Is violent porn changing us?

with me, everyone, let's all learn together. Today we're talking about sex, and you may not want your kids to listen, but you definitely should, and not just your run of the mill missionary stuff. We're talking about scary sex. And I'm using the words scary because a recent study showed that nearly a quarter of women in the United States

say they have felt scared during sex. That's because there seems to be a culture of coersion going on where expected and sometimes unwanted sex like anal sex and choking is happening more and more, and experts believe it has to do with porn and how it's shaping heterosexual relationships. In particular. I felt like I was hearing about this everywhere I went. I was having coffee with a friend, and she told me that health clinics on campuses, we're

seeing a lot of college students with anal fissures. I even casually asked my gynecologist about these new and yes scary, sexual trends when I was getting a pap. Smere how appropriate, and she answered with an emphatic yes. She told me she hears this from her patients all the time, and she had just had this very conversation with a young woman the other day. So here's my next question, What the hell is going on here? I'm all for consenting adults doing what they want, but where is this sexual

pressure coming from? So I asked my doctor if she was willing to put me in touch with that patient. He told me that the harder I choke you, you'll have a better orgasm. He's like, haven't you ever seen one of those videos where the guys choking the girl and she just has the best orgasm of her life. And I said no, He's like, believe me, you will. That's the patient my doctor had told me about. Trish, a thirty year old therapist studying to become a psychologist.

She just ended an eight month relationship with her boyfriend. There were certain things that I felt very uncomfortable with. When it came to sex. He enjoyed sweet sex, but there was also a side where he wanted to have rough sex as well, which made me feel a little uncomfortable. When you talk about rough sex, what do you mean by that? Rough sex? Meaning that he liked to choke, he liked to pull hair, he liked to do anal sex,

which I've never done before until recently. And he just wanted to almost do a porn like kind of sexual intercourse almost which didn't feel very authentic, but felt kind of acted out, almost like he was performing somehow. Yeah, like he and he was performing like and he wanted me to perform with him as well. Did you talk to him about it? No, I didn't. When he would do certain things, I always expressed a little discomfort. He

would always say, I'm not going to hurt you. I didn't feel like I could talk to him about it because I didn't want to be that girl, you know, that girl that doesn't want to please her boyfriend, that girl that's you know, just kind of like a wet blanket almost. You didn't want him to think you weren't game or fun, yeah, or adventurous and wanted to be sexy for him, wanted to please him, and that's how he like to be pleased during sex. Were you surprised

when this happened when he asked for anal sex. I was surprised. Even when I told him that I wasn't comfortable doing it, he said that we're going to have to get you used to it sounds terrible. I think he had a lot of influence by porn and watching what's going on in those videos, and he wanted to act it out with me. Did you talk to him about porn? Did he ever discuss it with you? He did. He did tell me that he does watch it when

I'm not home or when I'm not around. One day, I was on the computer and I went through the history and I saw that he was watching it when I was at home, and I saw a name of a video called Brunet Girl Gets Punished. I didn't bother opening it because I can only imagine what's that video. But I could imagine there's a lot of anal sex going on, rough sex, hair pulling, and everything that he liked. I think it turned him on to see a woman

almost telling her boyfriend or whoever she's having sex with. No, I don't want to the first time he tried to choke you, did he ask permission or did he just do it? He just put his hand around my neck and started gripping it. I was on top and he was just looking at me, and he just put his hand around my neck and he started gripping tightly, and I could feel his grip getting tighter and tighter, and then I put my hand on top of his and I pulled it away and I told him, easy, don't

choke me like that. I don't like it. And then he eased his grip. But that wasn't the last time he choked you. He continued to yeah, but gently over the next few weeks. Did you ever feel like you

couldn't breathe? Yes, there was a time where he was behind me and he put his arm around my neck and he was almost gripping me in like a in a chokeold and he was going a little too tight where I felt like I had to use both my hands to pull him off, And he was just so into it that I don't think he realized how hard he was going. Where I had to scream his name, and I told him get off of me, and then I just I was like, I'm not doing this, and I had a fight with him and that was the

end of that. Do you think porn shaped your boyfriend's view of what sex should be. Yes, I believe so, because sex is, in my opinion, it's supposed to be intimate. It's supposed to be between two people who love each other, and it's supposed to feel comfortable for you both. It's not feeling comfortable for the other person. Are you really having sex? What are you doing? Are you acting out of fantasy, which I felt like, what was what was going on? Or are you replicating what you've seen? Yes?

