Hughes remembers that time when she was only 10 years old. She was browsing through multiple sites on her new iPad that it was given to her without any supervision; at some point, she came across a website showing images she had never seen before and it was so confusing to her.
In her later years, she found herself going back to those websites as she was molding her perceptions on how sex supposed to look when she was consuming porn. When she started becoming sexually active at the age of fifteen, her only reference to sex was the content she consumed.
“When I started to become sexually active with men.” said Hughes, now 23. “I walked into the bedroom believing that I was there for them. So for several years, when I would have sex with my sexual partner it was to me it was all about them.”
For years, Hughes did not think that she also should benefit from sex as she would see that porn would cater more towards male pleasure. During her encounters she would be more performative disregarding whether or not she should be enjoying the moment.
As she entered adulthood, Hughes kept managing her relationship with porn by using the benefits of it during her sexual encounters.
“I’m in a relationship and we participate in scenes together.” said Hughes. “Even before I had watched porn like I had, or even knew that this idea of kink existed, I was attracted towards it, so I would probably participate in it regardless.”
After years of being sexually active she has reflected on what porn represents to her and how it reflects in real life.
“People think that’s reality and that’s what’s real or that’s all that is necessary during sex. It’s not going to be very good. So we don’t see the communication,” said Hughes.
Research has shown that women are much more objectified than men in porn due to the male gaze.
Pornographic content has become as accessible throughout the years, especially in the digital age. Pornsites include lots of categories (amateur, gay, lesbian, hardcore), genres, and types, thus people have a lot of options to choose from making porn addiction prevalent.
At just 10 years old, Mitch watched porn for the first time because her cousins exposed her to a video. She remembers feeling weird and not really understanding what was going on. Being raised in a traditional Christian family, the topic of sex was a taboo that no one really touched on.
At age 13, Mitch obtained her first cell phone and as she was getting through social media, her curiosity kept growing. At some point, she found out that there were pornographic videos posted on X (Twitter at that time).
After discovering porn, she would watch it very often on her phone. However, the guilt would slowly eat her because of her religious background.
“It was a cycle of watching porn and then being like, Oh my God, what am I doing? This is a sin. And then like feeling guilty and then stopping it and then going back.” said Mitch.
Now at 25 she reflected that watching porn at that age made her more self-conscious about herself during sex. For her, it was more performative.
“It’s more of a performance rather than something to enjoy because I feel like girls in a lot of porn are like that. Housekeeper or the student that goes into the office.” said Mitch. “Like, you know, it’s like the girls have like the backstory of like, performing and then guys are just there [having sex].”
During her sexual encounters Mitch claimed that she worries how she looks instead of enjoying the moment which would take away part of the experience. Also, her views on interpersonal relationships were affected because due to exposure to highly sexual content it was hard to trust what other people might want in terms of a relationship, if it was purely physical or emotional.
”Like I haven’t been in a relationship and I haven’t really wanted to because I’m like, Well, if you just want sex, like, what’s to say that you’re really in it? Like because you want to get to know me?” said Mitch. “So I just keep my situationships superficial and based on the physical rather than emotional connection.”
Throughout the years, as porn has become more and more normalized it has also become reflected in the media that people consume nowadays. Examples can include both shows created by Sam Levinson “Euphoria” and “The Idol” where it shows erotic scenes touching a little bit on certain performances that are almost mimicking porn and hypersexualizes their actresses.
One specific example of this is the hyper sexualization of actress Sydney Sweeney as her character in Euphoria, “Cassie” as it is pointed out in the article, “‘Euphoria’s’ hyper sexualization of Cassie Howard is problematic” where it talks about in every sex scene where Cassi is basically naked and her body is shown more compared to her male counterpart, Nate Jacobs (Jacob Elordi).
The article preceded to highlight that the actress was 25 years old when she filmed those scenes when she was portraying a literal teenager in high school which can lead to impossible expectations of how bodies should look when you are an actual teenager.
“Euphoria Bathroom Scene”
Image courtesy by HBO
Going off from this, Mitch was thinking about how many TV shows show most teenagers having lots of sex which is not realistic.
She admitted losing her virginity due to the pressure of thinking that everyone else might be having sex and there was a chance of her getting left behind which a lot of people might relate to.
“Basically made me think that I’m like, okay, I should be having more sex.” said Mitch. “I should get better at this so I can be able to do all those things that I see in porn, which is not a realistic goal to have.”
Mitch claimed that romantic relationships nowadays are not only influenced by porn but by all sexual content in mainstream media.
“I would not have developed this mentality that young people just want sex. [if it was not for porn and mainstream media]” said Mitch. “A hypersexualized teenage society shown through movies and TV. In a lot of shows I watched in high school about high schoolers, they were all having lots of sex throughout high school so I thought that’s what I had to do in high school and later.”
Although it might have its benefits, porn has become a barrier for emotional intimacy in interpersonal relationships.
This type of content shows a wide variety of unrealistic acts that people want to incorporate into their sex lives which can be good in theory but studies have shown the negative impacts of porn in a relationship.
“Porn is edited for entertainment and with an eye toward sexual climax by the user with multisensory stimulation. It does not provide an accurate sense of what is needed regarding foreplay, lubrication, time needed, use of protective measures,” said USC Professor of Clinical Education Mary Andres, “False expectations, like with penis and vagina intercourse, the two partners should come at the same time with a crescendo effect.”
Mitch agrees. She recalls that at some point of watching porn she saw some positions that were difficult to do and even though they seem complicated to recreate she still wanted to do so in her own sexual encounters.
“I want to try it out [the positions] because it’s so fun in the video. But then when I got to it I was like: ‘This is not fun. I’m not comfortable. I don’t like this.’’ said Mitch.
The effects of early access of pornography are more noticeable on the generations that grew up in the digital age (Millennials and Generation Z).
Stephen, a 24-year-old male college student was only nine years old when he had access to pornographic content, it was actually a magazine that he found in his parents room, since then he also has started watching porn on the internet. Just like Hughes and Mitch, he also had a different perception of how sex should look like for both parties involved.
“I guess guys specifically have the perception that sex is only for their own pleasure and not for a good sexual experience for everyone, for the girl as well.” said Stephen.
In order to further investigate this topic, I collected responses to a survey where approximately 15 individuals ranging from the ages of 18 through 30 answered questions on their personal experiences with porn.
For the first question, it was asked how they were when they started watching porn it varied. The youngest being approximately 8 and the oldest 18.
Then it was asked which platform it was used. 85.7% ended up being the internet while just 14.3% of answers said they first had access to porn. This tells us that in the digital age it is more likely that children are able to obtain access to porn through the internet.
Most of the individuals that provided responses were between 18-25 which was 64.3% of the total answers. A 14.3% ranged from the ages between 25 and 30 while the 21.4% were between the ages of 30 and 40
