The average age of contact with pornography has been advanced by access to mobile technology, explain the authors of a study presented this Monday in Madrid

Children have their first contact with pornography at the age of 8. They begin to consume it at the age of 14 and they at the age of 16, according to the study ‘New VR Porn and changes in interpersonal relationships’ based on almost 2,500 surveys of people between 16 and 29 years old carried out by the University of the Balearic Islands in collaboration with the Youth and Social Inclusion Network.

“The Middle Ages are getting ahead due to access to mobile technology”, explained the co-author of the investigation Lluís Ballester, who highlights that porn “sneaks onto the Internet as soon as there is access to new technologies” and expresses his concern for the episodes of “violence” that adolescents are often unable to recognize: “There are boys who may have seen hundreds of rapes without realizing it, because it is violent group sex, in which the woman has to oppose , but they see it as a role. “

The investigation, which was presented this Monday in Madrid with the presence of the former Minister of Health Carmen Montón, part of the conception that the use of pornography conditions sexual attitudes. The authors highlight that 47.7% of men confess that this use has “occasionally” increased risk behaviors, a percentage that in women is 39.6%. “Sex without a condom increases, the attempt to group sex and sex with strangers, which is also worrying, since we are talking about adolescents and young people, “recalls Ballester, while adding” educational elements to guide them. “

There are kids who may have seen hundreds of rapes without realizing it.

In this regard, the scientists believe that gang rapes “of the last five or six years” are closely related to the findings of their project. “The consumption of pornography and the supply related to gang rape has increased,” says Professor Carmen Orte. However, she clarifies that “from a scientific point of view in the strict sense” there is no direct link between the increase in pornographic consumption and gang rapes.

Consumption among women increases

The consumption of pronography has increased by around 20% among women in the last five years, although the “active search” pattern is more frequent in men, since 33.1% search for pornography and 62 , 4% allow themselves to be helped by friends. In the case of women, 34.7% confessed that they found it without looking for it and 17.4% found it actively. The reasons that lead to the consumption of pornography among men are mainly masturbation (62.4%), to respond to curiosity (45.4%) and to learn about sex (33.1%). However, they mostly consume it to respond to curiosity (34.7%), while 25.3% do it to masturbate and 17.4% to learn about sex. “Masturbation is still very present” as a cause of consuming porn. “As it is the main activator of masturbation, it is still quite present,” argues Ballester. For both men and women, it is “a behavior that is developed individually” at home, although it is a much more frequent habit in the male gender: 86.9% of men watch pornography being alone compared to 54.8 % of females. In a majority, the consumption of pornography is occasional or weekly, although among the women surveyed there is a high percentage who decided not to answer this question, “perhaps due to the lack of anonymity”, points out Ballester, or due to the situation of “inequality “of women when addressing this matter, according to Orte. Age does not influence the increase or decrease in consumption, and neither does having a stable partner.