Transcript
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Hello and welcome to teenagers untangled the award winning audio hug for parents going through the teenage years. I'm Rachel Richards parenting coach a mother of two teens and two bonus daughters. Now usually I bring Susie in to discuss my research on the latest topic.
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But sometimes we need a subject expert when it gets a little bit tricky. We've already talked about pornography in Episode 13, in which I detail a lot of the research on what our teens might be accessing. But I'm still meeting parents who find it difficult to discuss it with their teens. So I brought in an expert on how we can do it. I hope you find her helpful. Today we have a very special guest.
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And that's Mandy Santos, who's the program coordinator for culture reframed. And what we're going to talk about today is how we can talk to our teenagers about pornography. And I know there are lots and lots of our listeners who find this really a difficult topic to try and deal with. So first of all, mounting what, you know, what is culture reframed?
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Oh, thank you so much for having me. Well, we're an international nonprofit. And we are dedicated to stopping the emotional, behavioral and sexual harms of pornography to children. And we do this by building resistance and resilience in young people to all of the hyper sexualized media and pornography that they see and that they're bombarded with, through providing education and support for parents as well as professionals so that we can promote healthy child and youth development.
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But what about the parents who might say to me, yes, but I'm pretty sure my child's not watching porn.
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Well, that's the Not My Kid myth. And we have to address this often. So when so many kids have unfiltered access to the internet seen porn is inevitable, and that I know that doesn't sit well with a lot of it. But but that's the truth.
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And extremely graphic online pornography is widely available, it's free. And it's accessible not only from smartphones, but also from countless electronic devices that children are interacting with daily. And we know that one in three kids are saying that they've seen this explicit, hardcore porn by the age of 12, which, in the US alone, it equates to roughly 25 million children. And we deal with parents and provide training for them. So we know that 50% of parents are thinking that they're 14 to 18 year olds and seen porn as in fact watched it. And depending on the types of acts that are depicted, parents are really under estimating what they're seeing what their kids are seeing, by as much as 10 times. So we know that they see it accidentally.
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So we often get asked like, Well, okay, well, then how do they see it? Like, I'm not showing them this in the house, or there's there's filters or blockers. But we know that studies show that kids often see porn, accidentally or unintentionally. And 50% of kiddos are reporting having seen porn before the age of 13. And depending on the studies, the average age of first exposure to pornography is about nine to 11 years of age, but anecdotally, we're finding kids as young as six or seven reporting exposure.
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This is really
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quite horrific.
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And I think back to my childhood, just to put it in context, and I'm very old, but this was not available. This was you know, if there was any porn, it was very soft, and it was on the top shelf in a magazine shop. And it would be very unusual to access even soft porn, you know, unless there were kids who had that in their house and their parents. So things really have shifted a lot. But for parents who might say, well, it's not, you know, it's inevitable, they're going to watch it, you know, there's nothing I can do. What would you be your response to that?
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Well, this may be true that it is inevitable. But the end the question really isn't if, if not, when, if not, when they will discover porn, so when they have, like you said, this unfiltered access, it's no longer going into these standalone shops or looking at a magazine. Like that's not the definition of pornography that we're looking at. Right. So when so many kids have that unfiltered access to this huge thing called the internet seeing porn is inevitable. And while it will continue to exist, we absolutely do have control over how we reframe our culture's messaging with kids. And that's that's what we do. And we know that young people need trusted adults to help them build this resilience and resistance to porn. So as a parent or a caregiver, you play the most current political role and offering your children alternative healthy messages about sex that are going to talk about respect, you know, Respect for self and others. So if you want them to come to you if they've seen porn, and with questions and concerns about sex, which we do we want, we want to be that trusted source, then we advise having conversations with them about what porn is, what are the effects, and parents can really talk to their children about how to recognize and respond to all of the harmful effects of pornography, like negative self image depression, anxiety, unhealthy relationships, and culture reframed, has built courses for parents free courses and programs for parents to help prepare them and talking with their young people.
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But what about the sorts of parents who might say yes, but if I start talking about this, work that then make them go and look for it, where they may not be looking for it?
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Right, right. And
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that's, that's an important question. And really, to fully understand that reality that that kids are living in, it has to be paired with this kind of second follow up question. Do you think that if you don't talk to your kids about porn, they won't see it? Right? So we reframe it. And again, talk about those studies that are that kids are coming to porn, accidentally or unintentionally.
