sites like OnlyFans have brought prostitution/sexwork into the household, supercharged by socialmedia algorithms promoting teaser videos, which reinforce this as normal and “hey, a great side hustle”.
kids (both viewers and producers) are exposed to this so young because it’s not classic pornography.
My youngest is 19 and I was shocked to realize how nonchalant sexting is with adolescents now, too. It's become no big deal, almost like asking for a phone number 30 years ago. The amount of d*ck pics girls receive before age 18 is staggering.
Thank you for this, Freya. I'm one of the many people reading this who have had their lives damaged by pornography. I appreciate your honesty and bravery, and for insisting that it isn't okay.
I discovered my first porn tape at the age of 11, and it impacted the rest of my teen years and early adultlife, by sparking the addiction. Only once I began living for myself, and in service to my partner, was I able to then set better habits that removed this crap from my life. Seeing the sunrise and no screens for 30 days was a powerful first step.
"Boys who realized this was harming them got gaslit and ridiculed; girls were made to feel insecure and broken."
I have anecdotally heard that many young people who develop gender dysphoria did so in reaction to porn, the girls fleeing womanhood "like a house on fire" and the boys thinking that if porn describes manhood, then testosterone is "toxic" and that it and all maleness must be eliminated from their body. There are also men/boys who describe porn making them want medical gender transitions for sexual reasons. Unfortunately, MD's are ready to "help," once they hit 18, in any state, no mental health evaluation needed ("informed consent"), just go to Planned Parenthood. In blue states, even earlier.
Some really destructive stuff is making its way to young impressionable people right under their parents' and other caregiver's noses.
I’m sorry but this is absurd. Being trans isn’t a trauma response, it is simply a possible relationship to a person’s gender identity. It is terribly dangerous as we have done so much to de-pathologize homosexual and trans people and this kind of rhetoric takes us back to decades ago.
You're naive if you think that part of the massive spike in girls calling themselves "nonbinary" or "trans" in the last decade is not due to witnessing the oppression and degradation of women in porn. If that represents womanhood, who would want to sign up for that? Girls traditionally never had issues with their natal sex, it was very young (and future gay) males who historically expressed the wish to be the opposite sex. Part of the new phenomenon of girls identifying out of femaleness is due to the wish not to be treated as sex objects. A trans identity is a way to escape society's treatment of women and girls, whether it is objectification (always having to look and act like a bimbo, a la some reality shows) or sexual abuse.
I’m not naive. I am informed. I have been studying this for many years. The amount of oppression that LGBTQ people have dealt with created a ton of repression. The advancement of our rights has made more people feel safe enough to explore their identities outside of the paradigm of gender binarism. I speak from my lived experience, and from the lived experience of so many other people like me, not just from opinions based on research. It is incredibly naive and disturbing that you think people can be pushed into embracing a gender identity different from their own. Women have historically always been vilified. Actually they have never ever been respected as much as they are respected now. Your argument simply does not stand and it is filled with transphobia, ignorance and arrogance. And this kind of disinformation is harmful.
I’m a GenX parent, and I’m a transphobe. Meaning: I have witnessed the carnage of state-sponsored permanent, debilitating, loss-of-function elective cosmetic chemical and surgical sex trait modifications performed on teenage girls and boys, and it is indeed terrifying. The worst part of it is the way these ghastly and ghoulish “remedies” for emotional distress are promoted as “lifesaving.” In my jurisdiction, we are living in an “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” scenario, wherein anyone even raising tentative doubts about whether amputation of healthy flesh and organs is an effective suicide prevention for young people gets shrieked at, bullied, and excommunicated from polite society by aggressive “trans allies.”
So yes, I’ve been effectively conditioned to be “phobic” about all things “trans.” I see the rainbow as a terrorist symbol now. And I was once someone who proudly marched in rallies for gay marriage. Call me a hateful bigot, I am full of care and concern about best outcomes for all kids, gay and straight. But I do not believe there is such a thing as a “gender identity” separate from biological sex, and it is horrifying to see kids and families being destroyed by that erroneous concept.
something tells me you are not gently "raising tentative doubts" that bewilderingly get you "shrieked at, bullied, and excommunicated". And that something is your colorfully hateful writing, as a proud transphobe.
