the becomings of pornography education in Swedish secondary school

Pornography – a topic for school?

Irrespective of public or scholarly debate, young people take an interest in pornography. Their engagement meets a variety of needs, such as masturbation/self-sex, the exchange of sexual knowledge between peers and partners, curiosity about specific sexual practices, boredom and/or stress reduction (Bridges and Morokoff Citation2011; Goldstein Citation2020). Young peoples’ engagement may further be due to their sexuality education not being sufficiently relevant (Hancock and Barker Citation2018). Since young peoples’ interests are diverse, education needs to recognise the reproduction of problematic gender representations as well as their pedagogic and erotic potential (Byron et al. Citation2021; Goldstein Citation2020). However, there remains little consensus on how to address pornography in educational settings (Goldstein Citation2020), nor what the teaching should entail (Dawson, Nic Gabhainn, and MacNeela Citation2020).

To our knowledge, research is often based on group discussions or semi-structured interviews (Dawson, Nic Gabhainn, and MacNeela Citation2020; Goldstein Citation2020; Healy-Cullen et al. Citation2022), the observation of extra-curricular activities (Rothman et al. Citation2018; Rothman, Daley, and Alder Citation2020), or uses online questions and surveys (Spišák Citation2016; Vandenbosch, Johanna, and van Oosten Citation2017). In contrast, this study aimed to provide an in-situ investigation of pornography education. The questions guiding the study were: how can pornography education come into being; what troubles are materialised when this occurs; and what future forms of teaching might be possible?

Response-ability for materialised stories

Haraway describes storytelling as a collaborative, material and ethical practice (Niccolini, Zarabadi, and Ringrose Citation2018). The collective process of knowing and doing drives the need to cultivate response-ability within research (Haraway Citation2016). Even though our data were produced in collaboration with teachers, students and materialities, the final response-ability for the selected threads and displayed patterns is our own as the authors of this paper.

Since all the bodies present in the classroom are ethically involved in the process of worldmaking (Niccolini, Zarabadi, and Ringrose Citation2018), research ethics and data protection regulations guided the research process (Swedish Research Council Citation2017; EU 2016/679 Citation2016). Participants were informed orally and in writing about these guidelines and since some students were under the age of 15, their legal guardians also approved their involvement. The research project itself was approved by the Swedish Ethical Review Authority (Ref: 2020–00823).

Ethical considerations in relation to Swedish schools’ more general work on norms were also taken into account. Although the focus of the study was not on education about norms, a normative stance was taken, for example, with respect to the use of gender-neutral pronouns in teaching. Inspired by this stance no information on gender or sexual orientation was collected, and participants are neutrally named. This practice may be viewed as problematic and a limitation causing gender blindness in research, especially since the topic of pornography is intimately connected to gender power and gendered sexual scripts, as revealed in our analysis. However, the decision was based on our wish to recognise the situatedness of the study.

The thread of gender

Within this thread, the discussions on gender that took place during teacher–researcher meetings were materialised – focusing, for example, on how pornography consumption influences girls, boys and their relationships:

While the Science and Maths teacher concluded that gender equality had increased in Swedish society, they were troubled by how gender is often portrayed in pornography, commenting: ‘the power structure is that the woman is affected’ and ‘it is not a positive development for the guy either’. The other teachers added, ‘this is about everyone being affected, regardless of who you refer to as the victim’, and through it boys can ‘get an idea of how they are expected to behave in their sexual relationships with girls’.

