Expert calls for porn education in schools

Melbourne, Feb 22 (ANI): A university sex education expert has called for pornography education to be taught in schools, after a study found most kids have viewed explicit content online by the age of 11.

Unfortunately exposure to pornography was part of "the reality of social life" for most children in 2012. So, it was vital students were given the skills to understand and critique what they were viewing online, said Deakin University sex education expert Debbie Ollis.

Ollis told the Geelong Advertiser that she had developed curriculum content and teaching resources for use in schools to help students understand what was wrong with pornography.

"Somehow, we've got to prepare them to be able to deconstruct and understand what they're seeing and to realise that most of those images aren't the reality of life," News.com.au quoted her as saying.

"The internet is being used as a sex education tool without the expertise of an educator or more appropriate content to teach kids about intimacy, about desire, about safety, all those sort of issues," she stated.

A recent research revealed that 92 per cent of boys and 61 per cent of girls aged between 13 and 16 have been exposed to pornography online.

For 84 per cent of boys and 60 per cent of girls that exposure was accidental; the result of web pop-ups, a misspelled word in a search engine or even innocent searches for information about games and animals.

Leading pornography researcher Marree Crabbe said porn films gave "really unhealthy messages" about how women should be treated and what they enjoyed as part of sex.

Research from 2010 into the content of best-selling porn films showed 88 per cent of scenes included physical aggression and 48 per cent of scenes included verbal aggression, Crabbe added. (ANI)

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