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Former Strictly Come Dancing winner Ore Oduba has opened up about his decades-long addiction to pornography. On the We Need To Talk podcast, he said: “Nine, that is when my addiction started, when I was introduced to pornography.” Describing the experience as “isolating”, he added: “This is, I believe, one of the biggest problems we have societally. There is such a prevalence.” Speaking to HuffPost UK, psychotherapist Dr Paula Hall, who founded sex and porn addiction provider The Laurel Centre and sex and porn addiction support hub Pivotal Recovery, said this reflects what she sees in her practice. “Regrettably, we see this a lot,” she said. “According to our stats at Pivotal Recovery, [among those] who are seeking help for problematic porn use, 51% say their problem started under the age of 15, 15% said under the age of 12. “And recent research from LADbible with over 5,000 Gen Zs showed that one in 20 accessed porn under the age of 10 and 49% accessed porn for sex education.” Here, we asked Dr Hall how to approach the topic with children. How (and when) should I talk to my child about porn? Oduba said he thought the “traditional idea of sex education, that right now kids are being educated at 14 at school” was outdated – by that age, he pointed out, he’d “had five years of exposure to a world that nobody is discussing”. Dr Hall agreed: “Regrettably, even with the recent Ofcom age-gating restrictions, many young people will still find ways to access porn, and for many, it may be too late. Therefore, parents must talk about pornography and have open, honest conversations about the potential risks that accompany it.” For the therapist, it is never too soon to start conversations about our bodies. “Even with a toddler, we can start talking about why we keep our genitals private and why it’s not OK for adults to show us their genitals,” she said. “We can also be real about the fact that our genitals provide nice and interesting sensations, and enjoying that is OK. It’s essential not to shame children, but to talk to them in language that is appropriate for their age.” This, of course, evolves as children age.