Obviously nothing can be said here to change your outlook, but I hope you meet a trans person in real life and see their humanity. They're fully realized people, like you and me, and just want the same things we all do--and yes that includes not being (indirectly) called ghastly and ghoulish. You don't need to be afraid (phobic) of them.
I’ve met a LOT of people, young and old, who have undergone loss-of-function elective cosmetic sex trait modifications, chemically and surgically. I fear for their health outcomes, and I’m horrified by the *system* that allocates our medical system’s resources to provide debilitating self-mutilation at any patient’s request. The patients themselves are ostensibly choosing this, but I disagree that a teenager is sufficiently able to comprehend the permanence and debilitation of the cosmetic interventions, so no, I don’t think of it as a choice they are making as much as a medical and ethical abuse that they get what they are insisting they want.
“Ghastly” applies when we are talking about sanctifying the amputation of teenage girls’ healthy breasts. “Ghoulish” applies to those who advocate for and provide this “service.” Am I talking about the hapless teenagers who clamour for the drugs and scalpels to “help them achieve their embodiment goals”? No, I’m talking about the accessories to these crimes. When I meet the people who are casualties of this self-mutilation cult, I treat them kindly, as I would anyone with a body part stunted or missing. If they come charging up to me aggressively, as happened to me recently, I take a step back, and see if they are open to a civil discussion about child protection, and how we define things like health, safety, and care.
There is nothing hateful about me, but I’m very clear that I want safeguarding for the vulnerable, and accountability for those who have harmed the vulnerable.
They don't want the same things we do, they want what other people have. There is no civil right that allows someone to deny other people their own rights.
Why do you lump LGB together with QT? Many would argue they don't belong together. LGB are sexual orientations, they are about who someone is attracted to. What is QT?
They don't belong together at all. In fact, there are internal contradictions in this "LGBTQ" grouping. How can there be Bs, for example, if gender is a fluid, non-binary thing? (What ever happened to the Bs anyway? Seems they've gone extinct.) And why are the Ts either male -> female or female -> male if there's nothing particularly special about being male or female, being just two of many "genders"?
The tip of the spear of porn is transsexual along with simulated family incest sex - stepparents having sex with stepchildren. The real damaging stuff begins with free sites leading to pay sites. I have lots of questions about the industry that are hard to answer because of the way it is structured. The money is an incentive. But to stay in the business requires increasing levels moral and physical degradation. I don’t concern myself with a person’s orientation. I am concerned with the behaviors of people and their social environment.
Have you researched how homophobic Evangelical Christian parents are transing their kids rather than accepting an effeminate son or tomboy daughter? At the Tavistock GIDS in England, the joke was that there would be "no gay kids left."
A lot of the "research output" there is to study is itself ideology in the form of "science". Especially since it's all soft science, and can easily bend whetever way the wind blows. And even more so when speaking against that wind in the past decades got one out of research grants, book deals, journals, or even totally exciled from academy.
Correlation is one of the basic mechanisms by which we detect causation.
Lacking an evident hard causal mechanism (e.g. genetics, physics, etc), observance of correlation and applying rational thinking to exclude independent variables that just happen to match trendlines is the very basis of common sense deductions.
Correlation can indeed sometimes point to causation, but sometimes, due to outside factors, causation can occur without correlation. The only way that correlation and causation actually match are in carefully controlled environments.
Just look at all the myths, rumours, and falsehood surrounding video games, each one an incredibly simple system when compared to real life, and see how bad people are at recognizing the cause of things.
> Just look at all the myths, rumours, and falsehood surrounding video games
I don't really consider most of them "myths, rumours, and falsehoods" to be frank. Video games are indeed idiocy inducing, and can both hinder social development and desensitive kids to violence. Causally speaking.
Not to mention a huge waste of life. The people worrying about their kids playing video games? They were right in many ways, even if they didn't use the right language or done formal studies of it.
One can find fancy diagrams laughing at correlation and causation, like "cancer trends follow guitar sales so obviously guitars cause cancer, haha", but memes aside, people seldom really do those spurious correlations.
