The first time I remember hearing guys talk openly about watching porn was on the bus ride home from school during my sophomore year of high school. Some girl had asked if boys really watched porn frequently and the replies were laughs and affirmative nods of the head. They said it was common and that they wouldn’t be surprised if every boy in our grade watched porn. The second time I realized it was so common was during a presentation my senior year, when I mentioned that pornography sites attracted more visitors than Twitter, Amazon and Netflix combined. When I said that, all the boys in the class laughed as if it were a funny statistic, not a shocking statistic like it was meant to be. Upset and bewildered, I continued with my presentation as if nothing had happened. If I could go back in time, I would have changed my whole presentation from the topic of unrealistic beauty ideals in the media to the dangers of the commonality of pornography. I have replayed that scenario in my head thousands of times. This is what I wish I would have said to those boys in my class:
Did you know that what you laughed at has the potential to destroy your relationships? Did you know that I’ve seen it happen? It’s not a joke, and it’s absolutely not funny. The truth is that pornography is vile and filthy. There is nothing good that comes out of viewing porn.
The fact is that you don’t realize the harm that pornography can do to you and your relationships. Some think that viewing pornography is a way to spice things up or to build a relationship. What they don’t realize is that porn isn’t real—any of it. Those people on the screen are paid actors. They are acting, just doing their job. Just like in the movies—nothing is actually real. You wouldn’t believe (I hope) in the horror stories of dolls coming to life or alien abductions, and this is no different. Everything is staged to draw the viewer in and eventually you lose control over seemingly everything in your desire to feed the lust in your eyes via the internet.
When I was growing up, there was an older girl whom I admired immensely. She was smart and made good decisions. She left for college, met a boy and fell in love very quickly. They were married and all seemed well. He told her that he had just been accepted to grad school and so they moved closer to the school. Unfortunately, this was a lie. He had not been accepted to grad school—all those days that he “went to school” he was sneaking off to watch pornography. He lied about every aspect of his life and ultimately lost everything. He lost his job and his marriage and to what? Some actors pretending to make love on a screen. If pornography isn’t bad and doesn’t do any good, why do people feel the need to lie about it to their partners? Why is it something you cover up? You don’t try to hide good things in a relationship—you share them and build off of them.
You don’t really want to risk your future relationships for a short porn film, do you? You don’t want to have to explain to your kids that the reason you’re leaving your family is because you couldn’t control yourself. You don’t want to lose everything over an actor’s portrayal of something you wish you had. You don’t want to become so addicted that you lie to everyone around you, or hire prostitutes to satiate your addiction. When you laugh at the fact that pornography is running rampant in our society you’re laughing at your future relationships going down the drain. You’re laughing at losing your job over an obsession with pornography. I don’t think any of that is very funny.
I hope you remember that it is all fake. I hope you remember that you will just dig yourself in deeper and deeper as you continue watching. I hope you remember the toll pornography could have on your most cherished relationships. I hope you remember that just because everyone else is doing it doesn’t mean it’s okay. Most of all, I hope you remember that pornography is no laughing matter.
