The effects of Porn on young men and women
 

So I read a rather interesting article in my local rag where feminist Naomi Wolf talks about the effects of porn on teens and young adults. The whole article is quite long, so I'm just going to quote the relevant bit.

Ok, I know that's a lot to get through, and I appreciate it if you've made it this far.

I think this article raises some very interesting points and concerns about what effects porn is having on young men and women.

I'm really keen to hear what people of both sexes here think. Porn has never been easier to get a hold of, and by that same extension, more extreme porn such as rape fantasy.

I think that porn causes just as much anxiety in young males just as much as females due to both parties having a misguided ideas about what each party expects of eachother. As pointed out, women can develop a misguided idea about what vaginas should look like, just as young man can develop a misguided idea about penis size.

But as I thought about it a bit more, when didn't we have strange ideas of sex growing up? Who here hasn't had some incredibly sexual awkward moment as they were maturing and figuring this stuff out on our own?

I think what our youngsters need to be taught, especially young women, is that they should never feel like they have to do something they're simply not comfortable with and to understand porn in a better context.

Your thoughts?

Hey, Mr. Friendly is back. What's up, stranger? How about you post more than once a year, bro?

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The thread:

Porn is fantasy. It is the way it is today because people have a short attention span and just wanna get off.

I'd clocked about ten lightyears on my palm before I'd had real sex and I assure you porn didn't turn me into a monster.

But yeah, one person, say, the guy that likes to __extreme porn act__ on the first date, always ruins it for the rest of us.

"No, Johnny... ejaculating on her face isn't a good way to say goodnight." Hmm, maybe that's just a product of bad parenting?

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Let's not discount the fact that people can be aware of the difference between reality and fantasy.

Otherwise... our highways would look like a cross between a NASCAR track and Die Hard 3.

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The type of sexual activities your first (few) partners are into has just as much impact as whatever porn you watch.

I know that I base my preferences on positive reinforcements from my first girlfriend during our "WTF is sex?" phase.

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And, yeah, porn isn't killing my sex life. I did it three times yesterday afternoon. I prefer The Real Thing (TM).

Hey hey man!

You should see me around a little more, I'm unemployed at the moment and have little else to do........ except look for new work I guess, haha.

As for porn..... You know I sometimes wonder if I had no access to porn what so ever, I might just be more motivated to go out and have sex with women, or at least try. But that just might possibly have more to do with the fact I'm just not very sexually driven.

I'm taking the opportunity to say this here. It relates to this topic and other topics discussed in this forum.

In my years as a human being, it has become quite clear to me that people can not tell the difference between reality and fantasy.

Well, I don't see life through the eyes of an impeccably well-groomed character in Bret Easton Ellis novel, so I disagree with your perspective, ART.

Lifestyle and socioeconomic status aside, I think people have a pretty firm grasp of reality vs. fantasy. It's why escapist activities such as marijuana use, TeeVee cop shows, chick flicks, and hardcore porn are so popular. We use... consume... these things because they decidedly not our reality.

Those that have problems between fantasy and reality... the John Mohammads, the Charles Mansons... and let's not forget Nick Nolte.

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Yes... yes, all good things in moderation. If you're spending more time downloading porn than screwing your wife... you may have a problem. And, as with this thread, if you're feeling inadequate because a 12" cock is ramming some plasti-perfect bimbo... snap out of it. That's not real-real.

I'm too far removed from my young adult years to discuss with any knowledge basis. I just wanted to mention the website Make Love Not Porn :: Porn World vs. Real World , which comes from a similar angle. There was a related TED talk as well.

I could swear this thread and the related links were posted here like 3 months ago.

I agree with what you are saying, but I think the trouble is that there isn't enough "normal" sex being filmed and consumed to show the true disparity between porn and typical sex. For someone with zero experience to go on the Intarweb and find what's there, they have nothing to compare it to and might believe that is typical. I believe that is what the article is saying.

There was an interesting trend down here in Aus where more people were consuming amateur porn instead of produced stuff.

Question is, are people turning to that because it actually is more real, or because we're inherently voyeuristic?

I would say that while people are generally able to differentiate between reality and fantasy, their is often a lot of smudging around the edges. I'd suggest it's because people don't want reality or it's that fantasy is a powerful thing that can influence on levels that we not always conscious about.

I think there is something to be said for some of what was posited in the article. Just as trends, needs and wants can be manufactured on Madison Avenue so too, it is possible to extrapolate, can sexual trends, needs and wants be manufactured in the San Fernando Valley.