Most common sense conclusions come from plain pattern recognition of cause and effect. Aside from specialized fields like medicine, nutrition, environmental studies and such "carefully controlled environments" are not really needed to spot cause and effect and be right about it. More often than not when something opens its mouth like a duck, and a duck sound comes out, that being a duck and quacking is the cause, not some mysterious third mechanism.
MANY female detransitioners, young women who for a while wanted to be seen as men, mention how viewing the degradation of women in pornography made them want to not be women.
MANY male detransitioners, young men who for a while wanted to not be seen as men, mention how viewing on males abused women in pornography made them not want to be men because they did not want to be seen by others as abusers.
And many of these young people also realized that they are homosexual and had internalized homophobia, so they thought their same-sex attraction meant that their same-sex attraction meant that they were "really" of the opposite sex and so heterosexual.
MANY young people who are "identifying" as "transgender" have been sexually abused and want to dissociate from their sexed bodies in the magical belief that they would not have been sexually abused if they did not have the sexed bodies that they in fact have.
I understand that you’re raising concerns that come from listening to people who have had painful or complicated experiences with gender identity, and it’s important to take those stories seriously. But it’s equally important not to generalize them or turn them into an argument against the legitimacy of trans identities as a whole.
Some detransitioners have described trauma, internalized homophobia, or discomfort with their bodies. These are valid experiences. At the same time, the overwhelming majority of transgender people who access gender-affirming care report lasting benefits, improved mental health, and no regret. This is supported by decades of research and by major medical associations worldwide, including the American Medical Association, the American Psychological Association, and the World Health Organization.
Being trans is not a pathology. It is not caused by exposure to pornography, nor is it a symptom of abuse. Many cisgender people are also deeply harmed by those same things, but we do not conclude that their identities are invalid. What’s often missing in these discussions is nuance. People are complex. Their paths to self-understanding are rarely linear. Some change how they describe themselves over time. That’s part of being human, not proof that trans identity is a mistake or a trend.
If we are truly concerned about sexual violence, misogyny, and homophobia, we should confront those forces directly. Blaming trans identity for the harms caused by a deeply unequal society only adds to the suffering of people who are already marginalized.
Having gender dysphoria isn't a trauma response, no, yet there is mounting evidence that part (NOT all) of the spike in LGBTQ+ self-identification in GenZ and Gen Alpha is because of mimetic social dynamics as opposed to truly indwelling, experienced (edited for clarity) conditions. If that fact isn't addressed, then our society will not progress in healthily raising children in a digital age.
Being transgender is not a ‘psychiatric condition’ in the way that phrase implies. It’s not a pathology or a mental illness - it’s a deeply felt aspect of someone’s identity and experience of gender. Leading medical and psychological organizations, like the World Health Organization and the American Psychiatric Association, have moved away from defining trans identities as mental disorders. Instead, the focus is on affirming care, recognizing the distress that can come from living in a society that doesn’t always accept or understand trans people - not from being trans itself.
Describing transness as a ‘truly indwelling psychiatric condition’ risks reinforcing stigma and misunderstanding. It’s more respectful - and more accurate - to speak of it as a legitimate and human variation in gender experience. If we truly care about raising healthy kids, we should make sure they feel safe and are not demanded by society to ignore huge portions of their identity. We have been there, and it’s not pretty.
No one is "born in the wrong body." It is damaging to people to alienate them from their natal sex when what they really need is therapy to accept the bodies that they live in, not health altering and sterilizing chemicals and mutilating surgeries to try to look like something they can never truly be. 100% a mental illness. And the organizations that you quote as supporting this farce have been captured and bullied by ideological activists pushing their own agenda. Complications from pharmaceuticals and surgeries, a documented increase risk of suicide 10 years into transition, why would you wish that on anyone?
You are talking about something you know nothing about. You are simply full of hate and ignorance. It makes me sad. I hope someone who matters to you is able to get through this hate and make you understand how wrong and hurtful and unscientific your position is. Good day.
Oh, I see where you're coming from. Since you featured males in your book series for and about girls, you clearly believe that females are not a separate sex class deserving of the safety, privacy and dignity of single sex spaces. You believe that girls are not allowed to have boundaries or say no to boys. Boys get to determine what they can have whether girls like it or not. Boy's feelings take precedence over girls' reality. How enlightened and postmodern of you.
