Reading for Realness: Porn Literacies, Digital Media, and Young People

Abstract

This paper adds to recent discussions of young people’s porn literacy and argues that researchers must address porn users’ engagements with, and understandings of, different porn genres and practices. As part of a larger interdisciplinary project which consisted of a series of systematic reviews of literature on the relationship between pornography use and healthy sexual development, we reviewed articles addressing the relationship between pornography use and literacy. We found few articles that present empirical data to discuss porn literacies, and those we found commonly frame young people’s porn literacy as their ability to critically read porn as negative and comprising ‘unrealistic’ portrayals of sex. This model of porn literacy tends to be heteronormative, where only conservative ideals of ‘good’, coupled, and vanilla sex are deemed ‘realistic’. Data from the literature we reviewed shows that young people make sophisticated distinctions between different kinds of pornography, some of which could be called ‘realistic’, as per do-it-yourself and amateur porn. We extend this discussion to young people’s understandings of ‘authenticity’ across their broader digital and social media practices. From this focus, we propose the need to incorporate young people’s existing porn literacies into future education and research approaches. This includes engaging with their understandings and experiences of porn genres, digital media practice, and representations of authenticity.

Performing smart sexual selves: A sexual scripting analysis of youth talk about internet pornography

“…The findings from this scholarship contradict the commonly held view of young people as hapless and helpless victims of IP who will inevitably develop unrealistic expectations of partners or engage in harmful behaviour (e.g. Attwood et al, 2021;Byron et al, 2020;Mulholland, 2015;Spišák, 2020).…”

“…For example, strategies that adopt a critical framework of ethical sexual citizenshipa justice-orientated approach to sexuality educationrather than top-down didactic 'porn literacy' interventions, might prove more relevant and meaningful to youth (See Healy-Cullen and Morison, in press, for a critique of porn literacy programmes, and also Byron et al, 2020;Carmody and Ovenden, 2013;Macleod and Vincent, 2014). As our findings suggest, some young people may perform a sexual self that is different from what most adults imagine when they worry about young people's IP viewing.…”

Using Q-Methodology to Explore Stakeholder Views about Porn Literacy Education

“…For others, porn literacy education is seen as a harm-reduction technique which aims to teach youth about the potential dangers of pornography (Rothman et al, 2018). These diverging views correspond with emerging scholarly approaches to porn literacy education based on underlying understandings of youth, particularly youth a/sexuality (Albury, 2018;Byron et al, 2020;Goldstein, 2020).…”

Some Considerations about Pornography Watching in Early Adolescence

“…Pornographic movies online are not constructed as informative materials, rather as a form of adult entertainment. Most of this material is intended to arouse the watcher as much as possible, in a short period of time, following unrealistic scripts, by showing unrealistic bodies and sexual behaviors [ 14 ]. It would be like watching a movie from the “Fast and Furious” series with the aim of learning to drive.…”