Lilly came into my surgery looking more than a little nervous. Just 15 and still in her school uniform, she explained how she had been seeing her boyfriend for three months and they had started having sex.
So far, nothing out of the ordinary for most GPs up and down the country. Attending the appointment without a parent — also perfectly normal — I had no idea what she was about to say next. A doctor reveals how girls as young as 15 have come to her about removing their pubic hair via lasers, at the request of teenage boys.
Two days later, a year-old man called Jake came into the surgery, very worried. He was terrified he could have some kind of erectile dysfunction. Ten years ago, I would see patients like Lilly or Jake on a rare handful of occasions. And certainly, no one should feel they have to do anything sexually. So where has this paranoia and pressure come from? Government statistics show that around 1. And while we are better connected as a society than ever before thanks to social media, young people tell me that they feel increasingly isolated.
They may have hundreds of friends on Instagram, but no one to actually talk to. Sixty per cent were 14 or younger when they first saw pornography online. Interestingly, data on safer internet. Perhaps not directly related — but worrying nevertheless — 36 per cent of children in this survey who had taken nude or semi-naked selfies, reported that they had been asked to show these images to someone online.
One male, 23, was unable to perform sexually after watching too much porn - an increasingly common problem with young men stock image. But the easy accessibility of porn has turned extreme sexual practices into everyday viewing, and the gradual adolescent exploration of sex — the teenage fumblings most of us experienced — have been sped up.
Children are now catapulted from zero to into an adult world which they may be ready for physically, but not emotionally. Children of eight and younger are only a couple of clicks away from hardcore porn.
In one survey by Childline, almost one in five children under 16 said they had seen explicit images that shocked or upset them. Other research says four in ten boys aged 14 to 17 have regularly watched pornography. It also said that nearly one in ten 12 to year-olds are worried that they are addicted to porn. Patients like Lilly, Amy and Jake are the result: a generation of youngsters who are unnecessarily stressed, anxious and sometimes depressed about their bodies and sex lives.
The proliferation of porn is also leading to alarming changes in the way their brains develop. The more they watch, the more they will need to watch to become aroused, the more desensitised they will become and an addiction to porn may even ensue.
Addiction is a cycle of craving a reward that you believe outweighs its negative effects. Sixty per cent were 14 or younger when they first saw pornography online stock image. And who knows if youngsters in the future will even bother with relationships? He says:. During adolescence, the brain is constantly changing and shaping to its environment — especially its sexual environment.
The moment a teen looks at porn, several areas of the brain light up. The back of the brain will process the visual aspects, the sides of the brain will process the sounds. This reward system evolved foremost to drive us towards those things we need in life, such as food, water and sex. They are necessary to our survival as a species. But this part of the brain can become sensitised and desensitised to porn with overuse. Another example would be an alcoholic, whose sensitisation causes cravings for alcohol before taking a drink , but drinkers need more alcohol to achieve the same high.
Adolescents are particularly vulnerable, because the teenage brain is still developing — porn effectively rewires the brain in terms of what stimulation it needs to feel aroused. If a teenage boy watches a lot of porn, he may well associate arousal and orgasm with images and sounds rather than the experience of being with a real person.
Scientists are still unclear about the full effects of porn on the brain. But there have been many studies on adults and teens in the past few years to show that the brain is affected by watching it. There are several studies showing that chronic use of porn affects the brain in the same way as drug or alcohol addiction. Men who overuse internet porn find they need to find more and more stimulating materials to release the neurochemicals associated with pleasure. But the more they use it, the less pleasure they get out of it.
And the sensitised pathways of the brain might never entirely disappear. It can take up to two years without porn for a man to report his erectile function is back to normal. The impact on a generation of young people is telling. We have seen a tremendous rise in erectile dysfunction ED rates in men under Before , the rate was consistently around 2 per cent. But post — four years after internet porn became widely available at high-speeds — the ED rate ranges from per cent. Those surveys are only asking sexually active men, not virgins or those who are without a partner.
So the true rate might be much higher. When the Pill was introduced in the Sixties, one of the things it did was emancipate women — they could finally have sex just for pleasure. They discovered how to enjoy themselves by exploring their bodies with partners and, over time, questions about sex were discussed by the agony aunts in magazines.
