Society's failure to talk about the fiction of porn had contributed to unacceptable rates of unwanted sex and gender inequality among Australian youth, a sexual health advocate said.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Comedian Nelly Thomas told an almost-all-female audience at the Australian National University this week the nation's "schizophrenic" approach to sex – where it was everywhere apart from in serious conversations – meant teens were left to learn for themselves, often from the "toxic" male-controlled porn industry.
"With porn, you will literally never see someone say no, they will do what is asked of them, and worse they will say no but mean yes," she said.
"If you have teenagers in your life and you're not talking to them about porn, you're failing them."
Ms Thomas, who has been educating teenagers about sexual health for 12 years, referred to the most recent findings of La Trobe University's national survey of year 10 to year 12 students that found 25 per cent of those who were sexually active had experienced unwanted sex.
For girls the figure was 28 per cent, for boys 20 per cent.
"Lots of girls had been pressured by partners for sex, and one-third of them are actively frightened into it," she said.
Nearly two-thirds of the 16-21-year-old women surveyed by the Young Women's Advisory Group last year said they had not been taught about consent in their school sex education. A quarter of year 10 students had had sex, and half of those in year 12, the separate La Trobe survey found.
The mother of two said the starting point needed to be acknowledging sex feels good and it was normal teenagers were interested in searching out porn, with information rather than shaming the answer.
"The porn industry is a destructive lie: that is not how sex is, do not expect that of yourselves, do not expect it of others," she said.
Ms Thomas was delivering the annual Pamela Denoon Lecture, in memory of the late Canberra feminist who was a national co-ordinator of the Women's Electoral Lobby in the 1980s and set up the National Foundation for Australian Women to promote equality through research and policy work.
