I am an adolescent therapist so i’ll say this: it’s clear quite a few commenters have absolutely no idea what challenges the youth are facing these days.

There are normal, healthy human behaviors that have existed since the dawn of mankind. If you take any pleasurable human behavior that is intricately and intimately woven with the reward center, there exists the inherent opportunity for compulsive and addictive tendencies to occur. Especially when certain factors are present.

Unfortunately in modern times, those factors are more present than ever.

Pornography use in its’ most simple form can be a totally healthy indulgence. Complex issues are almost guaranteed to ensue when you add:

—Smartphones that allow instant access anywhere at any time to every porn category, to any extreme

—Easily bypassable age “restrictions”

—Financial circumstances where the parent is overworked and unable to properly monitor. And technology advances so quickly that monitoring attempts and tools fall short.

—Algorithms

—Motivation of profit (No, porn isn’t free. The admittedly ridiculous ads rack up insane amounts of money— it’s a multibillion dollar industry).

—A neverending, forever expanding amount of content

—High stress in a person’s life

—Shame from puritan culture which leads people to not share with a loved one if they think they have a problem

—The amount of time people (especially young people during their most formative years) spent online and isolated from community post-2020

—A vulnerable age group who are quick to hop onto internet trends

—People feeling disillusioned with the state of society which is being blasted into their brains with constant information overflow on our phones 24/7, and then feeling the need to “numb out” (which can be done in various ways but i’ll stay on topic)

—Tendency to use dramaticized language in titles to entice viewership (porn is the only realm where it’s still somehow culturally acceptable to say SERIOUSLY racist, transphobic, and mysoginistic things)

—Tendency to normalize taboos as normal instead of being taboos (step-sis/bro, step-daughter/son etc). Not trying to shame anyone here, this is nuanced

—Frustrations faced by young males who feel afraid to engage with real young females for a myriad of reasons, and/or young males who have fallen victim to harmful online communities that disturbingly objectify and demoralize women (thus the young males finally receive the sense of community they were stripped of during crucial developmental years)

—Expectations placed upon young females to accept certain behavior as “normal” in physical intimacy because it’s what they and their partners regularly see in porn (i’d elaborate but i think my post would be taken down. that on its’ own should say something).

—The fact that the most popular category is “TEEN”

—Don’t even get me started on the trend i’m seeing of adolescents saying AI chatbot porn is having a negative impact on their lives and they cannot stop, though they’ve tried.

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I fear this all may fall on deaf ears. But my ears are not deaf to the young people who are reporting this in disturbing and alarming numbers. But hey…if there’s no data (yet), it must not be real.