But porn is staged and choreographed. In a healthy, grown-up relationship or sex-life it has its place and women should have as much access to it as men.
But porn is largely shot to appeal to men. More recently, the Metoo movement has helped many women to speak out about sexual wrongs. But from what I see daily in my practice, younger women are more disempowered than ever.
High-profile campaigns are all very well, but in reality what I hear from my young patients is that they feel unable to say no to changing their bodies to please men, or to performing certain sexual acts. But does love no longer come into it? For while we focus on the practicalities of sex — contraception and sexually transmitted disease, and knowledge of both is vital — we are forgetting to teach children about the emotional impact of a sexual relationship. There is a huge discrepancy between appearances and reality.
Young people today may appear extremely sophisticated sexually, but I find many are confused about their own bodies. The selfie generation have become obsessed with what their body looks like — they see it as an object, as opposed to something wonderful which can run, jump, think, and yes, have sex. Inside, though, they are the same awkward and uncertain teenagers they have always been — hesitant, learning about themselves and their bodies and where they fit in the world. We have to make a real effort to understand and to share their online worlds so we know what they are talking about and can support them through it.
The emotional processing part of the brain develops so intensely and quickly in the teenage years that, put simply, they feel much more emotion than an adult. But the rational, processing, logical side lags behind. So while they may be more sensitive to both risk and reward, they are less able to be logical about it and are more dependent on the approval of their peers.
Lilly is too young and I end up explaining that pubic hair is there for an evolutionary reason, to protect the genitals. I reassure her she is entirely normal. But I encourage her to talk to her partner about his expectations of her. With Jake, I ask how much porn he watches. I suggest he cuts back for a while or maybe even watches a little of it with his new girlfriend, making it a part of their relationship, rather than a separate obsession.
As for Amy, I reassure her that sex has to be consensual, that no one should ever be coerced into doing anything they feel uncomfortable with. I welcome the recent news that porn users will have to buy a pass before they can access websites. All my young patients are genuinely surprised that the solution could be so simple. And at subsequent appointments, they seem much happier.
Mothers who have taken part in a new documentary to make pornography they'd be happy for their children to watch have said their new film shows the 'build up' to intimacy as well as sex itself.
She said she had become involved in the project to 'change the narrative', to try to help make it clear to children that porn is not an educational tool, and that parents need to have these conversations.
Her fellow first-time porn producer Sarah, 40, is a wedding photographer from North Wales who cried while watching rape-based content during the research portion of the show. This morning she said that 95 per cent of online porn was violent towards women - Channel 4 producer Emma Morgan clarified that 88 of the most-seen videos portray violence - and also shows 'toxic masculinity'.
Producer Emma Morgan explained: 'I think it's like 50 per cent of all kids between 11 and 16 will probably have viewed explicit online sexual content, and that felt like an important sea-change in behaviour.
Former headmistress Emma left is a mother of two daughters aged 18 and 20, while Anita right , 43, from Manchester, is a mother-of-four and modelling agent. Sarah Louise left , a mother-of-six who works as a beautician in Bolton, was so disturbed by what she watched that she vomited. Sarah right , 40, a wedding photographer from Wales, cried while watching rape-based content during the mothers' research portion of the show.
She said that mothers, as people who would want to look out for their children, would want to make something better - a film which 'looks at consent, and pleasure, and kissing, and cuddling, and pleasant things, as well as the hardcore sex.
Anita said the plan was never to watch the film sitting down with their children, but that at the screening her older son chose not to be present and the younger one was not present.
The film, as an R is not legal for an under to watch, so Piers Morgan pointed out the people who might most need to see it, would not be allowed to watch it. Anita said: 'If parents are getting involved in this process, they will watch it and better be able to inform the young people in their lives. Mums Make Porn sees four women create their own sex video after being left horrified by the hardcore porn available online. The team on the film meet director Erika Lust and watch a six-strong female orgy being made.
Using actors and actresses with 'real bodies' the mothers direct the film themselves. Although they didn't star in the video themselves, they helped direct and produce it in a bid to create porn that is realistic and promotes positive attitudes towards sex. The three-part series follows their journey into the adult entertainment industry, which sees one mother so distressed by internet porn she quits the project altogether. One mother is reduced to tears by the violent, rape-based content they find and another throws up.
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