Influence of unrestrained access to erotica on adolescents' and young adults' dispositions toward sexuality

Because consensually accepted programs of sexual education are lacking, ero tica have come to serve as the primary agent of sexual socialization. The n ew media technology gives prepubertal children and postpubertal adolescents ready access to erotica in all their manifestations. However, next to noth ing is known about the consequences of the steadily increasing amount of su ch exposure. A brief overview of what is known and what remains unknown abo ut the effects of pornography on young adults is presented. Thereafter, the focus is on the development of sexual callousness across the pubertal thre shold, and on how this callousness might be influenced by extensive exposur e to erotica. The erotica under consideration are not so much those explici tly depicting coital behaviors as those that are less explicit and present a fuller social context of sexual engagements. A program of research is out lined that would help provide an understanding of erotica's effects on adol escents' sexual callousness, an understanding that is sorely needed for the construction of effective educational efforts aiming at the removal of cal lousness and coercion from sexual relations. (C) Society for Adolescent Med icine, 2000.