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Speaker 1: It's the Happy Families podcast. It's the podcast for the

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Speaker 1: time poor parent who just wants answers.

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Speaker 2: Now, by the time kids graduate Hay School, over ninety

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Speaker 2: percent of boys and over sixty percent of girls have

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Speaker 2: seen phornography, and about half are intentionally seeking it out weekly.

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Speaker 1: And now here's the stars of our show, my mum

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Speaker 1: and dad.

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Speaker 3: Kylie. I'm so excited about today's podcasts. We're talking with

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Speaker 3: Assistant Professor Meghan Mass. Meghan is at the Michigan State

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Speaker 3: University and has been studying for several years adolescent sexuality.

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Speaker 3: We're talking about all this stuff that's really big in

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Speaker 3: the news right now in Australia, pornography, consent, masculinity, the

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Speaker 3: stories that we're hearing coming out of high schools. This

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Speaker 3: is a big conversation. In fact, I don't think we're

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Speaker 3: going to get through it in one day. I think

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Speaker 3: it's going to take two.

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Speaker 4: I know you're really excited to talk to Megan.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I am.

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Speaker 4: You've forgotten to introduce.

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Speaker 3: I sorry, I have to so. My name's doctor Justin Coilson.

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Speaker 3: Need to do that first, that's important on Doctor Justin Coilson,

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Speaker 3: the founder of Happy Families dot Com, dot you and

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Speaker 3: the author of six books about raising happy families, and

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Speaker 3: you are.

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Speaker 4: I'm Kylie, I am your wife and now co host

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Speaker 4: partner in crime on the podcast, and I'm the mum

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Speaker 4: to our six kids.

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Speaker 3: Before we go any further, I should just highlight today's

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Speaker 3: podcast contains mature themes that include conversations around pornography and sexuality.

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Speaker 3: It's not rated explicit, but the content may not be

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Speaker 3: suitable for some people. So let me introduce Megan Mass

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Speaker 3: because doctor Mass Assistant Professor Meghan Maass is amazing when

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Speaker 3: it comes to areas like adolescent sexuality, media based sexual socialization,

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Speaker 3: sexual media literacy, sex education, prevention of sexual violence including

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Speaker 3: harassment and sexual bullying. We're talking about some really important

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Speaker 3: things here and in the context of what's happening in

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Speaker 3: Australia at least and also around the world, this is

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Speaker 3: an important conversation. So a few weeks ago, for those

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Speaker 3: of you who missed it, a former Sydney high school student,

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Speaker 3: Schanel Contos posted online for girls to share their sexual

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Speaker 3: assault stories based on whatever happened at parties during high

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Speaker 3: school essentially, and more than five thousand respondents came through

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Speaker 3: before the petition was closed down. It sparked a huge

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Speaker 3: movement for consent education to be improved in schools, and

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Speaker 3: a lot of people are arguing that boys don't understand

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Speaker 3: consent and various other things that we can discuss later

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Speaker 3: in the conversation, but one of the biggest issues that's

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Speaker 3: arisen is that people are saying all of this is

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Speaker 3: happening because of pornography, and Megan, because you focus on

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Speaker 3: adolescent sexuality, we want to talk to you about two things. First,

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Speaker 3: pornography and then if we have time, second, consent and

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Speaker 3: how they may or may not interact. So today we're

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Speaker 3: going to focus on pornography and then probably next week

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Speaker 3: I'd say we'd love to have you back to talk consent.

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Speaker 4: So my first question, Megan, is just everybody knows what pornography.

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Speaker 2: Is, right, Well, you know, it's hard to measure and

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Speaker 2: it's hard to define. But when we do so in studies,

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Speaker 2: we talk about sexually explicit imagery that contains nudity, specifically

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Speaker 2: genitals and sexual behaviors that are meant to arouse the viewers.

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Speaker 2: Not just any kind of nudity or you would see

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Speaker 2: an art or something, but content that's specifically intended to

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Speaker 2: arouse someone sexually.

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Speaker 4: How old is the research saying that our children are

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Speaker 4: when they're first being exposed to this kind of content.

