Youths today – those aged 15 to 35 – live an existence vastly different from their parents’. Denizens of a digital world, the internet has given them access to information and images like no other generation.

“There is definitely an increase in access to sexual information online. And pornography is one of the dominant options out there. So youths are getting their ideas about sex, about relationships through this medium,” said Dr Tsao I Ting.

“Whenever it comes to online information about sex, it’s often very visual. So sexuality becomes something that’s just very much about the sex. It’s independent of relationships.”

(Left to right) Moderator Joshua Liong and panellists Dr Tsao I Ting, Dr Ng Liang Wei and Michelle Soon. Photo courtesy of Focus on the Family Singapore.

But sexuality encompasses more than the physical to include the relational. Intimacy involves not just sexual intimacy but emotional intimacy as well, said Dr Tsao.

A clinical psychologist with more than 15 years of experience across public and private settings, Dr Tsao was speaking at a plenary session that was part of a master class on “The Future of Healthy Sexuality” by Focus on the Family Singapore.

The session, entitled “Next-Gen Sexual Issues”, sought to look at worrying trends among youths in the areas of sex and sexuality, the factors that drive these trends, and the tools needed to train the hearts and minds of the next generation to desire good.

On the panel with Dr Tsao were Dr Ng Liang Wei and Michelle Soon. Dr Ng is Director of Sexual Wholeness Services at Lakeside Family Services and executive director of Indigo & Co, a charity that focuses on sexuality and gender identity. Michelle is an educator and commissioned Colson Fellow trained to engage culture today with the Christian worldview.

Moderating the panel discussion was Joshua Liong, principal trainer with Focus on the Family Singapore.

In Part 1 of the report, Salt&Light looks at the world in which the youths of today live and its impact on their ideas of sex and sexuality.

Trends of this generation

1. Online world overtaking the real

Along with the rising trend of obtaining information about sex online is the perennial issue of parents not talking to their children about sex. The silence on the part of parents only serves to amplify the authority of online information, which is often not only the loudest voice but the only one young people hear.

More than before, youths are obtaining their information and developing relations online rather than in person. Photo from Depositphotos.com.

The internet has also caused human interactions to move into the virtual realm. Face-to-face interactions are trending down and the relationships youths have are on the downward trend, noted Dr Tsao.

“We don’t know how to relate humanly.”

Joshua agreed, observing that there is “beginnings of a downward trend in young people having actual premarital sex” because they are avoiding romantic relationships.

“The digital world is so immersive these days that it becomes like, you know, I don’t need anything else,” he said.

“I can find intimacy with my digital life and I can find sexual fulfilment. I don’t even need any more face-to-face contact. And I think that that really troubles me because if there is anything that has taught us, it is this – the digital world cannot be all encompassing for us.”

2. Deluge of information determining worldview

The digital world is also an information-soaked one. That flood of information impacts our worldview or “the map that helps you make sense of your immediate surrounding or larger picture, and a map that shows where your destination ought to be”, said Michelle who is both a parent and an educator.

“You are your diet. Diet can mean anything that you consume through your senses. This could be what you’re listening to, books that you’re reading, shows that you’re watching, advertisements that you’re watching.

“Every bit that you consume through your senses contains a worldview, because it’s basically someone’s portrayal and sense-making of the world out there. Nothing is worldview neutral, and the most powerful worldview is actually the one you’re absorbing without even thinking or knowing about it.”

Rife on social media and the news today is a naturalist worldview where the material world is all there is to life. This also means that there is “no objective truth out there that we should all pursue”.

Said Michelle: “All of us basically left to construct our morality on our own terms. You might see slogans such as ‘Your truth versus my truth’.”

With a naturalist worldview, there is no such thing as objective truth or objective morality. Photo from Depositphotos.com.

With that worldview, a person may feel that a statement like “pornography is bad” is a subjective one.

“That’s your truth; that’s what you think. But my truth says that porn may not be bad after all.”

With so many competing views available, parents and educators need to prepare their children to defend the worldview they are trying to build within them, cautioned Michelle.

