The Porn Conversation: Educating Kids on Porn

As the creator of ethical porn for women I am very pleased and excited to announce the launch of a new project – The Porn Conversation.

Myself and my partner Pablo Dobner have two beautiful children. And while the work that we do (Pablo is the CEO of Erika Lust Films) has so far been a separate part of our lives to that of our children, they are getting to an age where we know that soon they will start stumbling across the kind of mainstream porn online that we have spent the past decade trying to combat. According to statistics, children as young as 9 or 10 are accidentally viewing pornography – whether it’s through a nasty pop-up that slips past content controls on their iPad, or something their older friends show them, or any number of different scenarios.

So we started talking with each other about what we can do to protect our children. **How can we help them to understand what it is that they are going to be seeing? **How will they know that what they see isn’t realistic – in fact, the majority of mainstream porn is violently misogynistic, with damaging ideas about how men and women should look and behave, especially during sex? Are they getting the right kind of Sex Ed at school that will prepare them for encountering this kind of content? And what effect will it have on a generation who seem to learn most of what they know from what they see online – especially sex.

We realised that the responsibility for our children lay in our hands. That having a conversation with them, sooner rather than later, seemed like the best solution to the pervasive ideas of pornography that are going to being to infiltrating their lives before they are ready to understand it, let alone be of an appropriate age to be watching it.

And we also realised that this subject is still a huge taboo – and an even larger one in terms of talking to kids and teenagers about it. It is difficult and horrifying enough to think about having the “birds and the bees” chat with our teenagers – but to talk to them about porn? That sends shivers down our spines. But what is the other alternative? That they watch this content and feel like those are the ways in which they should treat each other? **That men and women shouldn’t have hair, or cellulite, or an ounce of fat? **That defining your sexuality in terms of racial categorisations is acceptable, or that lesbianism is only a tool to attract men?

The Porn Conversation is our attempt to help. To start an online community of people that start talking about porn with each other, and with their children. We have created guides for three different age demographics, that parents can use to start thinking about and having the porn talk with their own children, plus an ever-growing archive of videos and articles around the subject, so that you don’t have to rely on our experiences as parents and creators in the adult cinema industry. It is a not for profit project, built purely with the intention of starting** a global conversation** about porn and it’s role in all of our lives. But especially in the lives of our children.

I hope that if you are a parent you are ready to take the first steps on this journey with us. It’s going to be difficult, but I believe the results will be more rewarding than we could begin to imagine. To open up these conversations, to start educating our kids in porn, in what they choose to watch or they make an effort to avoid. In the hope that in the future, our children can have healthy, respectful and loving relationships with their partners – and with themselves.

There are articles and videos here, and if you have any questions you can leave them in the comments below or email us at talk@thepornconversation.org

I look forward to hearing your views! Let’s start educating our kids in porn. Time for The Porn Conversation.