Boston Program Aims to Teach Teens Critical Thinking About Porn

At least 16 states have now jumped on the bandwagon to call online porn a “public health crisis," with Ohio being the latest to consider an anti-porn “health” resolution. But in Massachusetts, educators are taking a different approach, with a new program that aims to help teenagers interpret the social meaning of what they see in porn. “Pornography, sexually explicit media, is widely available on the internet and elsewhere,” notes Dr. Emily Rothman, co-founder of the new “porn literacy”program. “I think it makes sense to equip [teens] with critical thinking skills so that when and if they do see it, they have a better appreciation for what they're seeing.” Because the average age when young people are first exposed to porn is now just over 13 years old, Rothman said “trying to put pornography totally out of their reach as the only strategy” will be less effective than “giving them the skills that they need to unpack it when they do see it."  The program comes under the auspices of the Boston Public Health Commission, which stresses on its site that that the course does not involve actually screening porn for kids. “All of our work is based on current research literature,” the BPHC site says. “We NEVER show porn. We simply continue and build upon existing conversations to promote communication, consent, and critical thinking.”  The course also emphasizes that it takes neither a “pro-porn,” not “anti-porn” position. Instead, the program simply acknowledges that young people are now exposed to porn as an inevitable aspect of adolescence, and that “teaching them to analyze its messages” is a better approach than “simply wishing our children could live in a porn-free world.” Rothman told CBS News that the idea for the porn literacy program came from her work in Start Strong, another Boston afterschool program aimed at educating teens in leadership qualities and social interaction. But when the discussion inevitably turned to issues of sexual relations, such as consent, respect, dating violence and healthy breakups, the teen students seemed to simply get bored.  When she mentioned research she had done on porn, however, suddenly the room “lit up.” CNN recently interviewed a group of students involved in the porn literacy program, with at least one student saying that after taking the course, she believes that “porn literacy” should now be “mandatory” in high schools curriculums. Photo By joswr1ght / Wikimedia Commons