By Vigdis Saga Kjørholt and Anette Dina Sørensen
These are the main findings in an internet-based, quantitative study carried out among Danish, Norwegian and Fenno-Swedish youth in autumn 2005 (Sørensen & Kjørholt 2006). The study was carried out via a questionnaire posted on the homepages/communities of the public service channels NRK, DR and YLE, and comprised 1,776 respondents in the 12-20 age group. The study was not based on a representative selection, and thus, the results can not be generally applied to the population of adolescents in this age group.
The study investigated young people's experiences with pornography; the prevalent patterns of consumption, consumption context, and its motivation. Also, the adolescents' attitudes to porn were studied as well as the pornographic material's portrayal of gender power, the possible influence of pornography and the question of legal regulation and control of the genre. The results indicate that there are major gender differences in the adolescents' experience of and attitudes to porn, but that the differences between the three countries are marginal. The results of the study are compared in this article with the findings from a similar, contemporary study from Iceland, carried out by Dr. Gu∂bjørg Hildur Kolbeins (Kolbeins 2006). Both studies are part of the Nordic Council of Ministers' research project “Youth, Gender and Pornography in the Nordic Countries”, which was carried out under the direction of the Nordic Institute for Women's Studies and Gender research (NIKK).
Pornography in youth culture
In the past 10 years, porn has glided from a relatively closed universe into our everyday media and daily life. Porn is, to an increasing degree, a topic for TV documentaries and magazine articles. Advertising, fashion and the music trade use signs, symbols and aesthetic shapes which are not necessarily pornographic in themselves, but which refer to a pornographic universe. In consequence, it can be argued that pornography has attained a new mass cultural status (McNair 2002; Sørensen 2003). This change is caused by protracted cultural processes attached to the dismantling of conventional understandings of sexuality, and to the massive market forces behind the exploitation of human sexuality in the media.
However, the information and communication technological development is also a central motivational force. The development has caused a great reduction in the production costs of pornographic material, something which has led to both an increase in the number of products and lower prices. In the 1970ties, a pornographic celluloid film cost around $350,000 to produce. In comparison, a production from a company such as Evil Angel Video cost approximately $8,000 after the video camera became standard equipment for recordings in the 1990ties. According to the New York Times, 686 million porn films on video were rented out in the USA in 1998, which represented a ninefold increase in 10 years (ibid.). The development has led to increased accessibility of pornography while the Internet has simplified distribution significantly. The transaction is moved into the private sphere, where the consumer has access to porn at home via his personal computer, the access is geographically independent and unrestricted in terms of time. Moreover, the consumer's anonymity is guaranteed.
This mainstreaming of pornography has significance for children and adolescents because even if it is a general aspect of the mass culture, it is first and foremost appearing in media products aimed at adolescents. TV programmes, lifestyle magazines, music videos and advertisements with young people as the target group are playing with pornographic codes and scenarios (ibid.). Simultaneously, the porn industry promotes their products via youth cultural channels – for example, the former Norwegian Internet site www.hotnot.no, where dominating advertising banners invited young people to click onto hardcore pornographic Internet sites (Knudsen 2006). Thus, relations are forged between pornography and youth culture, which is somewhat a new development. The results of the investigation therefore provide a useful insight into how adolescents in the Nordic countries behave in relation to pornography at a time when one can assume that their approach to this phenomenon is undergoing change.
Use of porn
Pornography can be defined in many ways. As a consequence, there is a need to ascertain as a starting point the definition of pornography used by the respondents, in order to transfer the results of the investigation into new insights about adolescents and pornography. There is reasonable agreement between the participating young people about what can be identified as pornographic and what characterizes the pornographic genre. Almost everyone has stated that “pictures of naked people having sex, and where the sexual organs are visible” are pornographic, something which concurs with the findings in the Icelandic investigation. Many of the respondents also think that pictures of “naked people touching each other” or “touching themselves” can be defined as pornographic. There are no notable gender differences in how young people define pornography, except that the youngest boys have a tendency to include “softer” categories in their notion of pornography, for example pictures of “naked people” or “breasts”.
92 percent of the study's respondents state that they have seen porn at least once – 99 percent of the boys and 86 percent of the girls. The vast majority of the young people say that they had seen porn by the age of 12–14 – before they reached the sexual age of consent and at a time when few of them had made their sexual debut. The young people had seen a wide section of the porn genre, but it is the conventional hard core genres that stand out; sex between a man and a woman, sex between two women, group sex and oral/ anal sex. Conventional hard-core porn is also what the young people state as their main preferance. The primary media used for both gender's consumption of porn is TV, Internet and porn magazines. They mostly watch it in their own homes. The consumer frequency is in contrast gender-specific, as boys make up the major part of the high-frequency users, while girls are in the majority in the low frequency group. For both genders, however, the consumer frequency increases with age. This trend is well in accordance with the Icelandic study, both in terms of the exposure's media base, the young people's genre preferences and the gender differences in consumer frequency. In terms of the group which had seen pornography, however, the gender differences are somewhat less significant in the Icelandic study (96 percent of the boys and 88,7 percent of the girls).
