[NSFW] Age of consent in pornography?

@Glambarber that’s the law, sure. But I think that @wazzer is asking for the reasoning, the rationale behind it.

I don’t know that there is a deep rationale except that marriage (age of consent) as always been lower than the age of majority (18) – for decades upon decades.

See wikipedia page

The age of consent in some US states is 16 – it used to be less than that. Connecticut still says that age 13 is OK.

So back to porn – my guess is that 18 is a nice round number used for lots of other purposes, and that’s why it was adopted.

Probably because 1) being involved in porn that goes public probably isn’t a great decision at 16, and 2) 16-year-olds are very inexperienced at power dynamics, and tend not to hold a lot of social power, so can be taken advantage of. The law thus helps protect the best interests of these 16-year-olds. Also there are probably lots of parents of 16-year-olds who would really like it to be illegal.

And 3) because of pedophilia and child molestation and the role of very young porn in connection with that, in ways I don’t want to write about and am not an expert on in any case.

There are some data suggesting poor health outcomes (number of sexual partners, lack of protection/contraception, drug use, etc.) associated with early/adolescent porn viewership.

Porn is increasingly unrealistic. It can be damaging to body image and sexual expectations. Older adults generally understand this, but adolescents do not.

I’d be curious why 16 year olds would want to watch porn with their partners. Are they lacking sexual education? Are they looking for sexual positions or techniques? Are they unsatisfied with their sexual experiences? Are they inexperienced at arousal? Do they need help being turned on?

I’m not a physician or therapist, but I do teach sexual health to young adults at a University. I’d be more interested in why they want to watch it because I’d bet that they could meet their needs in other ways. It’s not so easy for 16 year-olds to determine the root cause of their desires or behavior, though.

Did @wazzer mean watching porn? I thought he meant creating porn? Or maybe @wazzer just meant buying porn?

Look, the porn industry is run by people we can’t talk about. The number of girls putting themselves through college on these ‘casting couch’ videos is unreal. A few hundred dollars for a few minutes sexual humiliation doesn’t seem to faze them until they get the backlash from family etc. Its easy money and some keep going back for more. The oldest profession you bet.