I think he was replicating what he was seeing on those videos. It was heartbreaking to listen to Trish, and I wondered how many other young women were experiencing this. I asked her if this was something she talked about with her friends. I don't discuss anything with my friends like that because I don't even know where to begin and tell them that my boyfriend is doing anal sex with me and he wants to put his hands around

my neck. It's almost embarrassing to say. I have great friends, but at the same time, I feel like my friends would be like, what are you doing in this relationship? If you're not happy or if he's doing this to you, you know it's not respectful. He doesn't love you. And I don't want to hear those things because I do believe that he loves me. It's just those are the

things that he likes. I remember one time when we were having sex, I was like talking to him in a very vulgar way, and I told him, I want you to put your hands around my neck, just to see what he would say. I've never seen him look so excited when I told him to do that. I just wanted to see what he would say and what his reaction would be when I said that, and it turned him on like crazy. Did that give you pleasure?

It didn't give me pleasure when he was doing it, but it gave me pleasure to see that he was enjoying it. I can't imagine someone doing that to me. I would be terrified and more than uncomfortable. I think I would be afraid. But this was something that you were willing to do because you saw that he liked it. Even if you didn't, do you feel this was consensual I'm going to say yes, because at the end of the day, I still allowed him to do it, not because I wanted to, but I wanted to please him.

So in me, I still allowed him to choke me. I still allowed him to do anal sex with me. I could have easily said no and fought with him and expressed my concern and that's not what makes me comfortable. And we should make each other happy. It's not just one way. But I didn't do that. I don't know about you, but I was completely floored. Here's an attractive, educated woman who allowed herself to be subjected to this. Clearly porn played a big part in Tricia's relationship, which

she did eventually end. So why is this happening? To find out, we tracked down the foremost expert on the effects of violent porn. If he gets his kicks out of choking you, I'm blocking off your passages while he is aroused. I would be a big concerned about being around with such a person now in today's culture. Of course, he's learned that from Paul. We'll have more on that right after this. Tricia's story was unsettling, to say the least, but not isolated. As we've mentioned, a quarter of women

are experiencing sex with partners that frightens them. So where is this coming from? When I was growing up, if a guy would have said to me, would you mind if I ejaculate on your face and choke you as I'm having sex? I would have thought she was a psychopath and run. That's Dr Gail Dines, a professor of sociology and women's studies. She has spent over thirty years studying porn and sexual violence, and she's also the author

of porn Land How Porn has Hijacked our sexuality. Okay, so my question to you would be, you know what quote your interest about this topic. I was at a conference in California. A man came up to me. We started talking. He said, you know, you should really look into doing something on the effects of porn on young men. We had a speaker at my son's school and she really shocked the parents because she asked them questions about certain sexual acts that their kids were probably experiencing, or

that people were pressuring their kids into doing. Do you know what those three sexual acts are? What we know from studies is that the three major sex acts in porn is number one ejaculating on a woman's face and increasingly in her eyes. The second major sex act is choking. First is choking with a penis to the penis so

far down the throat that she begins to gag. The third major act is one of them of these called a t M, which actually translates to ask to mouth, where the penis goes into the anus and then into the mouth without washing. This sounds extreme. It sounds like, you know, you have to go spent fifteen minutes looking for these. These are the things that in eleven year old boy when he puts porn into Google, this is

the only thing he's going to see. I don't want to even instruct people how to do this necessarily, you know, but Google it so it's ubiquitous and it's accessible. When we're talking about porn hub, which one, but he's free and he's accessible within six seconds, five seconds, four seconds. You just put porn hub in and there you go. And this is where the boys first go to because it's free and because he's so accessible, and he's anonymous,

and that's drives demand. We spoke to one boy who had this to say, I am fourteen and the age that I discovered what pornography was was probably around tennish. It's not very difficult at all. I mean you can find it on almost any browser anything. You can find a way to get it. It's all anonymous and it says, oh, you're the eighteen plus, But I mean there's nothing to verify it, like, there's not even a like slider to put your age or anything like that. No other industry

