I’m curious if Gen Xers feel adult content has made their lives better or worse? The argument twenty years ago was that it made a lot of people’s lives better, but back then it was only supposed to be available to adults. My question is, if you’ve been consuming it for fifteen years or more, how do you feel about it now?
Next questions is, do you know if your kids are watching it? Studies show the average age of first watching explicit material is around twelve, but I’ve seen interviews recently of now-adults saying they watched explicit material as early as age nine doing something as innocuous as playing a video game. None of these people were happy about having watched it, and said that it’s made their lives more difficult. They cited shame and feelings of inadequacy as drawbacks because they thought that’s how adults are supposed to go about it. They thought it was educational because they didn’t know any better.
The other reason I’m asking is because I have about twenty years distance now between me and that industry. In my twenties I thought that kind of content was mostly harmless. Not the producers who set out to intentionally harm people, but the content in general made by companies who hired directors, etc. I’ve never been very aware of any other kind of content, though I now know that streaming has become very popular.
But now I’m not so sure it benefits anyone. Gay men? They are a population of adults who don’t shame each other for their preferences. Maybe just gay people in general? I don’t see male/female relationships benefiting from this free content everyone is consuming. Phrases are used like “male loneliness epidemic” because young women are choosing to be single and not have kids. A lot of them say they don’t feel safe, or economically secure, or both. They talk about dating and men feeling entitled to their bodies because they paid for a meal. There have always been men like that, but it sounds like it’s way more common than it used to be. This is a conversation that really should include adult material because so many people are watching it at increasingly younger ages and feeling that it’s ruining their lives.
Billie Eilish appeared on the Howard Stern Show and said she watched it at age eleven. “I used to watch a lot of [adult material], to be honest. I started watching [adult material] when I was like 11… I think it really destroyed my brain and I feel incredibly devastated that I was exposed to so much [adult material].”
She’s one of the brave few to openly talk about it, and I think it’s having devastating effects across the board. But I would like to know what other people think. Do you have kids and you’re just sure they’re not watching it, knowing that other kids at their school are watching it? Do you talk to your kids at all about whether or not they do watch it? Do you let them have sleepovers where they have unrestricted access to the internet?
4 Responses
Great topic for discussion as I’ve thought about this in the past. I was first exposed probably around the age of 12 to very explicit and hardcore pornography. I didn’t get regular exposure until my early 20s with the advent of internet porn. While I was not as habitual as some, I feel it did stunt me during my prime dating years by giving me very unrealistic expectations concerning sex and relationships and definitely caused me to view women more as objects than actual human beings. This at a time when young men are already wired somewhat to do so. Not too worried about my kids having regular exposure but not naive enough to think they never had a friend say “check this out”.
Thank you for your feedback, Jay. Are you not too worried about your kids having regular exposure because you monitor their screen time? I only ask because I’ve seen so many young adults talk about being expert at hiding their access. There’s a specific non-profit I follow and their interviews are eye-opening, to say the least. Several interviews with parents and their kids that made me aware of the problem kids face today with exposure. I’ll share it if you’re interested, or maybe just make a specific post about it.
Being Gen X, I grew up without hearing a lot of terms that are common today. “Grooming” is one of them. I used to think that “SA” was hands-on. The way people would say things like, “He didn’t hit me,” as if emotional abuse isn’t also harmful. It was during therapy over sleep that I revealed that someone close to my family showed my sister and I explicit material that I realized that is also abuse. But we didn’t think like that when I was a kid. For me, the “check this out” moments were definitely abusive. She was experimenting on us, and grooming us. I wish I’d had someone safe to talk to about it. Things are confusing enough as a kid without throwing that into the mix.
Solid points on grooming/abuse. I wonder if kids show their friends adult content as a way to normalize or take the edge off of what they have been exposed to. Who knows, may be overthinking it. I’m sure another aspect is just that they’re kids and excited to have something they know they are not supposed to. I am not overtly worried about my own yet because they are not allowed to have devices until they are 18. May be a little harsh to some but I don’t think so. Somehow we survived the 80s n 90s without, mine can do the same. I like them to “go outside” what a novel thought, and be focused on the world around them rather than the constant distraction that comes with tech and the potential harm that comes with it.
That’s smart. Good on you for not giving them devices. They call it “brain rot” for a reason.