The May 16 edition

I grew up in an era when access to porn was no more sophisticated than knowing someone who might have had an older sibling with a stack of illicit magazines under their bed. The type of pornographic content that has since become accessible online is on an entirely different level – intensely explicit, virtually infinite in volume and accessed, often accidentally and unwittingly, by very young children. There is no question this has played a powerful role in defining young people’s expectations as they have their first intimate sexual experiences, and that it has diminished many young people’s ability to identify their threshold for mutually respectful sexual interaction. Earlier this year, the eSafety Commissioner’s Age-Restricted Material Codes were introduced, requiring people to prove they are older than 18 before they can access adult content such as porn. Turning off the tap for material which has had an outsized influence on sexual behaviour feels like a significant line in the sand, particularly for young men. Is this a watershed moment for young people and sex in Australia? Today we explore this important question. – Melissa Stevens, editor