Let’s Talk Porn | Maria Ahlin | TEDxGöteborg

[Music] to me porn is a drug these words belong to alex a porn consuming young man which i interviewed for my co-author book on how porn affects our health he was six years old when he first stumbled upon porn and the images were so strong he told me he even had trouble sleeping afterwards today he is 19 and still haven't been able to quit porn it's like having sober periods with relapses he explained where i need more and more aggressive porn to experience the same kick would you think about this a society where our attitudes

aren't constantly being shaped by porn a society where porn doesn't get to set the standard for our sexuality our relationships our attitudes before we even have a chance to explore these amazing things for ourselves my favorite sitcom of all times is friends if you do not know that one and i definitely think you should it's the very popular american tv show about six friends living in new york city in one of the episodes the two characters joey and chandler had by mistake may i add gotten free cable tv access to porn oh happy day right

i mean they were so happy they did everything in their power to keep that tv on and that kind of made me think what was it about porn back then that made joey and chandler want to keep their tv showing pouring on and what is it about today's mainstream porn that is just so important we talk about too many nowadays porn is the number one teacher on sex education and if that's the case it's only fair that we ask ourselves what curriculum does this teacher use in 2012 natalie purcell who's a phd in sociology from

the university of california did a content analysis where she looked at over 100 of the roughly 250 most popular and best-selling porn movies she found aggressive abusive and cursive acts in almost every single movie the analysis also showed how porn ever since the 70s has become increasingly more aggressive and humiliating and by the end of the time period that was analyzed which was the 2000s acts like atm gagging double penetration and even choking were included in almost every single movie now atm is not the money machine it's actually an act called ass to mouth meaning

that the penis first enters the anus and then it goes directly into the mouth and gagging is an act where the penis goes so far down the throat that basically your gag reflexes will start to kick in it wasn't until the 2000s when these acts were heavily introduced in mainstream porn 20 years before that it was basically unheard of in another interesting study this one going back to as early as 2005 by anna bridget's and associates looked at a random sample of 50 out of the 275 best-selling most rented u.s port movies from the time

period of december 2004 to june 2005 then added these 50 movies they then randomly selected 304 scenes and analyzed them and here's what they found about 9 out of 10 scenes contained physical aggression now physical aggression was defined primarily as gagging remember the penis down the throat slapping and even hair pulling among other things also about 5 out of 10 scenes contained verbal aggression which then primarily was defined as name calling where the most common names that were used were [ __ ] and [ __ ] most of the people that were exposed to this

aggression were women and what was their typical response to this aggression you think almost everyone reacted either positive or neutral almost never negative let's apply this to everyday life shall we let's say i'd given you a gentle stroke on the cheek i'll probably see a smile on your face had i instead slapped you you would perhaps not be as happy with me am i right yeah i would assume important the typical response to aggression is precisely the opposite of what you would otherwise expect in real life in real life you will be mad at me

for slapping you but important either you remain neutral or you even groan and ask for more we just have to stop here for a second and consider the message that this is sending what pressure what norms what standards is created from this i once met with a guy who shared his concerns about his girlfriend never screaming and moaning like they do in porn and he goes what am i doing wrong and then he says you know what maybe i should try to strangle her that she will probably enjoy that was kind of my reaction as

well yeah i've educated on this issue for about 10 years now i met with kids from the ages of five and six whom stumbled upon pornography and i met with young girls comparing themselves to the very often extreme standards set by porn thinking they aren't good enough not pretty enough not sexy enough i met with teenagers who compulsively consume pornography on a regular basis doing everything in their power to quit often unsuccessfully and i met with guys so eager to please and so eager to perform just like they do in porn and when they aren't

getting the typical porn response from their partner in bed a lot of them blame themselves for not being able to perform sexually i was right in the middle of a talk about porn when a mom raised her hand and she stood up grabbed the mic and said the other day my eight-year-old boy came running out of his room hysterically crying at first the little boy had refused to tell his parents what had happened he did not want to talk about it but eventually it became clear he'd stumble upon porn but it wasn't so much the