Moreover, the study provides an interesting insight into how boys and girls are socialized in different ways into using porn. The youngest boys are more inclined to view porn in the company of other male friends, while the older boys more often watch porn by themselves. For girls, the opposite was the case. The younger they are, the greater the group who view porn on their own, while the older girls to a larger degree watch it together with others, either with female friends or a partner. Also, the motives for watching porn are divided along gender lines. The boys are in a much greater degree than girls ready to attach a sexual potential for desire to their use. Girls more often state motives such as “curiosity” or “for the fun of it” as reasons for why they watch porn. This tendency is also present in the Icelandic study.
Attitudes to pornography:
The respondents have relatively clear attitudes towards the representation of sexuality in pornography. Most think that pornography depicts that “sex can be practiced in many ways” and that “sex is enjoyable”, and only a few consider that the pornography depicts “sex the way it really is”. These findings are also reflected in the Icelandic study.
The adolescents are, however, more unsure when it comes to evaluating the portrayal of gender power expressed in the pornographic story. The most pronounced findings are from the questions regarding who, according to pornography, “is in charge of the sex life”, and for whom the pornography is best adapted. In the first question the answers are divided equally between the alternatives “men are in charge”, “both are” or “don't know” – but almost no one states that “women are in charge”. In the second question more than half state that porn is “made for men”, but almost no one thinks that it is “made for women”.
Young people are relatively critical of the actors who participate in pornography. Many consider both the male and female actors as “cheap” or “ludicrous”, and only very few see them as “stars”. The male models tend to be considered ludicrous and the female cheap, which also concurs with the Icelandic investigation. Among the respondent's positive assessments are the views that the female actors have “beautiful bodies” and “large breasts”, and that the male actors have “a large penis”. There are certain gender differences in this response, as girls are more critical than boys of both the actors and pornography's portrayal of sexuality and gender power.
The respondents' evaluation of pornog-raphy's possible influential power is also marked by distinct gender differences. About half of the young people think that porn can “improve your sex life”, and here the boys are in the clear majority. Approximately one third think that it could “damage your sex life”, and here the majority are girls. Many state that they get “sexually aroused” as a result of viewing porn. Many also report that “they are enticed to try what they have seen” – the boys are in a majority here. The girls are, however, in the majority on more negative assessments of porn's influence, for example that they “feel inadequate” about their bodies, get “performance anxiety”, “are provoked”, or that “it is a turn-off ”. This tendency must be viewed in light of the fact that, meanwhile, the girls are more inclined than the boys to assert that they are “not affected at all”. This interpretation of pornography's influential power is confirmed in the Icelandic material.
Access and control of pornography:
The question of young people's involuntarily exposure to pornography has been central in the Nordic debate in recent years. The background for this is the cited mainstreaming of pornography and pornographic references in media, but is also connected to technological development and access to new media.
The majority of the respondents in the study declare that they “rarely” or “never” have seen porn “without wanting to”. However, this response is not completely clear, as the context seems to be decisive in defining involuntary exposure. Many of the young people state that they have encountered pornography via spam-mail and pop-ups on the Internet, without describing this as involuntary exposure. Still, one out of five states that they “often” or “mostly” watch porn against their will, and the majority of these are girls. The numbers who considered them selves as having been exposed to pornography involuntarily were higher in the Icelandic study. This can be linked to the differences in design and analysis of the investigations, but it is still worth noting that the studies diverge on this point.
Nevertheless, when the respondents were given the opportunity to freely comment on the questionnaire, quite a few of them wrote about what they experience as untimely exposure: Porn magazines displayed in the news agent, a porn film which appears unexpectedly when one changes TV channels, etc. A large part of the comments dealt with the media's focus on sex, about the wish to shield children against pornographic material and, especially, about the right to choose when and where one wants to deal with pornography.
This is mirrored in the adolescents' attitudes to the accessibility of pornography. Most agree that pornographic material is “easily accessed”, regardless of both gender and country. In terms of the regulation of pornography, only a few say that it “should be banned”. Over half of the adolescents, however, say that it is “ok that porn exists, but it needs to be limited”. The Icelandic respondents also express this opinion. The broad based agreement is especially interesting in the Nordic perspective. The Nordic countries regulate pornography differently, and Norway and Iceland have a more restrictive policy in this area than the other countries. Even so, the young people view pornography as easily accessed regardless of what country they live in. They also agree that porn should not be banned, but needs regulating.
Further normalization of porn in the future?
Cultural and technological development mean that today's young people, to a higher degree than their parent's generation, are exposed to pornographic material and pornographic references, both through their access to the Internet and cable/sat-ellite TV and their use of mass cultural products (Kaiser Family Foundation Report 1999). Adolescents in this study start relating to pornography at a young age. They have personal experiences with porn, and they form opinions on what they see. Even if there are distinct gender differences in consumption and attitude, there are signs that girls are in the process of entering what was previously considered a male domain. Maybe this is a sign that young people behave differently towards this genre than earlier generations have done, that the definitions are changing or that existing taboos surrounding pornography are breaking down. If so, one can speculate whether the use of porn will be further normalized – or whether an aggressive pornographic presence could work as a catalyst for renewed criticism amongst the young.
Notes
The Kaiser Family Foundation's report (1999) Kids and Media in the New Millennium: A Comprehensive National Analysis of Children's Media Use. http://www.kff.org/entmedia/1535-index.cfm
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McNair, Brian (2002) Striptease Culture – Sex, media and the democratization of desire. Routledge.
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