The Criteria to Identify Pornography That Can Support Healthy Sexual Development for Young Adults: Results of an International Delphi Panel

Abstract

Pornography is not homogenous. There is a paucity of research that offers guidance to young adults and adult stakeholders interested in navigating the available range of pornography to find materials that support healthy sexual development for young adults. Drawing on the expertise of a Delphi Panel of experts from a range of relevant areas this article offers six criteria for assessing whether pornography can support healthy sexual development: includes a variety of sexual practices; includes a variety of body types, genders and races; shows negotiation of consent on screen; is known to be ethically produced; focuses on pleasure for all participants; shows safe sex. The article identifies four pornographic websites that may meet these criteria: Sex School, Make Love Not Porn, PinkLabel.TV and Lust Cinema.

Keywords:

• Pornography
• sexual health
• sexually explicit material

Acknowledgements

The qualitative data was rich and fascinating, as would be expected from a panel of such distinguished experts. Unfortunately due to word limits it is not possible to explore detail in this article all of the wonderful ideas presented by panelists: we would like to take this opportunity once again to thank the experts who took part for their commitment to the project, and the insights they provided. Particular thanks to Jiz Lee for help in identifying Panelists for this project.

IRB statement

This project was granted ethics permission by the review process of the University of Technology Sydney Human Research Ethics Committee, approval number ETH20-5681.

Disclosure statement

The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.

Notes

1 The second definition draws on research approaches from the Humanities and may be unfamiliar to readers from more quantitative Social Science disciplines. It draws on ideas explored in most detail in the influential book The Secret Museum by Literary Historian Walter Kendrick (1996)