Everyone remembers the first time they encountered porn : Maybe it was a quick, covert Yahoo search that led you to a grainy, pixelated clip that took forever to load. For porn star Kelley Cabbana, it was a copy of Penthouse magazine that lured her in, then some actual porn tapes. Now, after 10 years working in the adult film industry, Cabbana can confirm that those performances are all pretty much a fluffer -filled fantasy. No one is that loud and dramatic.

In order to assist young people to navigate this new reality, parents, schools and community organisations must first understand the issues. With the click of a button, it is now possible to access a vast array of free pornographic images via the internet. Some young people are creating porn themselves, using mobile phones and webcams to create explicit imagery of themselves and others. All sectors of the population are affected. It affects straight kids and gay kids. And it impacts on both boys and girls — although it impacts on boys and girls in different ways.

Pornography has long held a controversial place in society, and its relationship with a number of behaviors and attitudes has been highly debated. But the concern remains: How does viewing pornography affect our attitudes towards women? A recent paper published in the Journal of Communication found that exposure to pornography was related to and increased sexist attitudes, but only among a subgroup of users. Gert Martin Hald, Theis Lange, University of Copenhagen, and Neil Malamuth, University of California, Los Angeles, asked Danish adults aged about their past pornography consumption; assessed a central part of their personality the trait of agreeableness i. They then evaluated how participants' personality and the exposure to pornography affected a variety of sexist attitudes.

Content Warning: This blog discusses themes including racism, sexual assault, and violence. Please read with care. This level of overt and blatant racism would be widely condemned in most contexts within our society.