Porn isn’t for kids, but we don’t seem to care
For a moment, set aside the moral argument of whether porn is good for anyone. Americans have widely different opinions and religious beliefs about sexuality, including porn. Moreover, pornography isn’t going anywhere when it comes to consenting adults. It’s a $10-12 billion-a-year economic giant. In context, the pornography industry almost doubled the revenues of Netflix in 2015.
In spite of widespread porn consumption, nobody credibly argues that it should be available for children and adolescents. Teenagers had to prove their age to purchase pornography at a gas station in the 1990s, and my sons shouldn’t have it any easier because technology has changed.
There’s plenty of scholarly evidence about the scope of the problem. A 2014 British government report on the impacts of pornography on children is literally entitled “Basically…porn is everywhere.”
Porn is appealing in large part because it’s custom tailored for sexual laziness. Sex with a real person is—or at least should be—WAY better than porn. But a consensual sexual encounter should require far more effort than sexual gratification from porn. For countless young men and an increasing number of women, porn is a sexual short cut that’s quite appealing and readily available.
That’s a problem for a couple of biologically significant reasons.
In a 2014 study published in JAMA Psychiatry, German researchers noted that watching more porn reduced the corresponding response in the brain’s reward centers over time. It’s essentially like a drug in that users need increasingly more to reach the same high. “More” in the context of porn can get pretty strange and even less attached to sexual norms in reality. Those extreme examples impact sexual attitudes and willingness to engage in risky sexual activity.
Sex also releases brain chemicals like oxytocin and vasopressin. These hormones essentially form bonds between memories and the experiences that give us pleasure. That’s fantastic when you’re having sex with your spouse. It affirms the relationship and creates a biological incentive to return for another similar encounter. When it comes to porn, the same biological motive encourages you to return to your computer. That’s not a formula for relational success…at least not with another human.
If consenting adults want to consume porn, that’s up to them and likely a constitutionally protected reality. While pornography has serious impacts on adults, they’re outside their formative years and better situated to make any number of consequential life decisions. When it comes to young people, it’s a different story.
Should children and minor teens have unrestricted access to pornography on the Internet?
“No.” That’s the correct answer. Yet that’s precisely what our current policies allow.
I don’t really care if you’re a Democrat, Republican or porn star, you shouldn’t have a problem restricting minor access to pornography as a matter of public policy. Much to the chagrin of lawyers around America, clicking through boilerplate to affirm one’s legal age isn’t a deterrent to the hormonally driven.
From 2017 on, the United Kingdom will require active age verification for pornographic websites. A ComRes poll of the measure found that 74 percent of the British public supported the checks.
Another option is requiring purveyors of porn to operate within a domain indicative of their content. Allowing parents to block those domains through their service provider or web browser would be a huge tool analogous to disabling adult features at a hotel. Neither of these moves is without controversy and logistical challenges, but the status quo doesn’t adequately protect children.
I’ll continue to defend free speech tooth and nail, but some of it is clearly meant for adults. Right now, we require more age checks on tobacco and alcohol websites than for pornography. We’ve recognized the potential health impacts of those substances on minors and developed responsible policies. We can’t afford to treat porn any differently unless we want it to be the sexual manual for our children’s future and relationships.
