Antecedents of the initiation of watching sexually explicit Internet material: A longitudinal study among adolescents

Little research to date has focused on adolescents’ initiation of watching sexually explicit Internet material (SEIM) and its antecedents. Based on 400 adolescents who had never watched SEIM at baseline (in a three-wave panel study among 1,467 13–17-year-old Dutch adolescents), we examined antecedents of the initiation of watching SEIM one year later. Logistic regression analyses indicated that boys were more likely to start watching SEIM than girls. A hypergender identity increased the likelihood to initiate watching SEIM among girls, whereas frequent exposure to the sexy self-presentation of others in social media especially increased boys’ chance of watching SEIM. An interaction effect between sexual experience and age was also found.