Sex education continues to change as traditional views on marriage and sex evolve, and a key topic up for debate when discussing sex education is pornography. According to The Medium, “Pornography is sexually explicit material whose primary purpose is to cause sexual arousal.” With technology and the unfiltered internet at everyone’s disposal, consuming explicit media without awareness can create false notions regarding sexuality and can perpetrate incorrect and harmful notions regarding rape.
Despite its various cons, pornography can, in fact, aid in exploring one’s preferences. The Medium states, “There are the benefits of personal pleasure and the ability to introduce sexual variety and exploration in long-term relationships.” Being in tune with what you like and what you feel comfortable with can be beneficial as you begin to date or have sex. Sophomore Collin Tan says, ”Being able to talk about what you need while in a sexual relationship with people is important.” The ability to voice sexual needs and preferences can help set necessary boundaries and create a healthy and safe space for both you and your partner. However, these reasons seem to be the only pros to consuming porn.
Pornography depicts women and men in different and detrimental ways. Often, the men in porn are unmoving and strong, while the women are portrayed as weak and only there for the man to use. Advertising this sexist and degrading content as erotic alters the way both women and men think about sex. This concept is harmful; however, porn promotes yet another heartbreaking subject: sexual assault. Dr. Robert Jensen of the University of Texas states, “My own studies and reviews of other examinations of content suggest there are a few basic themes in pornography: (1) All women at all times want sex from all men; (2) women enjoy all the sexual acts that men perform or demand; and (3) any woman who does not at first realize this can be easily turned on with a little force.” These themes are extremely damaging as they promote yet another tiring message about sexual assault: that when a woman objects to sex, she is not really saying no. Freshman Sofia Bauer states, “I see so many negative messages that women are playing ‘hard to get’, when in reality, they are just saying no.” This message sends to viewers of porn that sexual and physical violence against women is something healthy and arousing. In addition, a large portion of porn is dedicated to portraying violence against women. Saint Benedict Saint Johns University states, “Nearly ninety percent of the most popular porn scenes contain physical violence (Bridges, 2010)… Close to half (46%) of adolescents age 13–25 see nothing wrong with “sexual acts that may be forced or painful” (Barna Group, 2016).” Advertising violence against women in porn leads to it becoming ‘normal’, as its shock factor decreases after repetitive viewing. Forced sexual acts should never be erotic, and depicting these acts as something to desire is repulsive.
An argument against porns promotion of rape is that porn prevents sexual violence as it allows perpetrators to view their fantasies rather than enact them on another person. However, this is incorrect. Fight the New Drug says, “A 2015 meta-analysis of 22 studies from seven countries found that internationally, the consumption of pornography was significantly associated with increases in actual acts of sexual aggression among males and females alike.” A reason why this argument does not work is because of pornographic portrayals of women. Pornography commits to dehumanizing women, depicting them as sex-crazed objects, not humans. Viewing women this way takes the guilt out of violence and forced sexual acts against them because they are not real people, just objects.
Porn adds fuel to the fire that is rape culture. Rape Prevention Education defines rape culture as “common social beliefs, attitudes, and morals that normalize sexual violence, encourage people to associate sex with violence, and minimize the seriousness of sexual violence.” Outwardly blaming rape on a victim can be seen in statements made like ”You should have just said no, you should not have been dressed that way.” However, pornography slyly alters viewers attitudes towards assault. Due to most porn depicting the degradation of women, seeing or hearing about these acts of violence that happen to women in real life becomes a small matter as viewers have become desensitized to them. Another alarming reality for the pornographic demographic is just how young its viewers are. Common Sense Media states,” The average age reported for first viewing pornography is 12.” Junior Miles Birrell Levine states, “I think it is strange how young we are exposed to porn, but it is even scarier to think about how younger kids are exposed to explicit material.” At such an impressionable age, our thought processes have not yet developed. Therefore, viewing porn can construct young viewers impressions about sex. However, basing sex on the degrading and violent acts depicted in pornography is extremely detrimental.
Due to the internet, porn is so easily accessible, which is frightening considering all its effects, especially for minors. However, restricting porn may not be the solution. Senior Evanka Singh states, “It is really hard to restrict porn. It is upsetting because you can not prevent everything. But, I think that it is good to have an open dialogue when a kid hits puberty instead of hiding info from them.” Educating teens about porn and its effects is important as they can view ethically and consider what they see is not actually reality. Rape culture continues to be a battle for our society, and it is up to us to consider the ethics of porn usage.