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Speaker 2: So these studies are hard to conduct. It's hard to

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Speaker 2: get younger folks and kids in these kinds of studies

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Speaker 2: and their parents to you know, allow for them to so.

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Speaker 2: But what we do know is that young kids eight,

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Speaker 2: let's say eight to twelve, they are most likely to

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Speaker 2: you know, stumble upon pornography accidentally or unintentionally because they

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Speaker 2: google words like but or you know, sex or something

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Speaker 2: that they learn at school. And that's why filters can

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Speaker 2: be pretty important. But the older kids, what we do

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Speaker 2: now is that by the time our kids graduate high school,

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Speaker 2: over ninety percent of boys and over sixty percent of

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Speaker 2: girls have seen pornography, and about half are intentionally seeking

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Speaker 2: it out weekly. So it is a very prevalent experience.

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Speaker 3: So Megan, just a quick comment on that, because I

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Speaker 3: hear so many different things bandied around. I heard a

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Speaker 3: quote unquote expert here in Australia recently saying that children

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Speaker 3: are seeing it now on average around about the age

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Speaker 3: of eight or nine. I've seen the standard research response

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Speaker 3: being somewhere around about the age of eleven. It's probably

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Speaker 3: worth mentioning it's really hard to get good data on

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Speaker 3: this because it's not ethical, Like a university is not

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Speaker 3: going to say you can go and ask eight year

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Speaker 3: olds about their pornography experience, whether they've seen it or not.

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Speaker 3: It's just it's an ethical quagmire. So we kind of

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Speaker 3: have to wait until people are eighteen years of age

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Speaker 3: and they're at university, and then we ask them to

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Speaker 3: retrospectively look back on when they were first exposed, right,

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Speaker 3: exactly exactly.

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Speaker 2: So usually these statistics are coming from you know, crime statistics,

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Speaker 2: or people that kids that are involved in you know,

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Speaker 2: community services, or sometimes the statistics are coming from kids

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Speaker 2: who are involved in studies on other things regarding development

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Speaker 2: and they happened to ask about pornographees already. But you're right,

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Speaker 2: it's very hard for me and other researchers to actually ask,

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Speaker 2: you know, kids and teams about pornography exposure.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, some years ago, I used to be a radio

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Speaker 3: announcer in a past life before I went back to

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Speaker 3: school and studied for a bajillion years and started doing

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Speaker 3: what I did now. In fact, it was a little

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Speaker 3: over twenty years ago that I was a radio announcer

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Speaker 3: and at the time, there was a song that came

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Speaker 3: out that was kind of provocative and controversial. It was

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Speaker 3: called It's just pawn Mum. I don't know if you

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Speaker 3: remember that song, and I used to hate the fact

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Speaker 3: that we had to play we only played it on nights.

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Speaker 3: It's only for the teenages to listen to. But I

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Speaker 3: wonder do you think that that's a fair reflection of

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Speaker 3: what the attitude is towards pornography in the general population

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Speaker 3: and particularly among kids.

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Speaker 5: Uh.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, so I would say we have generally over time,

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Speaker 2: we have more casual attitudes towards pornography. That's you know,

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Speaker 2: data driven has been jown. But there are people who

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Speaker 2: are alarmed about pornography today, and rightfully so because what

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Speaker 2: we're what we have access to today is not what

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Speaker 2: we had access to in the eighties and nineties. It's

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Speaker 2: you know, content that can be very violent and aggressive,

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Speaker 2: or depict minors, or maybe even actually showing miners, even

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Speaker 2: if it's you think you're watching somebody who's eighteen but

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Speaker 2: they are dressed to look like they're fourteen. All of

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Speaker 2: that is fairly new.

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Speaker 3: So when you say mine is You're not talking about

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Speaker 3: people who or working underground in helmets and shiny bests.

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Speaker 3: You're talking about a different kind of minor.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, under eighteen children, teenagers and young teenagers.

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Speaker 4: So Megan, when I was growing up, I guess my

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Speaker 4: understanding of pornography was was more so you know, the

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Speaker 4: playboll magazines with their centerfold pitches, and obviously I knew

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Speaker 4: about videos and things like that, but without the Internet

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Speaker 4: and without you know, Google, you really had to go

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Speaker 4: looking for this information to be able to find it.