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70% are reporting that first exposure as accidental. So someone at school or at a sleepover, or an older sibling, or cousin, or someone in the neighborhood may show your kid porn, or your child may stumble upon it by accident through social media platforms like Snapchat and Tiktok. So when when that unfiltered access is just being bombarded by kids, it's really inevitable. So not making them are talking to them about anything that could be healthy and changing that conversation. If we don't talk to kids about porn as parents, or as trusted adults, then we're leaving it up to the porn industry to have that conversation. And that is definitely something we don't want to do. But
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surely, you know, the sex education in schools, we keep hearing about the sorts of things they've been taught in schools. Isn't this being done in schools?
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Not really. So we in in the United States, we're finding that about half of American teenagers don't receive sex education that meets our national goals. And sex education standards vary by state here. So some states don't even require it in schools at all. But in the UK, a few years ago, in 2020, that introduction of mandatory sex ed has led to significant increases in the number of organizations that who are developing and delivering sex ed curriculum packages.
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However, concerns are being raised by UK parents and caregivers, professionals, legislators, and even grassroots organizations regarding this kind of positive or neutral approach to the subject of pornography that's put forward in a lot of these resources. So rather than taking a porn critical stance, and their sex ed and supporting young people's to really know and understand the implications for themselves and their relationships in society, people, young people are going to learn from the resources that are available to them. And that's pornography. So we've really, we've helped to address the the need and the lack of comprehensive developmentally appropriate sex education in schools, by consulting with specialists to develop a porn critical sex ed curriculum. So we have it now it's free. It's for those working with teens about 13 and up, but it's adaptable, downloadable lesson plans, PowerPoints, presentations, parents can take a look at it as well. But we're hoping that schools all across the world can adopt a porn critical sex education that really doesn't ignore the reality that most young people are exposed to pornography today. And we know that porn is shaping their attitudes and behaviors by the messages that that it sends. So we This curriculum is porn critical. It has an anti exploitation framework that kind of allows young people to contrast healthy relationships and accurate information from experts about the body and relationships and with the misinformation that's propagated by the porn industry. We also have training modules for facilitators and digital litter, digital media literacy sessions that are phenomenal as a way to start.
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So I'm curious how you funded.
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We are funded through grants and donations we are and like I said, an international nonprofit so we have a few major grants that that we contain annual that we get annually. But a lot of the work that we do is through donation. Okay.
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So what you're saying to me is that I'm getting it right that actually an awful lot of our education or the education that our kids are getting, is not porn critical, it's actually could possibly even be pro porn. And just to put it into context, I did actually do an episode on talking to your teenagers about pornography quite a few, maybe a year or so ago. And what horrified me was that Pornhub actually has admitted that the its viewers tend with porn hubs, like the YouTuber porn has admitted that his view as I've got quite bored of vanilla stuff, and so they're, they're getting more and more extreme.
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But because this is a free site, this is very likely to be the sort of place your young teenager would end up first. So what sorts of things you know, you're talking about being poor and critical? What sort of messages will our teenagers be getting? If they're accessing porn, without a filter without a sort of mental understanding of what it is? They're they're seeing?
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Right? That's a great question. Well, just to be pretty blunt about it. Porn teaches kids that that violence and degradation and humiliation are really central to relationships and intimacy and sex. And because that mainstream porn is just a click away, really with any device with an internet connection. It's just there to shape the culture in which we live in. So the in the industry influences, what we watch what we see what we consume. Porn tells stories and porn is often incorrectly thought to be images of people having sex. So not only is the majority of porn violent and degrading to women, it tells stories about what it means to be a real man. And I'm putting that in quotations. Or a real woman, a real man who lacks empathy and compassion and the capacity for intimacy, and a real woman who just exists to be used and abused. That is what porn is teaching our children.
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So regardless of gender, or orientation, pornography tells consumers a story about themselves and others. So the scripts are most often relying on these power imbalances, derogatory terms racism, sexism, and violent sexual behaviors. So anyone who consumes pornography is influenced to some degree by the messages it conveys. But we do have 40 years of of research of scholarly academic research that shows how porn is undermining all of those social, emotional, cognitive and physical health and well being of individuals. And it they the studies also demonstrate that that porn shapes how we think about these things like gender and sexuality and relationships, also intimacy and sexual violence and gender equality. So we we know the the host of problems that can be associated with pornography, such as increased anxiety, depression, the decreased capacity for intimacy, it's also linked to risky and violent sexual behaviors and sexual victimization. So that's why we really want to reshape that public conversation, so that we can put porn where, where it needs to be and view it as, as a youth public health issue of the digital age rather than some moral failing, or dirty secret or dirty problem of individuals or kiddos. So we're letting that research speak for itself, and exposing the industry for what it is. It's very
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interesting, because we've recently even had a Member of Parliament suggest on the floor that we should be providing education in schools for how to choke safely. Which, which I find extraordinary, because it's almost as if the politicians have stepped away from responsibility. And you know, there are no adults in the room when when it comes to
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this. Right. Right. and Russian roulette
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and kids are getting the idea that you also I mean, I've seen people talking about an uptick in the amount of kids who are trying choking or slapping or all sorts of strange things because they think that that's what you're supposed to do. Right.
