opportunities to broaden discussions with adolescents about pornography and to encourage critical reflections around their ambiguity. I discuss how these findings relate to key underlying assumptions made about adolescent pornography use. Pornography use did not equate to ongoing frequent pornography use that was judged as harmful nor did it lead to condoning sexual behaviours or interactions that were considered socially unacceptable or outside socially sanctioned sexual practices. Participant’s made choices about pornography use based on their underlying value of being a ‘good’ human being and positioned learning about sex via the media as a normal developmental task. I challenge the notion that adolescent perspectives about pornography use are faulty due to their immaturity and misalignment with adult perceptions of harm. When adolescent perspectives do not align with adult concerns of harm that are embedded in dominant socio-cultural perspectives then they are typically reframed as distorted due to underestimating risks to themselves. As an alternative, I propose that these discrepancies in perception could equally be conceptualised as showing compassion for others, where such compassion is desirable for social connectedness and healthy sex. Overall, the current study provides new understandings about how adolescents interpret their experiences with pornography and highlights the limitations of the current theoretical proclivity for reducing pornography use to simplified models of risk. It is recommended that future research moves away from evaluating the accuracy of adolescent insights based on how well they align with risk-focused frameworks to recognizing adolescents’ ability to hold complex viewpoints about pornography that are grounded in prior knowledge and social values.