In some ways, teachers’ stories may be seen as linked to ideas about sexual scripting (Simon and Gagnon Citation2003, Citation1986) which stress how the ‘sexual’ takes shape and meaning in relation to societal expectations and contexts, and reveal how cultural and heteronormative expectations influence sexual interactions between men and women. Research has suggested that pornography consumption can serve as a source of scripts that influence sexual behaviour negatively (Goldstein Citation2020; Marshall, Miller, and Bouffard Citation2021; Rothman et al. Citation2018), an argument also used by the Science and Maths teacher: ‘But I still think that the porn industry contributes to destructive and negative parts of it.’ Although teachers talked about how pornographic films might influence adolescents in heterosexual relationships, they broadened the focus of their concern to include others by introducing the gender-neutral word partner (partner). Terminology such as this is widely used in Swedish classrooms, the result of the earlier described norm-critical pedagogy.

The teachers also materialised gender in relation to issues of consent, although this exact term was not used. In the comment ‘it does not matter that she says no. Because it means yes … ’ the English and P.E. teacher came close to offering a description of pornography as being the opposite of consent. Research has shown that young adults consider pornography to often be conflated with non-consensual and rough sex, stressing the need for sexuality education to problematise these matters in relation to sexual consent (Dawson, Nic Gabhainn, and MacNeela Citation2020).

Importantly, this thread materialises pornography education as both gendered and scripted. Allen (Citation2011) concludes that if the overall school curriculum does not aim to challenge gender inequality and actively seek to promote sexual justice, educational programmes with a singular focus on pornography are unlikely to lead to significant change. However, Swedish school have a responsibility to challenge students’ notions of what are considered female and male attributes (Swedish National Agency for Education Citation2022), and the curriculum thereby offers a solid basis for approaching pornography in gendered terms. Although gender differences and equality are possible entry points for pornography education, other opportunities for doing so were identified in subject-specific fields.

The thread of educational conditions

In the new curriculum, reference to the word ‘pornography’ occurs (once) in the general introduction and while it is mandatory for schools to engage with this issue (Swedish National Agency for Education Citation2022, 8), doing so is not part of any subject-specific syllabus. In the teacher-researcher meetings conducted as part of this study, a search for entry points for pornography education occurred. Accordingly, this thread materialised possible consequences for subject-specific teaching:

Scrutiny of subject syllabi identified space to address sex, sexuality, relationships, love and even nudity in teaching as well as to problematise the sexualisation of the female body in sports and music. The Civic and Arts teacher came up with the idea of using Art History to illustrate how views on sexuality and nudity have changed over time and vary in different cultures. The teachers’ suggestions thereby aligned with the first part of the new education policy’s encouragement for there to be a focus on relationships and sexuality in the media and other contexts (Swedish National Agency for Education Citation2022). Although the teachers found several ways of addressing relationships and sexuality in education, they also found it troublesome to make links directly to the topic of pornography.

Teachers’ trouble finding subject-specific entry points for pornography education echo findings from a UK-based study. In it, Hancock and Barker (Citation2018) identify critical thinking about sexually explicit media and pornography reasonable content for sexuality education. However, to be effective, teaching needs to have a broader base and should include students’ relationships to themselves and others, as well as communication, consent and how to recognise and respond to inequality. The importance of there being a broad base for learning also formed part of the teachers’ discussion. For example, they expressed the need for educational forums to address topics of concern more openly in a way not limited by subject-specificity. The thematic week on sexuality education was identified as a key setting in this respect.

The Science and Maths teacher considered the thematic week an important means to engage with topics ‘hard to link to specific subjects’ such as pornography. A similar issue has been documented in a US study where a pornography literacy curriculum took the form of an extra-curricular activity (Rothman, Daley, and Alder Citation2020). The use of the curriculum had several positive outcomes such as improving factual knowledge about pornography, providing young people with the opportunity to critique content and language use, and problematising sexual norms. Such an approach, when it engages with discussion of shame, acceptability, communication, consent, body and genital image, safe sex, porn as education, the realities of sex, as well as sexual functioning may assist in the development of more personalised sexual scripts (Dawson, Nic Gabhainn, and MacNeela Citation2020; Rothman et al. Citation2018). Although this kind of work could be part of school-based sexuality education in Sweden, teachers found it troublesome to link it to specific school subjects.

