PORNOGRAPHY: A PERVASIVE THREAT
Even without intentionally seeking out pornography, children risk exposure in countless ways and at increasingly young ages, especially given the rise in access to the internet via cellphones and other electronic devices. What once was only accessible via physical taboo magazines can now be located in seconds with the click of a button.
A 2022 report by Common Sense Media found that 73% of teens surveyed reported having seen pornography, with 54% saying that they saw pornography for the first time when they were 13 or younger. About 15% of respondents admitted to seeing pornography for the first time before they turned 11. The report also found that on average, children are 12 years old when they first are exposed to pornography. The same survey found that 44% of children aged 13-17 reported watching pornography intentionally, while 58% reported seeing it accidentally.
Source: Common Sense Media
The report also found that pornography consumption differs by gender. It found that 52% of boys reported that they watched it intentionally while only 36% of girls admitted intentional consumption.
Exposure to pornography rewires young brains during key growth phases, flooding them with dopamine like a drug, weakening self-control and decision-making areas. It’s also been found to harm mental health and increase the risks of anxiety and depression, violent behavior and promiscuity. According to anti-pornography advocacy group Fight the New Drug, consuming porn can lead to “compulsive cravings and behavior…similar to those associated with substance abuse.” Pornographic consumption can be extremely addictive, and can negatively skew views on relationships. Increased porn consumption can lead to desensitization of sexualized material, compelling viewers to seek out more extreme forms of porn to elicit the same response. Increased pornography consumption also has the capability to normalize violence and objectification, leading to distorted expectations in relationships.
Source: Fight the New Drug
In 2022, Common Sense Media reported that 71% of teenagers admitted “intentionally viewing pornography in the past week; more than half reported seeing pornography that included rape, choking, or someone in pain.” Another Common Sense Media survey found that most of those watching the pornography were exposed to “aggressive or violent forms of pornography.”
Source: Psychology Today
According to the American College of Pediatricians, exposure to pornography makes children under twelve years old “statistically more likely to sexually assault their peers.” It also ruins kids’ perspectives on sex as they age, leading to desensitization where they need increasingly violent or dehumanizing content to feel aroused.
In 2023, a study of over 1,000 16-21-year-olds in England found that 79% of 18–21-year-olds surveyed had seen sexually violent pornography as children. The report additionally found that almost half of the youth surveyed thought that girls expect sex to involve physical aggression. One 12-year-old girl admitted that her boyfriend strangled her during their first kiss because his pornography consumption made him think that this was normal.
EXPOSURE PATHWAYS
Pornography exposure is affecting children more than ever before in the rapidly developing technological landscape. From 2009-2019, the number of pre-teens who reported having seen some form of pornography skyrocketed from 14% to 70%.
According to Clay Olsen, the founder and president of anti-porn advocacy group, Fight the New Drug, nearly 80% of first-time pornography exposure happens at home through electronic devices, apps, and games. Children have the potential to access pornography through unfiltered searches using Google or YouTube, which can lead to explicit results due to poor content moderation. For example, kid-friendly sites like YouTube Kids have been known to feature misleading thumbnails for explicit content. Similarly, a WSJ Investigation into Instagram’s algorithms revealed that test accounts that only followed young girls were served videos from accounts promoting pornographic content, in addition to some age-inappropriate and lewd ads.
Source: Wall Street Journal
The exposure to explicit images can also happen at school. Parents should not solely rely on content filters on school-issued materials or devices to protect their children from accessing extreme or inappropriate content. In 2022, Common Sense Media reported that 41% of teens surveyed had seen pornography during the school day, with 44% admitting to seeing pornography on school-owned devices.
Source: Common Sense Media
Children are also often exposed to pornography by their peers. Kids can be exposed at sleepovers or on playdates where their peers have access to unprotected devices, or where adults intentionally or accidentally expose them to inappropriate content.
Kids have also been known to share explicit content on school buses, where supervision is minimal. In 2022, students as young as 11 in Texas’s Magnolia Independent School District were exposed to sexually explicit images that someone airdropped to other students while riding the school bus. Similarly, in 2021 the Tulsa police investigated an incident involving a student recording and sharing a sexual encounter between two other middle school students on a school bus.
PREDATORS AND EXPLOITATION
Dating apps can serve as a dangerous entry point for predators targeting minors, who can easily bypass age restrictions with fake profiles or unverified birthdays. Platforms like Tinder, Bumble, and Grindr require users to be 18+, yet self-reported ages go unchecked, allowing kids as young as 12 to swipe into adult spaces filled with explicit photos, sexting demands, and grooming tactics. This past September, a Houston lawyer was accused of meeting a 16-year-old girl on the dating app Bumble and having sexual intercourse with her. In August 2023, a Marine was charged with sexual assault after meeting and hooking up with a 14-year-old girl posing as a 21-year-old on the dating app Tinder. In an op-ed written in 2022, Moises Mendez II emphasizes dating apps’ failure to prevent minors from joining the platforms, drawing on his own personal experience joining the gay dating app Grindr at the age of 16.
Source: The Atlantic
The app Wizz, marketed for kids as young as 13, employs Tinder-like swiping for “friends.” The app allegedly only allows users between the ages of 13 and 17 to speak with people only one year younger or older than them. A New York Post investigation on October 22, 2025, however, called it “Tinder for kids,” revealing that there have been multiple arrests of adults who sexually assaulted kids they met on Wizz.
