Sometimes it really does come down to reading a little deeper into the research…
This week, Giselle Woodley and Lelia Green of Edith Cowan University, found some interesting facts while researching the Australian Research Council (ARC) Discovery Project, for "Adolescents' perceptions of harm from accessing online sexual content." As part of their findings the pair came to question “the negative framing of the inquiry risks revisiting old arguments, rather than advancing the debate and policies.”
The ‘inquiry’ Woodley and Green are referring to is the one presently being considered by their country’s Parliament over “the impacts of harmful online content on young people, and its role in normalizing unacceptable behaviour.” The country’s New South Wales became the first state to hold an inquiry of this type.
But Woodley and Green have something to say to anti-porn activists.
The question is, will anybody listen?
Negative framing and old arguments
Woodley and Green found that the Parliamentary report, seeming to focus on teens, saw very few teens actually interviewed. They did interview this population though and came to find that teens were as much aware of the risks as well as the benefits of disseminating porn across modern portals. And counter to what has been reported, teens seem to hold a more nuanced view of both sexting and porn, with the group generally viewing both more positively than negatively.
In the end, Woodley and Green want their country’s policymakers to “listen to teens, giving more importance to their firsthand experiences over secondhand statements.” And the ARC projects warns against what was once thought about these issues as opposed to what is presently the view many people hold or have evolved to.
Access
No one will rightly debate New South Wales Attorney General Michael Daley when he stated "A generation of young men are growing up with unprecedented access to the online world, and this includes early and easy access to pornography, with harmful depictions of the treatment of women.” Surely, unrealistic assumptions about sex can foster misinformation as well as sexually inexperienced viewers to take unrealistic or harmful cues from the pornography they watch. And everybody, from Woodley and Green to the honorable Michael Daley would want everyone duly protected, be they teens or adults, from harm.
But there is concern about what we restrict citizens from, be they Australians or anyone else, when attempting to enjoy and research their sexual desires, and accessing needed information about same. And maybe teens today, as they all might have always been, are just much smarter than many usually give them credit for.
