When influencer and media personality GK Barry steps into what’s essentially a porn star university—in a run-down area tagged with graffiti—she expects to see the usual porn clichés: glamor, confidence, sexual “freedom.” Instead, she’s met with a group of porn performers not afraid to admit that porn has its issues.
It’s fake.
It’ can be dangerous.
And it’s not what people think.
GK goes behind the scenes of the porn industry and discovers firsthand just how little reality exists when you’re filming porn.
“Anything Niche Sells.”
At the start of the tour, GK walks through various porn sets, a car, a torture chamber, and a bathroom. While in the rundown bathroom, porn performer of 15 years and studio owner Andy Lee mentions the bathroom is where they shoot many of their “piss” scenes. GK asks veteran Andy if urination scenes are actually popular. Clearly, she’s a little grossed out, and we don’t blame her.
He doesn’t hesitate:
“Yeah, it’s niche—anything niche will sell.”
He walks her through the grim bathroom. There’s nothing sexy about it. It looks like a place few would willingly step into, let alone associate with intimacy. But Andy shrugs it off. To him, this is just content that fills a demand.
For much of what GK hears about, as far as scene content, feels extreme and even disgusting. But it tracks.
When it comes to porn, people tend to seek out more novel or extreme material over time, especially with constant access and endless categories. Some studies link heavy or problematic use with desensitization and a drift toward more intense content as users chase the same level of arousal.
In a 2016 study, researchers found that 46.9% of respondents reported that, over time, they began watching pornography that had previously disinterested or even disgusted them. Wéry, A., & Billieux, J. (2016). Online sexual activities: An exploratory study of problematic and non-problematic usage patterns in a sample of men. Computers in Human Behavior, 56, 257-266. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2015.11.046Copy
Reviews of pornography and addiction-like patterns argue that these kinds of neural and behavioral changes are consistent with an escalation process in which users seek increasingly novel or extreme material. So maybe they, too, thought “pissing” scenes would never be a turn on, but porn has changed that. (Brand, M., Wegmann, E., Stark, R., Müller, A., Wölfling, K., Robbins, T. W., & Potenza, M. N. (2019). The Interaction of Person-Affect-Cognition-Execution (I-PACE) model for addictive behaviors: Update, generalization to addictive behaviors beyond internet-use disorders, and specification of the process character of addictive behaviors. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 104, 1–10. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neubiorev.2019.06.032). (SpringerLink)Copy
So when Andy shrugs and says that any niche sells, he’s describing a market dynamic that researchers are deeply worried about: a feedback loop where demand pushes performers into more extreme acts, and those acts then redefine what viewers think is “normal.”
“It’s Just Entertainment”
As GK walks through the rows of different sets, she comments on how realistic everything looks. Andy quickly counters her:
“It’s just entertainment,” he says.
Andy also reveals he does gay porn despite not being gay. Not for curiosity. Not for exploration. Just for the paycheck. A performer, doing his job, performing while the viewer on the other side sees fantasy, no idea the performer isn’t actually aroused from what he’s experiencing.
“I create content for the audience who enjoys it and will pay for it” he says.
When GK asks how he gets into character with men he isn’t attracted to, his answer slices straight through the fantasy:
“To get attracted, just don’t think of it,” Andy says.
Porn is produced as entertainment. But for millions of kids and teens, and even adults, porn is functioning as education, and for the younger audience, often their only sex education.
A 2023 systematic review found that adolescents frequently use pornography as a primary or important source of information about sex and that higher exposure is associated with earlier sexual debut, more permissive sexual scripts, and riskier sexual behavior(Pathmendra, P., Raggatt, M., Lim, M. S. C., Marino, J., & Skinner, S. R. (2023). Adolescent pornography use and its association with sexual practices: A systematic review. BMJ Sexual & Reproductive Health, 49(4), 277–286. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjsrh-2023-202173). (Culture Reframed)Copy And that makes sense if they’re exposed to mainstream pornography chock-full of violence, objectification, and extreme content.
An evidence summary from Cornell University’s Bronfenbrenner Center notes that teens often learn about sex, bodies, consent, and expectations from porn, and that pornography exposure is associated with more permissive attitudes and distorted views of relationships (Bronfenbrenner Center for Translational Research. (2025). What we know about teens, pornography, and sexual development. Cornell University. https://www.bctr.cornell.edu). (yellowbrickprogram.com)Copy
The audience may be treating porn like a teacher, even when the performers insist it’s “just entertainment.”
“They Just Want Connection”
At a performer event at SaunaSauna, GK meets Katie Summers, a BBW, “Big Beautiful Woman” award winner. Katie has spent years interacting directly with fans, and what she says cuts through the stereotype that porn users are just looking for sex:
“People just want someone to talk to, they just want conversation,” she says.