Ad hominem attacks (name calling) = evidence of inability or unwillingness to debate the issues raised, could be due to lack of logical reasoning ability or stunted intellectual development or indoctrination into an ideology
Fair enough on my terminology. However, with a word swap, I hold to my point. Gender dysphoria is a legitimate lived experience for some, and for others it is a frame that is claimed for reasons that are different from those for whom it is their only experience. To ignore that categorical distinction among people (especially adolescents) who are trans and people who are not in the same way, is to ignore something that is true in society. And if we ignore what is true, then we cannot truly seek healing.
How can this distinction be “cathegorical”? I’m curious. I don’t disagree that there may be some people who are influenced by the surroundings to embrace an identity that’s not truly theirs. You know which identity was historically chosen in this context? Heterosexuality. Lots of people felt they did not have the courage to face the hate, the shame, the conflict… and they just gave up and pretended to be straight. Why, though, are you not expressing concern about those people, who are the majority of those who have embraced a false identity? The idea that people choose something as profound as a different gender identity, and face the vitriol and rights limitations that come with it, just to… follow a trend (?) is very superficial and preposterous. Humans usually pick the path of least resistance, and for many LGBTQ+ people that meant pretending to be straight, at a huge cost for their life, for their wellbeing and the well being of their loved ones. Anyhow, this has nothing to do with porn and with this post. So I’ll move on, I just couldn’t let the casual transphobia go unchallenged. I wish you a good day.
Hi, I appreciate you sharing your thoughts. We might have a tendency of speaking right past each other on such charged topics, and it would be a shame if that's where the conversation ended. So I'll respond with an observation I have about this conversation, a question to you, and a reason why I am trying to make the connections I have already made.
First, I noticed that you said people "choose" a gender identity. I'm hesitant to use that language, because I think a lot of the choices we make in life aren't rational. What I mean is that the way we steer ourselves through life is often below the waterline of the consciousness. If you're familiar with Haidt's illustration of our thinking brain as an elephant rider and our feeling brain as the elephant, then I'd say that even the way we construct our identity in this world is mostly elephant; we are adept at using post-hoc rationalizations to convince ourselves that we are actively controlling our reactions and responses in life. Does that make sense? And to add the question - actually, I have two. How would you define that people make choices based on the "path of least resistance?" Is that the only factor in identity-level choices? Second, what do you think are the strengths and weaknesses in society's response to gender dysphoria over the past 20 years?
Lastly, I've accumulated many anecdotes of individuals who struggle with their birth sex and gender as a result of pre-pubescent exposure to hardcore pornography. Most recently, I listened to a conversation (on a podcast about emotional intelligence and finding meaning in life) with a Ghanaian woman who said that after exposure to Internet porn at age 7(!), she found herself having visceral responses to the idea of being female, resulting in a sexually hyperactive identity while wishing that she were truly androgynous and not a woman. I've got more than a dozen bookmarks of such stories, and even if they are from 0.1% of girls worldwide, would that not be a crisis with tens of thousands of victims? That's why I'm insisting that the status quo needs to be examined and recreated.
Yes it is. Self harm (via GAC) and deciding to pretend to be something you're not for the rest of your life are prima facie evidence of poor ill mental health.
Hey, that's cool how you know what "being trans" is and isn't. "it is simply a possible relationship to a person's gender identity" and stuff. Dead simple. Thanks for clearing that up.
You are mislead. There are many trans people who have made that connection, one famously stated that "sissy porn made me trans". Girls see how they are portrayed in porn and want nothing to do with it. Particularly those who have already suffered sexual abuse. Better to be unattractive to men than become their piece of meat. And nothing is more unattractive to a heterosexual man that another man, or a female who looks like one.
Exactly what makes you an expert on this topic? Why are you so sure that gay or trans isn’t a trauma response? Maybe not for all, but definitely for some.
For many years thought I might be trans because I didn't want to be a man anymore, because I felt being a man was "bad." (In other words, I was traumatized out of believing in the dignity of my gender.) In your words, it's indeed a possible relationship to one's gender identity—and relationships are affected by our life experiences and viewpoints. Once I healed my relationship with my gender, boom, turns out I was happy being a man. This is not to say it's a common story at all, but it's my story.