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Speaker 4: What are our kids seeing now? You know, in an

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Speaker 4: age where technology is literally in the palm of their hands,

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Speaker 4: what are they having access to now?

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Speaker 2: I mean, it's so important that you asked that question

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Speaker 2: and bring up this connection with the attitude, because I

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Speaker 2: think there are a lot of parents who are in

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Speaker 2: your shoes or you know, my shoes or whoever, who

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Speaker 2: have this notion of what pornography was when they were

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Speaker 2: a teenager and maybe curious about it or in their

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Speaker 2: early twenties and you know, friends were showing it or

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Speaker 2: things like that, and so it's it can be easy

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Speaker 2: to have an attitude like, oh, it's just pornography, and

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Speaker 2: I've talked with parents like you know that have that attitude. Oh,

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Speaker 2: you know, I got through that as a teenager as well.

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Speaker 2: But what they're seeing today are acts of rough sex.

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Speaker 2: Rough sex is a is a popular category and showcases

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Speaker 2: slapping and choking, and it can be something like I

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Speaker 2: had a teen once who shared that they were really

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Speaker 2: disturbed because their body, you know, reacted, it was aroused

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Speaker 2: by the content. But the content really scared them because

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Speaker 2: it was somebody who was clearly in pain, which can

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Speaker 2: be very confusing. And certainly when I was a teenager,

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Speaker 2: when our friends and stuff would try to stay up late,

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Speaker 2: you know, to see HBO After Dark or skin Imax

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Speaker 2: or whatever, it was kind of softcore stuff that was

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Speaker 2: highly produced and filtered, and you know, we could have

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Speaker 2: never seen anything that depicted pain or humiliation or anything

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Speaker 2: like that. And so that's what we're really trying to

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Speaker 2: advocate for education and for parents to know to prevent

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Speaker 2: you know, access to that kind of content, because we're

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Speaker 2: not talking about you know, just nudity or just people

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Speaker 2: engaging in sexual behavior.

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Speaker 3: Megan a little while ago, I heard a podcast with

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Speaker 3: doctor Lisa Demore. She's a New York Times bestselling author

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Speaker 3: she's written a couple of fabulous books about teenage girls,

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Speaker 3: and she's just yeah, she's absolutely brilliant. She said, when

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Speaker 3: she was writing one of those books, she decided, as

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Speaker 3: a non pornography consumer, that she would get online and

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Speaker 3: look up one of those porn hub websites, and she said,

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Speaker 3: the screen filled with it's almost like a multiple YouTube squares.

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Speaker 3: They all came up on the screen at once. There

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Speaker 3: was nine or twelve of them or something like that,

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Speaker 3: and each of them had some kind of sexual activity

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Speaker 3: occurring in that screen. And she said she was so

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Speaker 3: confronted by it because in a normal, consenting, healthy adult relationship,

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Speaker 3: the kinds of behaviors that she was seeing literally assaulting

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Speaker 3: her on the screen in each of these videos were

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Speaker 3: just not the kinds of things that she understands most

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Speaker 3: adults in healthy relationships would engage in. And yet this

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Speaker 3: is the kind of thing that our kids are viewing.

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Speaker 3: And I think that's kind of where you're going. This

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Speaker 3: stuff is provocative, it's confrontational, it's icky, and yet it's

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Speaker 3: still arousing because our bodies are designed to be aroused

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Speaker 3: by that. I want to come back with you in

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Speaker 3: just a sec because our podcast is the podcast for

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Speaker 3: the time poor parent who just wants answers now, and

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Speaker 3: talk with you about how we can have effective and

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Speaker 3: positive conversations with our children about this so that they

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Speaker 3: can be protect from what seems to be bad for kids.

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Speaker 4: Do that right after the break.

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Speaker 3: It's the Happy Families Podcast.

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Speaker 5: Imagine a home where discipline got results without anyone having

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Speaker 5: to feel bad or in trouble. The do's and don'ts

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Speaker 5: of discipline as a webinar to help parents set limits

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Speaker 5: with love, compassion and humanity. Find it now at happy

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Speaker 5: families dot com dot au slash shop.