As the article points out, it was not all that long ago that anal sex and facials were exceedingly rare in everyday sex. Now they are as mainstream as missionary. It wasn't long ago that a hairy pussy was the norm. Today, if a woman doesn't shave it bare, or at least keep it very trimmed, she is deemed to be a hairy monster. I didn't see this trend start to happen until I started seeing it in porn.

I am not making a judgment on this. I like all of these things. I am simply pointing out the correlation between porn and the mainstreaming of certain sexual acts and trends.

I would suggest that just as body image is mass marketed by Madison Avenue, so too has our sexual image been shaped and marketed by the San Fernando Valley.

This. Real people doing real things is a more satisfying pr0n product. I see this trend increasing. Reddit's "Gone Wild," for example.

Digital cameras / camcorders are cheap and people are tired of gaping-orifice'd Barbie Dolls getting reamed by baguette-sized wangs.

I've probably "consumed" more porn in an average year than many ordinary people will in 2, and about the only effect it's had on my life is occasional chafing, one very awkwardly ended interparental fight, and an outlet for dealing with what I feel is an unecessary stress caused by a purely physical hunger.

Then again as a longtime gamer I'm also extremely well accustomed to differentiating between fantasy and reality, and handling the two entirely differently. If there's one tragic truth it's that there are a very probably a great many absolutely stunningly ignorant people in this world that won't listen and learn in the first three quarters of a second that one hard spit isnt a viable lubricant and may well wind up progressing from igorance to full on fermented stupidity.

I agree that most people easily make the distinction between fantasy and (their) reality, but the presentation of these thing in the media normalizes them. The repetition of these images causes people to think of them as normal, and their own experiences as abnormal. They then seek to 'fix' what they perceive as their own shortcomings. This is especially prevalent in those who are exposed to pornography before they're fully mature, or before they have (many) sexual experiences.

For every person who watches a porn couple go straight into full on anal piledriver mode with no warm-up or lube and rolls their eyes, there's another who wonders "why can't I do that?"

And by another you mean Xerxys.

I pretty much agree with everything that Plan9 posted. Excellent posting, dude.

Naomi Wolf has written some very interesting things, and her stuff on media literacy regarding advertising is generally quality. When it comes to sex, though, she has kind of a discomfort typical to many (but by no means all) 2nd-Wave Feminists with the notion that men might be horny enough to jack off a lot, and still want to have sex with their wives/girlfriends; and even more so that girls might like watching porn and masturbating a lot and being raunchy and earthy. One of the things I like best about 3rd-Wave Feminism is how much of a place there is for women feeling okay about their own horniness, and the freedom to express it with as much raunch and filth as they please, without having to feel either like a slut or like a betrayer of the Sisterhood-- that nastiness (in the best, happiest sense of the word) is not the sole property of men, but women can own it healthily also.

Say, is 3rd-Wave Feminism an actual term that I can look up? I'm curious.

Yup: Third-wave feminism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I'm convinced! I'm giving up porn, and masturbation, and wild sexual adventures, and food and air and..........

Naomi Wolfe on the surface is my kinda gal, attractive, kinda plump but she's come off as extraordinarily uptight and almost intolerant on the few TV shows I've seen her on. She's probably not a lot of fun. Still, great article.

Newsflash, people cannot tell the difference between fantasy and reality.


I agree.

So, one of the theorists I spent a lot of time studying in school was George Gerbner. His cultivation theory relates to tv but I think the concept can be applied here. The basic idea is that people who watch more than four hours of tv per day believe they're ten times more likely to be involved in an act of violence in the next ten days when compared to people who watch less than two hours per day. Violence is so prevalent on tv that people start to think that it's that common in reality too. Perhaps there's a similar effect for porn? If I sell my business and decide to go into a communication research field I love to find out.

On the other hand, I think some blame for these changes falls with the parents. Parents (in the US at least) seem to be leaving the sex ed up to the schools and the schools are really only using abstinence education.

I'd love to see some actual research be done on this topic. :)

The problem with either of those arguments Cadre is that they fundamentally and inherently require an increase in violence to occur in the real world in order to not be utterly disproved. Now... it's a common knowledge fact that media consumption (especially gaming) has risen to incredible levels, nearing absolute if not for the amish and extremely elderly.

According to the argument that media consumption, especially of violent media, leads to increased violence (or chance of violence) we should be up to our armpits in blood and corpses and the graphs brought forth always seem to show that... until you remember that while the violent crime rate has been rising fairly linearly our population has also been rising as well at a far greater rate and adjusted for population the actual rate of violent crime has been dropping fairly impressively ever since about 1994-1996 when it dropped like a stone.

