The consumption of pornography and sexuality during adolescence : between exploratory behaviour and risks of deviant behaviour

Pornographic consumption or exposure to sexually explicit media (SEM) during
adolescence raises many questions, in particular concerning its incidence on
the level of a teenager's psychosexual development and sexual behaviour.
Adolescence is a stage of identity formation, characterized by the adoption
of risk taking and exploratory behaviours, of which the consumption of
pornography is part. Whereas some studies noticed an impact of the
exposure to sexually explicit media on the level of the subject's
psychosexual development, attitudes towards sexuality and sexual behaviour,
other studies do not highlight any significant links between the voluntary
or involuntary exposure to pornography and risk taking sexual behaviours.
Two researches will be presented to deal with this question. The first
study, relating to a sample of 319 teenagers aged between 15 to 18 (52%
boys), shows that 85% of the subjects have already seen pornographic
material, the average age a child first views pornography being between 10
and 14. Our results indicate that the forms of exposure to SEM as well as
the representations of pornography and the impact of pornographic material
on their sexuality are different depending on the subject's gender.
Our second study, relating to a sample of 47 juvenile sexual offenders, will
make it possible to consider the forms of consumption of these young people
and the possible links between their sexual offence and the consumption of
pornography.