+1 Francesca. (also, not that you need it, but sorry for the vitriol out here.)
Saying porn induces gender dysphoria is a bold claim to make without any evidence (yes, talking to you @forthekids). Even evidence aside, I think the proposed mechanisms/reasons suggested here are...strange and unintuitive (in the case of boys) or absent (for girls).
To suggest that _porn_ is the only--or even the main--source where boys might be exposed to the issues with masculinity is..invalid. Society and history are smothered in examples. And then to suggest that this leads to GD is also a big leap.
No reason is given for girls wanting to transition, although, one could imagine some negative response. But again, it's a steep claim to propose GD.
And finally, why isn't the response the uniform? Boys want to reject toxic masculinity..yet girls are attracted towards it?
The boys don't want to reject toxic masculinity, they want to participate in it from the female side. It is called autogynophilia. And, as for girls, they are very susceptible to social contagion, social pressures and groupthink (see: anorexia, cutting, tics). Perfect example of falling prey to groupthink is our friend Francesca here, whose postmodern brain has lost all critical thinking skills, like most of the "Be Kind' generation. It starts out by trying to be tolerant and accepting, and before you know it, you are cheerleading for the most horrific, destructive, ghastly medical scandal in history and smiling while your sex class loses all rights to single sex anything.
I am not your friend. You are free to base your point of view on fantasy-based theories, and handpicked anecdotal data that has no scientific backing whatsoever. But you are not free to call me your friend. I don’t know you, and I’m happy to keep things that way.
Thanks for taking this on, Estrojen. Agree with you all the way. So sad about the girls being encouraged to destroy their bodies and give up their rights to safe spaces and privacy which we fought so hard for.
Wow. Just when I was starting to pay attention to your arguments, you drop this thought terminating heap. What exactly does being "tolerant" or "accepting" have to do with any of the actual arguments here? It always seems to end up here with the trans advocates. "You're a bad person. Have a good day."
Dogma. You have not backed up and you cannot back up your apparent statement that it's impossible for trans identification to have anything to do with porn; you have simply reiterated trans orthodoxy about "gender identity" and then conflated transgenderism with homosexuality in the hopes that readers will just assume that trans identification is like being gay. If you want to talk about trans, then talk about trans, not gay; if you believe that porn cannot influence trans identification, then tell us why.
I have long suspected that the rise of trans interest on the heels of the porn explosion was no coincidence. Trans can be seen as a flight from sexuality rather than the embrace of something different. (Others will disagree and that is their right.)
Yet it is my sense that what is marketed currently is devoid of merit, celebrating violence and the debasement of both sexes. No one is wrong to run away and, to that extent, compassion for those who experience gender dysphoria is in order.
"Gender dysphoria" is not what heterosexual adult males are experiencing when they announce that they are really women and lesbians. They are exhibiting the sexual fetish of autogynephilia, which is characterized by males being sexually aroused at the thought that they have female bodies, most notably female breasts.
Not a fetish, a paraphilia. A paraphilia involves inflicting it on others without their consent. Violating boundaries and norms are part of the arousal.
True, but do you really think AGP drives young adolescent boys? Why the huge spike in young girls who declare themselves non binary on their way to trans man? I’m genuinely curious. There has to be a common instigating factor. Statistics don’t lie. The incidence of homosexuality in both males and females has remained stable for years. There has been a literal trans explosion.
No, AGP does not cause adolescent boys to imagine that they are girls. Nor are young women motivated to call themselves as "nonbinary" or then move on to seeing themselves as "trans men".
*Young people are being force-fed transgender ideology by "progressive" teachers and other school staff, including school counselors.
*Social media and the isolation of children and adolescents due to school closures because of Covid has greatly increased social anxiety and other anxiety among younger people.
*Social media also boosts social contagions, particularly among young females (Young females are always more prone to social contagions.)
*Kids are being told that normal adolescent insecurities and confusions about sexual orientation, the changes in their bodies during puberty, and the overall adolescent search for "who am I" actually means they "might be transgender".
Autogynephiles have gender dysphoria, often worse than HSTS's. This is well documented throughout Blanchard, Lawrence, etc. I also observed it first hand.