In this thread, pornography education was materialised in terms of curricular and organisational contexts. It showed that if thematic, interdisciplinary and extra-curricular forums for discussion of pornography as part of sexuality education are not available, this may be troublesome for teachers’ opportunities to address the topic. Although this thread mostly inspired questions about how the teaching could come into being, it also led to questioning about student engagement.

The thread of student engagement

Even though they were not invited to be part of the planning students were constantly present in teachers’ discussions, for example, via their previous criticisms of material engagements in sexuality education. In one teacher-researcher meeting, the Science teacher shared a story from previous year’s screening of the educational film Sex on the Map (RSFU and UR Citation2012). This is an age-appropriate, sex-positive, and inclusive film produced by the Swedish Association for Sexuality Education and the Swedish Educational Broadcasting Company. The film is widely used in Swedish secondary school sexuality education and has also been shown internationally. The teacher had used the film many times in Biology classes:

The Science teacher described the cartoon as norm-conscious in the way it engaged with the first sexual encounter as well as being ‘informative’ and ‘good’ from the Biology syllabus point of view. However, the film could also become the ‘flop’ the teacher had experienced twice. Since the film shows explicit forms of sexual activity, some former students had seen it as a ‘fucking porn movie’.

When the film was shown to pre-service teacher students in Australia as part of a course on pleasure-oriented sexuality education, one of the students also said, ‘I felt like I was watching porn’ (Ollis Citation2016). Regardless of whether the association with porn was made by Swedish or Australian students, the Science teacher concluded that some students ‘cannot watch it because they are embarrassed’. This embarrassment could be due to discomfort with desire-oriented sexuality education or because teaching about pleasure so rarely occurs. Although pleasure has been promoted as an integral part of sexuality education in Sweden for a long time (Bäckman Citation2003), teachers’ accounts evidence the trouble that can arise when explicit portrayals of sex are shown in the classroom.

In the teacher–researcher meetings, student engagement materialised in terms of polarised debates. Hence, a few voices tended to dominate classroom discussions in general and the teachers were worried that this might also happen when teaching about pornography:

Student engagement is often promoted as a key aspect of sexuality education (Dawson, Nic Gabhainn, and MacNeela Citation2020; Goldstein Citation2020; Hancock and Barker Citation2018; Spišák Citation2016). Although teachers in this study aimed to engage students, the Civics and Arts teacher expressed concern about discussions turning into ‘debate’ which could make the classroom ‘polarised’. The same teacher also stressed the importance of ‘talking about’ rather than ‘imposing values’. The Science and Maths teacher on the other hand was worried about a few voices dominating discussion while most students remain silent. The account ends with the English and P.E. teacher stating that pornography is a topic that is not ‘possible to discuss in a whole-class forum’.

This teachers’ comments triggered questions about how best to organise the teaching that would take place. In response to these concerns, students were seated in small groups throughout the week-long sexuality education unit, with the grouping being based on teachers’ prior knowledge of individual students. The teachers’ reflections also aroused questions on how best to engage students during the specific teaching about pornography. Part of the lesson was therefore devoted to discussing and digitally posting anonymous answers to questions and situations inspired by the Swedish youth clinics web site (https://www.umo.se/sex/porr/) on the board at the front of the classroom.

The following materialised stories come from the researchers’ notes taken during a participant observation to the class:

In response to the first question asked, students described the word ‘porn’ in terms of ‘sex, violent, usually goes by the norms, often hetero, not reality, can be violent … and rough’. The answers given here could be taken to mean that the students had already developed a range of critical skills. Byron et al. (Citation2021), Spišák (Citation2016), and Litsou et al. (Citation2021) suggest that adolescents already have a degree of pornographic literacy, and that this needs to be acknowledged. On the second question, about society’s views on porn, students’ answers were unanimous – it is okay to watch porn in secret. The answers to these two questions show parallels to findings from a study among Canadian university undergraduates where it was found that normative discourses of pornography present in research and the media constrained student discussion (Goldstein Citation2020), which may also have been the case in this study.

