Teens getting sex education via pornography
With access to pornography just a mouse click away, experts warn that it is shaping antisocial behavior among teens. Relevant surveys in the US show that three quarters of teenagers have seen porn on the internet by the age of 17, with the average age of first viewing being 12.
This data is indicative of trends in Greece as well, with children and teens introduced to sex through online porn.
Experts note the link between aggressive sexual behavior and cases of gang rape, as children learn to speak in terms of violence and control. This no coincidence according to Giorgos Kormas, a doctor and head of the helpline of the Greek Safer Internet Center (210.600.7686, help-line.gr).
“We observe that children have aggressive sexual behavior,” he said. “Do you know that teenage girls come in and tell us that for their first sexual contact, boys ask them to have intercourse with two or three friends at the same time? Is it a coincidence that guys post videos on Youtube of group hookups on field trips? Or that we’ve seen elementary school kids drawing such scenes?”
Children are exposed to pornographic content from a very young age, even accidentally. Children aged 3-13 are also the target group of pedophiles and a way to reach them is to familiarize them with pornographic content, Kormas added.
For her part, Roza Laiou, a cognitive behavioral psychotherapist and a doctoral candidate in clinical psychology at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, notes that exposure to such content will cause “confusion, anxiety, fear, and even shock among children and preteens.”
Psychologist and family therapist Ioanna Georgopoulou noted the danger of distorted ideas about sex.
“In this developmental phase the changes for the teenager are rapid both physically and cognitively, and it is essential that they can acquire a healthy emotional background and internalize functional patterns of expression of sexuality,” she said.
