Independent porn filmmaker (link NSFW) doesn’t think we’re talking enough about the ways young people are shaped by porn. Lust began making adult films 13 years ago, after becoming frustrated with the tacky, chauvinistic content of mainstream porn. She entered the industry with the aim of making adult films that focus on story, characters, and the female gaze above all else. She has since made more than 100 titles. She also became a mother, which inspired her latest project, , launched in April in collaboration with her husband, Pablo Dobner.
The nonprofit site offers parents and educators resources to help them talk to children about porn, including age-specific guides, starting with one for kids under 11. The site includes tips on how to initiate conversations, the right tone to strike (no shaming or lecturing), and what content parents should cover, such as reminding children that porn is not real sex.
Lust isn’t the only one, both within and outside the porn industry, concerned about how erotic content affects adolescents. , a launched last year, that points out how adult entertainment belies reality, like in the duration of the sex it often depicts. And this June, the ad agency Mistress launched , in which adult entertainer Monique Alexander urges parents to talk to their kids about sex “before the porn industry does.”
“Parents and caregivers have an essential role to play in talking with their children about pornography as part of broader conversations about sex and sexuality,” agreed Nicole Cushman, executive director of the sex education organization . “Sites like the Porn Conversation and Give the Talk provide terrific resources to help parents initiate these important conversations.” She added that the next step is to increase curriculum tackling pornography in public school sex education programs.
, a professional sex educator and consultant, went further: “In the US, we have completely garbage sex education for most people,” she said. “It’s not holistic. It’s not integrating ideas about sex into every portion of our curriculum, and it’s not treating sex as part of life. Erika Lust’s tool is a partial solution, but the end goal should be a society where we have young people grow up with such a healthy attitude and understanding of sex, that if, or when, they see porn, they are already able to recognize it as a fantasy and not real life sex.”
