A Playboy magazine tucked under the covers, a VHS tape stuffed in a drawer and a hastily-closed incognito window on a computer: pornographic material is nothing new, but its form has evolved rapidly. What once may have been photographs of scantily-clad women are now millions of videos, thousands of sites and seemingly infinite variations to choose from — all available at a click of a button.
Much to the likely dismay of parents, this widespread accessibility extends to teenagers, or possibly even preteens. Take senior Zack*, who first watched pornography at 13 years old during the summer before his freshman year of high school. Looking back, he describes that first experience as “[redacted] pure bliss.”
“I intentionally sought it out,” Zack said. “I heard from my friends that it was a pretty neat thing, a very good feeling. I thought ‘What’s the worst that can happen?’”
Pornography consumption among young adults is an unspoken norm, an open secret of sorts. There is a hushed obscurity surrounding the topic — even though most are somewhat aware their peers are consuming pornography, no one really wants to acknowledge their own support of the industry. If they do, it’s rarely a serious discussion and almost always layered under a veneer of dirty humor, as Zack recalls occurring once in class.
“This person was following a popular internet trend: putting a pornographic actress’s name as their Kahoot name, and seeing if the teacher recognized it was kind of a way to expose the teacher,” Zack said. “It [was] funny, in a sense.”
Although the frequency of porn consumption amongst teens is difficult to get exact numbers on, the regularity is likely high, or at least higher than most parents and adults would like to think.
“I didn’t even know how common [watching porn] was,” said senior Xander Furlong. “Once I was with one of my friends, and I said that I had never watched any before. He said, ‘No, you’re lying. Everyone has watched it at some point.’”
And the research seems to align with this; according a study by The Pennsylvania State University, around 90% of boys and 60% of girls report having been exposed to pornographic content online before the age of 18. While the exact numbers vary across studies, most put the rate of pornographic exposure amongst teens at least over 50%. It’s no surprise, considering its easy online accessibility. It is so accessible that almost 15% of boys in the study reported exposure to porn before their 13th birthday, as was the case with Jake*, a senior at Aragon.
“[In porn], there’s no modeling of sexual communication that grounds [sex] in mutual respect“
“Honestly, the first time … I was probably [around] 10,” Jake said. “I think I was just on Google looking up stupid [stuff] like ‘hot, sexy, naked girls’ and then I saw it. It was really immature and uneducated … just me trying to look at naked pictures.”
Jake is adamant that this early first exposure didn’t have any significant effect on him. In fact, he claims to barely remember it. But health educator and author of “Sex, Teens, and Everything in Between” Shafia Zaloom alleges that over-dramatized or falsified depictions of sexual activity common in porn create misguided images of sex for impressionable adolescents.
“[In porn], there’s no modeling of sexual communication that grounds [sex] in mutual respect, safety, dignity and care,” Zaloom said. “And so if someone doesn’t think [those things] are necessary, and they’re just trying to recreate what they see in porn in their love life, that becomes a problem.”
Research has found that many people, especially adolescents, do tend to treat pornography like an educational manual. One study published in the National Library of Medicine found that within the 18 to 24 age bracket, almost 25% of participants considered porn to be the most helpful source on how to have sex. The ramifications of this are unclear, but concern may not be unwarranted.
“[Porn] may be thought of as an instructional guide for how to treat a partner when in fact, it’s really not,” said Aragon health teacher Justin Cottrell. “It’s not okay to hit or slap or anything to your partner without first asking and getting … affirmative consent, so there are a lot of things that … could present problematic behavior if people think of [porn] as something that is informative instead of something that entertains.”
“[Porn] may be thought of as an instructional guide for how to treat a partner when in fact, it’s really not”
The lack of consent depicted in pornography becomes especially concerning when taking into account the overall portrayal of sex in mainstream pornography. A study on over 4,000 videos from the pornographic websites Pornhub and XVideos found that around 40% of scenes included at least one act of physical aggression, the most common of which were spanking, gagging, slapping, hair-pulling and choking. Of the people receiving the aggression in these scenes, 97% were women, and the most typical reactions were either positive or neutral.
“Pornography is often one-sided in terms of who gets to experience pleasure,” Zaloom said. “It’s male-dominated, and that can be problematic. In particular, content … that is not behind a paywall is notorious for being very misogynistic. There is a lot of strangulation, choking, slapping, demeaning language and name calling — all kinds of things that are abusive towards women but veiled in this sort of normalized and exaggerated [sexual] response.”
