‘It is disgusting, but … ’: adolescent girls’ relationship to internet pornography as gender performance

Digital media are an important part of the lives of young people, who use these resources to access sexual materials such as pornography. This kind of consumption can reveal important aspects of their social lives. Starting from the viewpoint of consumers, this paper is a reflection on girls’ consumption of pornography and on the meanings they give to their practices and choices in the continuum between online and offline experiences. The research involved boys and girls from the ages of 16 to 18 using different techniques: six ‘co-construction groups’, 48 face-to-face interviews, and two online focus groups. The article describes girls’ experiences with internet pornography, underlining the symbolic use of pornographic material as exploration and definition of gender performance. According to girls, using internet pornography means to ‘play’ with gender borders: defining and redefining them, experiencing them, passing through them. These borders are connecting to the meaning of being a girl or a boy, but also to the common idea of ‘normality’ within the peer group.