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And it's it's so interesting to think about this that that the porn industry really is the only above ground multibillion dollar industry that robs young people of the right to create these healthy sexual, intimate and emotional lives because that's what we want for young people. But choking isn't a part of that healthy, healthy equation. So yeah, we've seen a failing among adults here, you know, and our founder and president And Dr.
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Gail Dines says that we need to adult up right, we need to jump on this adult up because with especially with our elected officials and those changemakers, those people that are that have the ability to shift the conversation or listen to the research, because without protective regulations in place, this industry is just going to thrive. And it has been. So we're looking at why are we not pursuing really bold age verification policies that just say, you know, you have to be 18. And we're going to verify that you are 18. And that's moving forward and in places.
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But we are really working to kind of drive that public and professional awareness about the harms, because this is a harms based industry. And that's how we have to treat it.
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So I'm a parent. And I, you know, I've been talking to a parent even this morning, who said, I've got a 15 year old, I've never talked about pornography with her, I wouldn't have a clue where to start. Okay, so So yes, of course, we can go to your database of courses, but what would be your first kind of bit of advice? What What should people have the how do people start this conversation? That's,
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that's a great question. And I'm a parent as well. And we all are at culture reframed, and we just, we understand how scary and overwhelming it can feel as a parent to know or even think that your child might see explicit pornography. The first thing we want to say is you're not alone. Unfortunately, there's droves and droves of parents out there, wondering whose fault this is. And really, we we want to say, let's not shame and blame kids or parents, right? It's not yours or your child's fault. But really put the blame and shame on the industry where where it needs to be and understand that as parents, we're really perfectly positioned to offer our kiddos these alternative healthy messages about sex that will instill respect in themselves and others. And we know that there's action that you can take to help your child become more resilient. So you like you mentioned the courses, those are kind of those best practice toolkits. But what those courses will provide, at the end of every module, there's a guided conversation script that literally scripts out, okay, this is this is how you can start this conversation. So it's never too early, never too late to start the conversation. 15 is not too late to start. I had a parent the other day that said, my kids turning 18 In two months, I think I missed the boat. And were like, no, no, we got this, like we can still start these conversations. So if you are starting early, we just say to scaffold that information, right and have continuous, open and honest conversations. So it starts with correctly naming body parts, right talking about consent at any age, what that looks like, and maybe the the legal terms of consent in your particular area.
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But But overall, what does consent look like? And our number one tip to start that conversation and keep it going ongoing, open and honest, really is just to encourage questions and and really encourage that kind of supportive and empathetic listening, and 101 minute conversations over that one 100 minute long lecture, right? Because we want to have those short, punchy conversations. And we're saying stay calm, don't panic, right?
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It's easy to do, especially if you're walking in and you see your child using watching pornography. And then we say a very key thing is to walk away, right? Walk out, take yourself out of that situation, because you have to compose yourself as parents. And we have to remember how you know how these talks were in our homes? Did we have a talk about sex and relationships and pornography? And how different Did it look during you know, with the landscape that kids are living? But when you come back in letting your child know, hey, this is really important. We need to have this conversation. I'm going to let you take a minute and decide when you have it. So you might say by Friday, we're going to we're going to have just a quick conversation. And sometimes it's best to do I know it is so scary because you know, but in practice, you know you can practice this but the key there is that open honest conversation and it's okay to say I'm very nervous about having this conversation. This is super uncomfortable to me. Like either I didn't have that, you know, my parents didn't give me this conversation or I wasn't you know, this wasn't around when I was your age. And so I'm really trying you know, like but my number one goal is to keep you safe and a part of keeping you safe as having these conversations. sense, right? So you can also use media and social media and gaming, like if they if your kiddos into gaming, you might ask questions about what do you do when you're on Tik Tok? What makes you you know, what excites you? What, what makes you sad about it, having those conversations, and then setting up those scenario questions, you know, kind of the what would you do if you know, what would you do if you were in this situation and then talking through it, a lot of a lot of parents report back to us saying, I heard this lady speak today. And she was saying that kids are seeing porn super young, you know, and maybe even starting out with a couple of things that they've heard, you know, from our presentations or our talks, or I was on this website. And what do you think, you know, so really engaging, because research shows that kids do want to have these conversations, and as uncomfortable as they are, no one is speaking to them. Unless it's the porn industry. So if they're not getting sex, educate comprehensive foreign critical sex ed in school, they're not having conversations with parents and caregivers, they're left to their own devices, right? They're left to literally their own devices, right? When they when they go, and they look at their phones, and they search out how to strangle your partner safely how to how to choke safely, you know, so these are conversations that, as parents, we might not have, have been able to, you know, to grasp and to really understand. And a lot of times we get, well, how do I, you know, I can't look at my kids phone, or I don't want to invade their privacy. And what we would say to that is, this is not about trust, this is about safety, right. And if
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you recommend that parents should be looking at their kids phones, I
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think their parents should know who their their kids are talking to, I think they should know what apps that they're looking, I think they should have the ability to do that. And if they put it in the framework of this is my job as a parent to keep you safe. This is my responsibility. This is not about trust, you know, I I can trust you to the moon and back.