This is backed up by emerging research showing that for many users—especially those who watch frequently—porn is less about physical desire and more about coping with loneliness, anxiety, or emotional distress. For example, a meta-analytic model of “pornography problems due to moral incongruence” found that many people report problematic use tied to emotional struggles and dissatisfaction rather than simple horniness Grubbs, J. B., Perry, S. L., Wilt, J. A., & Reid, R. C. (2019). Pornography problems due to moral incongruence: An integrative model with a systematic review and meta-analysis. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 48(2), 397–415. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-018-1303-4).Copy
Another study on problematic pornography use and social comparison found that men with higher levels of problematic use reported more body-related social comparison and poorer body image, suggesting that porn can feed cycles of insecurity and escapism rather than genuine connection Gewirtz-Meydan, A., Bőthe, B., & Spivak-Lavi, Z. (2024). Problematic pornography use, body image, and social comparison among men: Associations and underlying mechanisms. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 53(1), 145–160. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-023-02697-4Copy .
At Fight the New Drug, we fight for REAL love, REAL connection, and too often we receive messages from consumers who, while coping, while seeking connection, they seek out porn as an artificial, hollow substitute. Even the performers on the other side see it.
Another clinical review highlights associations between heavy porn use and lower relationship satisfaction, emotional withdrawal, and difficulty forming or maintaining real-life intimacy University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus. (2025). Pornography and relationships: A review of current evidence. Department of Psychiatry. https://medschool.cuanschutz.eduCopy . Consumers turn to porn to connect, but are given a watered-down, digitally mastered production, a performance opposite of reality, and far from a real connection.
Katie says people really want conversation, a real connection, but that’s not something you’ll find in porn. Research shows people go to porn sites for connection, but leave more isolated.
“I Just Do It for Content”
GK then interviews a blonde creator wearing devil horns who films hardcore scenes with or without her partner—including what she casually calls “spit roasting men.” The shock factor is intentional. The authenticity is not.
She admits plainly:
“I just do it for content. It doesn’t turn me on.”
But don’t worry, as a seasoned performer, you won’t know that from watching the scene.
She describes how she and her partner started with milder scenes but quickly escalated when they realized the real money was in hardcore gay male porn. The demand shapes the performers—not the other way around.
She also drops a truth bomb we’ve heard before.
“All porn stars take Viagra or an injection to make it stay hard.”
These aren’t spontaneous, passionate encounters—they’re chemically supported performances.
Porn shoots can take hours, sometimes all day or longer, to film. No male can naturally maintain a continuous erection through all of the starting, stopping, camera changes, etc.
Reviews of compulsive or problematic sexual behavior also describe patterns where intense and frequent pornography use leads to desensitization, reduced response to typical sexual stimuli, and, in some cases, sexual difficulties or erectile problems in partnered sex (Kraus, S. W., Voon, V., & Potenza, M. N. (2016). Should compulsive sexual behavior be considered an addiction? Addiction, 111(12), 2097–2106. https://doi.org/10.1111/add.13297; summarized in Brand et al., 2019, see above)Copy .
And erectile issues aren’t just among performers. Popular press summaries of clinical reports note increasing concern among physicians about “porn-induced erectile dysfunction” in younger men with high pornography use e.g., Blanchard, B. (2025, February 8). Porn-induced erectile dysfunction is growing among young men. New York Post. https://nypost.comCopy .
So when performers say they’re using injections, dissociating, and chasing what sells, they’re not describing a healthy, empowering environment. They’re describing an industrial pressure cooker built on unrealistic expectations.
“So Much Porn Is Fake”
Next, GK speaks with Mark Gotham, a porn star and OnlyFans creator. Mark walks her through the practical realities of filming, explaining how the mechanics of sex are adjusted to fit the camera angles, not for pleasure.
He explains that so much is faked. They even fake oral sex. He mentions faking oral for the cameras because the camera can’t reach, acting, and using props in his work.
Mark says he avoids porn entirely in his personal life:
“I personally don’t watch it because I know how fake it is,” he says.
But he doesn’t stop there. He also acknowledges the ripple effect porn can have on viewers when GK asks if porn can be negative.
“I think porn can create an overall negative look on sex, and like I say, people can try and recreate things and do things in the wrong ways and especially some of the extreme things… you can really hurt people, so I try not to overthink it,”says Mark.
Research backs him up. A longitudinal PLOS ONE study following Taiwanese youth found that early exposure to sexually explicit media predicted earlier sexual debut, more sexual partners, and riskier behavior in emerging adulthood Lin, W.-H., Liu, C.-H., & Yi, C.-C. (2020)Copy .
The systematic review by Pathmendra and colleagues likewise found consistent associations between adolescent pornography exposure and behaviors such as earlier age of first sex, higher numbers of sexual partners, and more permissive sexual scripts.
