I believe there are some very serious issues facing next generation of girls and young women that aren?t being considered when we look at the potential damage of this constant access to porn and the attitudes and beliefs about women it appears to promote.
Through popular culture, the fashion and style industries, the cult of celebrity etc, girls are already growing up with constant little droplets about how they ought to look, what the perfect body should be, what to wear, how to look sexy or hot or whatever. Over the past several decades we?ve seen a whole industry devoted to women?s weight loss. You can?t go into a supermarket without seeing magazine covers about being ?beach body ready? or how to ?drop two dress sizes?. Many women have disordered attitudes towards eating, appetite, food etc. If a woman at work says she?s on a diet or trying to lose weight, we don?t see it as unusual because it?s ?normal? now for women to be ?on a diet? ? meaning specifically a weight loss diet. Many women wear shoes that hurt their feet and give them backache, and they just accept it as the price of wearing heels. Push up bras are rarely comfortable, and who would want to wear a thong considering how unhygienic they are and can actually provide a breeding ground that increases the risk of bladder infections. And all this has been going on before the impact of internet porn.
Since the ubiquity of internet pornography it?s now de rigeur for a woman to have a permanently hairless vulva, which is an almost unrealistic expectation considering that all hair removal methods are temporary so women these days are undertaking a high maintenance, time consuming and often expensive way of making sure they don?t offend a potential mate with the presence of a pubic hair. OK, some men will say they don?t expect this of their partner, but they tend to be older and grew up learning about sex the ?hands on? way, but some younger guys say they won?t have sex with a girl with pubic hair. So there you see a pretty big cultural shift And now you get women having a Brazilian wax as a Valentine?s gift for their partners. I mean, WTF! Why is having your hair ripped out by the roots any kind of ?gift??
We?re also seeing things like anal bleaching (WTF for?), labiaplasty (because porn favours women with the small labia minor of an underdeveloped female). More recently there?s an increasing trend for these artificial massive butts. Again, what is the point? Boob jobs are becoming more commonplace and since we?ve had the cult of the 36GGs or whatever in porn, which then feeds into poplar culture, celebrity culture, etc, there are girls as young as 18 having augmentations, and I?ve even heard of girls having a boob job as an 18th birthday gift from their parents. It?s crazy that we?ve ended up here as a culture.
The easy access to more extreme genres on tube sites is also affecting sexual relationships and activities, and it?s as if young women are performing sex, or expected perform sex, rather than a shared mutual experience, and they report being asked to engage in activities they don?t really want to ? often involving some degree of violence or unpleasantness.
If anything, I see more and more pressures on girls and young women than ever to be hot, sexy, available and up for anything. There are more pressures on their appearance, body shape, everything. As if their appearance is what makes them valuable. Or not ? in which case we see young women falling into dieting, eating disorders, depression, negative self image. I don?t see this getting any better.
I?m certainly on board with regard to the toxic influences of internet porn on young men and boys. We already know that the prevalence of erectile dysfunction in the younger demographic has been documented, and we know that porn influences the negative ways they may regard women and sex. I mean, as partners we have seen the negative effects in the older demographic who didn?t grow up with internet porn AND the negative effects on us, the female partners. WE know what healthy sexuality is and we know it?s not porn or anything like it. Porn culture is not going to be good for the next generation of women, and their daughters. if we don?t educate adults and kids alike about sex and healthy sexuality and to question the unreality that pornography represents. I would agree wholeheartedly on restricting access to the extent that there is no free porn, that it all has to exist behind an age-restricted paywall where people have to verify their identity. In the past people had to buy their magazines and videos from a store, or be an adult to get into a movie theatre showing ?blue movies?. If people want it they should pay for it and thereby reduce its negative impacts. Whether that?s compatible with the current business models or even realistic at present, I don?t know. But that?s my opinion on how it?s harmful effects can be minimised.
