Fast Facts - Fight the New Drug

Over 46% of young people reported that they saw online porn for the first time when it just “popped up”, and 22% reported that someone else showed it to them when they weren’t expecting it.

(Martellozzo, Monaghan, Adler, Davidson, Leyva, & Horvath, 2016)

Citations

Martellozzo, E., Monaghan, A., Adler, J.R., Davidson, J., Leyva, R., & Horvath, M.A.H. (2016). ‘I wasn’t sure it was normal to watch it’. A quantitative and qualitative examination of the impact of online pornography on the values, attitudes, beliefs and behaviours of children and young people. London: Middlesex University. NSPCC. Retrieved from https://learning.nspcc.org.uk/media/1187/mdx-nspcc-occ-pornography-report.pdf

Fast Fact #23

Research suggests that porn can influence women to be more submissive in sexual encounters.

(Sun, Wright, & Steffen, 2017)

Citations

Sun, C. F., Wright, P., & Steffen, N. (2017). German Heterosexual Women’s Pornography Consumption and Sexual Behavior. Sexualization, Media, & Society. https://doi.org/10.1177/2374623817698113

Fast Fact #45

1 in 3 underage teens report having seen nonconsensually shared nudes of other minors —which is legally considered “child pornography”.

(Thorn, 2020)

Citations

Thorn. (2020). Thorn research: Understanding sexually explicit images, self-produced by children. Retrieved from https://www.thorn.org/blog/thorn-research-understanding-sexually-explicit-images-self-produced-by-children/

Fast Fact #72

Some experts have determined four major brain changes common to addicted brains—sensitization, , , and a — all of which can be found in cases of pornography consumption.

(Volkow, Koob, & McLellan, 2016)

Citations

Volkow, N. D., Koob, G. F., & McLellan, A. T. (2016). Neurobiologic advances from the brain disease model of addiction. N Engl J Med, 374(4), 363-371. doi:10.1056/NEJMra1511480

Fast Fact #15

Research shows that porn consumers are more likely to forward intimate images without consent. Researchers suggest this may be because regular porn consumers tend to develop sexually objectifying attitudes towards others.

(van Oosten & Vandenbosch, 2020)

Citations

van Oosten, Johanna M. F., & Vandenbosch, L. (2020). Predicting the willingness to engage in non-consensual forwarding of sexts: The role of pornography and instrumental notions of sex. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 49(4), 1121-1132. doi:10.1007/s10508-019-01580-2

Fast Fact #82

Research indicates that young people often feel pressured to imitate porn when having sex.

(Rothman, Kaczmarsky, Burke, Jansen, & Baughman, 2015)

Citations

Rothman, E. F., Kaczmarsky, C., Burke, N., Jansen, E., & Baughman, A. (2015). “Without Porn … I Wouldn’t Know Half the Things I Know Now”: A Qualitative Study of Pornography Use Among a Sample of Urban, Low-Income, Black and Hispanic Youth. Journal of sex research, 52(7), 736–746. https://doi.org/10.1080/00224499.2014.960908

Fast Fact #55

Porn is considered a supernormal stimulus.

(Hilton, 2013; Goodwin, Browne, & Rockloff, 2015)

Citations

Hilton D. L., Jr (2013). Pornography addiction – a supranormal stimulus considered in the context of neuroplasticity. Socioaffective neuroscience & psychology, 3, 20767. https://doi.org/10.3402/snp.v3i0.20767
Goodwin, B. C., Browne, M., & Rockloff, M. (2015). Measuring Preference for Supernormal Over Natural Rewards: A Two-Dimensional Anticipatory Pleasure Scale. Evolutionary Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1177/1474704915613914

How Porn Can Change The Brain

Fast Fact #21

Researchers have found that approximately 95% of the targets of violence or aggression in porn appeared either neutral to the abuse, or were depicted as responding with pleasure.

