Pornography reaches Danish children as young as eight

Danish children have been exposed to graphic pornography from as early as eight years old, with some later developing increasingly harmful viewing habits, according to a new DR documentary and a survey conducted for DR by Epinion.

Max was in second grade when he first saw pornography. Nikolaj was about eight, while Cecilie was 11. The images showed large silicone breasts, shaved bodies and large penises.

“I remember there were huge breasts. They looked so adult. I felt like a criminal because I was so young,” Max says in the documentary Alone at home with porn.

The young people, who appear under their first names, describe how they encountered pornography online as children and how it affected their sex lives during their teenage years. DR knows their full identities.

Nikolaj says an older sister of a friend showed him a pornographic video online when he was in second grade.

“It was very intense. Large breasts and loud moaning. It was a completely new world that opened up and spread like ripples in water,” he says.

Cecilie’s first disturbing experiences came on the now-closed video service Omegle, where users communicated via webcams. She says she and her friends quickly discovered that some men used the service to expose themselves to children.

“There were quite a few men who needed to masturbate in front of us. It is crazy that as a child you could have access to such a large platform and then encounter penises,” she says.

For several of the young people featured in the documentary, these unwanted encounters became the starting point for their own pornography use.

An Epinion survey for DR found that 67 per cent of 18-to-34-year-olds had first seen pornography before turning 16. Twenty-seven per cent had seen it for the first time before turning 13.

Cecilie began watching pornography at 11. Over the following years, the videos gradually became more violent. She recalls one video in which two men chained up a woman, restrained her and whipped her until she bled.

“When I look back at myself as a young person and think about that video, I do not think it was something I should have seen,” she says.

Several experts warn that early exposure can have serious consequences for children’s development. Psychologist Pernille Spitz of Save the Children says unwanted exposure to violent pornography can push children into a stage of development for which they are not ready.

Save the Children launched its counselling service TalMedOs for children and young people last year. It has since provided advice in 266 cases, with concerns about pornography use the most common problem.

Children and young people have described pornography becoming a fixed part of their daily lives at an early age. They also report watching increasingly violent and boundary-pushing videos over time because ordinary pornography is no longer sufficient.

Both episodes of Alone at home with porn are available on DR’s streaming service DRTV.