Multiple countries are trying to force porn sites to have an efficient age verification. With frightening numbers like half of 12 year old boys go monthly to porn sites.
Sure for an adult who remember the time where at best one kid would have brought a magazine to school, it feels concerning. However, it’s been easily 20 years that every household has high speed internet which is full of porn. So the kids under 30 (let’s call them Gen-Z) had a massive access to porn while growing up.
Is there any “sociologicial” studies about how it impacted these young adults ? Are they sexually more fucked-up than the millennials ?
Most of it is in line with what you’d think: not that terrible unless you’re repressed and think that sex is bad or you have the religious hang ups that dictate sex should be sacred in some way
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27105446/ - higher consumption of pornography in adolescence leads to more permissive sexual attitudes (eg casual sex)
https://www.ovid.com/journals/jpsh/fulltext/10.1177/26318318231153984~pornography-and-its-impact-on-adolescentteenage-sexuality - association (not necessarily causal) of pornography use and earlier loss of virginity as well as greater risk taking in sex (such as inconsistent use of condoms, which could perhaps be addressed by the industry using them more)
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30919052/ longitudinal studies find weak or no links between increased use of pornography and decreased psychological well being
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35294070/ while there are longitudinal studies that show correlation between pornography use and sexual harassment/assault there are studies to suggest that this may not be causal and other confounding variables such as peer environment, family attitudes, or personality traits may be more causal in nature)
Lots more but a lot of the negative effects are often tied to guilt and shame which is socially derived and possibly without basis
We really need to distinguish between porn that displays harmful attitudes towards women and everything else. There are libraries of porn available online that normalize coercive acts or people in positions of power taking advantage of others. Not ALL porn is like that but the questions are: what are adolescents watching and how would we expect that to impact their perception of a healthy sexual relationship?
I believe sex to be a spiritual experience (not tied to any one religion) that can absolutely involve kink and domination/submission play but ultimately should come from and maintain a state of balance with mutual satisfaction as the ultimate goal. There is absolutely porn that portrays this but I’d say a lot (perhaps the majority) does not.
That being said, as a millenial I did grow up with access to porn on Kazaa and what not. Saw some uncomfortable shit and my value system / attitudes towards sex remained relatively ok despite it. Ultimately, I had to read Indigineous thought and the philosophical aspects of the Kama Sutra (which emphasizes a woman’s autonomy and pleasure and is open to same sex relationships) to arrive at my current, very open, attitudes toward sex.