What's supposed to happen when two people have sex? It can be hard to ask when it seems as though everyone else already knows the answer. But you can watch a video without asking anyone. And sometimes it offers a very confident answer to a question you weren't quite asking.

Since 2025, services covered by the UK's Online Safety Act have been required to use effective age checks to prevent under-18s from accessing pornography online.[1] A different measure came into force in England and Wales on 6 November 2026: it criminalises the possession and publication of certain pornographic images, including explicit, realistic depictions of strangulation or suffocation.[2] The news brings us back to a question that goes beyond the law: how does something you see on screen come to feel like something you're supposed to do?

Seeing pornography isn't the same as looking for answers

Opening a video that turned up in a group chat. Looking for answers to a question you can't quite put into words. Watching out of curiosity or for arousal, with no intention of learning anything. A survey might count all three as exposure to pornography, but they're different experiences.

The 2025 EU Kids Online survey in Portugal helps us see how many 11- to 17-year-olds encountered pornography intended for adults.[3] A separate question is which sources young people find helpful for learning about sex. In a US survey, among 14- to 17-year-olds who identified at least one helpful source, parents and friends were mentioned more often than pornography. In the 18–24 age group, pornography was the most frequently cited helpful source.[4] That tells us how useful respondents found it, not how reliable the information was.

It's not that no one talks about sex. In a survey of 2,319 pupils in the 10th and 12th grades at Portuguese state schools, 94% said they had spoken to someone about at least one topic relating to sexuality or relationships in the previous year.[5] But knowing how to use a condom doesn't answer a question like ‘Am I supposed to want sex by now?’ And some questions are harder to ask when none of the examples in class reflect the kind of relationship you can imagine for yourself. In interviews with Black American boys and young men attracted to other boys or men, some described turning to sexually explicit material to explore questions about attraction, identity and intimacy.[6] Simply saying ‘don't watch it’ can leave the question unanswered.

When what you see starts to feel expected

Imagine two people together for the first time. One thinks they should always take the lead, even when they're not sure what they want. The other hesitates to say they'd rather stop, afraid of seeming inexperienced. Neither has to be copying a scene. They may simply have picked up the idea that if things are going well, nobody needs to ask, hesitate or change their mind.

Researchers sometimes call these expectations a sexual script: an idea of what happens next, who takes the lead and how each person is meant to respond. It doesn't come from just one place. Conversations with friends, films, previous experiences and pornography can all play a part.

Thinking a video shows what sex is really like is one thing. Coming away feeling that you have to do certain things to measure up is another. In a study of Croatian teenagers, watching more pornography was not linked to coming to see it as more realistic.[7] In a study of Dutch teenagers, viewing and a tendency to think of sex in terms of performance were linked in both directions, but only in one of the two periods studied.[8]

Even if you know a scene was staged, you might still come away thinking ‘everyone does this’. It's another thing to think ‘my partner expects this of me’. Neither impression answers the question ‘is this what I want?’

Strangulation during sex, mentioned at the start of this article, makes that distinction concrete. In interviews with young women, pornography was one of the ways they had learnt about it, alongside friends, partners and other media. Some said a partner had done it without discussing it first or getting their consent to that act.[9] Knowing about a practice isn't the same as wanting to try it.

What the camera doesn't show

There's no need to say that everything on screen is fake. It's more useful to ask what the image can actually tell you. A video may not show what was agreed beforehand, what was edited out or how people felt afterwards. It can't tell you how your partner wants to be touched or what they enjoy.

If two people are trying to guess what the other wants, pausing to ask can clear up a mistaken assumption. If one has already said no and the other keeps pushing, the problem isn't a lack of communication: it's a refusal to respect the answer. Wanting to be with someone doesn't mean wanting everything that might happen. And saying yes earlier doesn't take away anyone's right to change their mind.

How to talk to teenagers about pornography

You don't have to wait until you find something on their phone, or ask them to describe what they've seen. A less personal question can open up the conversation: ‘What can't you tell just from watching a video like that?’ There's no need to watch it together. If the answer is a shrug, it may be enough to let them know they can come back to the subject.

If a teenager tells you they've seen something that upset them, the first response can be simple: ‘I'm glad you told me. Did it come up when you weren't looking for it? Did anyone pressure you to watch or share it?’ You don't need a description of what they saw to find out whether they need help. If they've asked about relationships, try answering the question they actually asked. They may want to know how to say no, how to talk about protection or how to tell whether the other person wants to carry on.

After a media literacy programme in six Irish schools, teenagers said the sex shown in these kinds of media seemed less realistic and that they felt better prepared to deal with questions about consent.[10] In Portugal, young people who would rather ask questions outside the family can turn to Sexualidade em Linha, run by APF and IPDJ.

An image can spark curiosity or give you an idea. It can't decide for two people.

References

  1. Ofcom. (2025). Enforcement programme to protect children from encountering pornographic content through the use of age assurance.
  2. Ministry of Justice. (2026). Crime and Policing Act 2026: Offences relating to pornography. GOV.UK.
  3. Batista, S., Ponte, C., Ferreira, E., Cardoso, D., Simões, J. A., & Luna, E. (2026). EU Kids Online Portugal. Novos usos, novos riscos? Direitos digitais de crianças e jovens. Zenodo.
  4. Rothman, E. F., Beckmeyer, J. J., Herbenick, D., Fu, T.-C., Dodge, B., & Fortenberry, J. D. (2021). The prevalence of using pornography for information about how to have sex: Findings from a nationally representative survey of U.S. adolescents and young adults. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 50(2), 629–646.
  5. Ferreira, T., Vieira, M. M., Vilar, D., Cunha, V., & Pelixo, P. (2022). Jovens e educação sexual: conhecimentos, fontes, recursos (relatório preliminar, pp. 53–55). OFAP, Instituto de Ciências Sociais da Universidade de Lisboa.
  6. Arrington-Sanders, R., Harper, G. W., Morgan, A., Ogunbajo, A., Trent, M., & Fortenberry, J. D. (2015). The role of sexually explicit material in the sexual development of same-sex-attracted Black adolescent males. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 44(3), 597–608.
  7. Wright, P. J., & Štulhofer, A. (2019). Adolescent pornography use and the dynamics of perceived pornography realism: Does seeing more make it more realistic?. Computers in Human Behavior, 95, 37–47.
  8. Vandenbosch, L., van Oosten, J. M. F., & Peter, J. (2018). Sexually explicit Internet material and adolescents' sexual performance orientation: The mediating roles of enjoyment and perceived utility. Media Psychology, 21(1), 50–74.
  9. Herbenick, D., Guerra-Reyes, L., Patterson, C., Rosenstock Gonzalez, Y. R., Wagner, C., & Zounlome, N. (2022). “It was scary, but then it was kind of exciting”: Young women’s experiences with choking during sex. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 51(2), 1103–1123. Note: The interviews describe experiences and how participants learnt about the practice. They do not establish that pornography caused the incidents.
  10. Dawson, K., Sharp, G., O’Higgins, S., McIvor, C., & MacNeela, P. (2026). Evaluation of a sex-positive, youth-centred online pornography literacy intervention for adolescents. Sex Education, 26(5), 648–662. Note: The study assessed how prepared teenagers said they felt, not how they acted afterwards.