The kids really are all right

At one point or another growing up, most of us looked at porn. Some people may define porn solely as videos, but I see it as anything – magazines, pictures – with extremely explicit sexual content.

I can still remember, when I was 12 years old, my friend Katie calling to say she had something that I just had to see. After walking a few blocks to her house, I was greeted by Katie on the front porch holding a spread from Playgirl magazine. She’d uncovered her brother’s “secret stash” – a bin behind their garden shed filled with pictures of naked men. Later in life Katie’s brother came out and now his boyfriend likes to playfully tease him about the stash, asking if he’s going to find another stack of magazines hiding in the linen closet.

The secret stash was my first glimpse of “porn,” and I remember the feeling: exhilarated and guilty at the same time. I thought back to my Catholic catechism classes – sins of the flesh would send supposedly send us to Hell, and I figured that looking at pictures or videos of those sins would mean the same. It took me all of 10 minutes to get over that notion.

Values are instilled in us through many channels. For me it was a youthful attempt at Catholicism. For others it’s from family, teachers, laws, news programs. Whatever our influences may be, the overarching message is that enjoying porn is an unhealthy vice; many of us grew up hearing lectures or seeing reports about porn causing sexual maladjustment. I’m here to tell you that might all be complete and utter crap.

In recent study published in the Journal of Sex Medicine, researchers found that the relationship between using porn and “risky” or adventurous sexual behavior (such as paying for sex, having many partners, or – controversially – having same-sex sexual partners) was slim.

Martin Hald, head researcher of the University of Coppenhagen project, worked with a research team asking 4,600 young men and women in the Netherlands about the sexual acts they participated in and what could have influenced them. Though pornography did play a role, the research team found it was not a major determinant of behavior. The numbers demonstrated that while 88 percent of the surveyed men and 45 percent of surveyed women admitted to viewing sexually explicit material in the past year, porn motivated between 0.3 percent and 4 percent of real-life decisions – a tiny effect for something that well over half of the population was found to engage in.

“Pornography is just one factor that may influence the behavior of young people,” Hald said. It’s easy to try to place ourselves and the choices we’ve made alongside those numbers: was our decision to participate in a threesome solely because we saw it in a video on Youporn? Did our one-night stand stem from Playboy – really? – or did some other channel influence us?

Darnell Madrid, an Englewood 23-year-old who works in retail said that he felt too much emphasis was placed on porn when he was growing up.

“I grew up hearing that that ‘filth’ would take over my mind if I ever watched or looked at it,” Madrid said. “In my house Howard Stern was considered the devil, who wanted to expose us [children] to the evil ways of the world. I think it’s pretty clear that kids are going to get their ideas from somewhere, even if it isn’t porn,” Madrid said.

The University of Copenhagen findings seem to support Madrid’s take. Their study shows that although the same individuals who seek out or see porn overlap with those engaging in riskier sexual behaviors, other factors play a much greater role determining how people make choices. Hald found that one specific “contributor” to high-risk behavior could be the desire for adrenaline and thrill seeking.

Society as a whole might be more accepting – or at least tolerant – of porn now; a May 2011 Gallup poll showed that 42 percent of people between 18-34 found porn “morally acceptable,” compared to 19 percent of people 55 and older.

With a digital world at our fingertips now, it’s harder in the first place to shield kids form the realities of the world. Yes, pornography does exist, and yes, it can have a negative effect on adolescent behavior, but recent studies clearly demonstrate that it’s miniscule compared to other factors.

You’ve heard it time and time again: kids will be kids. And it’s true. They’re still going to be curious and want to try everything once. But if we want to understand how we become who we are, it’s clear we have to look beyond the images we see in porn.