By Zoe Madden-Smith

Content warning: This article mentions rape. 

With a lack of sex education in schools, young people are turning to porn to get clued up. So Dr Jane Cherrington bravely spent years of her life watching and researching porn to try and figure out what exactly is out there and how the heck we can start talking about it. 

Cherrington first got the idea to research porn after finding Japanese anime porn showing creatures in bondage using a candle “in interesting places” on her son's phone.

She quickly realised she was well out of her depth with how to even begin the conversation. So she ended up spending 18 months surfing porn sites to see what else was out there.

“I found everything from the truly horrific, through to gorgeous, sexy, and fabulous.

“Some of it was just horrible, brutal, nasty and mean. There were weeks where I would have to stop and go, I can't do any more this week, I just felt ill,” she says.

Dr Jane Cherrington says people need to talk openly about porn so that young people aren’t left on their own to navigate it. Photo: Supplied

Cherrington is an academic researcher and author based in Auckland who has been researching porn for the last decade as part of her post-doctoral work. 

She didn’t want all of this research to stay in the academic world and only be read by a few, so her research has now been turned into a book about how parents and kids can talk about porn together. 

“One of the things we know from research is young people do want to have these conversations, but they don't feel able to start them with their parents. But also their parents never got any decent information on sex so they don't feel able to start them either,” she says. 

“We can't rely on schools and so that puts the emphasis back on parents and the community to figure out how to talk about it.”

Re: News journalist Zoe Madden-Smith spoke with Cherrington about what she learnt over her 10 years of researching porn. 

What’s the most interesting thing you noticed after surfing porn for 18 months?

I watched so much stuff over that time and what I started to notice about myself was the sexualisation of things I hadn’t necessarily thought of. For example, suddenly school uniforms and short skirts became quite a sexual symbol for me.

I could see how porn was definitely impacting what was part of my sexual lexicon. And so it really made me understand how much this content influences what we then fetishise.

Why is it concerning that young people are using porn for sex education?

There's nothing wrong with porn per se but we need to acknowledge how massively it is shaping and influencing how we do sex. Young people who are trying to emulate what they see in porn can suffer physical consequences, like choking or anal sex without preparation.

We need more teaching about how porn isn’t real sex and is a fantasy because there’s no signposts telling young people this is the case. 

For example, there is a lot of porn around somebody sneaking into a bed and starting to have sex with someone while they are asleep. Some people may have this fantasy but that doesn’t mean they want it to happen to them. It’s just a fantasy. So we need more education that teaches young people, ‘Just because you saw it in porn, doesn’t mean you can do it in real life’. When someone is asleep they can not consent so this is rape. 

Read more: How to watch porn ethically 

Can you desensitise yourself and make it harder to get aroused or cum if you watch too much porn?

This is a really tricky one, but yes, we can become habituated to things because they are easier or faster. If you spend a lot of time engaging with a particular sort of porn to arouse yourself and to achieve orgasm, then it can become the easy default way. And it can feel like hard work to have partnered sex. But it’s a whole different thing.

So it's about learning a different way of doing things and realising that the default way is not the only way. You can have as broad a repertoire as you want. When you discover the slow, gorgeous partnered sex in whatever form that takes for you, then you can be like, ‘Oh, man, that was cool. That was worth that journey of discovery’.

But if you feel that it’s becoming compulsive and you're struggling to engage or enjoy other types of sex then it's definitely time to start unpacking the whys. There are a lot of possibilities nested in behind why it's compulsive and what that means for the person. So it’s really important to unpack that.

There’s a concept called “post-nut clarity”, where someone feels clear-headed after an orgasm and then feels disgusted or guilty about how they were aroused. What should someone do if they have post-nut clarity after watching porn?

If we come away from it and go ‘That’s disgusting’. I would want people to ask themselves ‘Why is that disgusting? What’s wrong with it?’

We obtain information about what's arousing from somewhere, we are the product of all of these influences. Rather than shaming yourself or judging yourself, just question ‘Where does this come from? Why is it sexy? And am I okay with that?’

These are really tricky conversations, but we need to have them.

Read more: Is post-nut clarity a thing: an investigation

What are some of the biggest myths in porn?

Penetrative sex is not sex, it's just one aspect of sex. We've got this myth in our society that sex equals penetration, and it doesn't. Sex is a whole bunch of different things. 

And sex isn't finished when a man orgasms, which is what the big message of porn is. That's just a terrible, dangerous myth. If one of you has had an orgasm, you should be thinking about how you might want to pleasure that other person to keep the play going. 

Do you have any advice for watching porn with your partner?

You can certainly look at consuming content together if that's something that both of you are up for. But never if one of you is feeling pressured into it. 

But also understand you don't have to start with a full-on porn site, there's some beautifully written stuff out in the world. And that can be a great place to explore. For example, reading it aloud to each other. 

But say if you are both curious about hardcore kink, then watching something like that together can be enormous fun and you can find out about where your boundaries are and where they move with each other by seeing what others are doing. 

How should you start talking about porn with other people?

I'd start by saying ‘I read something about how people don't really talk about porn. What do you think about that?’ Just open the space and listen. 

Other questions could be, ‘Why do you think we find it so hard to talk about? Have you ever used it? What do you think about the different types of porn that's out there?'

When it comes to talking with your parents, young people can actually really help their parents here because it’s likely young people have had more formal sex education than their parents. So it’s a two-way conversation. 

Read more: He said he can't make me orgasm because I use a vibrator

What advice do you have for people starting to watch porn?

Talk with your friends about it. Try talking with your parents and see how that goes. If that's not a good conversation, then don't worry. 

And learn about your own body and what gives you pleasure. Masturbation is a really great tool. Erotic literature is a great tool for learning what turns you on. As I said before, you don't have to jump into porn to learn what turns you on. Start in the paddling pool, you don't have to jump in the ocean. Explore your body, and enjoy learning what you find pleasurable.

You can find Cherington’s book ‘How to talk with your kids about porn’ here.

Where to get help:

More stories:

Anal sex is on the rise but education isn’t catching up

“When I get regular STI checks, I never get asked about anal sex then either - only vagina or oral."

I'm straight but I give guys blow jobs as a side hustle

What it's like being a male sex worker

Heterosexual sex can be so much better for women. Here's how.

Too many women aren’t reaching their potential for sexual pleasure. It's time to fix that.