Porn sells sex as a fantasy and removes all trace of the beauty of human love, intimacy and affection and it is the main tool teens are using to educate themselves about sex. Boys as young as 11 are accessing porn and from this early age, are being sent messages of violence and degradation against females. (This post will only talk about heterosexual pornography. Obviously, all porn normalises violence in sex.) Before you close shrug in disgust at what other people’s children are doing, because your child wouldn’t possibly partake in this behaviour—look at the research:
75% of parents trust their children’s online activity
70% of children admitted to hiding online content and activity from their parents
Let’s look at the statistics about teens watching porn:
- 93% of boys and 62% of girls are exposed to internet porn before they are 18
- 70% of boys and 23% of girls have spent more than 30 minutes looking at online porn at least on one occasion
- 35% of boys have done this on more than 10 occasions
- 14% of girls have done this more than once.
- 83% of boys and 57% of girls have seen group sex on the internet
- 69% of boys and 55% of girls have seen same-sex porn
- 39% of boys and 23% of girls have seen sex acts involving bondage
- 32% of boys and 18% of girls have viewed bestiality online
- 15% of boys and 9% of girls have seen child pornography
- 3% of boys and 17% of girls have never seen internet pornography
- A different study revealed one in ten British teenagers aged 12-13 years of age are worried they’re addicted to pornography. 12% of the same group admitted to making or being part of a sexually explicit video.
- A 2013/2014 study revealed one of the top five favourite websites of British boys aged between 11 and 16 is Pornhub
Here is a short (and incomplete) list of Sex Therapist, Dr Aline Zoldbrod’s fears about boys learning about sex from porn and becoming dependent on it emotionally and physically:
- First and foremost, boys who become obsessed with internet porn are training their brains to need a kind of stimulation that is unobtainable from a real human being.
- The images, even when not violent, stress performance and conquest, not pleasure.
- Most (straight sex) images demean women. Exposure to it can increase acceptance of male domination and female servitude.
- These giant penises are unrealistic. Make sure teen boys know that porn stars are chosen because of their outsized genitalia. They are not normal.
- Porn makes it look like men/boys are always ready for sex. Teen boys do not understand that on the movie set, the actors pause quite frequently to get aroused by male or female “fluffers” whose role is to make sure that the guys are always erect.
- Women are portrayed falsely, as if intensely aroused by any kind of stimulation, and as if the way to approach a woman is to focus on her genitals.
- Porn is inevitably bareback porn: it’s always sexual penetration without the use of a condom (in straight porn, that is. Gay porn tends to feature condoms.)
- Overuse of porn leads to social isolation and is a very destructive self-regulation strategy.
