One click away: Children are accessing violent porn and there’s no system to stop it
Saturday, 28 March 2026
It takes seconds for children to access explicit online content — much of it violent or aggressive. Experts say exposure is happening earlier than ever, but meaningful safeguards remain absent. Amelia Wade reports.
All it takes is one click to confirm you’re over 18. Then you’re in.
Within seconds, explicit videos appear on the Pornhub homepage ‒ a woman with a man standing on her neck, teens being gagged, women being slapped and porn stars having gang bangs.
All of it free, instantly accessible and just one click away for Kiwi kids.
“It's harder for them to access Netflix than it is for them to access porn,” says researcher Jo Robertson.
While most mainstream entertainment platforms require logins, subscriptions or parental controls, many pornographic websites rely on little more than a click-through declaration.
Despite being legally restricted to adults, online pornography remains widely accessible to children in New Zealand. There is no comprehensive, enforceable age-verification system in place to prevent access ‒ a gap officials have acknowledged for years.
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At the same time, research suggests exposure is happening early, often unintentionally, and in an environment where the content itself is becoming more aggressive.
Research from the Classification Office into New Zealand porn consumption showed 46% of the top 100 videos had an incestuous theme and 35% had coercive or non-consensual behaviour.
Broader studies have found 45% of scenes contain physical or verbal aggression, most often directed at women.
“The content is not what people imagine when they think of porn, they think of people having sex, and it's so much more nuanced, complicated and problematic than that.”
A tragic consequence
In 2024, a Bay of Plenty teenager died while imitating acts he saw online after becoming interested in violent porn.
Coroner Michael Robb said the teen had made “troubling” internet searches the day before his death and said the case highlighted the risks posed by unrestricted internet access.
“It does not appear to have been his accessing or ability to access social media platforms, but rather the open access to the internet that is available to any person, child or adult, who has access to any internet-enabled device.”
Robb said parental controls alone were not sufficient.
“While controls can be applied to the device, the risk remains that tech-savvy youth can work around this.”
The case represents an extreme outcome, but underscores broader concerns about what children can access and how little stands in their way.
Children are watching rough sex
For some, those expectations are already showing up in real-world encounters.
Police have warned the trend is causing harm, with one detective saying children as young as 12 are making complaints about choking during sex.
Detective Michael Alexander is stationed at the sexual assault and child abuse centre, Koru House, in Petone near Wellington. Last year, he told The Post they were seeing more young complainants coming forward after sexual experiences that began consensually, but escalated into choking or violence without discussion.
“We’re getting children … that come forward and say, I’ve had sex, it was consensual and there was choking but it’s gone a bit too far,” Alexander said.
“We’re getting these complaints from 13-year-olds, 14-year-olds, 15-year-olds.”
Robertson has recently interviewed a group of 15-year-olds and all of them had enacted different types of rough sex and name-calling because they thought that's what they should do, or what they believed their partner wanted.
“They talked about a daytime relationship and a nighttime relationship, like daytime is about respect and kindness, and night-time he calls me a slut and strangles me.”
That doesn’t come from anywhere else except for the internet ‒ and it comes from porn, Robertson said.
Online porn is easily accessible for Kiwi young people and children ‒ on their smartphones and other devices ‒ because there is no comprehensive mechanism in place to prevent access in New Zealand.
But we don’t really know how many young people are accessing porn.
New Zealand’s most comprehensive research on young people and pornography ‒ conducted by the Classification Office ‒ found that one in four had first seen porn by age 12, rising to three in four by age 17. Most ‒ 71% ‒ were not seeking it out when they first saw it.
Because we don’t fund ongoing studies, that research is now eight years old.
Robertson says that gap matters.
“One of our biggest issues in New Zealand is that we don’t have ongoing research. Having data that old, in a digital environment that changes this fast, is unusual.”
More recent international research suggests the average age of first exposure is around 12 ‒ meaning about half of young people are seeing it earlier than that.
The way they encounter it has also remained consistent: often accidentally, or through sharing by peers.
In one case Robertson recounts, a 10-year-old girl received explicit material without warning while riding the school bus. Other students used Bluetooth to send aggressive pornographic videos directly to her phone without her consent.
“That [experience is] pretty mainstream now,” Robertson says.
For parents, that presents a difficult reality. Exposure is no longer confined to deliberate searches at home. It can happen at school, on public transport, or through another child’s device.
‘The industry has won’
The accessibility of online pornography is not a new problem, but progress has been limited.
In 2019, an inter-agency Pornography Working Party warned ministers that traditional safeguards had effectively disappeared in the online environment.
“Access to online pornography is easy,” the briefing said. “Traditional restrictions simply do not exist in the online space.”