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Speaker 4: It's the Happy Families Podcast, the podcast for the time

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Speaker 4: poor parent who just wants answers Now. And today we've

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Speaker 4: been talking with Megan Mass, Assistant Professor Meghan Mass.

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Speaker 3: At Michigan State University, an expert in adolescent sexuality. Megan,

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Speaker 3: one of the big questions that I have relates to

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Speaker 3: the scientific evidence around how pornography affects people that is

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Speaker 3: the cause of a relationship. If you watch pornography, what

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Speaker 3: does it do to you? And I know that there's

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Speaker 3: not a lot of science that we can really lean

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Speaker 3: on heavily here, but I'm specifically interested not about how

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Speaker 3: it affects adults as much as that would be an

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Speaker 3: interesting conversation, I'd like to know how it affects our kids' behavior.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, So what we do know is the studies that

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Speaker 2: have been able to recruit teens to participate, teenagers who

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Speaker 2: do consume more pornography are less likely to use condoms

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Speaker 2: during sex. They are more likely to hold what are

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Speaker 2: called rape supportive beliefs, or ideas that you know, it

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Speaker 2: was a woman's fault because of something she wore, or

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Speaker 2: she was at the wrong place at the wrong time,

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Speaker 2: or those kinds of beliefs, and they're lower and sexual

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Speaker 2: satisfaction when they emerge in college than high schoolers who

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Speaker 2: abstain or view little internet pornography.

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Speaker 3: So let me just say that again, just to put

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Speaker 3: a big red line underneath this, our teenagers who consume

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Speaker 3: pornography are less likely to use condoms and therefore have

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Speaker 3: intercourse safely. They are more likely to endorse unhealthy beliefs

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Speaker 3: about essentially what saying is, they more likely to objectify

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Speaker 3: women and believe that they deserved anything sexual that came there, why,

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Speaker 3: whether it was consensual or not, And they have less

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Speaker 3: satisfying sexual relationships as they get older and start to

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Speaker 3: be old enough to be surveyed about that sort of stuff. Yep,

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Speaker 3: it's topically a healthy way to launch into your sex

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Speaker 3: life as a teenager. What else is there?

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Speaker 2: So well? And I have to say there's a couple

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Speaker 2: of caveats. So there's two protective factors, and the associations

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Speaker 2: are still there, but they're they're smaller for youth who

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Speaker 2: have parents who talk to them openly about sexuality and

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Speaker 2: our who are caring and monitoring their their lives in

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Speaker 2: that way, and for teens who perceive what they're watching

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Speaker 2: to be less real. And those are two factors that

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Speaker 2: you know, we can we can protect as parents by

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Speaker 2: talking to our children about sexuality and pornography, but we

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Speaker 2: can also hopefully mitigate over time or help with me

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Speaker 2: illiteracy type classes, so you know, classes that talk about,

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Speaker 2: you know, how media are created and how they're not

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Speaker 2: real life. But in terms of other effects like addiction

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Speaker 2: or brain stuff and you know, arousal and that type

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Speaker 2: of thing, we aren't able to do those kinds of

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Speaker 2: studies on teenagers for the ethical reasons that you mentioned earlier.

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Speaker 2: We can't bring teenagers into the lab and have half

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Speaker 2: of them, you know, view pornography and half of them don't,

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Speaker 2: and measure their sexual arousal and their brains and things

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Speaker 2: like that. But what we do know, I think it's

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Speaker 2: safe to be to be on the safer side, is

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Speaker 2: that the teenage brain is really sensitive. It's a very

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Speaker 2: sensitive period. Now that's thought to be just as sensitive

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Speaker 2: as infancy. So a new sort of explosion in terms

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Speaker 2: of brain growth. And this is because you have a

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Speaker 2: whole new you know, there's a whole new environment that

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Speaker 2: you need to adapt to. So an infancy up to

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Speaker 2: your the mother child the parent child bond. In adolescens,

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Speaker 2: you're going to need to adapt to this new pure

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Speaker 2: culture in this in this environment outside of the home.

