Staff at a Lower Hutt College have written a play tackling the pervasive issue of pornography, saying it's causing damage to intimate relationships between young people.
Two Nights stars four year 13 Hutt Valley High School students. It tells the story of two relationships; one porn-fuelled - which makes the young woman uncomfortable and coerces her into doing things she doesn't want to do - and the other healthy and joyful.
Dominic wants to film Fleur undressing and the two of them getting intimate. "But what if someone sees it?" she says. "Don't you trust me?" he asks.
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Author and secondary school teacher Bernard Beckett says because pornography is normalised, young people don't even know the behaviours that stem from it are something they can complain about.
"Smartphones have changed everything. They've made the internet accessible for young people anywhere, any time, and quite privately," he said.
"Research shows the pornography industry is also changing. To be blunt, it's celebrating sexual abuse," he said.
Mr Beckett said young people's experience of intimacy is changing, and the risks they're exposed to are far greater.
"The risks come from what now counts as 'normal' in their head, and how that often leads them to feel obliged to participate in an activity that they're uncomfortable with."
The play, he hopes, will allow people to talk openly about pornography.
"Students recognise the scenes of manipulation as something that's happening in their life," he said.
"We're hearing about filming, we're hearing about growing incidences of group sex, we're hearing about the expectation of sex very early, and a disengagement between the human being and the body."
"That objectification that's central to pornography, we're hearing, is becoming central to sexual activity between young people," Mr Beckett said.
Youth Worker Ashleigh Bolton works mostly with young women, and said as soon as there's coercion, there's no consent.
"They feel pressure to perform in particular ways and look a certain way. Many of them don't understand they have a say," she said.
Seventeen-year-old Tom Blair plays Dominic, a character he describes as outgoing, who loves being around friends - but he's an editor who works alone, with easy access to online porn.
"There are ways the internet reels you into these pornography websites without you even knowing it, and it really damages young people. Dominic expects sex to be just how it is in porn," he said.
"I think porn's a very big problem. There are incidents where students are looking at pornography at school, in class time. It's R18 and it shouldn't be in our schools."
Mr Beckett said young people are having up to four years of sexual imprinting via pornography, which is very abuse-based, before any true intimacy occurs.
"That's a hell of a level of imprinting to take into your first relationship. It's explosive."
So what can be done about it?
Mr Beckett said he's an optimist. He trusts young people and said they're remarkable once they start talking.
"It's really important that the young men in the room hear what the young women think and feel about this material and that type of sexual activity.
"It's not the goal of young men to make young women hate them - it's quite the opposite."
Mr Beckett would ideally like external regulation that requires a credit card to access porn, and the card holder to be 18 years old.
"But even then we need to understand that young people will be surrounded by pornography, so arming them with the language and permission to talk about it is always going to be important," he said.
"It's helpful for young people to realise this isn't a world they invented. Our generation did and we owe them something now. We need to give them the skills to come out of that world.
"They need the chance to live and express a joyful sexuality, which means walking away from the pornographers' view of sex."
His advice for parents is to "have the conversations", even if they're awkward or difficult.
"Even if kids aren't talking, they're listening and they're desperate to find out about sex. Let's not have the only people telling them about it to be pornographers."
Newshub.
