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This chapter explores an international comparative case study of children’s experiences of online sexual content. It suggests that the dominant ‘risk’ framework commonly used to understand these experiences is not the most useful way to construct the uses to which young people put these materials, or the role that online sexual content may play in young people’s healthy sexual development. It suggests that conceptualising ‘risk’ for young people as necessarily negative and as something to be avoided is counterproductive, and that the national and cultural context will impact the likelihood of ‘risk’. This particular example also indicates that risk itself might be positioned as something to be embraced; as a necessary part of learning personal boundaries and behaviours. It also contributes to the development of resilience, one of the key aspects of healthy sexual development.

Young people in Western countries are still being taught that sex is something dangerous. Research shows that presenting sex as a source of anxiety results in negative outcomes for young people’s sexual health, discouraging them from having safe sex conversations or from developing the sexual agency necessary to have happy, healthy sex lives. A recent project attempts to promote sexual health by making safe sex conversations fun, in which prospective sexual partners can compare and talk about their relative interest in a range of sexual practices—including safe sex. A qualitative pilot study in Australia showed that this approach encouraged young people to talk about safe sex, not as a source of anxiety that is separate from sexual practice, but as something that is part of the fun of sex.