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Speaker 2: And so the brains are just are really sensitive to

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Speaker 2: all sorts of different influences. And so when we think

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Speaker 2: about it from that perspective, we want to make sure

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Speaker 2: that their you know, their relationships and their friendships and

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Speaker 2: the media they consume and all their experiences that are

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Speaker 2: having are going to be ones that really help and

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Speaker 2: support their brains growing in healthy ways.

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Speaker 4: I actually have two questions I'm going to wrap into one. Megan,

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Speaker 4: how do we talk about this with our kids, and

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Speaker 4: in the process, how do we safeguard them from it?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, these are two I mean, these are the million

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Speaker 2: dollar questions, right. So, you know, like Justin is just

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Speaker 2: saying with younger kids, and there are parents who think,

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Speaker 2: you know, oh, I don't need to talk about this

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Speaker 2: until they're sixteen or something. I think it's okay, you know,

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Speaker 2: especially now that kids are spending so much time online

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Speaker 2: because of the COVID nineteen pandemic. I think it's okay

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Speaker 2: to tell younger kids. I'm talking like eight nine ten,

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Speaker 2: that there's a lot of content on the Internet that

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Speaker 2: shows people being mean to each other. That's people who

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Speaker 2: are abusing each other, taking advantage of people. There are

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Speaker 2: images and videos of people who are naked, and those

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Speaker 2: kinds of images are going to make you feel a

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Speaker 2: lot of different things. Sometimes you might feel really embarrassed.

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Speaker 2: Sometimes you might feel kind of queasy in your stomach.

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Speaker 2: Sometimes you might feel excited, and you might feel tingly,

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Speaker 2: And all of those kinds of reactions are normal. Our

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Speaker 2: bodies react to all sorts of imagery. You can even

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Speaker 2: you know, talk about food imagery as an example. I use,

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Speaker 2: you know, when we see advertisements of cheese and chocolate

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Speaker 2: cake and stuff, you know, all of a sudden we

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Speaker 2: wanted and are you know, are you can notice your

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Speaker 2: brain reacting. I think having those kinds of small conversations

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Speaker 2: and then obviously getting a little bit more detailed for

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Speaker 2: your older teens versus the younger kids in terms of

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Speaker 2: your terminology instead of you know, people naked online or

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Speaker 2: people being mean to each other, you know, and an

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Speaker 2: older team can know that we're talking about people having

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Speaker 2: you know, sex on camera or people being videotaped without

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Speaker 2: their knowledge. So I think preventing, you know, talking to

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Speaker 2: them about how their bodies are going to react regardless

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Speaker 2: of age is important. Having those developmental differences in terms

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Speaker 2: of talking about like what pornography may be and what

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Speaker 2: it might look like. That's going to evolve over time.

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Speaker 4: So call you Techi message three points pornographies everywhere.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 4: Secondly, our kids are almost I only going to see

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Speaker 4: it at some point. And number three, we have to

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Speaker 4: have conversations.

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Speaker 3: Whether it's intentional or not, it's gonna come up in

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Speaker 3: their world. Well. Professors and professor Meghan mass from Michigan

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Speaker 3: State University, it has just been an absolute delight to

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Speaker 3: be able to spend some time with you. Thank you

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Speaker 3: so very much for your time. We didn't get near

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Speaker 3: the consent conversation. Can we get you back to talk

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Speaker 3: about that on another episode?

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Speaker 2: Absolutely, thanks for having me awesome.

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Speaker 3: That'd be great and we really hope that you have

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Speaker 3: enjoyed the podcast. The Happy Families podcast is produced by

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Speaker 3: Justin Ruhlan from Bridge Media. Craig Bruce is our executive producer.

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Speaker 3: If you'd like more info about making your family happier

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Speaker 3: and protecting your kids from the danger's harms and concerns

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Speaker 3: around pornography and sexual content online, you can read any

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Speaker 3: of Meghan' stuff. She's got a website meganmass dot com.

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Speaker 3: You can also visit the e Safety Commissioner here in

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Speaker 3: Australia over in about twenty articles about how we can

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Speaker 3: help our kids stay safe, or just visit us at

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Speaker 3: Happy Families dot com dot au