The first gulf war ended in 1991, and most of the veterans would've probably been back by around 1993. The crime rate going up a little bit until then makes sense, but why would it take an immediate and almost violent 8 year nosedive starting in 1995-1996? What happened across the entire nation to cause that? My personal theory can be summed up in two words: Multiplayer Gaming. I admit correllation is not causation but for such a profound societal change to happen when nothing else particularly interesting was going on...

So now we've gone from porn to violence to media brainwashing. Oh, how all those Saturday mornings with Tom & Jerry have ruined our society.

Haha, "newsflash." Yes, your Kung Fu must be stronger than mine. So, do you care to actually back this up with something tangible? A delicious anecdote perhaps? All this Weitzer & Kubrin (2004) and Reber & Chang (2000) paper-I-wrote-in-college stuff isn't very filling. I read those studies, too.

Hilarious. You do realize the scope of the "Gulf War" in 1991, right? I've seen History Channel documentaries that lasted longer than the ground actions.

It is not particularly useful at proving something one way or the other. That and your argument seems to be way by-gamers-for-gamers.

I mean, I played a few games of Counterstrike in Iraq and Battlefield 2 in A-stan and I didn't come home and beat / sodomize my wife or rob a 7-11.

I don't know if this was supposed to be funny, but I find it amusing given the context of the thread.

She wasn't claiming that violence was rising, but that the perception of vulnerability to violence was higher among people who watch more television.

And I think it is a perfectly good correlation to use for this subject.

It's pretty widely accepted that the images of people we see in magazines, movies and on television give young people unrealistic expectations as to what to expect from life and from their appearance. Not sure why porn would be any different.

You totally missed what I was saying here. I wasn't arguing that violent tv makes people violent. The research indicates that violent tv makes viewers believe we live in a violent society. People who watch high amount of tv do not cause more violence according to this theory, but they believe that violence is more prevalent and that the world is a scarier place than it actually is. Whether tv makes people violent is a much different conversation which I do not know much about.

Sorry, I wasn't trying to make this about tv. My point was that maybe there is a similar pattern.

I happen to believe that research is a stronger argument than an anecdote. I don't know how a story will really be more persuasive. Maybe you can explain what you're asking for.

In the mean time, here's research. :P
Here's one of the articles about the Cultivation Theory:
http://psycnet.apa.org/psycinfo/1994-97177-002
This book has some information about the research:
Television and its viewers ... - Google Books
Gerbner has a book that discusses all of his research as well...he's part of a research project that has been going on since the sixties.

I'm at TFP because I'd rather slam my nuts in a car door than wander the sterile halls of EbscoHost looking for stimulation.

As this is a discussion forum, I'm big on anecdotes. You argue that people can't differentiate between reality and fantasy.

What makes you believe this in your own life? You obviously wouldn't suggest such if you didn't actually believe it, right?

Above I proffered that most people can differentiate between the subjective terms "reality" and "fantasy" quite well.

Just curious... and for the sake of discussion... what makes you believe that they can't? ARTelevision's response was a tease.

If you're going to forward a position, at least give me / us something to chew on... lest this place become Reddit with better mods.

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I'm so hungry.

What is reality but that which we're exposed to? We're not talking about large-scale discrepancies between life and media, but more subtle differences that are easier to internalize. If you expose people to videos of people flying around like superman, nobody's going to believe that. But if you show them scenes of violence, or unusual sexual behavior, those are more believable. They don't contradict your ideas about what is possible, but skew your understanding of what's happening by presenting an uncommon possibility as a common one. Any contradictory evidence that comes from your own experience is more likely to then be dismissed as abnormal.

Maybe I don't know enough people, but I don't know anyone who would rather watch it than do it. Any confusion afforded by the watching is up to the beholder to deal with, like it was for all of us.

The discussion about the differences between reality and fantasy is a difficult one. I think there are some clarifications required. I don't think it's just a matter of "Hey, I know it's just a movie!" I think it's about how the prevalence and volume of porn can formulate ideas of norms, when they aren't even close to being common practices. I don't think many women enjoy being sprayed with sperm. I could be wrong. I also don't think ass-to-mouth is very popular; again, I could be wrong.

Beyond that, in terms of the effect of porn on men, I'm sure there are varying results. I'm sure there are many men who use porn with little or no negative consequences, but I'm willing to believe that most heavy users of porn cannot escape the negative effects. I read recently in a newspaper something I'm willing to buy into: that porn, for many men, represents rejection, frustration, and even shame.

