The Safe Digital Family Challenge
Day 3: Don’t Forget Daughters
As parents, we don’t like to admit this, but whether our little girls like twirling around in sparkly dresses or creating epic buildings in Minecraft, they are vulnerable to porn. Lust isn’t a male issue; it’s a human issue, and women fall prey to it too.
A few days ago, we looked at a survey conducted in New Zealand, which found that 70% of girls had seen porn at least once, on average before age 13. The same study also looked at how frequently boys and girls watched porn, and how long.
Now, it’s tempting to overwhelm you with stats about how boys vs. girls watch porn from this study. If you’re particularly interested in the data, you can look at it yourself. But there are three findings worth mentioning here.
First, boys watch porn more frequently than girls. More than one in ten boys watched it multiple times a day (14%). Less than one in twenty girls watched it multiple times a day (3%).
That said, girls have longer porn-watching sessions than boys. Less than one in twenty boys (2%) watched porn for two hours or longer. More than one in ten girls (13%) watched it for two hours or longer.
Finally, girls are more likely to apply porn to real life. Nearly one in two girls had applied it in real life (46%); about one in four boys had (26%).
There are a number of fascinating implications in these findings. First, boys are more likely to be looking for the “quick fix” while girls may be more drawn in by porn and more likely to lose track of time while watching it. Second, girls are more likely to be using it for relational reasons; in fact, the same survey found that one of the top five reasons girls watched porn was “as a way to learn about sex, sexual acts, and sexuality.”
Parents, we don’t want our daughters learning about sex from porn. We don’t want them turning to it because they’re bored or curious or “just for a laugh.” We cannot assume that our daughters are just naturally wired to avoid it. Instead, we need to be proactive with our daughters and teach them what healthy sexuality looks like.
Questions for Reflection:
- Do you have a daughter? Have you made assumptions about her immunity to porn?
- How do these stats about both boys and girls change your understanding of what may draw your children to porn?
- If you have a daughter and have not talked to her about pornography yet, take some time to pray about that conversation. Pray for an opportunity to talk to her about it and wisdom in how to approach the subject.
