Signs of a Pornified View of Sex

When porn is the primary sexual reference in a person’s life, it wreaks massive havoc. Countless studies have indicated that the imprinting from our first experiences of sex lays the foundation for our entire sexual arousal template. 

For the first time in history, we live in an age where people have secret, anonymous access to an incomprehensible amount of sexual content. Not only that, for the majority of these people, porn is the ONLY instruction they receive on anything regarding sex. 

The lack of proper sex education, plus large amounts of people being repetitively immersed in porn’s depiction of sex, creates a crazy feedback loop that shapes the views on sex of people who have never even had direct exposure to porn. The majority of people do not recognize that they are swimming in porn’s influence.

We could go unfathomably deep with this topic. Instead, here are three quick signs that someone has a porn-influenced view of sex.

 A Voyeuristic Attitude

Sex is an intimate (i.e. private) experience between two people. Porn is voyeurism. Years of watching porn implants the belief that “I am entitled to partake in other people’s sex.” 

In 2014, there was a massive hacking that resulted in dozens of celebrities having their private photos leaked to the public. The focus of these were hundreds of sexually explicit photos that spread across the internet like wildfire. It was a blatant disregard for the victims’ privacy, but people didn’t care. These were among the most famous women in the world, already greatly sexualized by media and idolized by individuals. It was a thrilling opportunity for people to cement their sexual fantasies, or to peek into the sexual lives of the rich and powerful.

People excused their behavior by saying that these women were “sluts,” “asking for it,” or “shouldn’t have taken those photos if they didn’t want people seeing them.” Underneath all of these justifications is an attitude of entitlement. Porn validates people’s belief that they have the right to other people’s sex. There is no sense of morality or restraint. Revenge porn, a category of porn in which people secretly upload sexual photos/videos of their past/current partners, is a growing epidemic. From as early as middle school, thousands of people (98% being women) are having sexual photos of them passed around their peer group and shared online every single day. It’s a humiliating and traumatizing experience, but revenge porn continues to grow in popularity. 

In a given year, a casual porn user will view thousands of people performing sexual acts. We become apathetic to who these people are and to the fact that we’re watching them engage in something as intimate as sex. We feel the same lack of consequence when looking at sexual images of someone who never intended them to be seen, despite the crushing effect it has in that person’s life. In fact, there is a unique thrill in viewing sexual images of someone who didn’t mean for them to be viewed. 

Porn has normalized the act of watching other people have sex and instills the expectation that we have a right to other people’s sexuality whether they wish to share it or not. 

Treating Sex as a Mechanical Experience

It’s a common belief that the key to great sex is getting the right moves down. Magazines fill grocery check-out lines with all the right tricks to “hot sex.” Most people know that these are clickbait trying to hook our attention, but the mindset seeps into our perspective of sex. When people describe their positive experiences of sex it most often revolves around the physical aspect of it. The frequency, the intensity, what he did, what she did, how it felt. Likewise, when people struggle with orgasm or feel discomfort or dissatisfaction with sex, then they try to fix the problem with mechanical means.

Mechanics are important, but it’s only a (small) piece of the puzzle. Emphasizing this aspect distracts from the real qualities that make great sex. Mechanics is the only thing porn has to offer. Executing all the right moves and shooting from all the right angles. Even then, the moves in porn are fake, a performance manufactured for the viewer. It’s stimulating and eye-catching, but lacking in substance. 

Having Very Specific Sexual Preferences

Neurons that fire together wire together. What we are exposed to while orgasming imprints onto the part of our brain that creates our sexual template. Repeated exposure reinforces the neural connectors that associate an object with sexual gratification. 

To be clear, I’m not talking about sexual orientation (who we are attracted to). When someone says they are into ___________, whether it be a body type, ethnicity, style, hair color, personality, they’re expressing a sexual preference that comes from either primary or secondary sexualization. 

Primary sexualization comes from repeated sexual experiences. The earlier the exposure, the stronger it imprints. An idealistic way this mechanism works would be that we avoid sex throughout our adolescence and have our first sexual exposure with our spouse. We associate all forms of arousal with that person. Wow, what a fairytale. 

Typically, people’s first exposures to sex are experienced through porn. Years of repeated exposure strengthens neural pathways that associate arousal with what we watch. Porn is not the only way we create these associations but it is a common one. Regardless of how they’re formed, if there is a repetitive motif in your attractions and sexual preferences, then it’s an indicator of neural connections you’ve made at some point in your life.

Secondary sexualization comes from social depictions of what is attractive. We pick up cues based on what we observe in media and what we hear around us. These observations cue us to what is preferable and not preferable. People exist in many different bubbles, all with different preferences. If you hang out with groups that value a certain look or disposition, chances are you’ll be attracted to that. 

Sexualizing a person based on specific traits strips away their depth and humanity—the very definition of objectification. While our preferences may seem innocent, it’s worth looking at where they came from and how they may be affecting the way we view people.

Some people sexualize to the extreme and become unable to be aroused by anything that doesn’t fit their specific criteria. Many fetishists fit into this category. These people trap themselves in a corner that makes it impossible to experience a fulfilling relationship because it’s impossible to experience a fulfilling relationship that’s based on objectification. 

It’s possible to uncouple the neural connections that drive our sexual associations. These neural connectors are like footpaths—the more they are used, the more pronounced they become. The less they are used, the more they fade away. 

One of the best ways to do this is by joining Ascend and participating in a small group. 

Regardless of a person’s direct experience with porn, there are many ways in which porn shapes our view of sex. The more we can differentiate between high-quality vs. low-quality sex, the more fulfilling sexual relationships we can all have.