According to a range of international studies, more kids—and at ever younger ages—are accessing pornography online. How does this affect the sexual outlook of children? On November 17, in Winnipeg, a children's advocacy group called Beyond Borders hosted a symposium to address this topic entitled "Generation XXX, the pornification of our children."
"The porn industry is the country's main sex educator of our boys and girls," said Cordelia Anderson,the founding president of the U.S. National Coalition to Prevent Child Sexual Abuse and Exploitation, referring to the situation in the U.S. "Young people have never had this ease of access to this type of material at this young of age," she told CBC Radio.
Meanwhile, the Ottawa-based MediaSmarts published the results of a survey that found 23 percent of students in grades 7 to 11 say they have searched out pornography online. Twenty-eight percent of the boys said they looked for porn at least once a week. In contrast, just eight percent of students surveyed said they had searched online for information about sexuality.
Opinions on pornography aside, this research raises interesting questions about how existing sexuality education programs may be failing young students.
You can read more about both the symposium and this research at the CBC website.
