Pornography Addiction In Teens
While it may be perfectly normal and healthy for teenagers to develop curiosity in their sexuality, changing times have brought with them alarming statistics addressing teens hooked on pornography. Thanks (or no thanks) to the internet and cable television, there is a huge collection of pornographic images available for unrestricted viewing by adults as well as teenagers.
In the past, young people could not easily access pornographic materials unless they went an extra mile to scavenge from trash or access hidden adult collections. Today, they don’t have to expend any effort searching -it is all overly accessible. Even children armed with only rudimentary computer skills can unlock the floodgates to a barrage of X-rated images. It takes only a couple of mouse clicks to gain access.
Most unfortunately teens are inundated with a barrage of sexual stimuli before their capacity to integrate such materials into their sexual identity is fully developed. Thinking about it, much of the teen pornography issues reflect the broader social reality and the fact that pornography has officially gone mainstream.
Teenagers, being in their formative stages, are quite unsure about their sexual identity and to them pornography is not much different than a trip to the candy shop. They revel in the newfound euphoric feelings while at the same time secretly connecting with other folks with whom they share similar sexual tastes.
Studies done on this area have
“It can snatch any kid out of the home…It snatched me out of mine 20 years ago.” (Final Interview, 2:54-3:02 minutes). The addiction to pornography is often likened to that of a drug, “One should become addicted to it, and I look at this as kind of like an addiction. Like other kinds of addictions…you keep…I would keep looking for more potent, explicit, more graphic kinds of material. Like an addiction, you keep craving something that’s harder…something…which gives you a greater sense of excitement.” (Final Interview,
There was a time in which it was a taboo to look at or talk about pornography, and at those stages children only had a brief glance at it, heard about it, or had any contact with it. With today’s growing technology there is internet available on smartphones, PC computers, music devices, entertainment devices (such as Playstation or Xbox); and with all of this it is extremely difficult to keep track of what the future generation of children are watching, where they are watching it, or who they are watching it with.
It today’s society, pornography is a fast-growing epidemic that is evident in families, marriages, and teenage lifestyles. Supporters of pornography claim that it can be used as a tool to teach students about sex education. However, critics claim that pornography is unjust, influential, and dehumanizing. Pornography is unjust because it has the potential to break down intimate relationships and marriages. It can also have negative effects on children in particular young boys. More and more young boy’s minds are being influenced by pornography which is leading to misinterpretations about how to have a healthy sexual relationship. Most importantly, pornography dehumanizes women and it exploits children. Women and children are being victimized for the sheer pleasure of someone viewing pornography.
Owens, E. W., Behun, J. R., Manning, C. J., & Reid, C. R. (2012). The Impact of Internet Pornography on Adolescents: A Review of the Research. Sexual Addiction and Compulsivity, 19(4). 99-122. DOI: 10.1080/10720162.2012.660431
Sexual thoughts pop in and out of most people’s mind, but especially teenagers, and there’s nothing they can do about it. It is normal for teenage boys and girls to experience this, more than ever when they are hitting puberty. The hormones in the body begin to act up and teenagers want to experience other things on their own. Males begin to grow pubic and facial hairs, and their voice starts to deepen, while girls’ breasts begin to develop and their body begins to take shape. After hitting puberty, teenagers are now at the point where they want to experience things. ‚Don’t go out there and get pregnant‛ a mother
Sexuality and sex in America is a complicated subject in that there is little consensus on the topic of sex in, and the American media sends many mixed messages regarding sex and sexuality to everyone, not just to adolescents. Americans are aware of sex primarily through advertising (print media, commercials, etc.) as sex is used to sell anything and everything. The media also bombards Americans with sexuality and sex on television and in films. The sexuality of teenagers is not a straightforward issue in America either. Many parents do not discuss sex or sexuality with their children. There have been ongoing debates as to whether sexuality should be taught as part of school curricula because there are such a great deal of adolescents participating in reckless and/or dangerous sexual behaviors, largely because they are grossly uneducated about sex. The paper will reference the film Juno and other texts as a meditation on the relationship between adolescent sexuality and the media.
The public debate about adolescent sexuality has habitually fixated on which sexual practices are appropriate, and disregarded the complex dimensions of sexuality (Greenberg, Bruess, Oswalt, 2012). The goal of this paper is to compare a scholarly written article, to an article available through a popular media source, on the topic of Teenage Sexuality and New Media.
For children, adult content can be seen as a “forbidden fruit.” Although they know that they are not supposed to be exposed to such matters, the temptation can become too much. “Children will inevitably find out about such matters, whether they do so from television or from somewhere else.” So, as adults we have to figure out whether this matter is something that should be address and if so how can it be addressed? Some adults have found that the answer to this question would be censorship. However, with the advancement of technology, children are still able to gain access to content that may not be meant for them.
There are new strategies that have been developed to address teen sexual health issues. These issues may vary from puberty, sexual behavior and sex education, gay questioning to teen pregnancy. Puberty is the stage of human development when the body becomes capable of reproduction. Parental advice, peer, media and religiosity are some influences that will impact teens’ sexual behaviors and decisions. Children learn a lot more through peers than parents or from any other source. (Yarber) The media portrays a lot of nudity, sexually provocative language, and sexual passion. Kids spend about 4 hours a day watching television and they are exposed to a lot of sexual information that most likely is not accurate. Adolescents are engaging in sexual activity at younger ages and should be properly educated in contraception use to prevent STD transmission and pregnancy.
Sexual behavior and activity is a normal part of life. Most people believe that there is a certain age that is appropriate to begin being involved in such activities and behaviors. Within society today and more so with the younger generations media is playing a major role in the lives of adolescents. What is seen on television, in movies, and on video games by adolescents is often imitated. This article discusses the topic of sexual content in the media and its effect on sexual behavior in adolescents.
At the inception of this article, much research regarding teenagers’ sexual behavior and attitudes already existed and is
Pornography in America is a growing problem. In a survey from the late 2000s, 34% of adult men were regular pornography consumers (Wright, 2013). The web boasts an estimated 700m-800m individual pornography webpages. One of the biggest pornography outlets, Pornhub had 80 billion video viewings last year, and more than 18 billion visits (Naked Capitalism, 2015). With the increases of pornography, comes the increase in negative problems and effects associated with it. Pornography consumption affects neurology, relationships, behaviors, and spiritual health
There was a real story Mueller (2005) told about some 10 year-old boys who were from Christian families in which the parents were very strict and made a lot of rules. They were found having oral sex with one of their male classmates, which really shocked the parents. They learned to do it because one of them found a porn site on the internet and were quickly addicted to it. Then he searched for some more extreme sites and told his friends to watch and try to do what they saw on the show. This gives us an idea that if teens are restrained too much at home and spend a lot of time with themselves which is like giving them curfews, they may have computer addiction in pornography which is possible to put
Pornography is one of mankind's most revered, respected, and repulsed pastimes. Adults can use pornography to relieve stress, enhance their sex lives, or simply as a means of entertainment. One of the easiest and most popular ways of obtaining pornographic material is over the Internet. The only downside is that the Internet is accessible to children; therefore, pornography is accessible to children. While adults should have limitless access to Internet porn, minors should be kept away from this concubine.
Living in a highly sexualized society, children today don’t have to go far to find inappropriate acts, images, and videos on the web and other social media platforms. As a matter of fact, children today have a harder time avoiding sexual acts than their parents did when they were younger.