2.3 million is the number of minors in France who spend more than 50 minutes a month in front of pornographic images. Or one in three minors. A figure that does not surprise Dr. Torrès-Chavanier: “During my career, in 40 years, I have seen things deteriorate. As a child psychiatrist and sexologist I am not surprised. This is what we see in medical practice.”
How do you view this increase in the consumption of pornography by minors?
We end up with adolescents who are prosecuted for so-called aberrant sexual practices. Pornography is not real life, they project that as the performance that must be achieved, and this from the very first sexual intercourse. With the Covid, practices have further evolved and the consumption of porn has exploded. Young people are all on their laptops, we are far from the old Playboy hidden under the mattress. A laptop without parental controls most of the time. It appeals to a teenager’s common sense, and not everyone has it. The prevention of a possible sexual deviance raises questions. The problem is not watching porn per se, but what you do with it followingwards. Does it remain in the imagination or will it generate a passage to the act, individual or community.
What influence on future sexuality?
This is the big question in all things internet and access to porn. But also that of access to information, particularly on the side of the search for sexual identity. The personality structure of the teenager can remain in the fantasy, following the old pattern of the youngster looking at pictures of naked girls in magazines. But current pornographic sites demonstrate acts of great violence, and often several. Which is not without posing problems of deviance when the adolescent leaves this sphere of fantasy and wants to carry out these acts in concrete terms. Some young girls, who also watch porn, force themselves to do certain things because they think it’s done. Deviances that can be observed regardless of gender or social background. Fortunately, the Metoo movement has liberated speech and today the young girl will speak out more when she is the victim of sexual abuse.
And on the psychological side?
A teenager who sees porn at 12 will not necessarily become a deviant adult. It all depends on his psychic structure, and the way he built himself. Of the way he was surrounded too. The problem is the distortion between pornography and reality. A distortion sometimes taken as cash by the youngest. A source of complexes for young boys who tend to compare their sex with the non-standard formats that appear in these films. We even sometimes see the appearance of phobia or sexual avoidance, for fear of being incompetent. We are sorely lacking in prevention.
Is this symptomatic of a lack of communication by parents on the subject of sexuality and the absence of qualitative sex education courses for young people?
Unfortunately, there is no more sex education. The teachers no longer have the time, sex education is no longer part of the curriculum and they are no longer concerned. I gave a course ten years ago in a college in Grasse. The teachers told me that they are not there for that and that it is up to the parents to do it. There is something to review at the educational and parental level, but also at the level of citizenship. The problem is taking action. We have a girlfriend and we will imagine that she is necessarily consenting to such and such a practice. And there are criminal penalties behind it all. There is the problem of consent and the age of consent. When I am called to court for an expertise, the educational deficiency of the parents often comes up.
How to change things?
What is the remedy, and is there a remedy. We must be preventive and act upstream. Downstream, it is already far too late. We need a better parent-child relationship and greater involvement of National Education. We are now faced with an impasse. Findings are all well and good, but you can’t have a policeman behind every teenager. We need more prevention, information, and communication with young people. It’s urgent!
