Watching porn may not impact young people's sexual behaviour

For long, watching porn has been blamed for increase in sexual practices among teens but a new study has suggested that explicit material only has a small impact.

The study involved 4600 people in the age group of 15-25 in The Netherlands and their pornographic habits and sexual behaviour.

John de Wit, director of the National Centre in HIV Social Research at the University of NSW, told the Sydney Morning Herald that the findings suggested that rise in prevalence of sexually explicit material had less impact than previously believed.

He said that the common perception is that if a person sees something on screen they will act it out in their private lives, but he said that the people, who are more adventurous in terms of making love, are more likely to consume porn.

De Wit said that watching pornographic material is not causing these people to have more adventurous sex.

The study found that 88 percent of men and 45 percent of women had watched porn in the past years.

The study has been published in The Journal of Sexual Medicine.