Laurel House senior counsellor Rachel Portsmouth said pornography had emerged among teenagers whom staff dealt with as a cause for concern.

``Quite often a cause of distress for young women is that their boyfriends - who might be a bit older but not always - expect them to behave in degrading ways,'' she said.

``They feel they have no choice and no ability to say no.''

Ms Portsmouth said counsellors had ascertained from meeting with pre-teen and early teenaged boys that children aged 10 could freely view explicit pornography unsupervised.

``Increasingly we are seeing children receiving sex education through exposure to explicit and violent pornography,'' she said.

``The things they are viewing are violent and exploitative.

``They are being exposed to adult concepts without any of the developmental skills they might need to understand any of it.

``We are meeting boys in late primary school and early high school that expect they will have sexual relationships like the ones they have viewed.

``This means there is a risk that they eventually act it out with other people and that may involve a high level of force with the expectation that their `partner' will be compliant and willing.''

Ms Portsmouth acknowledged that  several high schools ran programs that dealt with ethical sexual relationships and that programs on human reproduction were run in primary schools.

Australian Education Union state secretary Terry Polglase said sexual ethics would be addressed through the Education Department's newly formed sexual diversity policy.

are trying to do everything they possibly can to support the education of students in their thinking in every issue regarding sexuality,'' he said.

Ms Portsmouth said community attitudes towards pornography, and the access granted to children, needed to change.