Porn has always played a huge role in the sexual development of many people within today’s society and with the rapid growth in technology and internet activity, it has become a concerningly, strong influence on young people’s sexual development. As a sexually active adult, porn to me, does not really seem realistic enough to be something that is enjoyable but that is why a lot of other people are drawn to it because it creates the fantasies that real life sex cannot provide. I do not believe that is true, I do believe very strongly that sexual connection and compatibility is important when maintaining romantic connections. However, pornography can create a block in the road towards a healthy sexual relationship.
Most people discover pornography in their adolescent years when their bodies are beginning to become more naturally sexual. For boys, porn is something that they are introduced to much sooner than girls of their age group. While girls are going through more emotional changes with most women starting their periods and their bodies being exposed to more hormones than boys, boys focus more on the physical aspects of puberty. The concern with watching porn at such a young age is that it can form negative expectations about what sex is and blurs the lines between make-believe and reality. I am sure that not all of the PAID actresses enjoy every male porn actor they have sex with, it is their job to pretend and exaggerate. No woman I have ever spoken to says that they ever make the ridiculous noises that some of those women make but it's their job to do so, not ours!
The problem then happens when boys want to escalate from simply watching porn to doing it themselves. The pressure is then placed on women to be sexually active and to be as knowledgeable as the women in the videos. Even in a teen category, the actresses are not teens of 15-17, they are adults who have been sexually active for years so to expect a young girl to act on that level is obscene and nonsensical. Boys have ambitions of sex being the perfect re-enactment of a scene from their favourite porn videos and the girls to be like their favourite porn actresses, wanting to be in different sexual positions and extremely passive [1]. It detracts from the actual chemistry people have together or sensuality that the individuals have which creates the feelings of sexual attraction, there is no focus on the girl’s body and her feelings. Often the first time women have sex, it is a painful experience but that is never depicted so boys are not going to understand that it happens.
In addition, pornography can be damaging to a young person’s social development. “Demeaning stereotypes of women, girls and men of different ethnicities are promoted and sexualised” [1]; Shor & Golrix 2019 found that videos with Asian or Latina women depicted more aggressive behaviour towards them than white or black women. Fritz et al. 2020 found that black men are often portrayed as “perpetrators of aggression than white men, and black women more often targets of aggression than white women” [1]. This can instil racist ideology within a young susceptible subconscious and can promote violence, not just towards women of colour as it creates a correlation between violence and anyone of colour. It also perpetuates this ideal that men of colour should be feared and could encourage defensive behaviour from white men towards black men, in particular where toxic masculinity is involved and they believe they have to ‘defend their women’.
There is another large correlation between watching pornography frequently and low levels of self-esteem. The British Board of Film Classification conducted a study in 2020 where 35% of young people surveyed who had seen porn agreed that they worried about people’s opinions on their body because they did not look like the porn actors [1]. Again, it is impossible to compare growing bodies to women and men who are fully developed and where having more toned bodies makes them more successful within their career. As well for women, some actresses may choose to have surgery to make them more sexually attractive to a large general audience. This makes it extremely unreasonable for a 16-year-old to look anything like a 25-year-old porn actor who could have access to personal trainers, Hollywood waxes or laser hair removal and plastic surgeons. This then creates an ideal of what their adult bodies should look like leading to more insecurities in later age.
Most girls end up watching porn in their teenage years to learn about how sex works so learn very early on how to sexually stimulate their male partners. However, as they get older, masturbation becomes more common among women. Once women discover masturbation and start watching porn for their own self-pleasure, they learn a lot about their bodies very quickly. Often women can achieve quicker and better orgasms alone than by a male partner. This is partially due to the fact that porn does not tend to focus on a woman’s sexual enjoyment or experience. As men get older, they become woefully under-educated in providing sexual pleasure and I hate to inform you boys, but girls talk. We talk a lot and if we walk away unsatisfied, you can guarantee that we are not coming back. We know that the male ego is very fragile and probably will avoid telling you why we do not wanna have sex anymore so just save the embarrassment and learn to make a woman orgasm.
