Adolescent Boys and Pornography: Notes on a Complex System

Abstract

ABSTRACT Adolescent boys’ engagement with pornography serves multiple developmental functions. Like other external supports of developent it can contribute to problematic development. Understanding these multiple functions and their interrelationships as they function as part of a complex system leads to a fuller picture of this aspect of boys’ development and its multiple potential pathways. It supports a clinical exploratory attitude that starts with an appreciation that use of pornography is not best thought of as a symptom and continues as an outline of potential meanings and functions of this activity, particularly as it interacts with the broader field of the adolescent’s sexuality.