Perceptions of pornography among UK sex education practitioners: a qualitative study

This research explores the perceptions of UK sex education practitioners around pornography within sex education for young people between 11 and 18 years. The article offers crucial recommendations on urgent improvements needed within schools and wider society. This qualitative study is based on semi-structured interviews with 14 sex education practitioners. The findings show they were concerned with inadequate governmental support for pornography education, advocating for increased provision of specialist educators, and highlighting the importance of pornography literacy to navigate key discussions around consent and sex that is depicted in pornography. Based on these findings, the implications of the study are enhanced governmental sex education policy, shame-free sex education that should include pornography literacy, and that which forms a spiral education curriculum which is age appropriate and supports young people’s assets and desires. Further, the article seeks to highlight that removing the discussion of pornography from sex education will only increase the risk of misinformation and perpetuate vulnerabilities within sex education and beyond.