Officials considered a range of responses, including filtering systems and age verification.
In 2022, the same group said New Zealand had an opportunity to adopt “best practice regulatory protection such as age verification”.
But no comprehensive system has been implemented.
Instead, the issue was absorbed into a broader overhaul of New Zealand’s content regulation system ‒ the Safer Online Services and Media Platforms review ‒ which concluded in 2024 without delivering a nationwide age-verification regime.
After a series of setbacks, the UK brought in a requirement last year for porn websites operating there to “robustly” age-check users.
PornHub has since restricted access there but criticism of the UK’s law is that it can be easily circumnavigated by using a virtual private network (VPN).
Last year, Australia implemented age verification laws and fines for breaches which came into effect this month. The new checks mean platforms have to implement checks like facial recognition technology, digital IDs and credit card details.
RedTube, YouPorn and Tube8 ‒ all owned by Canadian porn giant Aylo ‒ have stopped all Australians from registering accounts and accessing content.
Robertson supports stronger age-verification measures, even if they are not perfect and can be bypassed with VPNs.
“What we’re trying to do is create friction,” she says.
“When you create more friction, you slowly change culture.”
The aim is not to eliminate access entirely, but to make it harder ‒ and to send a signal about what is considered acceptable.
“At the moment, there’s no friction,” she says. “And no signal that this isn’t for them.”
Even a partial reduction would be meaningful, she argues.
“If 10% fewer young people were accessing this kind of content, that would be a win.”
Robertson says many Kiwis who work in the sexual harm space, including herself, now feel worn down and defeated by attempts for reform grinding to a halt.
Any move to reintroduce controls can be perceived as a loss of freedom.
“The industry has won,” Robertson says.
“In the fight between adult access to porn and child protection, adult access has won.”
Does restriction work?
Not everyone agrees that tighter controls are the answer.
Criminologist Samantha Keene is cautious about relying on restrictions alone.
“Categorical bans in the history of prohibition haven’t really worked,” she says.
Instead, she argues for stronger education, particularly at a time when relationships and sexuality education is under pressure.
“What I am particularly concerned about is that at the same time that we’re seeing aggression becoming a core component of contemporary pornography … in New Zealand, we are currently paring back our relationships and sexuality education offerings.”
Research shows that implementation of sexuality education varies widely across schools, meaning many young people miss out on consistent guidance around consent, relationships and online content.
At the same time, conversations at home are often absent.
Two-thirds of young people report never having spoken to a parent or caregiver about pornography.
That leaves a gap. And when schools, parents and platforms leave a vacuum, Keene says, porn fills it.
They are encountering explicit material earlier, more frequently, and often without guidance.
“They’re living their lives online,” Keene says.
“We know this ‒ and we are naive to be paring back education at a time when pornography may well become the default sexual educator for young people.”
Robertson says her eldest son is 12 and has not yet seen pornography ‒ something she calls “a miracle”.
“If I can get them to 13, he’s already much better off than most kids.”
How to talk to your child about porn
New Zealand sexuality educator Jo Robertson says many parents underestimate both how early children are exposed to porn ‒ and how often they need to talk about it.
Her advice is simple: start earlier, talk more often, and be more specific than you think.
Start earlier than you think
Parents don’t need to wait until their child is a teenager.
Robertson recommends introducing the topic around age 10, but says conversations can begin much earlier, even from age five or six, by talking more generally about seeing inappropriate images or videos online.
“If your child is using devices or going to homes where devices are used, they are more likely to see porn earlier than you imagine.”
Don’t make it a one-off conversation
Many parents raise the issue once and assume it’s covered.
That’s not enough.
Children often need to hear a message four to eight times before it sticks, Robertson says. Regular, low-pressure conversations are more effective than one serious talk.
A simple message can be enough to start: “Porn isn’t for kids ‒ if you see something, come and talk to me.”
Be clear about what they might see
Children are not just seeing nudity ‒ they may be exposed to aggressive or confusing content.
That means conversations need to go beyond basic sex education.
Parents should be prepared to talk about:
consent and what it looks like
pressure, coercion and manipulation
rough sex and harmful behaviours
respect and communication in relationships
“The conversations most adults are having are not matching the content young people are seeing,” Robertson says.
Don’t assume they won’t listen
Teenagers may seem embarrassed or disengaged, but that doesn’t mean the message isn’t landing.
“They might look awkward, but they are listening,” Robertson says.
“They do care what their parents think, even if they don’t show it.”
Keep the door open
The goal is not to control everything a child sees, but to make sure they feel safe talking about it.
Ongoing, open conversations can help young people process what they encounter online ‒ and understand that what they see is not always a reflection of real-life relationships.