Teenage use of porn

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https://m.independent.ie/life/family/parenting/too-much-too-young-why-we-need-to-talk-to-our-sons-about-porn-37993420.html?fbclid=IwAR1fUgmfnPFzAq89FdCCou6FtLSC4V2MM32GoaOJDf7bd-BXEhEJ6nPA6uI

Very interesting article on porn.

Really though when the Dads are often major consumers of porn too is this yet another responsibility and challenge women have to take on.

That is a hell of an assumption if my partner found teenager watching porn, he would lower the boom.

It is a major assumption that quite a lot of adult men view porn. Really?? Did you read the viewing statistics on the link.

This always comes up in relationships as well, the Independent reported a survey from about 5 years ago that 76% of men surveyed watched porn. In my experience (male family members, friends, acquaintances, colleagues etc etc) that's conservative.

But women on here still say it's wrong to think the majority of men watch porn at least sometimes. In my view they're being unrealistic.

Well it looks like a father who wrote the article, anyway.

It's a good article about teenage boys.

Parents mustn't forget their daughters, though. Teenage girls also watch porn and it teaches them to hate themselves, that they aren't allowed sexual boundaries, to accept and expect abusive behaviour, and that their own sexual pleasure is irrelevant.

The girls don't need to watch porn. They are exposed to the posturing and attitudes it shapes via so much contemporary popular culture.

The boys' minds are completely poisoned by it. Unlike the older tradition of voyeuristic still imagery that put idealised women on a pedestal, the pervasive video pornography that has grown like knotweed since the 80s (See 'The Deuce') is phallocentric and extremely misogynistic.

The girls don't need to watch porn.

No, but it has become so normalised and easily accessible that lots of them do and parents shouldn't think this is just a 'son' discussion. Daughters need their own version of the same conversation.

Porn can be awful.

My entire sex ed was via porn, I remember I used to draw pictures of stick to men to try to work out what went where, I know it sounds ridiculous, but I didn’t have anyone to ask, even if I did I don’t think I would have asked. Then my parents got me a laptop when I was fifteen and boom, unlimited porn.

Porn did a few things, firstly it was quite exciting, but mainly the thought that I would have to (because at that age you fail to realise you have a choice and it isn’t ‘real’ doesn’t come to mind) do those things or let someone do them to me was absolutely terrifying. So that meant the idea of a relationship etc was very scary, but it also meant when I moved out and started going on nights out I let people do some awful things to me because the idea that there was another option just wasn’t there, I had essentially been taught that was just normal as I hadn’t received a different view.

The girls don't need to watch porn. They are exposed to the posturing and attitudes it shapes via so much contemporary popular culture.

Back in the very early 00s, I chatted civilly/jokily to two guys at a bar in my town on Halloween night (I was with a group but I was up at the bar alone getting a couple of drinks for me and my bf or one of my friends, can't remember). We were discussing each others outfits and we mustve touched on the fake gun one of the two guys had (police &military outfits are v population in our town for dressing up, esp for guys). In the middle of what I thought was a pleasant, civil convo he put the end of the gun near my face and said "Suck it!".

I'd watched very little porn at that time but I recognised the idea from reading the handmaiden's tale (in which the women are shown porn including women being forced to fellate real guns as an example of his bad it was before and how "good" they have it now). My reaction was obviously taken aback and negative and the guy looked embarrassed for a second. We talked some more civil shite (which I regret, blame socialisation into being pleasant and not confronting people I really wish I'd torn him a new one) and I went back to my group.

But it really struck me what he must be watching, how he'd project that into some girl in a bar and I thought me being friendly and jokey made him somehow think he could ask/get me to do it, which obviously would've been demeaning and quite sinister.

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And that was when porn was much less accessible and actually much less extreme and degrading than it is now.

Well it looks like a father who wrote the article, anyway.

The author is a father but he is also a child psychologist working in this field so not saying it isn't good that he is a male picking up this issue, from my knowledge of him he is well known in Ireland, he is largely speaking to women to address it as his typically audiences/readership tends to be women.

For me it is like the complete "faux" astonishment of the #metoo movement. For years we have watched movies/tv shows/ read books that showed time and again the treatment of women in the entertainment/movie business yet it apparently came as a massive shock to people when stars started speaking out about their experiences.

Again tv/movies/books normalise the viewing of porn as absolutely normal "boy/men" behaviour done by an absolute majority of boys/men yet in spite of the damage it does there is faux shock about the fact that it is damaging and again women are being targeted to stem the tide of "normalised" male behaviour.

For me it is like the complete "faux" astonishment of the #metoo movement. For years we have watched movies/tv shows/ read books that showed time and again the treatment of women in the entertainment/movie business yet it apparently came as a massive shock to people when stars started speaking out about their experiences.

Yeah the term casting couch was a long established one, and I remember seeing the behaviour portrayed very clearly in the film about Howard Hughes, the aviator. That was quite some time ago, before the movement.

The only thing that was 'new' was women speaking out individually. Even then, make forums derisively said it was only past it actresses whose careers were struggling/over; they went along with it when it worked for them. Really obv not true in some cases but the sort of stuff misogynists like to promote.

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