Most young people see porn before 15, most often without looking for it, and most see sexual violence in it before 18

Before 15, for most

Australia's eSafety Commissioner put an online survey to 1,004 people aged 16 to 18 in September 2022. 751 of them had seen porn online, and they were asked how old they were the first time¹. The average answer was 13¹.

The spread says more than the average. 4% first saw it before they were 9, 13% at 9 or 10 and 22% at 11 or 12, so 39% had seen it before they turned 13¹. Another 33% first saw it at 13 or 14¹. By 15, about 7 in 10 of those who had seen porn already had¹. Only 4% first saw it at 17 or 18, a share kept low partly because a 16 year old cannot answer 17¹.

The numbers from England look much the same. The Children's Commissioner asked 1,014 people aged 16 to 21 in November 2022. Of those who had seen porn, 10% had seen it by age 9, 27% by 11 and half by 13². The office ran the survey again in May 2025, with most of the same questions³. The average first age was still 13, and the share who had seen porn at all had gone up from 64% to 70%³.

Both surveys lean on memory. A 19 year old is recalling something from years before, so the ages are what people remember, not what anyone recorded¹². The Australian sample was not weighted, which means it describes the people who answered rather than every Australian teenager¹. We looked for a survey that gives these ages for Pakistan or anywhere in South Asia and found none.

Most did not go looking

If most children meet porn at 11, 12 or 13, the next question is how. The Australian survey asked the 751 directly. 40% said that the first time, it appeared or popped up online, in an ad, a pop-up, a social media feed or a gaming site¹. 34% said someone shared it with them¹. It was sent, shown or posted in a group chat. Only 22% said they searched for it¹.

The shared group is softer than it looks. The report notes that some of that 34% may have asked a friend to show them¹. Even so, about three in four first saw porn because it reached them, not because they went after it¹.

In England the accidental share has climbed fast. In November 2022, 38% of 16 to 21 year olds who had seen porn online said they had come across it by accident². By May 2025 it was 59%³. That is a rise of 21 points in two and a half years³. The same 2025 survey found 35% of them had also looked for it themselves³. The two answers overlap. A teenager can come across it first and search for it later.

This changes what a parent, or a teenager, is up against. Telling a 12 year old not to search for porn does little when most first sightings arrive in a feed or a chat without a search.

On social media more than porn sites

The pop-ups and feeds point to where it happens. In both English surveys people could name more than one place, so the shares add to more than 100%²³. In 2022, 41% had seen it on X, formerly Twitter, against 37% on dedicated porn sites². By 2025 the gap had grown to 45% against 35%³.

Instagram fell from 33% to 23% and Snapchat from 32% to 29%²³. Other places came up too. In 2022, 30% had seen porn through a search engine². In 2025, 22% had seen it on TikTok and 15% on YouTube³. A porn site is somewhere a person has to choose to go. X, Instagram and Snapchat are where young people already spend their day.

These numbers deserve a loose grip. Most of the people asked were 18 to 21, and neither report limits the question to childhood, so this is not a count of what children see²³. The 2025 report prints its base less clearly than the 2022 one, and we read it as the same group, those who had seen porn online³. Before weighting, the 2025 sample was 64% women, against about half in 2022²³.

What they saw

The Commissioner's 2022 survey also asked what people had seen. Only those aged 18 to 21 got these questions. Of the ones who had seen online porn, 79% had seen at least one sexually violent act in it before they turned 18². 74% had seen a degrading act, 73% physically aggressive sex, with airway restriction and slapping given as examples, and 66% sexual coercion².

Here the age of first sight comes back. Among those who first saw porn before 11, 96% had seen sexual violence in it before 18. Among those who first saw it at 12 or older, it was 72%². Both numbers are high. The earlier start still went with more violence seen by 18, and the first section showed how many children start early.

Not all of it was stumbled on. 36% had gone looking for at least one violent act themselves². The 2025 survey asked about strangulation. 58% of respondents aged 18 to 21 had seen it in porn before 18, and 6% had searched for it³. The report does not say whether that 58% counts all 18 to 21 year olds or only those who had seen porn³. Nor does the 2022 report print how many of its 18 to 21 year olds had seen porn, so the count behind each bar is unknown².

