Pornosexuals: Why are so many young people choosing porn over sex?
“If I had to choose to have one or the other for the rest of my life, I would choose porn over real sex any day.”
Those are the words of one young man — a self-confessed “pornosexual” — to Medical Daily. According to the website, this unfamiliar term describes someone whose “sexual orientation is linked solely to pornography.”
Simply: they prefer watching online porn to sex with real people.
In the course of my work, as a lawyer representing female victims of sexual harassment, violence and revenge porn, I have had to study the most popular pornographic websites and films. The majority of scenes contain physical and verbal abuse directed against the female performers.
Most porn is neither sex-friendly nor sex-positive. Rather it depicts oppressive acts of humiliation and debasement that are anything but enlightening. That we have now entered the era of the “pornosexual” is a worrisome sign that for some young people growing up as digital natives, porn is a way of life. It has become so normalised that it is now being conflated with sex.
We now have a generation of boys who have been looking at free pornographic images and films since before puberty. Forget snaffling a copy of your older brother’s Playboy from the back of the wardrobe — these children are seeing every degrading and violent fetish that is easily available on computers and smartphones. In 1991, there were fewer than 90 porn magazines in the US, reported Medical Daily, compared to millions of websites today.
And as these boys grow into young men — with porn as their formative sexual reference — their views of what women want are turning out to be very different to what women actually do want.
Porn is an industrial product for making money, whereas sex is a human desire which is fun and crea- What you need to know: revenge porn
What is it?
tive. But young people now are taking porn as a major form of sex education. Yet it doesn’t teach them about intimacy, tenderness, or mutual interaction.
Recently, the mother of an eightyear-old girl sought my help when her daughter admitted that her 14-year-old cousin sometimes did things to her that she did not like. When she asked her daughter if her cousin always did the same things, she replied: “Sometimes, but if he saw something new on his phone, it would change.”
Sexual offenders are almost always habitual porn users. And I have advised on many divorces in which porn use is a factor. Real sex and intimacy disappear as the man seeks an impossible standard that frustrates both partners.
There can also be no doubt that the porn industry has given impetus to the crime of revenge porn, where people find their private and explicit images posted online, often by a former partner. Given the billions of sexual images available online, it is probably easy to rationalise adding one or two more, inured to the fact of their destructive consequences for the real person behind the pixels.
Hundreds of thousands of innocent individuals have been hurt by this crime, which carries a sentence of up to two years in England and Wales. Some victims have gone into hiding and others to their graves, unable to accept that their naked images are spread all over the internet, often with their names, addresses and degrading comments attached.
It is “pornosexuals” themselves who become increasingly burdened with what grows into an addiction. An Oxford university student came to me to ask if he had grounds to take action against the porn industry.
Henry (not his real name) was a robust porn consumer since his early teens and now had a girlfriend. But found he frequently could not get an erection with her, while he always became aroused when watching porn. His girlfriend didn’t want — or enjoy — porn-style sex and neither did other women he had previously had relationships with.
He told me the sex he did have with his girlfriend was nothing like the porn he had been “trained” on and that he felt stuck, unable to enjoy a real physical relationship and frustrated that porn still had a powerful grip on him.
To call pornosexuality a sexual orientation may anger some — it is a learned behaviour that fundamentally does not open any doors to sustained human pleasure or fulfilment. It is also profoundly isolating and — for its victims — no more sustaining than any other addiction. And it is just a click away.
Revenge porn is defined as the uploading or sharing of intimate pictures or videos without the subject’s consent. It has grown rapidly along with social media and the immediacy of phone apps.
Is it a crime? Revenge porn became a criminal offence in England and Wales in April 2015, with a maximum sentence of two years imprisonment. And in the first year of the offence, more than 200 people were prosecuted. However, many victims do not come forward through fear or embarrassment. It means the real number of crimes could be much higher.
Dr Ann Olivarius is senior partner of mcallister olivarius.