“You’re the right person”: how to talk with your child about porn

Porn is one of the all-time most difficult topics for parents to approach with their children. But it’s vitally important that we do. Kids “want their mums and dads to talk to them” about what they might see, declares Dame Rachel de Souza, Children’s Commissioner for England. Her office’s January 2023 report found that the average age at which kids see porn is 13, with 10% seeing it by age 9 and 27% by age 11. What they watch is often violent, early exposure and frequent viewing can lead to harmful attitudes and behaviour and almost half of young people aged 16-21 feel girls expect and enjoy acts of sexual aggression, such as choking.

Reassuringly talking us through it all is the persuasive and captivating Dr Naomi Sutton. Estimating that she’s seen more than 5,000 vulvas professionally, Naomi is outspoken in her NHS sexual-health work and on the TV show The Sex Clinic.

Here – and in our Speak Out video – our supportive Advisory Board member talks about kids’ curiosity, how porn fuels unrealistic expectations and how even she can find it tricky to have sex-ed conversations with her own children…

It’s hard to imagine what it would be like to be a young child, or a kid who hasn’t even held hands with someone, seeing these explicit and sometimes extreme sexual images