Teenagers are turning to porn to learn about sex, and Pornhub has just made it easier for kids to get this type of information by launching a “sex education” video series. Their website is the most popular porn platform with more than 42,000,000,000 site visits in 2019 (no, that’s not a typo with too many zeros), and that number spiked 11.6% when the pandemic hit and the whole world was told to “stay home” in March 2020, according to their website.
If you are looking to break free from a porn addiction or block explicit content from devices you use, visit Canopy for Adults to learn more about how our technology can help you. Canopy blocks porn that other filters miss.
Licensed sex therapists and PhDs narrate the first 11 videos, and they show real pictures of “anatomy and human examples to provide accuracy and dispel sex myths,” including close-ups of real male and female body parts.
Sex education is a phrase typically used to talk about programs for children about to embark on puberty and teenagers, not adults.
PornHub talked in their press release about how they want to show viewers what real sex is and how to have safe sex. They also reference on their website that their membership is an “adult community.” However, the phrase “sex education” commonly references programs that are for school-aged kids, who, except for seniors in high school, are under age 18 (children).
It’s normal, healthy, and appropriate for teenagers to have questions about sex and their developing bodies.
Their bodies are changing, they hear terms they don’t understand in media and from peers, and they genuinely want to understand part of natural human development. Those are all healthy, normal, and appropriate curiosities, especially for teenagers.
Those questions are sometimes answered by school curriculum, faith-based programs, and parents. They are sources where kids can get answers likely in-line with what their families believe (parents can often choose to opt-out of sex education programs in school if they do not want their children to be a part of it). And that’s good news for parents.
But think back to when you were a teenager. Maybe you felt comfortable asking your mom or dad anything about sex, and that’s fantastic. Nonetheless, there are some of us who were perhaps embarrassed. We heard about something on the school bus or referenced in a movie and wanted to know what it meant. We had feelings and changing bodies that didn’t feel familiar anymore, and even to our closest friends, those questions would have caused us to blush.
Porn websites are answering those sex education questions for many kids today.
By 2018, 95% of teenagers had smartphones. Those devices mean that when teenagers have any question, online search results, which are often from porn sites when the questions are about sex, provide the answers. Those answers can be violent and unrealistic and they may not be in line with what your family values and what you hope your child would learn about intimacy.
Some content isn’t for kids, even if it’s labeled “sex education.”
The videos on PornHub’s sex education website have real anatomy and nudity. They bluntly and graphically show answers to what they think are the most important questions people have about real sex and safe sex. When you are on this particular webpage, you are one quick click away from the rest of their explicit content.
One of the guiding principles of Canopy is that we believe some content isn’t for kids. Kids, unfortunately, might be exposed to it, and so it’s wise to talk with your kids about how to respond before this happens in case it happens.
Canopy can help protect your kids from what you don’t want them to see.
We know how hard and overwhelming it can be to guide your child’s online experience, making sure they don’t accidentally land on something inappropriate and understanding all the latest tech trends for teenagers.
On devices Canopy protects, your kids will never see sex education videos from a porn website videos as part of their online search results to one of their questions, taking some of the anxiety away from your child having access to the Internet and giving them the freedom to explore safely.
