Have you ever wondered what is constantly shaping and fueling our sex-obsessed culture?
Maybe our culture seems completely normal to you, but with porn becoming more normalized, it can feel like we are spiraling into a sex-obsessed society like never before.
It’s true, porn is everywhere, and anyone can see sexualized advertisements anywhere while hearing things that tell them what sexuality should or shouldn’t look like, no matter how degrading or objectifying it may be—all it takes is a glance at the front covers of magazines available at the checkout stand to see what we’re talking about.
Related: Porn & Pop Culture: How Society Is Becoming More “Pornified”
With this generation being exposed to pornified sexuality like never before through our surroundings and peers, it’s pretty obvious we have arrived at this point of normalization because of these things that are continuously shaping our culture or normalizing hardcore content.
Here are a couple examples of how porn culture is being normalized or influencing our society without someone having to click on a porn site directly.
Porn taking over electronic billboards
Yup, that’s right. While this might come off as shocking, there have been multiple cases of porn appearing on public billboards on the regular. In one recent situation in Atlanta, an electronic billboard was hacked and an explicit image of a man confronted every car passing by.
This was one of the biggest intersection in the state of Georgia. Not cool.
One woman even called 911 and said, “There’s an electronic billboard that is flashing a naked man. It’s not actually an emergency but it’s totally disgusting.”
Not only could this be seen this while driving by, but people were seeing it while eating at a pizzeria nearby. The FBI eventually took the image down and launched an investigation as to who hacked the system, but not before much of the community saw it.
And unfortunately, this isn’t an isolated incident—reports of explicit porn hacks on electronic billboards have happened all over the world. Unfortunately, other public-porn incidents have taken place in Indonesia, China, and Brazil, and Mexico. Apparently, broadcasting porn in public is becoming a weapon (or “joke”) of choice for hackers around the world, and we’re not cool with it.
YouTube serves hardcore porn ads on top trending videos
Elsewhere, on YouTube, porn is being served to audiences on top trending videos via advertisements. In this recent article, people were complaining about one ad in particular that kept popping up after watching completely normal videos on YouTube’s site.
The ad that was continuously popping up by featuring a woman with a link to click on directing the user to “Hot Girl 2018,” which had a photo of two people having sex and a link to a cam model porn site.
Related: YouTube Removes Explicit Webcam Site Ads From Kids’ Videos
Users were outraged and even complained to YouTube directly. One man’s tweet included a screenshot of the explicit ad, and stated: “So you’re demonetizing actual content and promoting this then @TeamYouTube? Cool.”
YouTube quickly responded and took action by immediately taking down the explicit ads.
Porn culture in the gaming world
Billboards and YouTube aren’t the only places porn and porn culture are seeping into—the world of video games has also been impacted by the massive popularity of XXX sites and hardcore content.
For one, some pro gaming leagues—yes, if you weren’t aware, these exist—are now sponsored by porn sites, even in tournaments that are watched by thousands of minors and teens from around the world. And that’s not all—gaming content itself has also begun to orbit the porn-obsessed fantasies of many gamers.
For one example, in 2017, game developers released Mass Effect: Andromeda, an ultra-lifelike game complete with a “full nudity” rating and feature optional graphic sex scenes. Previous versions of the game had “partial nudity” ratings, but this new mature rating was a first for the series. One of the general managers of the game’s development company, BioWare, announced that the game lost its “partial nudity” advisory in place of a “full nudity” warning, calling it “softcore space porn” and admitting that the pornographic features of the game are pretty lifelike.
Related: YouTuber Underwent 30 Plastic Surgeries To Look Like Her Ex’s Favorite Porn Performer
This hugely popular video game is profiting from the same principle as the porn industry—graphic sex sells, and the more fantastical and explicit the scenario, the better. Of course, this isn’t the first or only time a game series has included detailed sex scenes due to the rising popularity of including “romantic” scenarios in gameplay, but it’s one of the more lifelike-looking games out there with the explicit feature.
Objectification in our culture today
Without many people realizing it, porn is shaping our culture’s understanding of sex today. It’s gotten to the point that not everyone finds this kind of easily accessible content unacceptable because of how normal it has become.
While people are becoming desensitized to what’s around them, psychologists are finding that porn is negatively affecting the way consumers see and view other people, like promoting objectification and toxic gender stereotypes. This is ultimately damaging to our society, whether someone is aware of it or not.
Related: Sexual Objectification Linked To Physical Aggression, Research Shows
Porn is full of photoshopping and airbrushing, ultimately giving a consumer a twisted version of what’s considered attractive and what sex is all about as a whole. Does choosing not to care about the porn industry’s presence and influence in our society help to create a safe environment for people to be respected and valued as humans? What about creating a safe place where objectification, degradation, and harassment are not tolerated?
Choosing to be a voice and raise awareness on porn’s harms in this sexualized culture means often taking the unpopular side, but it’s a cause worth fighting for. People are not products, and healthy sex is not synthetic.
