The age a boy is first exposed to porn significantly affects the way he treats women later in life, new research has shown.
We all know: watching porn can be damaging to sex and relationships.
Porn makes more extreme sexual acts – anal, violence, hair pulling, spitting – seem normal and pleasurable to women. The opposite is true, for most women IRL.
The great majority of porn promotes one type of female body type. The reality being not all women have bouncy breasts and flat stomachs and spectactular booties.
It makes the ‘porn face’ seem natural, when no woman has ever looked that good when she’s really enjoying something.
In many instances, it completely eliminates a woman’s pleasure. Wait, female orgasms are a thing?
But now we are finding out it’s not just the content of porn that impacts sex and relationships, it’s also the age at which you’re first exposed.
How can you consume porn in an ethical way? Post continues below.
A study at the University of Nebraska in the U.S. looked at 330 male students to find out: When was their first exposure to porn? And what are their attitudes to women?
Three interesting insights came out of it:
Boys who saw sexualised images at a younger age were more likely to try and exert power over women later in life. A younger exposure lead to controlling behaviours.
Those men who were older when they first saw pornography were more likely to become promiscuous. The researchers were surprised about this.
“The most interesting finding from this study was that older age at first exposure predicted greater adherence to the playboy masculine norms,” co-author Chrissy Richardson said in a university press release. “That finding has sparked many more questions and potential research ideas because it was so unexpected based on what we know about gender role socialization and media exposure.”
Finally, the way a boy was first exposed to pornography – accidentally or intentionally – had no impact upon how he went onto treat women.
Perhaps most alarmingly, however, was that the youngest age a respondent had first seen pornography was five years old.