Truth about boys, porn and how they talk about girls

THE nine teenage boys aged 13 to 15 sat joking and laughing in their south London classroom, their joshing belying a nervousness, trying to gauge how honest they should be.

- David Cohen

The question from the workshop moderator came up: how young were you when you first accessed pornography? The room went quiet. "I saw it in primary school, I saw people having sex, I didn't really know what was going on," said one boy. "I was six," braved a second, his voice yet to break. "My friends tricked me into it," said a third. The revelations kept coming. "I was 10." "I was nine." "I was 12" Their vulnerability was poignant, but when asked how porn might affect how they relate to girls, they fidgeted, shrugged and fell silent again.

The discussion moved onto what appeared to be more comfortable territory rating girls in their school.

"Most of us do it," said one boy. There was a clamour of agreement. Rating categories included "peng, leng or meedy", slang for "attractive, sexy or ugly". Also popular was "kiss marry kill" and "kiss marry smash" where "smash" (to have sex) was the highest rank and "kill" the lowest.

Did they feel peer pressure to rate girls? "Yeah," several said. "People see it as entertainment," added another.

"You're in a group, they start talking about girls and their bodies, it's fun." How might the girls feel about it? "Not happy, especially if they rate below five," said one boy.

Another volunteered: "There were eight of us in a group chat, we were rating girls in our class, one was a definite 'kill. Was it wrong? Yeah, you feel bad. But not so bad you wouldn't do it again." Some in the group were uncomfortable. "It can be sexist," one boy said.

The chat turned to receiving naked images of girls. Seven of the nine admitted to seeing revealing pictures of girls from their school being passed around on someone's phone. One boy said: "A girl at our school sold a nude pic of herself to a boy for £50. Everyone was like 'come look, come look!" How did they feel joining in? "You don't think about it, you just do it," one boy said.