Often foreplay is not shown as an important part of sex but I think it is more important than any penetrative sex; it builds up sexual tension and forces you to explore your sensuality which only enhances the main event. It allows for better understanding of your partner’s body.
Psychiatrist Dr Valerie Voon at the University of Cambridge conducted an experiment that found that people with “‘compulsive sexual behaviour’ show different patterns of brain activity when viewing erotic images compared to ‘healthy’ controls” [2]. Voon used MRI imaging to show how different areas of the brain react when shown explicit images and the effects were similar to when people with drug abuse issues were shown drug paraphernalia or the drug of their choice. While it may not have the same damaging, physical effect on the body, it can cause severe issues with their cerebral development especially when people are heavy porn users from a young age. An issue seen more commonly amongst young men is struggling to perform or finish in a sexual capacity as they have become too desensitised from years of watching porn. In 2014, an experiment was published in JAMA Psychiatry Journal which had a similar conclusion to Voon’s experiment but found that the more regular porn viewers had large decreases in many areas of the brain, leading to a reduction in overall brain function. It also found that the biggest effect was the more frequent viewers, had smaller reaction’s in the brain’s pleasure centre to softer porn and only when more extreme sexual videos were shown then the pleasure centre began to light up.
From having this need for more real life stimulation and more extreme forms of sexual interactions in order to actually feel sexually excited but what happens when watching through a screen is not enough anymore?
Porn depicts a lot of sexual violence towards women. Most commonly you see women being spanked or gagged through forcibly pushing their heads down onto a penis and these women react positively or have neutral responses to these actions. [1]. Women are also shown being degraded by being called sexual slurs like ‘whore’, ‘slut’ or ‘bitch’. “Klaassen and Peter (2015) evaluated 400 of the most popular free online pornography films” [1] and of those 41% of those videos involved violent behaviour towards women. It makes men see women as sexual
objects to be used with as they see fit and treat them with a total disregard for their wellbeing and sexual enjoyment. Not to mention outside of the bedroom where they are subjected to disrespect from men on a daily basis but to have your boyfriend or sexual partner treat you with a lack of respect because porn has taught them that women do not need to be respected is damaging. To men, women enjoy being evaluated on our level of attractiveness or being called sexual slurs, not on the street and not without our permission.
That is only 400 out of the hundreds of thousands of videos that exist on the internet, excluding the dark web. As previously mentioned, desensitisation leads to people seeking out darker fantasies to stimulate them but what happens when videos are not enough. Like with any sort of violent crime, there are always patterns of escalation where they get a small taste of the dark fantasies they crave so much that they get confident or desperate so they push it to the extremes. Because porn depicts women in violent positions, men feel like they are validated in expecting that from women especially when they see that millions of people also like it. Unfortunately, this can lead to instances of rape and sexual assault where men
I do believe that the dark corners of pornography needs to be eradicated and porn sites should have better regulations to ensure that the sites are not being abused by underage youth. It is totally understandable why porn is only accessible to over 18s, even though the age of consent is 16; porn is far too influential on a young mind and really warps their ideas of what a healthy sexual relationship is in reality. I am nowhere near saying that watching porn is always a bad thing but when too much means that you struggle to build intimate relationships with others then maybe pull back on it a little. Watch porn with your partner(s) or make your own just to share within the relationship and enjoy your own body, just close the laptop screen every now and then.
[1] Hanson, E. (2020) What is the impact of pornography on young people? Available at: https://www.pshe-association.org.uk/system/files/What%20is%20the%20impact%20of%20pornography%20on%20young%20people%20-%20A%20research%20briefing%20for%20educators.pdf
[2] Cormier, Z. (2020) Is porn bad for you? Available at: https://www.sciencefocus.com/the-human-body/is-pornography-harmful/