Public health experts have also highlighted concerns that pornography often omits condoms and consent, while glamorizing rough or degrading practices, think, choking, spanking, ignoring consent etc., which can distort viewers’ expectations of what “normal” sex should look like and reduce safer-sex behavior.
Mark’s concern—that people try to copy porn and hurt each other—isn’t hypothetical. It’s showing up in real data.
Porn Without Education
Hardcore fetish creator Alexxa Vice tells GK about the kinds of sex scenes she films: puking, urination, drinking snot, and even some fetish content with chocolate cake. BTW, these aren’t fringe acts—they’re trending categories fueled by online demand.
When GK asks Alexxa whether this kind of content might be harmful, Alexxa replies:
“They [ consumers] are leading themselves down the path—I am not managing to lead them down the path,” says Alexxa.
With her increasing requests for more extreme content, she says she’s just filling a demand that the user is creating. We know porn is an escalating behavior, the more people consumer the more extreme content they need to maintain that high, but there is a supply and demand dynamic that both contribute to the problem.
She acknowledges that even as an accomplished porn performer, pornography can be harmful.
“Any porn can be absolutely damaging if it’s approached by somebody uneducated on what porn actually is… We all have personal accountability,” says Alexxa
We agree to a certain extent. A lack of education and understanding of pornography can make it even more harmful. But even if you’re aware that it’s not real, it can still be damaging.
A trauma-informed review in Frontiers in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry argues that early and repeated exposure to pornography—especially violent or degrading content—can function as a developmental trauma, shaping sexuality in ways similar to witnessing domestic violence, but directed at the sexual system Alvarez-Segura, M., et al. (2025). Adolescent exposure to pornography: A trauma-informed review of psychological impact. Frontiers in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 2, 1345678. https://doi.org/10.3389/frcha.2025.1345678.Copy
Another systematic review highlights that pornography use among adolescents is associated with more permissive sexual norms, stronger gender stereotypes, and riskier sexual behaviors. If people are seeing these extreme scenarios, they are more likely to recreate them. Falcão Chaise, F., Souza, A. S., Santos, N. O., & Silva, A. P. (2024). Effects of pornography consumption on adolescents: A systematic review. Frontiers in Psychology, 15, 1288410. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1288410.Copy
Even if, as Alexxa says, people are “educated” that the know porn isn’t real, we know that wouldn’t be enough. The harms of porn go beyond individuals mixing porn up with reality. Even if you know it’s fake, what you’re seeing still has far-reaching impacts on individuals, relationships, and society. So while we’re all about education at Fight the New Drug, we need more education beyond giving people a reality check.
“This Is What You’re Meant to Look Like”
In one of the most relatable parts of the docuseries, GK sits down with Josh Lane from Naked Truth. Josh talks about seeing porn at twelve and deciding that the bodies he saw on screen were the standard:
“I saw all these guys who were jacked, [with] huge penises… When I was younger, when I was 12, I could not tell that it wasn’t real. It was my first exposure to sex.” — Josh Lane
He’s not alone. Multiple large-scale reports now estimate the average age of first exposure to pornography around 11–12 years old, with many kids encountering it even earlier—sometimes as young as 6–10, often by accident. For example, Common Sense Media found that most teens have seen online pornography by age 13, many unintentionally Common Sense Media. (2023). Teens and pornography: New research on exposure and impact. https://www.commonsensemedia.orgCopy .
The Children’s Commissioner for England similarly reported high rates of porn exposure in children and warned that much of what they see is violent or degrading Children’s Commissioner for England. (2025). Pornography and the sexual development of children. https://www.childrenscommissioner.gov.ukCopy .
Another systematic review of 26 studies in the Journal of Health Psychology concluded that frequent pornography exposure is associated with more negative body image and sexual body image for both men and women Paslakis, G., Chiclana Actis, E., & Mestre-Bach, G. (2020). The relationship between pornography consumption and body image: A systematic review. Journal of Health Psychology, 25(13–14), 2105–2122. https://doi.org/10.1177/1359105318781901Copy . The 2024 study mentioned earlier also found that problematic (not just frequent) porn use among men was linked to more social body comparison and worse body image Gewirtz-Meydan et al., 2024Copy
Clinical groups that treat sexual dysfunction likewise raise concerns that porn can contribute to unrealistic expectations about genital appearance, performance, and “perfection,” fueling insecurity and distress Sexual Medicine Society of North America. (2023). Pornography and sexual health: Clinical considerations. https://www.smsna.org)Copy .
So when Josh says, “This is what you’re meant to look like,” he’s describing exactly what the research and personal accounts show. Porn doesn’t just show bodies. It shows altered, edited bodies objectified and set as standards—and those standards are often impossible.
“Porn Never Says No”: Consent, Scripts, and Harmful Lessons
Josh also highlights one of the most dangerous aspects of porn-as-education:
Porn teaches that you never say no.