is as unregulated as the porn industry. This is one of the things I want to ask is how have we managed to have this multibillion dollar a year industry which is virtually unregulated completely. It is an outrage that this has happened. Just let that sink in. Instant anonymous access to hardcore porn, seven millions of hardcore videos and no age verification whatsoever from your phone, laptop, tablet. And

here are the scary statistics. A third of young people have seen porn by the time they're twelve years old. Eight percent of top rented or downloaded porn contained scenes depicting violence against women. How have they been able to stay under the radar? I would say through complete willful ignorance on the part of adults who have been charged with taking care of teens. I have lobbied politicians along with some very very powerful child lobbyists who've worked with me.

The porn industry is actually targeting young boys. It's not like the politicians don't know. There is no desire in this country to go after the porn industry. And let me just say one thing. Giving out free porn to kids is the equivalent of me standing out in middle school giving out free cigarettes. I wouldn't be allowed to do that. I wouldn't be allowed to stand outside and say,

you know what, I'll be here tomorrow and tomorrow. Porn harb gets more visitors than Netflix, Amazon, and Twitter combined. Porn is about a third of the Internet. But you could say it is one of the largest above ground industries in the world that is trading on misogyny and violence against women. So a lot of the boys and young men who are being brought up on pornography are playing porn sect out on these girls. The women and

girls are the collateral damage of the porn industry. It sounds to me like it's this tragic alchemy of violent pornography, toxic masculinity, low self esteem for women, and a hook up culture, and I would add in I think loss of real feminism, because once you have a feminist analysis, it gives you, as a woman a sense of understanding the world like nothing else and a sense of agency. My experiences with young women is that they've got nobody

to talk to, nobody has helped them navigate this. They feel like they're drowning and yet been socialized in this culture to think that you have two choices. You're either fuckable or invisible. You heard Trish's story, she was so honest about it. I'm sure you've heard stories like hers before when you listen to Trish. Was that a fairly typical Yes? I mean I hear those stories, and I hear them from younger women. By the way, I've increasingly been speaking in high schools and I hear them from

high schoolers as well. Very very typical. Now, this is the norm of what's going on, and I think it's hard for older women to really know what it's like. Trit initially thought it was consensual. She liked pleasing her boyfriend, and she's talked about him getting incredibly aroused when she suggested he choke her. So was it consensual? No? Because like all women, and I'm all of us included here

is that we are socialized to please men. And I cannot believe that any one of us, given a socialization where we felt truly liberated in this world, would agree to being choked and being fearful in sex. But you say yes because really what's on offer, no doesn't exist, So you have to say yes to what you can stand. And saying yes and negotiating to what you can stand is not consent. It's just survival. It's women surviving in a toxic, patriarchal poorm culture. So no, it is not consent.

And we have unfortunately trained our girls not to really understand the way in which we have had our voices taken away from us, our sense of power taken away from us. Not only are we traumatizing our girls through porn culture, but we are traumatizing a whole generation of boys. We now know that most boys across the Western world use pornography as their major form of sex education. What does it mean to that eleven year old boy to masturbate two images of sexual violence? This is a much

deeper issue of traumatizing our boys. And when you traumatize our boys, sexually and you work into their sexual template hardcore porn, then what you do is you traumatize our girls because they then play that out on the girls. So we are basically laying waste to a generation of girls and boys through mainstream hardcore free pornography. We wanted to ask some teenagers about their experiences with porn. This is what they had to say. I'm fifteen years old

and I'm a sophomore in high school. The first time I remember seeing porn, it's probably when I was twelve years old. I'd say the first time I was very disturbed by um. An image in porn was probably a reference to like rape. For the most part, women are portrayed as the almost like the vehicle for the dudes. Um it sounds weird, satisfaction or whatever. I'm fifteen and I'm currently a freshman. I believe I was either eleven

or twelve when I first discovered prenography. I know of videos of like gang bangs or raping women on those sites. It's is really just not a good thing. It signs real light them what some people could describe as entertaining. I know of rumors that girls do like to be choked but that's not I know for a fact that's not all of them. The anal sex intrusion thing, I honestly think that's just messed up. That's probably pretty scared you a god just assumes that's what they want. I'm

