This report is the third in our research series designed to help build that understanding from a New Zealand perspective. Our first report in the series NZ Youth and Porn surveyed nearly 1% of all 14 to 17 year olds in this country, finding that porn was indeed a fact of life for young people. We gained many insights from this work, and some were concerning. For one thing, we found that one in four young Kiwis see porn before the age of 12. That isn’t good, as the young people themselves told us.
Our second report Breaking down Porn took a look at the content frequently watched by New Zealanders on a popular pornographic website, to gain a sense of what people (including young people) were consuming online. On the positive side, we found indications that extreme or violent porn was not generally favoured in this country. But it was troubling to see non-consensual behaviour in over a third of the most popular clips.
So our research so far has given us good evidence about the ‘how’ (how many, how old, how often and so on) as well as the ‘what’ of porn (what does it contain, what is more popular). In this study we have interviewed 52 wonderful and generous young people to understand the ‘why’—why young people watch porn, why it matters, and why we need to rethink our approach to it.