#253 Ethical Porn and Teen Curiosity: Rethinking Sex Ed (with Giselle Woodley)

Cam Fraser (0:08)

All right, so the way that I like to start Giselle is with three questions. Those questions are, who are you, what do you do, and what are you passionate about?

Giselle Woodley (0:17)

Great questions. My name is Giselle Woodley, and Dr. Giselle Woodley, I've just recently Congratulations. Thank you.

Cam Fraser (0:23)

That's amazing, well done.

Giselle Woodley (0:25)

That's a very new title, so it still feels uncomfortable to say it. So technically Dr. Gis for short.

Cam Fraser (0:32)

Amazing. I love that.

Giselle Woodley (0:34)

Because my friends call me Gis. I have been researching teens' perspectives of pornography as well as their relationships and sexuality education. So looking at the various sources of sexual information and how they sort of all function in accordance with each other, including pornography, was my PhD topic, which was part of an Australian Research Council funded project that looked at teens' perspectives of pornography more widely. And then I'm also a sexologist and I'm now a lecturer and research fellow with a postdoc attached to a new project looking at teens. Again, teens inform strategies for image-based abuse and sex distortion, but we'll be looking at deep fakes and AI. And what am I passionate about? I'm passionate about youth-led strategies that actually work, not adults deciding what's going to work without consulting young people. So I'm passionate about that. And I'm also really passionate about sexuality education, which is handy because most of the young people I talk to also believe that that is the best strategy for various different detrimental things in their lives. So, yeah.

Cam Fraser (1:37)

What prompted you to go down this road? You were just joking before we started recording that you're a bit of a porn scholar now. So how did that kind of come about? What led to you researching this?

Giselle Woodley (1:47)

Oh God, there's a not safe for work answer for this and a safe for work answer. Well, it's interesting because I went to a, I saw this PhD scholarship and it wasn't necessarily, I knew porn wasn't necessarily something that I was interested in. This is back in 2019, but I was interested in relationships and sexuality education. And so I went along to this public policy talk, which was run by Alan McKee and Zara Stardust, just to sort of have a look before I applied, like could I work in porn research? Because at that time I thought, I don't really like porn. Is this something I could do? But also porn is a great argument for better relationships and sexuality education. So it was somewhat strategic. And I was really into activism. And I thought, you know, having the letters against your name helps with activism, particularly in public policy. And so I went along to this talk and they were really personable and really gentle in the way they talked. And they made me think about things a little bit differently. And then I ended up applying and I got the scholarship. And funnily enough, at the end of last year, I ended up being on a panel with Zara and Alan. So it kind of came full circle, which I forgot to mention to them while we were there. But I run by the same people who were running that previous panel five years prior. So that was a really nice full circle moment.

Cam Fraser (3:03)

Yeah, totally. And I think the emphasis on teenagers' perspectives is super valuable and super important. You kind of made a quick little remark there, but I want to really emphasize it and get your take on this. But there seems to be so many, I mean, well-meaning, well-intentioned adults, educators, people in the space who are hearing a lot of decisions about sexuality education, respect for relationships, pornography on behalf of students and teens and young people. And kind of the way that I've observed is kind of like, we know best, right? And so we're going to decide what it is that you get educated about and how you get educated about it. And when it comes to pornography, typically what I see and observe is porn is bad, don't watch it, it'll ruin your relationships and ruin your sexual attitudes.

Yeah, ruin your brain, you little fuck up, right? It's like the long and the short of it. And so whenever I do look online for information about teenagers' perspectives about pornography, there really isn't a lot. And if there is, it's very propagandized, I will say, right? Where it's typically in the context of, I mean, I don't want to signal boost any people here, but like fight the new drug, for example, like have some teen voices in there, but it's always quite sensationalist and anti-pornography, of course. And so getting some like just everyday teens' perspectives and teens that maybe are even a bit more open to that kind of sex neutral, sex positive approach to talking about these topics, I think is valuable. So my long winded way of asking your question is, you know, I suppose, has that been, am I way off base there? Is like teen voice really missing from these places or these conversations? And like, what did you find when you started to ask things about that?