Abstract
Because consensually accepted programs of sexual education are lacking, erotica have
come to serve as the primary agent of sexual socialization. The new media technology
gives prepubertal children and postpubertal adolescents ready access to erotica in
all their manifestations. However, next to nothing is known about the consequences
of the steadily increasing amount of such exposure. A brief overview of what is known
and what remains unknown about the effects of pornography on young adults is presented.
Thereafter, the focus is on the development of sexual callousness across the pubertal
threshold, and on how this callousness might be influenced by extensive exposure to
erotica. The erotica under consideration are not so much those explicitly depicting
coital behaviors as those that are less explicit and present a fuller social context
of sexual engagements. A program of research is outlined that would help provide an
understanding of erotica’s effects on adolescents’ sexual callousness, an understanding
that is sorely needed for the construction of effective educational efforts aiming
at the removal of callousness and coercion from sexual relations.
Keywords
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Article info
Publication history
Accepted:
April 24,
2000
Identification
Copyright
© 2000 Society for Adolescent Medicine. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
