University of Iceland pedagogy student Andrea Ólafsdóttir and anthropologist Hjálmar Sigmarsson interviewed teenagers in Iceland about their attitude towards pornography last summer, and their results were released recently.
Twenty-seven teenagers between ages 14 and 16 were interviewed in relation to the research.
“Many teenagers said porn was forced upon them, that it was virtually impossible to avoid porn on the internet,” Ólafsdóttir told Morgunbladid.
A 16-year-old male said one only had to Google “banana” or “Russia” to end up on a pornography website. “It is everywhere on the internet,” he said.
“You can’t walk around without seeing pornography in some form. Porn has a great impact on society. All advertisements have something to do with sex, porn or nudity,” said one 17-year-old female.
According to the research, all teenagers questioned believed pornography influenced the relationship between the sexes and the attitude of men towards women due to the role play that takes place in adult films.
Both males and females believed pornography had a widespread influence on society and that it influenced power relations and violence.
“The girls said pornography was humiliating, disgusting, unreal and ridiculous,” Ólafsdóttir said and added most boys agreed. One boy said women were treated like “stuffed animals” in adult films.
Many interviews revealed that it was expected of boys that they like pornography, that it was natural and “manly” for boys to watch adult films.
“Many said that if porn was their first introduction to sex it would give them false ideas about how sex and the relation between sexes is supposed to be,” Sigmarsson said.
“I believe there is clearly more need than ever for education. We have to secure that teenagers do not only get information [about sex] from one, very one-sided medium, which is full of stereotypes, contempt and violence,” Sigmarsson concluded.
