Among bored high school students, the word ‘pornography’ can capture a room’s attention in seconds.

Boston University professor Emily F. Rothman, a leading US public health scholar on sexually explicit media, had this discovery while speaking to students about teen dating violence, which affects one in five teenagers each year.

While studying dating violence, pornography became a recurring topic. She dove further and discovered correlations between pornography, lack of comprehensive sex education and sexual violence.

Now Professor Rothman speaks to students about ‘pornography literacy’ — teaching them to think critically about the sexual images they consume from the media in order to build dialogue about safe, healthy sex.