“The adult world often feels like teenagers take what they see at face value. It’s wrong “

2023-05-25 21:17:14

A study published, Thursday, May 25, by the Regulatory Authority for Audiovisual and Digital Communication (Arcom) came to put a spotlight on a phenomenon known to be in full expansion. According to the results of this survey conducted by Médiamétrie, 2.3 million minors consulted pornographic sites in 2022, a figure up 36% in five years. The Arcom, responsible by law for protecting minors from these imageshas noted “mass consultation of pornographic sites by minors”, which is done “essentially on smartphones, that is to say out of the parental eye”.

The results of this study carried out in France on 25,000 panelists highlight another element: the very young age of the minors in question. According to survey data, 51% of boys aged 12-13 watch porn sites monthly, and 21% of boys aged 10-11. Attendance is much lower for young girls.

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Diane Saint-Réquier has been a sexual health educator and trainer for ten years. In videos broadcast on social networks by France.tv Slash, she answers questions from Internet users about health, sexuality and identities. M^me Saint-Réquier also leads educational sessions on emotional and sexual life with middle and high school students in Ile-de-France. In an interview at Mondeshe returns to the need to combine sex education with media education.

The exposure of younger and younger teenagers to pornographic content online raises a number of concerns, both on the part of parents and authorities. Based on your experience in the field, would you say that this is a dangerous phenomenon?

“Alarming figures”, “worrying situation”… These are not terms that I would use on my own. Minors access pornography very easily and in a massive way, it is a reality. But first you have to understand what is happening around.

First of all, for boys, viewing pornographic content is a gendered expectation. That is to say, in the stages of building a young man’s sexuality, watching pornography and masturbating (the two are very much related) is something that is socially expected of him. . In the field, during the activities, the boys are the only ones to express themselves on the subject, to come out with references to the names of actresses or site names, to make jokes in their group of friends… There is a male connivance on the subject.

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