seventeen years old. I'd say I first started to understand what pornography was in fifth grade. I'd say I first saw porn around maybe six or seventh grade. I would have been twelve or thirteen. In porn, females are usually depicted as the main focus is their body. That's pretty much it. In the majority of porn, the guys and not necessarily asking permission to do anything. I just expected that the woman will go along. I think that it can lead to like men having that attitude towards women

are just having misogynistic thoughts. There are definitely a lot of guys that are watching like violent horn. Wow. I know it's pretty overwhelming and such graphic language. But where do we go from here? It seems like the genie is out of the bottle, right, But don't worry, there is hope, and it comes from a surprising source. A sex ed teacher at a Quaker school. More on that, right, after this, So what are you supposed to do with

all this? It's hugely depressing and if you're a parent, you probably want to crawl into a hole right now. Alvernacchio is a teacher in Winnwood, Pennsylvania, outside Philadelphia, and he has what he thinks is the best solution for

dealing with this porn culture. What happens today is that young people, because of the great vacuum of information or conversation, they encounter this material and they are curious, and they are turned on, and they are hungry for information, and they think, well, nobody's talking to me, this must be it. We need to be able to not only counteract that message, but start at a much younger age saying, when you see stuff like that, that's actually not what sex is about.

That's not what relationships are about, that's not what intimacy is about. That's performance. That's fantasy, and not even fantasy in terms of the good, helpful fantasy that can teach you something useful, the fantasy that is sort of corrupting and that gives messages that are the opposite of what we're supposed to be trying to do as human beings. How do you do that, though, would you say to a boy when he's eight years old or nine years old. We've heard how young they are when they first are

exposed to porn. Hey, there's this stuff out there called pornography, boys, and I want you to be aware because if you're trying to pre empt this kind of cultural conditioning, if you will, or visual stimuli, you have to introduce it at a very young age. Absolutely, And parents and carrying adults might choose to actually talk about pornography with eight year olds, I don't. What I talk about with eight year olds is gender equity. And let's look at the media.

What are eight year olds looking at their watching cartoons, they're playing video games. Let's take a look at the way that characters are portrayed in those games and are treated based upon their gender. And are they seeing messages that male characters are always in charge? Are they seeing messages that it's unusual to see a group of superheroes that's largely female dominated. It's usually a bunch of guys and one or two women. And just beginning to ask

questions about what do you think that's about? Why do you think there aren't more women's superheroes that you're looking at in your comic books. What's that saying about the place that girls and women have in the world. We begin with what's in one of them, and we help them begin to ask questions so that when they do encounter material like hardcore pornography, there primed to ask that question. Wait a minute, that woman is being used completely as

an object. And I've already been told that whenever we treat a human being as an object, that's disrespectful, that's devaluing. So what are the transferable skills that we can do in sexuality education early on that when they get to be high school kids in my class and I can talk to them explicitly and frankly about pornography, that I can say, you're not just hearing these ideas for the first time. We've been talking about it for years in our classes. You know, remember what I said when you

were in nursery school about who gets to be a princess? Well, that has applications when we look at material like this. The problem is our culture is oh afraid of talking about human sexuality, is so afraid of sexuality education because they don't understand what it really is. That we run from it and I think parents, and I don't fault parents for this. Parents don't have training, parents don't know how to begin these conversations. So part of my job is also to be with parents and to say this

is how we can do this. These are some questions you can ask, these are some conversations you can have, and helping them feel empowered to be able to talk to the young people in their lives. I think it's so funny because I'm a progressive sexuality educator, but a lot of the things I talk about sound like what people used to refer to as like, you know, good wholesome values. Because what is healthy sexuality. It's pleasurable, it's respectful,

it's authentic, it's honest. None of those things are about porn. And so those messages alone are really instrumental when they then hit this material. So they have some sense, some critical awareness to be able to say, wait a minute, I'm not just going to get swept up in this and just be carried away by it. I'm going to at least have a moment where I can say what's

