Studies on the effects of porn on children?

[Rakomu]

The topic has recently resurged on the BBC with some groups proposing measures to force ISPs to ban all pornographic content.

I have tried running a Google search to find out whether any studies have been done on the effects of pornography on children, but I'm met with an unrelenting torrent of religious spiel and very little scientific fact.

I would like to know if there are any scientific papers around that talk about the effects that pornography has on children.

 

[Anachronous Rex]

The topic has recently resurged on the BBC with some groups proposing measures to force ISPs to ban all pornographic content.

I have tried running a Google search to find out whether any studies have been done on the effects of pornography on children, but I'm met with an unrelenting torrent of religious spiel and very little scientific fact.

I would like to know if there are any scientific papers around that talk about the effects that pornography has on children.

I suspect that it would be hard to get approval for that research. Ethics boards tend not to take kindly to this sort of thing.

 

[Balstrome]

What would the experiment be? Or what question would be asked?

As a non scientist, I would think that you would have to be able to determine the type of harm, and then show that this harm actually occurs after the porn is brought into play. Some of things that would have to be noted is the preparation of the children to understand what they are watching.

"Why is Uncle Peter always around Uncle Bob?" asks young Jimmy
"it's because Uncle Peter and Uncle Bob love each other" answer Jimmy's father.
"Oh like you and Mom" replies Jimmy "Can I have a cookie?"

ends with the thought "Scarred for life..."

--
When do children start to understand about this stuff? How and why do they gain this understanding?

 

[Master_Ghost_Knight]

I have seen porn when I was underaged. It didn't affected me. NHARGGGGGG!!!!! BOOBS!!!! BRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Anachronous Rex]

What would the experiment be? Or what question would be asked?

As a non scientist, I would think that you would have to be able to determine the type of harm, and then show that this harm actually occurs after the porn is brought into play. Some of things that would have to be noted is the preparation of the children to understand what they are watching.

"Why is Uncle Peter always around Uncle Bob?" asks young Jimmy
"it's because Uncle Peter and Uncle Bob love each other" answer Jimmy's father.
"Oh like you and Mom" replies Jimmy "Can I have a cookie?"

ends with the thought "Scarred for life..."

--
When do children start to understand about this stuff? How and why do they gain this understanding?

I suppose I should clarify that the reason it would be hard to get ethics approval on this is not so much that the study involves porn (lots of studies do), but that it seeks to determine effects on children.

Its just hard to get approval for that kind of research, because it involves (potentially) damaging a child's psyche.

So you'd have to do a survey, you couldn't run an experiment. Or at least I don't see how you could. And a survey on this subject would be really hard to conduct, I'm not sure how much reliable data you could reasonably hope to extract.


EDIT: I have heard it said, and I'm not sure if it is true, that (in particular) male children tend to fetishize based on early sexual exposure. For some reason fetishes are more common in males than in females, and also tend to be more concrete: establishing themselves before adulthood and usually persisting over their entire life.

So I guess what I'm saying is don't let your children go on 4chan.

 

[Rakomu]

So I guess what I'm saying is don't let your children go on 4chan.

Classic. Haha. :lol:

Ah, so I guess pretty much all the stuff the antiporn groups put out is just wild speculation. I thought as much. I don't really see porn making kids gay or causing them to go on murder sprees.

 

[ImprobableJoe]

... I'd also suggest that the general family environment of a child must be sort of slipshod if they are exposed to tons of porn at a very early age.