"We just need to equip people with knowledge and with access to information and support services, so that they can figure out how to be embracing their sexuality in a way that works with them, and having pleasurable, happy, consensual relationship," Dr Ashton says.01.
"You can't say you're pro-Me Too, and you're pro women's consent, and then still go and masturbate to material that fundamentally subordinates women." More open talk about sex could helpīoth Dr Tyler and Dr Ashton believe more open conversations and better sexual education is needed so young people don't feel they have to turn to porn to learn how to have and enjoy sex. "In a post-Me Too era, if we're really talking about sharing equal sexual relations between men and women, I cannot see the pornography industry is part of that. "It's not food, it's not water, it's not air, it's not exercise. "Why is desperation for there to be an ethical porn, rather than the question of what would sexuality look like without pornography now?" she says. She says porn has been so normalised in our society that some people find it more embarrassing to say they don't use it than admitting to accessing it, and the demand for "ethical" porn is part of that normalisation. But when active consent is done right, it can help us get out of our heads and into the game - and that means better sex. Many of us are still getting consent wrong. This skews the content so that even when it's ostensibly lesbian sex being shown, it's being shown for a male viewer. "It may not be something that people are aware that the content that you're actually consuming when you masturbate, and when you're experiencing sexual pleasure, that's actually pairing with a reward in your brain that will reinforce what you're aroused to, and the sort of things that you associate with your sexuality, it actually has quite a profound impact," she says.ĭr Tyler says while there is a lot of variation in porn, with producers catering to all sorts of kinks and subgenres, the vast majority is made with a straight male audience in mind. And Dr Ashton says some people "turn off" their ethics and moral thoughts when they're engaged with porn. It's not easy to verify how the porn you're watching was made, especially if you're not paying anyone for it. We're told mixed messages about how Gen Z compares to other generations when it comes to getting it on, but is it really anyone's business? Read more "It kind of normalised body diversity, it's normalised different types of sexual acts, and sexual behaviour," she says.Īnd she says some women told her they did learn about positions and got ideas of things to try in their own sex lives they might not have otherwise been exposed to. But according to Dr Ashton, the founder and director of Sexual Health and Intimacy Psychological Services, young women are increasingly watching porn, either searching for it themselves online or being shown it by friends and boyfriends.Īnd a lot of young women are watching porn to find out information about sex that they can't get any other way because talking about it is so taboo.īut with concerns that porn is becoming increasingly violent and debates about whether it's addictive or not, is there a problem if women are getting off to pornography now and then? What porn is doing for the women who watch itĭr Ashton says for some women she's spoken to in her research, porn was useful, helping them feel better about their own bodies and helping them explore their own sexuality more. The conversations around porn usage usually focus on men. "Adolescents are really wanting to seek out some information about: What's normal? What should I do? How does this work?" says Sarah Ashton, associate researcher at Monash University. If you're under 35, it's almost certain you've watched porn at least once, with surveys such as triple j's annual check-in with young people finding 93 per cent of men and 58 per cent of women do.
Maybe you talked about it with friends and got tips and tricks from them. Maybe you worked it out bit by bit with a partner. Not the biology of sex, or learning to put a condom over a banana, but how to actually do it.