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However, this, you know, there's ways to talk about algorithms and what algorithms do and once kids realize that they're being told, you know, pulled in and manipulated, like teenagers don't want to be manipulated.
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And as soon as they find that out, they start to oh, I don't you know, like, that's not what I want to do. But having those conversations about, your kid wants a headset to play his games or her games. And they keep asking and asking and asking, Well, how about some guidelines? You know, well, I need to know who you're talking to, and what chat rooms you're in. And if you're on Discord, what servers do you belong to?
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And sometimes that's sitting down and saying, Can I watch you play this game? You know, if this is the game you want, and it has this age rating, and you're three years younger than that, but all your friends are doing it? Well teach me somebody what you like about it. Tell me who's on here, who is that talking in the background. And you know, it's really important to watch out for those, those kind of warning signs being present for if kids are withdrawing from family and peers and activities that they once liked. If they're closing their device, or sticking their their cell phone under their leg, as soon as you walk into the room. This, this is a sign not only that, they might be looking at something like porn, but maybe inappropriate, something secretive, that they don't want you to necessarily know about, it's important that we ask those questions. Who are you talking to? And, oh, where are they from? And have you FaceTime with them? Or, you know, Have you have you been able to see them, not in real life, but exceed them as a person instead of just behind a screen. So I do believe that it's really important for parents to take a very active role. And in knowing that, you know, if you're providing the technology device, then setting boundaries with that device is a part of your responsibility.
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And I have seen some parents, not particularly any of my listeners, but I have seen some parents who are in despair because their kids have got hooked on porn, without them really understanding it. And then when they try and remove the devices or control the situation, it becomes a really big battle. What can we do to help parents like that?
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Well, sometimes we we would say let's kind of let's kind of educate ourselves first let's let's know know what we can know with what's out there and there's a lot of fee based ways and there's a lot of information that if you're if you're Googling you know all of these things the industry owns a lot so sometimes you're gonna get misdirected and down a rabbit hole of not so porn critical information. So we of course would suggest starting Have an organization like ours, where we really curate that information for you, and really provide it to you in very easily digestible doses. So the more educated parents and caregivers are in understanding what the harms are. So taking a harms based perspective, this is harmful because it affects your brain, it affects your ability, that kind of connection, right?
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All of these things, and really understanding sometimes the science behind you know, how pornography affects all of these different parts. And then understanding that the simplest things like conversation actually has the biggest return of investment for you, right, having those conversations and saying, Okay, maybe I'm not gonna punish, I'm not gonna shut down, we're just gonna, we're gonna need to talk this out. And sometimes, the therapy, you know, a therapist, a trained psychologist, or someone is going to be better equipped to help guide you through that with with your kiddo to understand addiction and addictive behaviors there. There's research on that. We are not neuroscientists, so we're not, you know, talking a lot about that, that research, but there is, you know, and we've looked at that. So those trained professionals that are, that are trained in porn critical, could really assist with parents in that way. But understanding that you're not on an island by yourself, there's a lot of parents that need this support.
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And there's organizations like ours that really want to hold your hand to get you through this, because it's unlike any generation that we've ever seen.
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And it's and the tech is increasing. And as the tech advances, so do other other in, you know, the in just the porn industry. So they're going to take advantage of any any tech changes that we have. So we have to be aware of it, we have to know what's going on. But we don't expect you to be pornography experts, right? You can, you can leave that to us.