going on here. So part of your curriculum is really values education, absolutely, and you set the table so that when young men and young women encounter this kind of material, they can be critical thinkers and analyze it. But you also talk about porn informed sex ed. And that means that when they are of the appropriate age, or when they start to understand that this kind of material is

out there, you talk about it pretty openly. Sure. So, for example, in my ninth grade class, one of the questions that I want to ask, and that conversations I want to have with kids is what does it mean when we say have sex with somebody? How is that defined? Because what are culture says, and what the porn culture certainly says is that sex is about, you know, conquest and power and penetration. Yeah, a lot of the conversations about sex, you know, have some kind of requirement of

penile penetration. Right, So I say to kids, if you are defining sex solely by behavior, you know, a penis goes into this body part, that's what counts as sex. What does that definition mean? Look at what it doesn't say. Doesn't say anything about consent, doesn't say anything about mutual pleasure, doesn't say anything about connection. So then I get to say, well, what if we made a definition of sex that wasn't about what we did, but about the way we did it.

What if we said sex was a consensual, mutually pleasurable sexual activity that help people connect. If that's a definition that you grew up with around what sex is supposed to be, then when you come to look at porn, you're going to say that's not sex. Well, that's not

the definition of sex that I learned now. I know that's a radical shift, but I think part of what good sexuality education is about is confronting those assumptions that we don't want to talk about in society and saying, no, let's reframe that, let's look at it a different way. And when we do that, we really can create opportunities for insight and awareness and for kids to grow in authentic directions that aren't just guided by these sort of

ruts that they want to get forced into. Are you an anomaly or do many teachers now use this approach. I'm not an anomaly. Many of my colleagues are doing this work, but we are few in number. In the United States, only twenty states currently mandate any kind of sexuality education in schools, and only thirteen of those states

require that the education be medically accurate. What Yes, only three states specifically say that you cannot promote religion in the teaching of sex said, even our legislation is so far behind and gives us so little support in doing it.

I happen to work in an independent school. I think that's where you're seeing a lot of progressive sex said, Although certainly I have colleagues working in public school systems, and I get called into a lot of public schools to give talks to students and to faculty and to parents, and I'm happy to do that. But you know, I think where Gail is working really at the level of a lot of the power brokers. You know, my work

is really a lot in the grassroots. I'm talking directly to parents and to kids and to teachers and just trying to say to them, here's ways where we can all be having these conversations and we can have an impact on kids, a really powerful positive impact, And why aren't we doing that? Sadly, we all can have an al bnachio in our lives. So we're going to close things out by bringing Gail back in and having al stick around. What can parents do? What can be done

about the peign culture? We find ourselves then okay, well, this was the question we asked ourselves, a culture reframed what can we do? And what was very clear when we brought together public health experts, pediatric nurses, at lesser psychologists, sexual health experts, is we need to educate parents. All public health research shows that the more educated and the more skilled parents are, the more robust and the more

healthy their kids will be. So when we looked around and we thought, well, you know what's out there for parents, to my absolute shock, there was nothing. There was no online program to help parents. So what we did is we brought together eight of the top consultants in the field multiple fields pediatrics, adolescent psychology, sexual health, and we built a thirteen module online program for parents to teach parents about puberty, about pornography, about st d s, about

how to even have the conversations with you. Because you really have a how to website for program. The whole program set out where you can go on for five minutes, five hours, twenty hours, is free. You just have to sign up and anyone can access it. And it's for parents of tweens. At this moment, we are now about to build the parents of Teens program, So we started with nine to twelve year olds because we hope that you could get to them before the point industry could.

That's up there, fully finished, and then in January the Parents of Teens program will be up. All I know this is something you're trying to do not only teach kids, but you're also trying to equip parents. Absolutely. In my book, which is called for Goodness, sex Changing the way we talked to young people about sexuality, values and health, it's really written for parents and caring adults who want to get better at talking to young people about healthy sexuality.

It has examples of things you might say, It has ways to answer questions. It talks about pornography specifically in one of the chapters, so that's a resource. I think they're also amazing resources that are there. Amazed dot org is a terrific website that is doing very short animated films for parents of middle schoolers, talking about everything from body image to consent to pornography. So there's good information out there. We have to help parents get to that information.

