Pornography use and emerging of sexual behaviors in young adolescence
Davide Pirrone (Utrecht University)
This research longitudinally explored adolescent pornography (porn) consumption in relation to sexual development across early and middle adolescence. In a four-wave design with half-year intervals, 630 respondents (47.9% female, mean age 13.7 years at T1) answered questions about pornography consumption and different (sexual) activities such as masturbation, French kissing, petting, giving/receiving manual and oral sex, and intercourse. First, the results of a latent growth mixture analysis of porn consumption itself identified, both for boys and girls, two groups with relatively low porn (LP; 51.8% of the boys, 91.4% of the girls) versus high porn (HP; 48.2% of the boys; 8.6% of the girls) consumption across time. Results from a discrete time survival mixture analysis of sexual developmental patterning revealed that, compared to their LP peers, both girls and boys in the HP groups showed accelerated development of masturbation, petting and receiving manual sex. Girls in the HP group were also more inclined to receive oral sex, whereas boys in the HP group also showed earlier and elevated levels of performing manual sex and intercourse. Thus, whereas the HP group is substantially larger among boys compared to girls, for both genders pornography consumption is related to accelerated development of sexual activities across early and middle adolescence. The discussion revolves around the interpretation of these relations: pornography as a driving force in adolescent sexual development vs. pornography as a medium of choice for sexually advanced adolescents.
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