(Bridges, Wosnitzer, Scharrer, Sun, & Liberman, 2010)

Citations

Bridges, A. J., Wosnitzer, R., Scharrer, E., Sun, C., & Liberman, R. (2010). Aggression and sexual behavior in best-selling pornography videos: a content analysis update. Violence against women, 16(10), 1065–1085. https://doi.org/10.1177/1077801210382866

How Porn Can Promote Sexual Violence

Fast Fact #62

A 2021 study analyzed videos from popular porn sites and found that porn featuring Black people perpetuate harmful racist stereotypes, disproportionately emphasize violence and aggression, and often depict Black people as “worse than objects.”

(Fritz, Malic, Paul, & Zhou, 2021)

Citations

Fritz, N., Malic, V., Paul, B., & Zhou, Y. (2021). Worse than objects: The depiction of Black women and men and their sexual relationship in pornography. Gender Issues, 38(1), 100-120. doi:10.1007/s12147-020-09255-2

Fast Fact #90

65% of underage victims recruited online in 2020 active criminal sex trafficking cases were recruited through Facebook, while 14% were recruited through Instagram, and 8% were recruited through Snapchat.

(Feehs & Wheeler, 2021)

Citations

Feehs, K., & Wheeler, A. C. (2021). 2020 Federal Human Trafficking Report. Human Trafficking Institute. Retrieved from https://www.traffickinginstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/2020-Federal-Human-Trafficking-Report-Low-Res.pdf

Fast Fact #106

Research shows that those with an interest in extreme or degrading porn are more likely to reenact porn scenes during sex with a partner.

(Sun, Miezan, Lee, & Shim, 2015)

Citations

Sun, C., Miezan, E., Lee, N., & Shim, J. W. (2015). Korean Men’s pornography use, their interest in extreme pornography, and dyadic sexual relationships. International Journal of Sexual Health. 27(1), 16-35. doi:10.1080/19317611.2014.927049

How Porn Can Harm Consumers’ Sex Lives

Fast Fact #36

A 2017 poll found that the more porn a man consumes, the more likely he is to be dissatisfied with his penis size. And the same goes for women with male partners— the more porn they consume, the less satisfied they are with their partner’s penis size.

(International Andrology London, 2017)

Citations

International Andrology London. (2017). The porn hypothesis – findings prove porn consumption fuels the desire for penis enlargement surgery in the UK. Retrieved from https://london-andrology.co.uk/news/the-porn-hypothesis-findings-prove-porn-consumption-fuels-the-desire-for-penis-enlargement-surgery-in-the-uk/

How Porn Can Harm Consumers’ Sex Lives

Fast Fact #44

Research has demonstrated that overcoming a pornography habit is absolutely possible, and that over time, pornography’s negative effects can be managed and largely reversed.

(Young, 2013; Nathanson, 2021)

Citations

Young K. S. (2013). Treatment outcomes using CBT-IA with Internet-addicted patients. Journal of behavioral addictions, 2(4), 209–215. https://doi.org/10.1556/JBA.2.2013.4.3
Nathanson, A. (2021). Psychotherapy with young people addicted to internet pornography. Psychoanal. Study Child, 74(1), 160-173. doi:10.1080/00797308.2020.1859286

Fast Fact #10

Research routinely shows that consuming porn is connected to poorer mental health.

(Levin, Lillis, & Hayes, 2012)

Citations

Levin, M. E., Lillis, J., & Hayes, S. C. (2012). When is online pornography viewing problematic among college males? Examining the moderating role of experiential avoidance. 19(3), 168-180. doi:10.1080/10720162.2012.657150

How Porn Can Impact Mental Health and Fuel Loneliness

Fast Fact #9

According to a 2020 report, approximately 1 in 5 girls and 1 in 10 boys aged 13-17 report sharing their own nudes, despite the fact that those images are legally considered “child pornography”.

(Feehs & Wheeler, 2021)

Citations

Thorn. (2020). Thorn research: Understanding sexually explicit images, self-produced by children. Retrieved from https://www.thorn.org/blog/thorn-research-understanding-sexually-explicit-images-self-produced-by-children/

Fast Fact #71

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