Boys, porn and the alarming way they talk about girls - a special investigation
The nine teenage boys aged 13 to 15 sat joking and laughing in their south London classroom, their joshing belying a nervousness, trying to gauge how honest they should be.
The question from the workshop moderator came up: how young were you when you first accessed pornography? The room went quiet. “I saw it in primary school, I saw people having sex, I didn’t really know what was going on,” said one boy. “I was six,” braved a second, his voice yet to break. “My friends tricked me into it,” said a third. The revelations kept coming. “I was 10.” “I was nine.” “I was 12.”
Their vulnerability was poignant, but when asked how porn might affect how they relate to girls, they fidgeted, shrugged and fell silent again. The discussion moved onto what appeared to be more comfortable territory — rating girls in their school. “Most of us do it,” said one boy.