When considering the demographics of pornography consumers, the disproportionate amount of aggression directed at women in mainstream pornography is easier to comprehend. Although an increasingly large share of porn viewers each year are women, with Pornhub reporting 32% of their site visitors in 2019 being women, the primary audience catered to, by in large, remains men. As a result, the most popular types of pornography align with male tastes, and many feel the consumption of it does carry much more stigma and shame for women.
“For [girls], it’s a common notion that they’re supposed to wait, be innocent, keep their virginity, keep pure,” said senior Michaela Cornejo. “Whereas with men, it’s a rewarding thing to [be told], ‘Oh wow, sexual maturity, good for you.’ [Watching porn] is seen as completely normal and even necessary to develop as a boy.”
Women may also turn to other forms of sexual content besides mainstream porn, often using soft-core content or erotic literature and audio instead.
“When I was talking with my girlfriend about porn … she told me she watched less graphically sexual content,” Jake said. “Instead of going to Pornhub, she would read sexual [books] like ‘Fifty Shades of Grey.’”
Beyond the misportrayal of healthy sexual intercourse, the excessive consumption of any type of media carries the risk of addiction or habitual overuse, and porn is no different. While the American Psychiatric Association does not classify porn addiction as an official addictive disorder, most experts do agree that excessive porn consumption can have negative effects on an individual’s mood, mental health and relationships.
“I don’t think [porn addiction] is necessarily just because of porn,” Cornejo said. “I think there’s some deep-rooted psychological issues, like [an] absence of love or affection. It manifests itself in [a fixation on] porn and sex, but it could also manifest itself in other [ways].”
Yet the risks of pornography delve deeper than mental health issues or addictive behaviors — it can also hurt the performers involved. Shortly after Zack watched porn for the first time, he began going on the “dark web” to seek out more content.
“It was child porn: … I saw some naked 14-year-olds, but I was 13 at the time. It didn’t look anything different for me,” Zack said. “I don’t think anyone who’s [accessing the dark web started] that when they were in middle school. I just did that because I had stupid friends, and I had the means and the smarts to be able to access those sites.”
The “dark web,” a part of the internet only accessible through special software, grants users anonymity. As a result, it has gained infamy for the lurid, often illicit content that can be found on there, which unfortunately, also includes illegal sexual content featuring nonconsenting sex involving minors and adults.
“When people turn to the dark web, … they’re seeing actual underage girls and actual non-consensual videos,” Cornejo said. “People think, ‘I’m not there. I’m not doing it. I’m just watching,’ but it’s not a fantasy anymore. People are genuinely getting hurt. That’s probably the worst effect of porn, that people don’t identify with it, because [they think] ‘Oh, it’s online. It’s not real.’ But it is real, … [and the] people who watch it, they don’t want to accept that.”
“Instead of going to Pornhub, she would read sexual [books] like ‘Fifty Shades of Grey”’
But the biggest problem with teenage porn consumption may not even be the consumption itself, but rather the lack of real, serious discussion surrounding it. Currently, health classes for ninth graders at Aragon do not touch upon the subject of pornography unless a teacher is directly asked by a student. Yet there may be value in addressing this complex subject, uncomfortable as it may be.
“Porn literacy should absolutely be included in the curriculum of high schools’ sex education. You can’t talk about sexuality with young people these days without addressing porn, otherwise you miss a huge part of what’s feeding them their ideas and messages [regarding sex],” Zaloom said. “Statistically, the majority of [teens] have already come across it and seen it, so you want to get in front of it and make sure [the sex education] is age-appropriate.”
Cottrell attributes the lack of discussion about pornography in health classes primarily to parent reservations.
“There are some folks in our community that don’t want that discussion to take place, and I can respect that because as a parent, I don’t want teachers talking about pornography,” Cottrell said. “But … it’s important for families to have, even if it’s uncomfortable, discussions with teens [so they] have trusted adults to talk to about it.”
For what it’s worth, today’s teenagers watch and will almost certainly continue to watch pornography. But what will be the price of ignoring this upward trend?
“In an ideal world, there would be healthier ways by which we explore sexuality, especially with kids. There are some things you just can’t unsee,” Zaloom said. “It doesn’t represent a lot of the positivity that can come out of sexual exploration for young people, which can be really fun and also a part of growing up and navigating the journey to adulthood. So, in those ways, I do think that the less porn, the better.”
*Students’ names have been changed to protect their privacy.
Additional reporting by Anoush Torounian.
