![]() ![]() The lack of comprehensive sex education that addresses girls’ desires and porn can leave young people with limited resources for understanding healthy relationships, consent and sexual pleasure. Help, I've just discovered my teen has watched porn! What should I do? So, they play with porn, make jokes about its content, learn about sexual relationships, while they also critically object to the domination of heterosexuality and racialised and gendered patterns of inequalities. Play also indicates the fun and pleasure they derive from talking about their online encounters with sexuality. Girls engage with porn through their online adventures as they play with the boundaries of respectability. Where do power, play and sexuality fit in? Women too, the girls argued, experienced pleasure. That only men were seen as deriving pleasure from porn was viewed as one-sided. They also used discussions about porn to talk about male power and female sexual subordination. Rather than reinforce outdated beauty norms, the girls suggested alternative media and social media platforms that celebrate the real variety of bodies. Many were aware of slim, straight haired, fair skinned and blonde ideals. The book shows that girls may find themselves pursuing these elusive “ideals”, but may also challenge them. These images can shape girls’ perceptions of their own bodies and a desire to conform to certain beauty standards which are gendered and racialised. They also see women whose bodies don’t reflect reality. When girls engage with porn they don’t simply see sexual content. Maybe, if you are very inexperienced with sex, you can watch something or look at something to give you an idea of what to expect, and just how to approach the situation, what to do in the situations so that you don’t feel inexperienced. They spoke about the excitement of forging sexual relationships, their concerns about first-time sex and their desire to learn about sexual intimacy. They openly mocked and discarded dominant understandings of porn and sex as inappropriate in their young lives. They said porn was everywhere, in billboards, movies, music videos… Porn is a normalised aspect of everyday life and the online world. The girls in the study did not have to access porn online to see porn. Like other girls in the study, she spoke about what online porn meant to her. She found this exciting and wanted to know more about it. She recalls she first encountered sexual scenes on TV when she was eight, but knew this was something that she couldn’t discuss with her parents. The book opens with 17-year-old Nqobile (not her real name). What did girls tell you about their experiences of viewing porn? The girls presented visual images and drawings to describe what porn meant to them. It draws on photo-elicitation methods, drawings and poster making. The book is based on focus group discussions and individual interviews with 30 teenage girls between 14 and 18. The book advocates for a more open and nonjudgmental approach to understanding teenage girls’ experiences with porn, focusing on their voices, experiences and perspectives. It opens up and broadens the conversation about how girls engage with porn in a far more nuanced way beyond danger narratives. The book elaborates on girls’ sexual curiosity, their ideas of sexuality and bodies and their objection to racial categorisations and sexual objectification. And girls do engage with it to expand their knowledge – whether teachers and parents like this or not. Sex is all over the internet and porn is everywhere. Digital technologies, social media platforms and a wide array of online sites offer access to sexually explicit material. In contrast, the book provides evidence of girls’ widespread engagement with porn. There are many reasons for this, including perceptions of respectability. Putting girls and porn together as this book does is taboo. In South Africa, these divisions are made deeper by sexual violence and gender inequalities where girls are seen as passive victims of sexuality. ![]() These gendered differences are based on gender roles and identities where boys’ interest in and expression of sexuality is deemed to be more appropriate than that of girls, who are expected to be sexually innocent and subdued. When it comes to porn, research suggests there are differences between boys and girls, where it is more acceptable for boys to view porn than it is for girls. But what do girls themselves say about growing up in a world where porn is so readily available from such a young age? It’s a question Deevia Bhana, a professor in gender and childhood sexuality, sets out to answer in her book Girls Negotiating Porn in South Africa: Power, Play and Sexuality. Academic research tends to focus on the negative aspects and sexual dangers of girls and young people viewing porn. ![]()
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