For those who do not know, HSTS refers to males who want to be seen as women who are attracted to men or females who want to be seen as men who are attracted to women. This means they are homosexual. Autogynephiles are males who are attracted to females, I.e., heterosexual.
Reading this brings tears to my eyes. I am well aware of the shame and destruction that porn can bring, particularly when viewed at a young age (mine was 7). Despite my efforts, I am still battling this constant addiction. Thank you for taking the time to write this.
Wow. This is powerful. I am a female ER doctor who treats girls and women in the aftermath of sexual trauma and mental health crises. I just want to applaud you for taking a stance and sharing your voice.
My best childhood friend was shown hardcore porn by her stepfather. It twisted her into a double-life of being a "normal" girl and one who was sex-obsessed. She entered prostitution as a young woman and ended up running a brothel. She eventually got out of it, got married, had two children, but her understanding of "love" was permanently damaged.
As parents it is urgent that we speak with our children about porn (in age-appropriate ways) and why it damages our hearts and minds. If children know that they can talk about what they accidentally, or purposely, encountered online it can help keep them from spiralling into porn addiction. Having devices only in common areas of the home, not bedrooms, can help avoid temptation and development of secrets.
Smartphones are "pocket porn". One of the most helpful ways to support children in avoiding porn exposure is delaying phones, and opting for simple flip phones.
Thank you Freya for this crucial wake up call to parents!
This is why I wrote a piece last week calling on parents to stop giving smartphones & tablets to minors. Otherwise, internet porn is impossible to protect our kids from. Moms, we must protect our girls (and boys). And I believe we have a moral, and Biblical, obligation to do so.
"This is liberation, though. This is what we call progress, having everything except our humanity. Having intimate access to anything we want, except each other."
I cannot even begin to quantify the amount of times I have seen online conversations or had in-person conversations where something along these lines are uttered in response to a woman who is distraught about her partner’s use of porn, typically from another woman: “porn use is natural, what do you expect from men?!”
To which my response, whether I state it or just choose to keep it in my own head, is “no it isn’t”.
We seem to have confused the natural attraction to attractive people and sexually suggestive behaviors with 24/7 instant access to literally every possible variety of person doing literally every single possible variation of sex act—with no effort or investment required on the part of the viewer.
This isn’t normal, look into history—this is unprecedented. And please, do not be one of those people who compares erotic artwork from the 1700s or whatever to hardcore porn of today, it isn’t the same, everyone knows that, please save it.
Not only is it not normal to access such experiences without having to put some sort of effort into the matter, it isn’t normal to be stimulated in such a manner. This should be obvious, but somehow apparently isn’t to many. It’s the old “common doesn’t mean normal” thing.
When we add in the fact that this isn’t just an adult problem but is now a problem of childhood, the premise should be all the more obvious. The willful ignorance and purposeful disregard of this problem by adults who defend the industry because of their own attachment to it speaks to both the worst parts of human nature and the power of the product. The industry is to blame, but so are individual adults who defend it.
Take two seconds to think critically about history, human nature and the world we live in and realize that just because we grew up with it doesn’t mean this is healthy and fine.
All true and also far reaching in its impact. This has impacted the millennials and genx demos as well. Online porn been a creeping, insidious force that has disoriented relationships and forced us into an ambivalence about intimacy. We have a declining population rate that I think has some attribution to this issue because it has disincentivized real-world emotional/physical longing. Not only does it traumatize, but sex, like so many other things that have been outsourced to the virtual space, becomes something we can engage in a disembodied way. The most embodied experience becomes remote and perfunctory - hidden behind a screen or a paywall. We don’t have to “bother” to build connection, go on a date or explore the art of seduction. That last part seems so cringy and quaint as I type it out, but so much of our civilization’s art and literature comes from the power of longing and mystery. When everything, including sex, is just a click and a password away, in some weird liminal space where there is no accountability or humanity, why make the effort otherwise.
We have universalized child sexual abuse. Boys especially are the target and cannot possibly consent to their reaction to discovering our culture’s foul open secret.
The appalling influence on the english language of this putrid product is one of the worst aspects of this horror show.
