Digital natives’ experience of early and continuous exposure to pornography

Abstract: With the technological advancements of the 21st century, online pornography has become increasingly available to children and adolescents, and this research aims to investigate how individuals who started watching pornography at an early age experience pornography. The study implements a phenomenological approach and is based on 13 qualitative interviews with participants who started watching pornography before the age of 15. In doing so, this research utilised Simon and Gagnon’s (1973) sexual script theory and Porn Literacy theory as the theoretical framework through which to analyse the data. The results indicate that the participants´ sexual scripts evolved over time through their consumption of pornography and sexual interactions and incorporated various aspects of pornography that had an influence on such things as their expectations of sexual encounters, gendered perspectives, body image, and amount and type of pornography sought out. Porn literacy seemed to be an ability that the participants developed over time, which allowed them to critically engage with pornography and observe how it had affected them.