Zoom Image
Pornographic images on a smartphone
Photo: Silas Stein / dpa
More than one in three minors in Germany has already seen porn despite the protection of minors. This was the result of a representative survey of 3000 children and adolescents in Germany between the ages of 11 and 17 commissioned by the Media Authority of North Rhine-Westphalia.
It is worrying that the confrontation of minors with pornographic content is often involuntary and potentially influences one's own sexuality, the authority said.
First porn mostly between 12 and 14 years old
Most respondents had seen their first porn between the ages of 12 and 14. There is hardly any difference between girls and boys.
A quarter of the minors stated that the pornographic content was involuntarily shown or sent to them. Only a third of those surveyed rated the porn as unrealistic. Among 11- to 13-year-old boys, the figure was only 19 percent.
The results suggested that pornography consumption influences the behavior of children and adolescents: Almost half of the boys stated that they used actions or terms they know from porn when sending erotic messages (46 percent). In the case of girls, this correlation is much weaker (17 percent).
The Media Authority of North Rhine-Westphalia has been trying for some time to enforce the legally required age verification systems among the operators of portals.
kfr/dpa