With the advancements of technology and the easy access to the internet, porn has become readily available 24/7 for everybody of all ages. Because of this boys reaching the ages of puberty are able to see everything the porn industry has to offer. For many boys this can have a seriously negative affect on their personal relationships. For many men it makes them not able to have an intimate relationship with the girls they would date. The easy access to porn doesn’t just affect men though, women see porn and it can cause them to feel insecure about their own appearances. The porn industry has evolved greatly from the playboy and penthouse magazines that were the original sources. Online pornography allows for users to view any sort of fantasy they can imagine which has caused for the negative effects on young peoples relationships.

The evolution of the porn industry has changed from simple pictures to extremely graphic content that show very obscure fantasies. These obscure fantasies give unexperienced young people the false idea of how intercourse should be. Because young people are so impressionable they believe that these fantasies are normal, which is not the case, these fantasies range from fetishes to BDSM to role playing. When these types of expectations are not met often times men are unable to perform or they are unsatisfied so they become disinterested in seeking out real relationships and just depend on porn. Another reason that porn can have this effect on people is because the actors and actresses

For Noah Church he was first exposed to porn when he was 9. His time with porn started early and with simple pictures of nude women, but once he hit his teenage years he was downloading videos and eventually streaming sources became accessible when he was 15. Once the streaming sources came around with all the obscure fetishes his interests became more perverted in order to satisfy himself. As he got older he became more and more interested in the most violent and intense videos. He tells the story of his first time he was able to have sex in real life he wasn’t able to because of the “disconnect between what I wanted in my mind and how my body reacted.” This wasn’t a onetime thing for him, it continued to happen for 6 years. He was diagnosed with porn-induced erectile dysfunction (PIED). This has affected many young men and causes serious problems in relationships.

The effects of porn do not only cause problems in men or only when trying to pursue real intimate relationships, the effects of porn affect people psychologically. Men and women both see the bodies or porn actors and actresses and become obsessed with trying to look like them. They see these people in porn and want to look just like them because they think that is what people expect them to look like. Girls especially see the bodies of porn stars and feel self-conscious that their bodies don’t look as good as what they see in porn. This leads to them wanting to have cosmetic surgeries to try and make themselves look more like porn stars. One surgery that is becoming more and more common in young girls is labiaplasty. This surgery allows for girls to alter their vaginas to look the way they want them to look. For men they do the same thing but instead try to enhance their genitalia to be bigger and more like what they see in porn. As Dr. Veronica Gomez-Lobo said, “The most important thing to understand is that there’s a huge variety in anatomy.” Young people need to realize this because so many are quick to judge themselves simply because they see something different and feel inadequate. That is what to porn industry has done to young people.

“Porn-Induced Erectile Dysfunction: Is It a Virility Threat?” Time, Time, time.com/4277510/porn-and-the-threat-to-virility/?iid=toc_033116.

Rabin, Roni Caryn. “More Teenage Girls Seeking Genital Cosmetic Surgery.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 25 Apr. 2016, well.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/04/25/increase-in-teenage-genital-surgery-prompts-guidelines-for-doctors/.