The Problem Of Pornography

To ask seventy young adults what they think about pornography is to receive seventy-one different opinions. We saw this first-hand when talking to groups of young women and men in Philadelphia. The discussion was earnest, eye-opening, and unsettling. It is clear that the problems that pornography present have become so much more complicated, and even more difficult to address. 

A generation that was raised on social media has a unique experience when it comes to internet pornography. Young adults today have near limitless access to sexually explicit content, but they spend little time thinking about what that access means for themselves or their relationships. Most young people we talked to do not believe pornography is a pervasive moral problem in society. But there’s a good deal of ambivalence about it as well. In their own lives, many young people struggle with where to draw line. 

Pornography is Everywhere 

On the Internet, pornography is everywhere. A recent BYU report estimated that 12 percent of all websites were dedicated to pornography. Even sites that are not dedicated to the dissemination of pornographic content are frequently infiltrated by purveyors of sexually explicit material. Twitter/X has a well-documented problem with porn bots. Links to pornographic material regularly show up in Instagram comment threads, YouTube videos, and Reddit forums. 

As a result, young people today are exposed to pornographic content much earlier, and spend much more time watching porn than previous generations. A 2023 report from Common Sense found that nearly three-quarters of teens age 13 to 17 had seen pornographic content online. Many said they had been exposed before their teen years. 

But it’s not only that the internet is awash in graphic sexual images and videos, it’s that this material is so readily available in precisely the places where teens are spending so much of their time. A 2023 Pew Research Study found that nearly half of teenagers (age 13 to 17) said they are online “almost constantly”, a rate that has nearly doubled since 2014.  

Smartphones have fundamentally changed pornography consumption by making it instantly available. As soon as a young person gets a smartphone, they also receive access to the largest library of pornographic images and movies that has ever existed. The BYU Study found that the majority of young people who view pornography access it on their smartphone. Even more concerning is that there are few warning labels or restrictions on even the most graphic content.  

Pornographic content can be viewed anywhere. The Common Sense report reveals a startling number of teenagers—nearly one in three—have watched pornography at school. And lest you think this is just a public school problem, the rate of porn viewership in private and religious schools is even higher. Fifty percent of teens attending parochial schools report having seen pornographic videos during the school day. 

Drawing Boundaries: What’s Ok? 

The ubiquity of pornography in American society has made it increasingly difficult to establish clear boundaries surrounding its use. If pornography is so bad, why is it everywhere? The answer that many young people come to is that pornography use is not a moral question at all but is rather something that people need to judge for themselves. A 2022 survey found that only 42 percent of young adults said that pornography is morally wrong. Interestingly, young men and women made identical moral judgments about pornography. About one in three (34 percent) said it was morally acceptable and 22 percent said it was not a moral issue. Views of pornography are, however, dramatically different among older Americans—seven in ten seniors (men and women) believe pornography is morally wrong. 

As societal norms have become more flexible, individuals are left to decide for themselves what is appropriate or not. We have left it to young people to exercise restraint and self-control about whether or how often to engage with pornographic content. These are undeniably important qualities, but they also take time to develop, and teenagers are not known for having an abundance of either. 

With little guidance, young adults must establish their boundaries about the behavior they will and will not accept. That’s an awfully big ask. Young adults are still learning about themselves and the world, responding to emerging technology and susceptible to peer pressure. Without firm and clear standards, these personal boundaries can be difficult to maintain.  

A young woman named Becca shared a story about her close friend who found out her fiancé was engaged in virtual reality (VR) porn activities. “She said that she put [the VR headset] on the other day, and was going to play a game, but he had porn games on there.” In talking about it, neither woman was certain how they felt. Becca said: “It forced me to think about how I felt about it, because to me, like, okay, maybe my husband watches porn. That’s fine, whatever, but the thought of him interacting with it in that way just feels like a bridge too far in my mind.” 

When it comes to pornography use, the media sends young people mixed messages. Should porn use be celebrated or shameful? Some news sites geared towards young people have embraced a type of porn positivity. An article in Refinery29 titled, “How To Watch Porn On Your Phone — The Right Way,” offers guidance about how to use your smartphone to watch porn, including suggestions such as clearing cookies regularly, keeping multiple tabs open, browsing in incognito mode and using porn apps if they are available. Other news outlets promote certain types of sexually explicit content, referred to as “ethical pornography.”  

The other question is who should decide what is appropriate? For many Americans, personal religious beliefs provide a firm moral foundation for what is and is not acceptable. Not surprisingly, religious Americans have much stronger moral objections to pornography than the nonreligious. In our poll, only 25 percent of religiously unaffiliated Americans said pornography use was morally wrong. However, the growing ranks of nonreligious young people are unlikely to be swayed by arguments about the immorality of pornography use coming from the churches they left. 

Legislation is another option. Some states have passed age verification laws to block access to pornography, but there are workarounds. After Pornhub was banned from Utah, Gizmodo published an article offering simple instructions “to access any porn site in Utah in 5 easy steps.” 

For now, there seems to be little hope that Congress will pass laws limiting online pornography access, despite how popular such legislation would be. A 2021 survey found that most Americans supported making pornography on the internet less accessible. But there is one notable holdout: young men. Most young men object to any restrictions on porn access.

The future of pornography will be more interactive and personalized. Users will be able to develop relationships with erotic avatars of their own design, or real people through sites like OnlyFans. The experience may become more enticing for young people in the process. It may diminish interest in developing more traditional romantic attachments, those that require empathy, understanding and sensitivity. In other words, the worst is yet to come. 

A more addictive pornography experience is hardly the biggest looming problem either. My real concern is how easily AI will weaponize pornography. With AI image generators, male students can create pornographic images of their female classmates. Simply take pictures from social media, upload them to one of the dozens of deepfake generators, and you have created a nonconsensual pornographic image that can destroy someone’s life. It’s already happening.  

One American Storylines reader shared a disturbing story about students in her daughter’s high school. She wrote: “In 9th grade the guys were sitting beside my daughter in the classroom watching porn in every class. They’d joke about raping her because, according to her, they liked to see her get upset.”  

That young people like to push boundaries and provoke reactions is hardly new, but pornography’s capacity to desensitize users and dehumanize victims gives it the potential to inflict so much more damage. I’m not a moral absolutist when it comes to pornography, more of a realist. But I’m pessimistic about our capacity to place reasonable limits on access. And focusing our attention on the most egregious cases can lead us to ignore the simple fact that even ethical pornography can be harmful. I welcome your thoughts and comments. Perhaps there is reason for optimism, but I see mostly ominous clouds.

Daniel A. Cox writes for American Enterprise Institute.