actual porn that he had seen that upset him he was crying because he thought this this thing that i just saw important is what my mom and dad do to each other in bed more than 50 years of research has shown us what porn causes first porn can produce attitudes which then goes and trivializes sexual aggression research proves a strong link between porn consumption and acting out sexually aggressive acts like sexual assault and here's the thing even porn that's non-aggressive can have these effects on our attitudes due to the fact that whenever a person in

porn is being dehumanized that's when the change in attitudes is happening i mean are we getting this this is actually what porn can do to us now not all of course who consume pornography will go out and sexually assault someone that's like not what we're saying here but the fact remains that for an alarming amount of sex offenders porn was a triggering factor leading them to be less sensitive to sexual aggression this is not rocket science this is basic human psychology what we see often we get used to let's go back to joey and chandler

for a second my favorite sitcom friends what was it that was going on inside their brains that made them so eager to keep that tv on neuroscientists have found that pornography hijacks the reward pathway in the brain and can become a compulsive behavior with addictive qualities in 2014 dr valerie voon and i think this must be stated for the wreckage she's a global authority on addiction and also the leading researcher in the neuroscience department at the university of cambridge she released her long-awaited study a study that provided groundbreaking results on how viewing porn affects the

brain and the study showed how compulsive porn users have real similarities on several levels to those addicted to drugs the image that you see here is an illustration of a brain scan image that shows the brain activity of healthy volunteers when shown pornography versus compulsive users and as you can see when the compulsive users were shown porn their response was much higher indicating that they were both more triggered by the porn shown to them and that they also experienced a stronger urge for porn so the compulsive users had a greater wanting for porn but they

still did not have a higher sexual desire and the liking for it which is a finding that should debunk the myth that those who are compulsive porn users must simply be people with a greater sexual desire also having a warning for something but not a liking for it is a finding that really fits like a glove with the current definition of addiction the facts are starting to pile up and if you ask me it's just a matter of time and research before pornography addiction is formally acknowledged but until then we have to continue listening to

those who are brave enough to share their stories with us okay so i think you would agree with me that we definitely have a challenge here right i mean we have 24 7 unlimited access to physically verbally aggressive material that clearly has an impact on our attitudes relationships sexuality intimacy possibly even causing addiction therefore we need to act now we need to act quickly if we want to change this because as of now this train is headed in the wrong direction so do you want a solution yeah i can sense that i mean i really

think it's so important that we talk porn okay with education as one of our main strategies we're going to start the conversation about porn we are going to talk to our students kids colleagues teachers family members neighbors whoever wants to listen to us we must include a critical discussion about porn in schools in workplaces in locker rooms at home just like we disrupted the idea that smoking was just a harmless and a social thing to do and just like we're teaching critical thinking about media and advertisement we are going to disrupt old ideas and beliefs

about porn and start teaching critical thinking about it with education and conversation that creates awareness we are going to equip the next generation with the mindset that won't make them easy targets i sat down with a father who wanted to share his best tip on how to talk to your kid about porn well he said first you got to make sure that the conversation you're having is happening while driving your car okay so you're driving and your kid is next to you first you don't have to look straight at each other so that helps right

and second he goes and he almost like whispered and says your kid can't go anywhere whatever works right obviously just having a conversation about porn even if it's you know the really awesome car conversation isn't going to solve everything this is not a small problem therefore no you know quick fix solutions exist but i believe that by teaching a critical thinking a critical mindset to this we're off to a pretty good start and now if you're kind of wondering is this educational strategy is it really working i want to show you a message that we

received on instagram just a couple of weeks ago to changing attitudes and changing attitudes is a youth organization where i'm ceo and we basically educate on this issue now let me read this to you because it is pretty awesome i would just like to thank you for being a contributing factor to me having completely quit porn i've been porn free for two months now and i'm feeling much better than before also i feel i'm no longer contributing to an offensive and obnoxious industry how awesome is this right to me this is this is what it's

all about yeah [Applause] what do you think about this a society based on equality based on consent based on sexual health where we get to explore and where we get to be curious and where we get to decide what we want what we think is sexy what turns us on but to get there we need to start the conversation about porn now we need to anchor ourselves in research stats science real life stories for too long the health consequences generated by porn has been more or less completely ignored but it's time we changed that which

is why i'm leaving you with this how are you going to talk about porn thank you very much you