While more and more children and adolescents are consulting pornographic sites, Anne-Sixtine Pérardel, counselor in emotional and sexual life, discusses the dangers of this early exposure.
Under 18s spend an average of 49 minutes a month on porn sites and 83% of them use a mobile phone to do so. These are two of the edifying figures of the study of the Authority for the regulation of audiovisual and digital communication (Arcom) and Médiamétrie on the frequentation of sites for “adults” by minors, published Thursday, May 25.
Anne-Sixtine Pérardel is counselor in emotional and sexual life and co-founder of the Déclic association, which intervenes in schools and accompanies people, including children and adolescents, suffering from a porn addiction. She analyzes for franceinfo the dangers of increasingly early access to these images and provides advice to parents in order to protect their children from pornography.
Franceinfo: Do the figures published by Arcom and Mediamétrie reflect what you observe on the ground?
Anne-Sixtine Perardel : Yes. I’m glad there are finally statistics on the subject. No one can deny the reality. But even these figures do not fully reflect it: the study mentions, for example, that dFrom the age of 12, that is to say in general in sixth or fifth year, boys devote almost an hour a month to these sites. In my consultations and my school interventions, I note that access to pornography is rather from CM1-CM2. It is linked to the fact of having a smartphone, and therefore access to the internet, more and more early. [Près de 50% des moins de 10 ans en sont équipés, selon une étude de l’association d’e-Enfance]
Is the subject still taboo in families?
Certainly. People are skittish about the issue of sexuality, and parents tend to believe that it is not possible for their child to consume pornography, that it only happens to others. There is a form of denial of reality that causes this idea to be rejected on principle, while more than two boys watch pornography in college.
Can we talk about addiction to pornography among young people?
We cannot yet speak of addiction in the sense of international classifications, such as those of the World Health Organization, but we can speak of addiction when the consultation becomes daily. However, thePeople under 18 spend an average of 7 minutes a day [sur des sites pornographiques]according to the Arcom study. The specificity of pornography is that it exposes people to screens, violence and sexuality. It stimulates the release of dopamine, the pleasure hormone involved in the brain’s reward circuitry, and this promotes compulsive behavior.
How are adolescents particularly sensitive to this risk?
This is an age particularly prone to addictions. In an adolescent, nothing is ripe, everything is growing, the body like the psyche. There is therefore a particular vulnerability to this kind of content, because in an adolescent brain, the emotional part is the most active. The pornographic images are similar to a psychological rape and cause a stupefaction that is found in sexual violence. The young people will go back there to try to understand, to overcome the trauma of the first time. This is a real public health issue, because it becomes their sex education. However, it is during this period of development that they must be taught empathy and the management of emotions, undermined in pornography.
What advice do you have for parents to prevent their children from falling into the trap?
The first thing to do is install parental filters on all the screens in the house. For me, it’s about parental protection, not parental control. But this does not replace affective and sexual education: it is better to anticipate questions about sexuality at the age of puberty, when the body changes. If it is not explained, the teenager will seek answers on the internet.
This is a fundamental question, which cannot be left to school. And girls are more and more concerned: at 12, they are now 31% to consult pornographic sites each month. To approach the subject, we can use media, such as the “Vinz and Lou” videos for 7-12 year olds, or books on puberty.
How to ask your child if he has ever watched pornography, and how to react if this is the case?
Parents can approach the subject via the news, for example by talking about the Arcom study which has just been released, to ask the child if he has already been confronted with this kind of image, if he has friends watching. If so, keep in mind that their child is not “a little filthy”, but a victim of these images, because he will experience shame. This will put the guilt in the right place. The adult can even say: “I’m sorry you saw these images, I failed in my role, I didn’t know how to protect you.” This is important so that the child feels free enough to talk about it.