Billie Eilish and her addiction to porn 0:48
(CNN) -
Gone are the days when porn was only accessible at local magazine and video stores.
Today, internet and cable television services make pornographic content available to almost everyone.
Much of the pornography on the internet is freely available, and some Japanese graphic novels and anime have incorporated pornographic or near-pornographic images and storylines.
In the cyber age, teens can easily access pornography online.
In fact, most porn is currently accessed over the internet, according to a 2016 meta-analysis published in The Journal of Sex Research.
Teens who viewed violent and graphic pornography were six times more likely to be sexually aggressive than those who weren't exposed, according to a 2011 study cited by a 2012 research analysis. Kids don't just watch porn at younger ages today. day, but they watch more porn and more graphic than their parents.
However, pornography is not a substitute for open and honest sex education.
That was the consensus among some psychologists and educators last week following singer Billie Eilish's brutally honest - and heartbreaking - comments about her exposure to porn at a young age.
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Billie Eilish Says Viewing Porn Since I Was 11 "Really Destroyed My Brain"
In an appearance on SiriusXM Radio's The Howard Stern Show, Eilish said she started watching porn around the age of 11.
"It destroyed my brain," he said, adding that the violent graphic images caused nightmares and sleep paralysis.
"The first few times I had sex I didn't say no to things that were not good; it was because I thought that was what was supposed to attract me," said Eilish, who turned 20 on December 18.
Eilish went on to say that "I didn't understand why it was a bad thing" and that "I thought this is how you learn to have sex."
When told to her mother, the Grammy Award winner said she was horrified by the idea that her daughter was learning about sex in this way.
Billie Eilish comments on porn, a painful reminder
Her comments about being "traumatized" were a painful reminder of how pornography and other sexualized media can affect young adults in today's world, sex educators told CNN.
Emily Rothman, director of the Department of Occupational Therapy at Boston University who is also a professor of Pediatrics and Medicine, said Eilish's comments serve as a wake-up call for parents and other trusted adults to play a more active role. in children's lives.
"Having a conversation with young people about what they have seen, when, where and how many times can be really helpful in trying to prevent future incidents and answer their questions," said Rothman, who teaches and researches sex, sexuality and gender. , and has provided violence-related counseling to State Departments of Public Health and domestic violence program coalitions.
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"We have to do more to prevent young people from viewing sexually explicit media. And because whatever we do, some of them will see it anyway, we also need to provide information and education to all young people about the fact that pornography is not an instruction manual on how to have sex. "
Graphic porn is easily accessible to tweens and teens
Eilish described what she was viewing as "abusive porn", depicting violence against women "without consent."
What's more, the artist's experiences may be more common than most adults decide to admit.
Porn "is available all the time on the internet, and even though parents put blockers on, kids find ways to access it," said Michael Robb, senior director of research at Common Sense Media, a nonprofit organization, with based in San Francisco, which publishes entertainment and technology recommendations for families.
"Whether they're looking for it themselves or accidentally accessing it through friends or older siblings, it's there."
The dangers of exposing children to pornography, according to experts
According to Robb, there is not much recent and reliable research on the intersection between tweens and porn.
It is an area that researchers have had difficulty studying due to ethical issues and lack of participation.
Additionally, Robb looks at studies on the topic of children and porn, and says that many of these efforts have had questionable methodologies.
The most reliable data available suggests that Eilish's experiences are common, Robb said.
One who quotes often:
A 2017 survey of 1,001 youth and children in the UK, which indicated that 28% of those 11-12 year olds reported viewing porn, while 65% of 15-16 year olds reported having viewed it .
Robb noted that these numbers are likely higher now due to increased use of screens during the covid-19 pandemic.
A matter of education
Of course, as Rothman suggested, the real issue that underlies most conversations about porn is education.
According to David Ley, a clinical psychologist and sex therapist from Albuquerque, New Mexico, tweens and teens view the material the way Eilish did and believe it is real life, laying the groundwork for a distorted reality and the problems associated with it. in the future.