Source: New York Post
Platforms like OnlyFans further endanger kids by promoting “soft content” — sexually suggestive material “that is not overtly pornographic” — on TikTok and Instagram through trends, influencers, and glamorous lifestyles. OnlyFans creators strategically use mainstream social media to attract new subscribers by leveraging algorithms without posting sexually explicit material where their primary content would otherwise be banned. Creators may cultivate a persona on mainstream platforms through trendy dances, humor, or lifestyle content. This attracts a broad audience, including younger viewers, who might then be directed to explicit content on a secondary platform like OnlyFans.
Content on OnlyFans has been linked to Child Sexual Abuse Material and Human Trafficking. Predators have been known to groom minors online and coerce them into creating explicit material using the “Romeo pimp” model, in which traffickers build trust before isolating victims and forcing them to engage in prostitution or porn production.
Source: Our Rescue
DIGITAL BETRAYAL: SEXTING AND REVENGE PORN
Sexting, often driven by curiosity, peer pressure, or romantic impulses, can backfire rapidly. Once sent, an image can spread instantly via group chats, cloud storage, or anonymous online forums. In 2019, Jama Pediatrics found that 25% of teenagers receive sexually explicit texts and emails. The fallout extends beyond exposure; victims live with ongoing anxiety, fearing further dissemination.
Revenge porn, nonconsensual image sharing or image-based sexual abuse, can also be used to publicly to humiliate, control, or extort the victim.
The TAKE IT DOWN Act, signed into law May 2025, criminalizes the nonconsensual publication of intimate images, including deepfakes, an AI-generated image of an individual and passed off as legitimate. The law imposes penalties of up to three years imprisonment for offenses involving depictions of minors. It also requires covered platforms, such as social media and apps, to implement a process for removing such content within 48 hours of a victim’s notice, enforced by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC.)
STATE ACTION
For parents, safeguarding kids from the harms of pornography is non-negotiable. Age verification laws help by requiring websites with explicit content to check if users are adults, using methods like uploading an ID, facial scanning, or third-party apps.
The movement started in Louisiana, where traffic from major porn sites dropped 80% in the state after the law took effect. By June 2025, 25 other states followed Louisiana’s lead by enacting their own age verification laws, mandating platforms to implement checks like ID uploads or biometric scans to block minors, aiming to reduce accidental exposure and hold sites accountable with fines for noncompliance. This means users in those states must prove they’re 18+ before accessing explicit content.
In September 2025, Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier filed two lawsuits against online pornography companies that allegedly violated Florida’s new age-verification law.
Parents must remain vigilant about the risks of child exposure to pornography, as well as the possibility that their children could be groomed, or images of them exploited. Only through constant monitoring and implementing strong guardrails for children online can parents truly ensure the safety of their children.
TIPS FOR PARENTS
OTHER NEWS YOU NEED TO KNOW
TRUMP-ORDERED HHS REPORT ON YOUTH GENDER CARE CLEARS PEER REVIEW: A 400-page HHS review ordered by President Trump on treatments for pediatric gender dysphoria has been finalized and republished after undergoing independent scientific peer review. The report finds “almost no” strong evidence that puberty blockers, cross sex hormones, or surgeries benefit minors and warns of unknown long term risks, with outside experts who reviewed the document saying they found no major flaws in its core scientific conclusions. Read more here.
CALIFORNIA COACHES PROTEST MALE RUNNER IN GIRLS’ CROSS COUNTRY RACE: Coaches at Ayala High School say a male athlete running on the girls’ JV team for Claremont High School finished fourth at a league final, bumping their female runner from the top 10 and off the podium. The dispute has fueled new tensions over how girls’ records and rankings are counted when schools allow males in female races. Read more here.
ABC REPORT EXPOSES ‘764’ ONLINE NETWORK GROOMING KIDS TOWARD SELF-HARM: An ABC News Nightline investigation tells the story of parents who say members of the global “764” network groomed and pressured their 13-year-old son into taking his own life. Authorities say the group uses popular platforms to target vulnerable kids, encourage self-harm, spread abuse, and warn parents to watch for secretive online relationships and anonymous chats. Read more here.
PARENTS TURN TO COSTLY ‘DETOX’ CAMPS FOR TECH-OBSESSED TEENS: A New York Post report looks at parents paying nearly $8,000 for four-week “digital detox” programs that take teens off phones and gaming consoles and house them in device-free dorms. Counselors say they are trying to break addictive social media and gaming habits, while experts note the way platforms are designed keeps kids hooked and leaves families feeling they have few options. Read more here.
MAINE GIRL DADS NEAR SIGNATURE GOAL TO PROTECT GIRLS SPORTS BY BALLOT: A coalition called “Maine Girl Dads,” representing thousands of fathers, says it has gathered more than 60,000 of the roughly 68,000 signatures needed to put the “Protect Girls’ Sports in Maine” referendum on the 2026 ballot. The measure would require schools to designate sports teams and facilities by sex and base participation on biological sex, not gender identity. Read more here.
Thanks for reading the latest edition of the American Parents Coalition’s The Lookout. If you have a troubling story to share about a school, doctor, company, or other institution working to usurp parents’ rights, please let us know by emailing us at outreach@americanparentscoalition.org.