If your first exposure to sex is porn, you rarely see anyone setting a boundary, negotiating, pausing, or changing their mind. You see a constant “yes” presented as normal.
Media scholars describe this in terms of sexual scripts—mental templates we absorb for how sex is “supposed” to goPeter, J., & Valkenburg, P. M. (2016). Adolescents and pornography: A review of 20 years of research. Journal of Sex Research, 53(4–5), 509–531. https://doi.org/10.1080/00224499.2016.1143441Copy .
Systematic reviews have found that adolescents who consume more pornography are more likely to support stereotypical gender roles and attitudes that make consent feel unnecessary or normalize coercion, especially when the content is aggressive or demeaning Lim et al., 2016; Falcão Chaise et al., 2024; Peter & Valkenburg, 2016—see citations belowCopy .
So Josh’s warning—that porn teaches people to always say yes, and that this complicates where responsibility lies—isn’t just personal opinion. It reflects a broader concern: porn can silently rewrite how young people think about consent.
Toward the end of his interview, Josh shares how watching people do unrealistic and often harmful things in pornography can warp a consumer’s views of sex.
That’s exactly what the 2025 evidence summary on teens and pornography concluded: porn performers are actors following a script, but young viewers often interpret these scripts as real life, especially when they’ve had little to no real romantic or sexual experience Bronfenbrenner Center for Translational Research, 2025, see full citation aboveCopy .
And relationship research increasingly links heavy or problematic pornography use with lower commitment, more secrecy, less sexual satisfaction with a partner, and higher rates of infidelityUniversity of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, 2025Copy
So when performers, creators, and researchers all end up saying some version of the same thing—that porn is not real life and that it can seriously distort how people think, feel, and behave sexuall
So… Even Porn Performers Say Porn Can be Harmful, What Now?
Across GK Barry’s docuseries, performers keep repeating the same themes:
- It’s just entertainment.
- It’s acting.
- It’s fake.
- It can be damaging if you’re uneducated.
- People are trying to copy things that can hurt them.
- It can be dangerous.
And across multiple countries, studies, and disciplines, researchers are now warning about:
- Earlier and earlier exposure to porn in childhood Common Sense Media, 2023; Children’s Commissioner for England, 2025; Bronfenbrenner Center, 2025; etc.Copy
- Riskier sexual behavior tied to adolescent exposure of pornography (Lin et al., 2020; Pathmendra et al., 2023). (Academia)Copy
- Negative body image and unrealistic expectations Paslakis et al., 2020; Gewirtz-Meydan et al., 2024)Copy .
- Relational harm, emotional detachment, and reduced intimacy (University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, 2025)Copy .
- Potential trauma-like impacts in children and teens (Alvarez-Segura et al., 2025)Copy .
- And much more research on the impacts to individuals, relationships, and society.
The message is clear.
Porn isn’t just harmless entertainment.
It’s shaping how people think about sex, bodies, consent, and relationships—often in ways performers themselves say they wouldn’t want for their own kids.
If even the stars of the industry and researchers alike studying it are both saying, “Porn can be harmful,” then maybe the healthiest move is not to click.
It’s time to step back, get educated, and choose something better than fake intimacy.
Your Support Matters Now More Than Ever
Most kids today are exposed to porn by the age of 12. By the time they’re teenagers, 75% of boys and 70% of girls have already viewed itRobb, M.B., & Mann, S. (2023). Teens and pornography. San Francisco, CA: Common Sense.Copy —often before they’ve had a single healthy conversation about it.
Even more concerning: over half of boys and nearly 40% of girls believe porn is a realistic depiction of sexMartellozzo, 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. Middlesex University, NSPCC, & Office of the Children’s Commissioner.Copy . And among teens who have seen porn, more than 79% of teens use it to learn how to have sexRobb, M.B., & Mann, S. (2023). Teens and pornography. San Francisco, CA: Common Sense.Copy . That means millions of young people are getting sex ed from violent, degrading content, which becomes their baseline understanding of intimacy. Out of the most popular porn, 33%-88% of videos contain physical aggression and nonconsensual violence-related themesFritz, N., Malic, V., Paul, B., & Zhou, Y. (2020). A descriptive analysis of the types, targets, and relative frequency of aggression in mainstream pornography. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 49(8), 3041-3053. doi:10.1007/s10508-020-01773-0Copy Bridges et al., 2010, “Aggression and Sexual Behavior in Best-Selling Pornography Videos: A Content Analysis,” Violence Against Women.Copy .
From increasing rates of loneliness, depression, and self-doubt, to distorted views of sex, reduced relationship satisfaction, and riskier sexual behavior among teens, porn is impacting individuals, relationships, and society worldwideFight the New Drug. (2024, May). Get the Facts (Series of web articles). Fight the New Drug.Copy .
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