Ley added that the true disconnect comes with what the porn doesn't show.
"Healthy sexual interactions require negotiation, consent, honesty, self-control and respect," he said.
"Most of the porn skips all of this, and without the proper context kids who are curious and watch it are not going to understand how important all of these issues are to healthy sexual relationships."
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Part of the challenge is educating children about healthy sexual interactions, Ley said.
While most formal sex education in the United States does not begin until high school, many other countries begin teaching children about it at an earlier age.
Ley states that the effects of this early exposure are indisputable: in the Netherlands, where the fundamentals of sex education begin between the ages of 4 and 6, there are lower rates of adolescent pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases and sexual assaults.
"We have the idea and the belief that if you don't talk about something it won't happen," he said.
"The reality is that not talking about it prepares children for unfortunate lessons."
These comments resonated with author Peggy Orenstein.
In the past 15 years, Orenstein has written six books on youth, sexuality, and sex, interviewing hundreds of tweens and teens along the way.
By talking to these guys, he says that he has learned that they get the wrong messages from a variety of media outlets.
"It is imperative to speak to young people about sexuality that is legal and ethical and good," Orenstein said.
"The values of male sexual right, female submission and availability, and female performance for male pleasure are prevalent in today's world. It is not just in porn [where children see these values]. It is easy to be alarmed by many of the things that young people see. "
Sex as a significant human connection
Many experts say that the best way for parents to engage their children in a conversation about human sexuality is to talk about it as a celebration of the human condition and how people can connect on deeper and more meaningful levels.
This also makes it very important to recognize different sexual identities.
Aredvi Azad, co-executive director of The Heal Project, a nonprofit that teaches children to lead healthy lives, noted that any modern conversation about sex, sexuality and gender must go beyond heteronormative relationships and cisgender depicted in most mainstream pornography.
"If we don't talk about sex more broadly, we are inadvertently creating a situation where children who have no interests in what is considered normal can easily spiral into shame," Azad said.
"We have to help children understand all aspects of sexual and gender identity, and that asexuality also exists," said Azad, who identifies as gender fluid and uses the pronouns them and them.
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Only for adults
It is also important to note that pornography is not always considered bad.
A recent opinion piece by well-known sex educator Cindy Gallop noted that pornography can be innovative, creative, and even downright feminist if done with a focus on a woman's comfort and desires.
Chelsea Kurnick, an LGBTQ advocate and community builder in Sonoma County, California, agrees with her.
Kurnick said there is a great deal of non-mainstream porn that is "beautiful and instructive and can be empowering for adults who watch it."
In many cases, "
queer
and trans people, fat people [and] people with disabilities" can gain useful and helpful insights from the porn that is made by and for them, Kurnick said.
He added that this material is strictly for adults.
"It is entirely true that there are often unrealistic expectations set by porn and that violent or disturbing material can be found online," he said.
"It's also important to remember that porn is not made for 11-year-olds, it can be healthy for adults to watch, and it's something that real people do for a living."
What can parents do?
The best way for parents to respond to children's natural curiosity about pornography is to be proactive and support the discussion process with children.
As Gallop wrote in his recent essay, this means that parents must commit to talking frankly and directly with children about sex.
For Orenstein, this means that conversations should focus on the notion that all people deserve dignity and respect.
To achieve these goals, parents should strive to create an atmosphere early on in which children do not feel or experience embarrassment about expressing their curiosities as they develop, according to Jennifer Kelman, a therapist and clinical social worker in Boca Raton, Florida. .
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Parents must also commit to raising their children positively, answering all questions posed by them, Kelman says, even if the answers simply say that the children are not yet old enough to get more information that satisfies. Your request.
"Parents need to be open about the possibility of children being exposed to pornography and validate their natural curiosity about it, while allowing them to express their thoughts and feelings around sexual intimacy," Kelman said.
"There is no shame in natural growth and curiosity, so (parents should) talk to children about real love and the harm that pornography can do."
Matt Villano is a writer and editor living in Northern California.
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