Sexually explicit content is everywhere on the internet. From pop-up ads to porn videos, it’s practically unavoidable. More and more, young people are being exposed to sexual content online. With modern accessibility, porn is only a few clicks away.
When young people are exposed to porn before 18, it can be damaging. It impacts their psychological development and sexual behavior. Early exposure creates unrealistic expectations of what sex should be and can affect young people’s body image and self-esteem. These effects carry into adulthood and can influence their ability to form or maintain healthy, intimate relationships with others.
Psychological Effects of Early Porn Exposure
Witnessing porn at a young age can have harmful psychological impacts. In adolescence, your brain development is vulnerable to influence.
Porn can lead to engaging in sexual activity at an early age, a skewed perception of sex and body image, and problematic sexual behavior.
Unrealistic Expectations
Porn is performative. It doesn’t showcase what sex is like for the average person. It’s a hyperbolized portrayal. When young people watch porn, particularly before experiencing sexual intimacy themselves, it alters their perception of sex. Because they don’t have prior experience, they believe that what they’re watching is the standard of sexual activity. This expectation can be harmful and create unrealistic expectations.
Perpetuates Sexual Violence
Porn can influence one’s perception of women, reinforce negative stereotypes, and perpetuate gender discrimination or violence. Common themes in porn include holding power over women or engaging in sexually coercive behavior. Witnessing this kind of behavior at a young age normalizes the act. Young people, particularly young boys, may be more likely to commit acts of sexual violence if they’ve witnessed it in porn at a young age.
Alternatively, young girls may be at a higher likelihood to accept sexual harassment. They also might feel pressured to engage in sexting, sexual acts, or sending naked images if they see women doing it online.
Influences Addiction
Porn exposure can impact a person’s mental health and well-being. The younger a person is when they’re exposed, the higher the chance of developing a sex addiction. Addiction impacts the reward center of the brain. Sexual arousal releases chemicals that reward you with pleasure. You’re training your brain to expect the release of dopamine, the pleasure chemical. Your brain remembers this feeling and can quickly become dependent on this desire.
Impact on Sexual Behavior
Pornography plays a role in shaping sexual behavior. Young people may believe they must look, act, or behave a certain way to please their partners. The behavior exhibited in porn is often not realistic, so it doesn’t serve as a good model of how to have safe, consensual, enjoyable sex.
Additionally, premature porn exposure can affect a young person’s understanding and perception of sex and encourage early engagement in sex acts. Seeing sexual activity on screen normalizes the act and implies that everyone else is doing it, so why shouldn’t you?
Teenagers can feel significant pressure to engage in sexual activity, even if they’re uncomfortable, which can lead to risky and uninformed sex. This behavior can result in teen pregnancy, STDs, or sexual violence.
A young person’s first exposure to porn is often accidental or forced, meaning they were unable to consent to the exposure. This lack of control and shock to the images seen can be traumatizing. Young people may try to reenact the scene that once made them feel powerless and distressed to find closure. This can be dangerous and cause more harm.
Age of Exposure and its Consequences
The average age when children consume porn is 12 years old. The earlier a child is exposed, the more likely they are to continue consuming porn into adulthood.
Early porn exposure impacts young people in negative ways. Children less than 7 or 8 years old struggle to differentiate between what is happening on screen and what is happening in real life, according to a study in the Journal of Pediatric Health Care.
If you’re exposed to porn this young, it may be considered sexual trauma. Your brain hasn’t developed enough to understand what you’re seeing. It’s distressing and confusing. You may experience intrusive thoughts or flashbacks to these images that cause anxiety and shame. This childhood trauma can carry into adulthood. If you have adverse reactions to sexual activity in adulthood, it may be due to the trauma of exposure so young.
How Early Porn Exposure May Impact Adults
Early porn exposure can lead to difficulties in forming or maintaining relationships in adulthood.
Watching porn at a young age can create a disconnect between sexual intimacy and what you’re perceiving on screen. It distorts your perception of what a relationship should look like. You may struggle to commit to one partner, feel pressure to engage in risky sexual behavior, or think it’s normal to sexually objectify other people.
It creates a false reality and removes the need for personal connection. Watching porn is typically a solo activity, which can encourage isolation. It eliminates the need for social/intimate interaction with others. You get the same dopamine hit from watching sexual activity on a screen as you would engaging in sexual activity with others. When you increasingly watch porn at a young age, you’re conditioning your brain to turn to porn for those dopamine hits.
It’s easy to see how increased use or normalization of pornography could lead to addiction.
There’s often shame accompanying watching porn, which is why many who experience distress around it don’t get help. Exposure to porn in youth may affect academic performance or worsen mental health conditions. Porn can become a replacement for work responsibilities, home duties, or even hobbies. If you get to the point that you can’t control your urge to watch porn, you may have developed porn addiction.
Symptoms of porn addiction include:
- Increased porn viewership
- Feeling guilty about watching
- An inability to control viewing urges, even when or where it’s inappropriate to do so
- Consuming thoughts of porn
- Neglecting responsibilities or socializing to view porn
- Experiencing sexual dysfunction
- Increased tolerance for more extreme or violent porn
- Hiding your porn watching from loved ones
Watching porn serves as a temporary escape from the stressors of daily life or dealing with past trauma. But it’s not a permanent solution. Watching porn may give you the dopamine hit you’re looking for in the moment, but it won’t erase obstacles in your life. The more you train your brain to turn to porn, the more challenging it is to stop watching. It becomes your conditioned response to adverse situations. It becomes an addiction. Porn takes over your life and can negatively affect your relationships, work, finances, and health.
Porn addiction can lead to less life satisfaction, greater pornography use, more sexual partners, and acceptance of violent depictions of sex. It distorts your perception of what a healthy sexual relationship looks like.
How Begin Again Institute Can Help
Healing from sexual trauma doesn’t happen overnight. If you were exposed to porn at an early age and you’re still feeling the effects in your adult life, there are treatment options available.
Entering treatment requires discipline and patience, but the results are life-changing. You’ll need to relearn behaviors, repair relationships, and rediscover who you are outside of porn addiction. With a commitment to recovery, your quality of life will improve.
If porn addiction has taken over your life, we can help. We understand how pervasive addiction can be and how it destroys relationships, wrecks your finances, and upsets your mental health. At Begin Again Institute, we offer treatment for porn addiction that targets the root of the addiction. Through trauma-informed care, we help you understand your addiction and find healing.
Embark on the road to recovery in a supportive, judgment-free, professional environment. Don’t wait to change your life. Give us a call today, and find the healing you need.
Edward Tilton is a proven behavioral healthcare leader with an established track record in the recovery industry space. As an accomplished healthcare leader, Ed has diverse management experience including clinical and business operations, expansion of program development, and clinical service offerings.