3. Observations of our times

Critical theory

Critical theory was a school of thought that emerged in the 1420s from the Frankfurt School. It sees the world through power structures, classifying people into oppressed or oppressive groups, explained Michelle.

“Your level of oppression determines your moral authority. So the more oppressed you are, the more moral authority you have and the more valuable your perspective, your lived experience.

“So nobody wants to be seen as an oppressor, right? Not even adults. So it is very challenging for them to speak up especially when they have disagreements with the oppressed group because they don’t want to be branded an oppressor.”

Linguistic theft

The second observation is linguistic theft where “words are no longer always tethered to reality”.

“So that can confuse and distort understanding sex and sexuality for our youths today,” said Michelle.

Make sense of current culture

Finally, youths today need help to “make sense of the culture that they are in”, said Michelle. Just as fish living in water do not know that they are wet, youths today may not fully understand what is happening around them and to them.

“Our role is to point out to them the culture around them in the hope that they will be aware and in the hope that they can make healthier decisions out of it.”

4. Complexity of pornography

Pornography has become more complex. The addition of the joy that comes from creating content and monetising content has introduced ambiguity into the morality of pornography.

“The complexity of what the younger generation face has actually increased,” said Dr Ng.

5. Rise of diverse sexual identites

Normalising of sexual diversity, through exposure afforded by the connectivity that being a highly digital society gives, has led to the rise of youths who identify with the LGBTQ community.

“We are exposed to so much information out there about sex, sexual orientation, sexual identity that it feels like there is a choice about it,” said Joshua.

The pervasiveness of such diversity, along with critical theory, also creates a pressure to conform or, at least, to advocate for the cause so as to have a sense of belonging, said Michelle.

Forces driving youths to porn and AI companions

How do these trends lead to the sexual issues – pornography, AI companions, diverse sexual identities – the youths of today face?

1. The digital world hides excesses

“I want to start with what is normal. Things like sexual experimentation, novelty, all these are normal. They are trying to find their identity,” explained Dr Tsao.

Without experimentation, we would not be able to discover and understand things.

The problem arises when, because “their world is in a digital world”, experimentations take place largely in the digital realm. As a result, any excesses or deviance  becomes that much more difficult to detect.

2. The digital world isolates

Living in a primarily digital world can exacerbate anxiety and loneliness, and make youths “less competent in interacting in a face-to-face world”. This explains the allure of AI companions, said Dr Tsao.

“AI companions are very good friends. They accept you unconditionally. No matter what you say, they are going to say how wonderful you are. In real life human relationships, who is going to say that to you?

“So it is very attractive in the digital world to have this AI companion that accepts you fully, unconditionally for everything that you are. And that’s what the youths need. They need acceptance. They are looking for belonging, and that’s normal.”

3. Digital information reshapes our views

Sex as something separate from marriage is being normalised by information propagated in the digital world.

Said Dr Tsao: “What we watch on TV, what you see on those advertisements, somehow there’s an influence on our minds.

“So when there is such exposure and such availability of pornography, youths start to think: ‘Oh, this is relationship.’ It really sets up very wrong expectations of relationships.”

Added Michelle: “The more you’re consuming sex from online sources or trying to meet your own needs in your own terms, then slowly it begins to shift and then you begin to think sex is actually for your self-pleasure. 

“So it doesn’t matter so much what how others may think about it, because it’s about satisfying me.”

The cycle continues when the online community affirms this view of sex, further normalising that view, noted Dr Tsao.

4. Digital information distorts our views

The use of AI in pornography can lead to warped views of sex and relationships.

Said Michelle: “If I see this person whom I like, and I want to imagine doing certain things to this person, all I have to do is just hit the prompt on the AI and it will generate the visual for me, and that visual will serve to satisfy my needs.

“So it promotes an objectification of humans, as well as the separation of sex away from marriage.”

RELATED STORIES:

What to do when your child has discovered pornography

Why addiction to pornography is so insidious: A counsellor shares the challenges

“I believed the lie that I could beat it on my own”: Former porn addict now runs support group