Pornography: Set Expectations; Negative Repercussions 

 A huge 70% of people have stumbled upon Pornography at some point in there lives, for most it is an important part of shaping an understanding in the realm of sex. But this is where the issues arise, an individual who has newly found porn is going to grasp every part of information that is available on the platform weather it is correct knowledge or not.

This is the start of the misinformation pornography exploits. Porn establishes very quickly the expectations that are placed on women and men as well as the negative repercussions of these expectations. Two very clear expectations are of that one, women are a sexualised object that can be used to a mans benefit and two that men are the dominate controlling figure in a relationship.

A quote from an article explains the first point “Pornography severely affects how men view women after. For men who watch pornography, the woman is there as nothing more than an object, a piece of meat, whose sole purpose is to please him according to his desires. The typical roles played by women in porn are almost nothing like real women.”. Men often have a hard time being vulnerable because they feel like it takes away there masculinity. 

The normalisation of gender roles through taboo:

Pornography in itself is a topic that is vetod from appropriate conversation purely for the private nature of sexual content. Though over the decades, pornographic content has become overtly dehumanising and is an endless verse for niche fetishised content, with what seems like an infinite rollout. Starting in the 1920’s softcore reels of naked women are considered to be the first instance of pornography, gradually increasing in popularity in the 1950s-1960s with Hugh Hefner’s introduction of Playboy magazine. Upon the emergence of the digital age, the access to porn became a free for all pertaining consumption and output, with a plethora of websites and forums catering to the most unusual of fixations. The most significant controlled factor in human consumption of pornography over the years is the gender imbalance and the emphasised commodification of women as objects and devices for men to use for their sexual pleasure.

In looking at this in perspective, the gradual normalisation of taboo fetishism through pornography reinforces the unstable gender stereotypes that gravely affect womens perceptions of themselves and mens rights to act in the bedroom akin to what they have seen on screen. From incestuous relationships, borderline sexual violence and age gaps alluding casual sexual interactions; these menacing tropes are more often than not found in almost any porn video released today. In accordance with a study done on pornography use in low income, urban, black and hispanic American youths, the average age in which young men are exposed to porn is skewed at 9-11 with domination and hyper masculinity being the most consistently received and internalised messages.(Rothman et al., 2015) This study was conducted 7 years ago and in this time with factors such as covid lockdowns, porn consumption has increased and the taboo content levels have increased.