A quote from a teenager in a recent study. And many more say similar things. So the idea that porn has a kind of authority due to its education role isn’t just a wacky thought from Catharine MacKinnon. Interestingly, though, the study’s authors argue that this shows “pupils should be taught how to evaluate porn in sex education lessons.” They continue,
To be unable to critique imagery is equivalent to being illiterate in the modern world…We need to help young people to resist peer-group pressure to consume porn or to respond to partners’ requests for sex they’ve seen in porn.
(Thanks, S!)
Feminist Philosophers 
Well, if they’re watching leather-plushie bdsm tentacle porn and saying, ” … That’s sort of where you get your grasp of what’s normal”, I can’t help but think that’s a good thing.
I’d even suggest that the deluge of internet porn in the last decade or so has, by showing subjects of all kinds enjoying sex and their bodies, done contributed tremendously to destigmatising gay, lesbian, queer, trans people, and fetish and other forms of non-hetero missionary-position sex.
The trouble I saw with this study, or at least the summary and the article, is that: a.) it seems to suggest that pornography is somehow *increasing* in its educational role or that this role is expanding and b.) it seems to suggest that young people are watching pornography specifically because of its educational role and that sex education will somehow cause this to stop.
Point “b” just seems silly to me. The educational role that MacKinnon, et al. have written about is surely a side-effect of watching pornography. People watch porn for sexual arousal. There’s no reason to believe that increasing and improving sex education will lead to fewer people watching pornography. The two quotes that Jender pulls really seem in tension with one another. Claiming that pupils should be taught how to evaluate porn is an *excellent* suggestion, and it should be implemented immediately. But then continuing on by saying that sex education should help young people resist “peer-group pressure to consume porn” seems to just miss the point completely. Folks don’t need peer-pressure to consume porn. They’re going to do it anyway. Critical evaluation is key.
Point “a” is implausible, unless there’s some sort of evidence to support it. Porn has surely had this role for a very long time. What has changed is the method of accessing it, and its availability. It’s much easier to get it now. But I doubt very seriously that it plays a larger role in sex education now than it did before the invention of sex education in the classroom.
@Frances: Yeah, if it meant they got a better sense of the range of sexual options, I think that would be good. My sense, is that it’s not. But we need data to have this discussion properly. I also think there is an educational opportunity here for porn, for example, in promoting safe sex. Most mainstream porn doesn’t involve condom use–not sexy, I guess–and that’s a lost educational opportunity.
The most effective anti-porn technique is to educate teenagers about the ramifications of pornography and pornographic images in particular. And apparently kids are using these images to help shape their sexual development as a recent survey (http://blogs.philadelphiaweekly.com/phillynow/2011/12/17/study-shows-disturbing-trends-in-group-sex-amongst-urban-teens/) found that 11% of the girls surveyed said they were forced to commit sexual acts their boyfriend saw in porn. That’s right; FORCED.