What I would say to a parent who wants a quick solution and this is not my idea comes from Debbie Roffman, who's an amazing sexuality educator, is lose the idea of having a big talk around the dinner table. You know, it's always better to have a hundred one minute conversations with your kid than having one minute conversation

with your kid. My dream would be to be able to write those one minute conversation and get them online so parents can say, here's a woman at conversation about body image, here's a one minute conversation about consent, here's a one minute conversation about porn. Because they're all kind of they're kind of entwined, aren't they. From what I heard today from Trish, her willingness to do things that she didn't feel comfortable about that were shaped by porn

that was consumed by her boyfriend. And so it all seems to be connected, doesn't it. And you have to work on these core values. But when it comes to porn itself, what is the best thing a parent can do, Gail, in terms of really being an antidote to the violent porn their kids might be consuming. Well, I think the most important thing is to talk about gender equality. And when we say respect, it's not just about respect for women.

It's self respect for boys as well. We have put the bar very low on how boys think about their own bodily integrity and their own bodily boards. And we spend a lot of time in the program and culture. If I'm talking about how do you teach a boy, then in fact he's got his own boundaries and boarders to respect, not just also respecting girls boundaries and boarders. And I think the most important thing is what Al said is you scaffold you start at an early age.

You obviously don't talk about one which is a five year old, but you can talk about the factors. What right does somebody have to touch somebody who they don't know, And then as you go up develop mentally, that becomes around sex and what right do they have to do that? So you have to have many conversations. And I have to say this porn culture gives you a thousand teachable moments a minute. You're just going down the stream and you've got this big picture from Victoria's Secrets of a

woman with barely any clothes on. There's a teachable moment. Ask your kid, how often do you see a woman walking through the street like that? And why is it a woman? Up there and not a man. What do you think that says about the difference between women and men? You have that conversation and then you move on. You don't do these long lectures because then, of course, you know, you could think, to your most stupid person in the world, abound eleven or twelve, and it doesn't want to hear

too very long. So use everything you see as a quick teachableman, and then move on and go and get an ex screen. But use the culture and all the toxic things the culture offers you to basically reframe it in a more progressive feminist way. And conversely, al you have to have positive Well that's what I was just gonna say. The other thing that I want to add is boys are learning so much today about toxic masculinity,

which is really important. But we also need to teach boys about what does positive, non toxic masculinity look like. So we want to help we we want to absolutely make sure boys know when they're straying into or when they're being socialized into toxic masculinity. But what does masculinity

look like that's not toxic. I don't know that we're doing a good enough job to help boys know that so that also have that model and help parents kind of give their boys the values that will teach them how to respect girls, their boundaries, all the values that you want to impart on them. That is the job parents, once you have a kid, Your job is to take on the culture in all of its greatness and all of its ugliness, in order to make sure and protect

your children. That is really your job as a parent, And you know what, it's a job also of every adult, because really they're all our kids. Your kids are my kids, my kids are your kids. We are in this collectively, and the next generation is only as healthy as our kids. Gail and Al, thank you both so much. I've learned so much, and I think this is such an important conversation. I can't thank you enough. Wow, are you as freaked out as much as I am? I guess kids are

naturally going to be curious about sex. A friend of mine told me recently she had found some hardcore porn that had been downloaded on her desktop. She found out it was her eleven year old son, and he had shared it with his nine year old brother. The good news, though, is they had a conversation about it. The bad news

most kids are doing this without their parents knowing. I don't think we're going to ban porn on the internet, and I'm not even sure laws will work, but clearly we need to be talking about this with our kids, and as our guest Trish showed us, with our partners too, and I think porn informed sex said is absolutely imperative. Thanks so much for listening, everyone, and until we meet again,

make sure to follow me on Instagram. I'm at Katie Curik and sign up for my daily newsletter is called wake Up Call, and you can do that by going to Katie Currek dot com. Next Question with Katie Curic is a production of I Heart Radio and Katie Curic Media. The executive producers are Katie Kuric, Lauren Bright Pacheco, Julie Douglas, and Tyler Clang. Our show producers are Bethan Macaluso and Courtney Litz. The supervising producer is Dylan Fagin. Associate producers

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