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But we can, we can definitely provide fact sheets and easy conversation starters. To even kind of go along with the conversation and say, This is what your kid might say. So this is how you would interact with them. So that's how our conversation starters look so so even with I think we embedded the eyeroll into the conversations are like, Oh my gosh, I cannot talk to you about this right now. We've embedded that to be able to have a parent, take a deep breath, walk away and say this is really important. It's like we wouldn't talk about I mean, we would be it would be really easy to talk about putting your seatbelt on, right and eating your vegetables and fruits and all the things that keep our kids healthy. We just have to normalize these uncomfortable conversations.
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Yes, I on that note, I think that's absolutely sums it up. It's exactly the sorts of things we talk about all the time, we talk about making sure that they don't feel judged to making sure that they feel that they can talk to you about anything, no matter how uncomfortable we feel. Because our kids will come to us with things that make us just want to curl up and die. And if we need to take a minute, I love that advice that we can actually step away. You know, give yourself a little bit of time and even maybe say should we arrange a time to talk about this, but we do need to talk about it. When the key thing is making the feel like it's okay to have a conversation about it. Because I did read years ago when my bonus daughters were quite were teenagers, I'd started reading books then. And I read this fascinating piece where this woman had said, a girl girl had come to her mother and shown her an email that she'd received that had some sort of pornographic content. And she'd asked her mother about it, and her mother had got really angry, and all that was made and say, Who sent this to you? And all that did make the girl think, Okay, I can't talk to my mother about these things. Whether it's someone, whether you have a teenager who has received material, and you are furious about it, because we're hoping to keep them safe. Any of that.
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At the end of the day, we've got to give them the space to be able to talk about these things.
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Yeah,
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absolutely. I think I've as parents and I know this I have a tween and teen right now it's very, very difficult time in my household. But it is it's so important to be that space and to be that that safe and knowledgeable space, but also kind of in a non punitive way. Like I know that our knee jerk reaction is to say, give me your phone, give me your tablet, I'm shutting off the internet, you're not going out of the house. That's that's not going to work. You know, even if even if you do take away their phone, they're gonna have access through their Chromebooks at school or their friends phones or you know, you're you're not going to be able to put that bubble around them like we want to as parents. So in order to like use that in order to keep them the safest possible. We got to be educated. We got to provide that space for all ongoing conversations and we need to check back in, you know, one is not enough, we can't have this one and done conversation where we're like, oh, that was great. You know, I feel good. I said it. Never gonna have to do that again. Thank you, you know, and then we walk away. And two years later, there's all new tag, there's all new things that are happening. So that this kind of regular check in, you know, and that check in could just be, you know, cardi B's new song.
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And did you hear that? And the lyrics? Or what does that mean?
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I heard my 11 year old just sing and sing and singing away and I stopped for a second, we were driving, I turned it down. And I said, Do you know what that means? And of course, he was like, No, and so that, you know, that was a way to start this conversation like, well, when they say this in a song, this is what that means. And of course, the space was super contorted, super red, and was like, Oh, my gosh, I can't listen to that song anymore. You know, but you know, it's one of it's one of those things, or seen billboards or commercials or watching a game at halftime shows, or, you know, whatever it is to get that conversation moving, because they are being bombarded by that, you know, and I had a friend of mine say, I just wanted to know what Tik Tok was all about. So we sat together, and we looked at videos, and we talked about how you kind of create this feed where the algorithms are going to target you for positive things, you know, because the minute you start down this rabbit hole, this is what they, you know, this is what you would get so, and it's really interesting to your kids want to teach you, you know, let them teach you let them be the expert, sit back and say, Tell me everything you know about discord, and what are the good things and why do kids like it, but what could be some of the dangers of this particular app and this platform and you know, they will, they will school you all day long because they are so used to being lectured to, that it's kind of good to to, you know, show an interest in what they're doing and let them be the expert because they really are. I
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love that. I love that. Yeah. Wonderful, wonderful advice there. Thank you so much, Mandy, I really appreciate you joining us and hopefully, hopefully, if any of our listeners want more information, where can they find you?
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They can go to culture reframed all one word.org. So it's a super easy culture reframed and find all of the free resources, the white, we have white papers, academic library and those courses that I talked about. For those that are interested in the porn critical sex education. We just released it within the last month it is free, so you can find that on the website as well. Amazing,
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and we'll have a link to all your profile details on our website. Thanks very much. Great. Thank you so much, Rachel. That was Dr. Mandy Sanchez, mother and coordinator for culture reframed. If you found this helpful. Don't forget to follow the podcast so you don't miss our updates. And please share it with other parents and educators. You know, if you have any questions or comments, then you can get in touch at teenagers untangled@gmail.com where you can find all guest details on our website www.teenagersuntangled.com And also sign up to emails where I'll send you the latest. That's it. We'll be back next Wednesday, wishing you a great week and thanks for listening
