UK kids increasingly exposed to online porn

London: British children as young as 11 are being given “unrealistic expectations” of sex after being exposed to Internet pornography, a new study has said.

The study, published by Plymouth University, warned that it was “common practice” for school children to become desensitised to sexual images after accessing explicit images at an early age. Some young people are becoming “hooked” on internet pornography before they become sexually active, leading to problems in later life, the study said. “It’s common practice for kids today to watch internet porn. One thing that clearly came out of it was issues around desensitization,” the Telegraph quoted Professor Andy Phippen, who authored the study, as saying. “Some people are getting hooked on the porn and then are not able to perform in the real world. It can give people unrealistic expectations. It can be very damaging for some people,” he added. According to the paper, the research found that a third of people aged 16 to 24 found sex with partners difficult because of what they had seen online. The research surveyed 1,000 young people in the UK, with some saying they first watched pornography at the “age of 11 or 12”, the paper said. ANI