For Vincent Joly, psychologist for children and adolescents, this phenomenon concerns all young people, whatever the social environment, age or religion.
When you are parents of teenagers, you tell yourself that you have all been there, and you suspect what our young people can live on a daily basis. But the greater the age gap, the more mentalities and habits evolve. This is particularly the case with social networks and increasingly young access to new technologies. Most of the time, parents are exceeded. They try to impose parental checks to limit certain content online and protect their children, which is rather recommended. But in fact, young people know how to go around these restrictions very well if they want … according to Vincent Joly, psychologist for children and adolescents, this poses a major problem, which is common to all young people.
Indeed, according to an OpinionWay survey conducted in 2018, almost one in three in three aged 12 has already been exposed to pornographic content, and 62 % of young people say they saw their first pornographic images before entering high school, before 15 years. “”What is general to all teenagers is the relation to images, to these short content, without staging, with everything that is shown including scenes of rape. It doesn’t mean they look regularly, but they have all seen it before their first time“Confirms the psychologist.
Although they see these images, it does not mean that teens will want to do the same: “Fortunately, for the majority, this will not have a consequence and most will be neither fascinated nor traumatized“, says the specialist. But for those who will” copy “,”It is a disaster that the public authorities have started to become aware “. On the parents side, it remains a taboo subject: “It’s completely put under the carpet, parents don’t want to know, it’s too shocking”estimates Vincent Joly. Because in fact, seeing pornographic images has become very common among young people who mainly use it to masturbate. The problem, “It is that it involves very raw content which gives unreal representations of sexuality”.
The worst part is that some children come across it by chance, with a “pop up” window that opens and there, it becomes shocking. “”We are at a time when we insist on consent, respect for the partner, the fact of not imposing our desire on the other, but the discovery of sexuality is done by the discovery of porn images, it is completely contradictory!“denounces Vincent Joly. For him, all the teenagers are concerned, “Whatever the social environment, the age of the child or the status of parents“.
When he advises young people who came to consult him after watching this type of content, the psychologist makes a simple comparison with horror films to make them realize that nothing is the same in reality. “”The bodies are not the same, the contents are very violent, but that has nothing to do with a fight in the playground. If young people want to pass their driving license, it will not be like in Fast & Furious … Finally, porn is a bit the same: a carnival representation of sexuality or everything is too much compared to real life“Explains the specialist.
He also advises parents to raise awareness of their children, from the age of 9-10. If you are looking for the right time to tell them about it, it can be when installing parental control, explaining to them why, simply warning them of danger. It can be interesting to tell them clearly things: “On the Internet, there are violent images, and I don’t want you to see people who kill each other, or who are naked and who do weird things“. The shock will then be less brutal if they are warned of the risks.