The lesson about pornography, taking place in the middle of the thematic sexuality education week, included several case studies, one of which materialised a troubling situation about an individual being unwilling to perform the sexual acts commonly portrayed in pornographic films with a real-life partner. In their response to it, students emphasised the importance of communication, consent and respect. Importantly, the lesson did not end in polarised discussion, nor did specific voices dominate in the classroom. Instead, the students seemed subdued, did not seem keen to discuss pornography, and did not ask questions. This materialisation of silence could be due to ambiguities about what the teaching was aiming to achieve, or it could have been due to the fact that students were restrained from discussing pornography by normative societal values.

Within this thread, pornography education was materialised in terms of how best to arrange teaching prior to lesson delivery. Students’ answers to questions and the case studies materialised societal views about pornography on the board. However, the students’ somewhat normative responses, in line with current Swedish political debate, require further scrutiny and attention.

The thread of normativity

Initially the Music teacher had likened pornography to ‘the elephant in the room’. By addressing the topic, explicit reference was made to it in school, but also produced questions as to whether the teaching aimed to be normative. This thread mostly materialised stories from the teachers’ evaluation meetings and student interviews conducted at the end of the thematic week:

Teachers’ anxieties about normativity were materialised in several ways. The Science and Maths teacher was unsure whether to involve students in discussions they might not be ready for. The English and P.E. teacher, on the other hand, emphasised how teachers tried to ensure that their own opinions about porn were not conveyed, but also that the teaching purpose was unclear. Ultimately, were students to think pornography ‘good’, ‘good in a certain way’, or ‘bad’? Teachers’ reflections ended in critique of having an isolated lesson on pornography and stressed the need for a future more ‘de-dramatised’ approach (see also Dawson, Nic Gabhainn, and MacNeela Citation2020; Goldstein Citation2020; Hancock and Barker Citation2018; Spišák Citation2016). In many ways, the teachers’ stories interconnect with Ideas expressed by the Swedish National Agency for Education (Citation2022, 8), which suggests students should be ‘given the opportunity to develop a critical approach to how relationships and sexuality are portrayed in various media and contexts, including pornography’ [our translation] – raising important questions about what ‘the critical approach’ might aim for. Elsewhere, Byron et al. (Citation2021) problematise the adoption of a critical approach as too often encouraging reading of pornography as something negative and unrealistic, and avoiding attending to the value people may find in it. In this study too, teachers found it troublesome to include views that were not negative.

In interviews at the end of the thematic week on sexuality education the students implicitly confirmed the normative basis of the teaching. In addition to the questions and case studies, pornography education had been materialised through the screening of the YouTube film High Speed Internet Porn and the Experimental Generation (Lind and Thurfjell Citation2020). The film, which has a focus on porn addiction, had a clear impact on students. In response to the questions about what they had learned in class, students gave the following answers, which we have merged into a sequence:

During evaluation meetings, implicitly negative messages also materialised in teachers’ discussions. For example, the English and P.E. teacher reflected on the choice of the film, confirming that ‘it’s partly angled at guys, and it has a message that is one-sided’. Film has previously been used as a pedagogical device in Swedish education. For example, some twenty years ago all upper secondary students were asked to view another film, Lilja 4-ever (Moodysson Citation2002), with the goal of promoting gender equality and increasing awareness of the sex trade. However, analysis of the classroom activities that followed the screening concluded that certain understandings of masculinity were normalised rather than questioned by the showing (Sparrman Citation2006). This raises questions about how school can best facilitate discussion that goes beyond the one-sided reproduction of stereotypes. In sum, this thread materialised and troubled normativity in terms of the negative messages conveyed by teaching and identified challenges for schools wanting to engage with this topic in a nuanced way.