Porn, unsurprisingly widely watched

It’s hard not to be sarcastic when these surveys come out – they’re often of the surprise! people watch porn variety. Or maybe, to be fair, that’s just they way they’re often presented. Anyway, this one by the UK’s BBFC which “combined a statistically representative survey of secondary school-age children with in-depth interviews and focus groups with parents” has some interesting results:

While 75% of parents did not believe their children would have watched pornography, the majority of these parents’ children told the researchers that they had viewed adult material.

The report also found that while parents thought that their sons would watch pornography for sexual pleasure, many erroneously believed that their daughters would primarily see pornography by accident. It said: “This is contrary to the qualitative research findings showing that many girls were also using pornography for sexual pleasure.”

The researchers also said that one side-effect of early exposure to online pornography is that gay, lesbian or bisexual respondents often understood their sexuality at a younger age. They said: “It was common for these respondents to start by watching heterosexual pornography, only to realise that they did not find this sexually gratifying and then gradually move to homosexual pornography.”

It seems that the old view of what porn is for, and who watches it and why is becoming a cliche.