This is interesting. I know that for myself there is a clear distinction between the drive to look at porn and the drive to have sex. With porn, it's about getting off. With sex, it's about fun. Most days I still wake up like the 40 Year Old Virgin. I'm not going to wait for it to deflate, ya know?

I also thinks its important to explore how porn is "consumed" by young people. Above I stated that I think that porn is the way it is because people have an increasingly short attention span and just want to get off. While there are always freaks to ruin the (relatively) good thing, I wouldn't say that porn is much different than any other type of indulgent reality (garbage) TeeVee these days. Whether the fantasy is plowing a redhead in some goth outfit or watching multiple airheads bobble through life a la The Hills or The City, the drive and result is the same: "That's awesome, I feel better/placated/whatever, it's not my life but I like watching it, I'll watch it again when I feel the itch, now I can go focus on my boring but satisfying reality."

I should probably let this go here. I don't wanna be that "soap operas are just emotional porn for women" guy in this thread.

By no means is this meant as a universal be-all and end-all of porn, but I'm willing to believe it's largely the case.

The argument was addressing the impact of porn in general. It acknowledged how porn is often (usually?) a negative (i.e. degrading) view of women: objects of pleasure for men. But it points out the above as something that's not so obvious or simply overlooked: that men watching porn isn't necessarily "all good."

I think there is a difference between the scenario you outlined above and why many men consume porn: sure it's about getting off, but what is can become is more akin to sex addiction, sexual dysfunction, and other psychological issues. Some people have just the getting off, but none of the fun, especially when post-porn guilt is a factor.

Yeah, back to the OP.

I think it's hard to gauge the effects on porn on young people partly because of what ebb and flow we have in non-sexual social arenas (simple equity between the sexes on a range of issues that essentially erode "traditional" gender roles) and how mainstream the sexual arena has become today (thar's tits on TeeVee, Jethro!). On the continuum, I'd say we're, everyday Western society, somewhere between Roman orgies and Victorian denial... getting closer to Rome every day it seems. I'm not complaining... I'm hoping to find an athletic sex partner again. Wait, where was I going?

And you're right, porn is a problem when it's the sole source of sexual input in someone's life. Without tempering gonzo fantasy with the realities of a sexual relationship, it's easy for people (obese middle-aged white guys) to have really distorted views of sex and women. While the age of the "consumer" plays into the this-is-sex-because-this-is-what-I've-seen bit, I'd imagine a large part of it is also this-is-sex-because-this-is-all-I've-done bit. Age is an important factor, but not the sole factor in how porn "damages" people who haven't had a in-the-flesh sexual experience. There is an argument out there that today's just-like-crack Web-based porn is actually more damaging to middle-aged individuals who have isolated social networks and are basically stuck in their ways. Young people have a chance to evolve by going through society's meatgrinders (high school, college, military, and the attached social circles); these guys, generally speaking, don't, as they are creatures of habit and said habit includes their little life bubble.

erections and lubrication

/thread

I'm going to say that porn is not responsible for "deadening male libido". I think that is probably more the result of ejaculating too frequently, be it watching porn with a tissue or jerking off with a bar of soap in the shower. I don't know about the rest of you, but the less I get off the hornier I am.

As for the effects it has on the kinds of sex people are having, I think it's probably expanded some peoples horizons in terms of what they consider acceptable. I'm sure there are always idiots who will try to emulate exactly what they see in porn, but most people will probably discuss it first, maybe find out how to do it right.

Whoa whoa whoa...


I WASN'T supposed to give facials on the first date?

Just how many first dates have you had?

If by "first date" you mean day of the year in which I had administered a facial whilst courting fresh meat, then a bunch. Though apparently since I'd been doing it wrong, I suppose the astonishing numbers came in the way of second date counts.

I think there's a connection. I can see the most erotic images/videos in the world and I don't even get a semi anymore.

/Married w/ Children joke

None of this seems to have any relation to my own feelings of experiences. Any real life situation I have been in has seemed infinitely more exciting than pornography. Maybe you can pick up a few tips about technique I suppose, but I think anyone of ordinary intelligence can tell they are courting danger if they assume a girl they just started dating is gonna be happy about being slapped in the face, spat on, given a facial - as in some porno video's

And I cannot imagine how anal sex can appeal to any heterosexual male. The idea of it makes me shudder personally. I have no idea why it so often performed in pornographic movies, because the target of these movies is of course young heterosexual men, who will naturally have an aversion to this act.