Sextortion of teenage boys

Social media carries a second risk for teenagers, and it falls mostly on boys. This part is not about porn. It comes from reports to NCMEC, the US clearinghouse for child exploitation, and it is about financial sextortion⁴. Someone, often using a fake social media account, gets a young person to send a nude image, then demands money not to share it⁴⁶.

NCMEC first tracked it in 2022 and received 10,731 reports that year⁴⁵. In 2023 it received 26,718⁴, though NCMEC's 2026 chart labels 2023 as more than 28,000⁵. In 2024 there were more than 36,000, though the 2026 release gives no exact total⁵. In 2025 there were more than 50,000, an average of 137 a day⁵⁶. That is almost five times the 2022 count, three years later.

Thorn and NCMEC went through samples of reports from 2020 to 2023. Among minors in reports made by the public whose age and sex were known, 90% were boys aged 14 to 17, a figure drawn from all 3,600 cases NCMEC had analysed rather than the samples⁷. That is the age band just past the one at which, in the surveys above, most teenagers had already seen porn.

Few reports say how it affected the victim. Only 8.9% discussed any impact on the victim⁷. Of those, 38% mentioned paying, and 27% of the payers said the demands kept coming. The median payment was $100⁷. Paying did not reliably make it stop.

NCMEC knows of at least 36 US teenage boys who have taken their own lives after it happened to them⁶.

Reports are not victims. One victim can be reported more than once, and many are never reported. The counts also depend on how platforms detect and report sextortion, the Thorn report notes, and its analysis counted only what the report text stated, not attached screenshots⁷. A survey gives a rough idea of how common it is. In 2016 Patchin and Hinduja surveyed 5,568 US students aged 12 to 17, and 5% said someone had at some point threatened to share a sexual image of them⁸. Boys said so more often than girls, 5.8% against 4.1%⁸. That survey counted threats of any kind from anyone, and the threat most often came from a boyfriend or girlfriend, for about a third of victims⁸. Someone known only online made the threat for 20% of the boys and 11% of the girls who were targeted⁸.

How they found it

• Australia's eSafety Commissioner surveyed 1,004 people aged 16 to 18 online in September 2022. 751 had seen online porn and said how old they were and how the first time happened.
• England's Children's Commissioner surveyed 1,014 people aged 16 to 21 in November 2022, and 1,020 in May 2025 with most of the same questions. Both were weighted by age and sex.
• Each person ticked every place they had ever seen porn, so the platform shares add to more than 100%.
• In the 2022 survey, only those aged 18 to 21 were asked about specific acts.
• Thorn and NCMEC analysed samples of NCMEC reports from 2020 to 2023. The yearly chart counts every report NCMEC received from the public and from online platforms.
• The 2016 student survey asked a single question about sextortion of any kind, from anyone, at any point in life, so it is not a count of financial sextortion.

What it cannot tell you

• Everyone is remembering back years. The ages and what they saw are recalled, not recorded.
• "Seen" includes by accident and being shown it by someone else, and accidental and deliberate overlap. These surveys ask about online porn only.
• The Australian sample was not weighted, so it describes the people who answered, not every Australian teenager. We found no survey that gives these ages for Pakistan or anywhere in South Asia.
• The platform shares count everywhere people had ever seen porn, including as adults. Before weighting, the 2025 English sample was 64% women, against about half in 2022.
• The 2022 report does not print how many 18 to 21 year olds had seen porn, and the 2025 report does not say whether its 58% for strangulation counts all of them or only those who had seen porn.
• Sextortion counts are reports, not victims, and depend on how platforms detect and report it.

Sources

1. eSafety Commissioner. Accidental, unsolicited and in your face. Australian Government; 2023.
2. Children's Commissioner for England. "A lot of it is actually just abuse": young people and pornography. 2023.
3. Children's Commissioner for England. "Sex is kind of broken now": children and pornography. 2025.
4. National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. NCMEC releases new sextortion data. 15 April 2024.
5. National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. NCMEC releases new sextortion data: over 100 reports received daily in 2025. 25 June 2026.
6. National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. 2025 CyberTipline report.
7. Thorn, National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. Trends in financial sextortion: an investigation of sextortion reports in NCMEC CyberTipline data. June 2024.
8. Patchin JW, Hinduja S. Sextortion among adolescents: results from a national survey of U.S. youth. Sex Abuse. 2020;32(1):30-54.

Sources checked October 2026.