For me, the gaslighting was the worst part. For a decade when I mustered the courage to admit and talk about my daily "porn" use, every counsellor or therapist (usually a woman) looked at me strangely and said some version of "but that's ok, everyone watches porn” - like that was supposed to be comforting, instead of brutally demoralizing and trust-destroying. The media actively promote it. Academics justify it with their ridiculous “studies” as harmless. I felt like I was trapped in the invasion of the body snatchers. We need a “me too” for boys, and a call for accountability from academics, educators and media who whitewashed this for decades.
I’m over 5 years off of it now but my self-respect is still decimated. I wanted to be a teacher but couldn’t bring myself to look students in the eye, how could I since once a day I was visiting Pornhub to look at women masturbate. IT IS A DRUG STRONGER THEN CRACK. It destroyed my integrity and there was zero understanding, only insistence that the shame I felt was the problem, not the fact that I was traumatized by it, and angry at the gaslighting about something so obviously terrible. The consequences Freya describes hit me like a truck 15 years ago as I knew this was happening, and no one seemed to believe me or care. Everyone laughing and ignoring it was worse than the actual act. The inability to articulate this or get anyone to listen drove me to resent society. I am dumbfounded at our unwillingness to look at its connection to incels, school shooters, p diddy, Gisele picot, human trafficking, male loneliness, female depression, sextortion, virulent online misogyny, lack of trust in each other etc.
Read this article to the end for a perfect example of media, political and academic collusion on this issue.
Pictures/film/litterature that is highly sexually explicit, showing individuals having sex or in sexual situations. Legally, individuals watching porn, and individuals in the porn material, must be over 18 years of age. The purpose of porn is to sexually arouse.
Example: “My friend really enjoys watching porn.”
What is furry porn?
This is a type of pornography containing images, videos or animations of animals having sex. Reach out to us if you have questions about your situation and want more information.
it’s worse than that.
sites like OnlyFans have brought prostitution/sexwork into the household, supercharged by socialmedia algorithms promoting teaser videos, which reinforce this as normal and “hey, a great side hustle”.
kids (both viewers and producers) are exposed to this so young because it’s not classic pornography.
sirens on the rocks tho.
My youngest is 19 and I was shocked to realize how nonchalant sexting is with adolescents now, too. It's become no big deal, almost like asking for a phone number 30 years ago. The amount of d*ck pics girls receive before age 18 is staggering.
Thank you for this, Freya. I'm one of the many people reading this who have had their lives damaged by pornography. I appreciate your honesty and bravery, and for insisting that it isn't okay.
I discovered my first porn tape at the age of 11, and it impacted the rest of my teen years and early adultlife, by sparking the addiction. Only once I began living for myself, and in service to my partner, was I able to then set better habits that removed this crap from my life. Seeing the sunrise and no screens for 30 days was a powerful first step.
"Boys who realized this was harming them got gaslit and ridiculed; girls were made to feel insecure and broken."
I have anecdotally heard that many young people who develop gender dysphoria did so in reaction to porn, the girls fleeing womanhood "like a house on fire" and the boys thinking that if porn describes manhood, then testosterone is "toxic" and that it and all maleness must be eliminated from their body. There are also men/boys who describe porn making them want medical gender transitions for sexual reasons. Unfortunately, MD's are ready to "help," once they hit 18, in any state, no mental health evaluation needed ("informed consent"), just go to Planned Parenthood. In blue states, even earlier.
Some really destructive stuff is making its way to young impressionable people right under their parents' and other caregiver's noses.
Here's one parent's description (yes, an anecdote, sorry), this is a site which publishes a diverse range of parent experiences: https://www.pittparents.com/p/transgenders-connection-with-pornography
I’m sorry but this is absurd. Being trans isn’t a trauma response, it is simply a possible relationship to a person’s gender identity. It is terribly dangerous as we have done so much to de-pathologize homosexual and trans people and this kind of rhetoric takes us back to decades ago.
You're naive if you think that part of the massive spike in girls calling themselves "nonbinary" or "trans" in the last decade is not due to witnessing the oppression and degradation of women in porn. If that represents womanhood, who would want to sign up for that? Girls traditionally never had issues with their natal sex, it was very young (and future gay) males who historically expressed the wish to be the opposite sex. Part of the new phenomenon of girls identifying out of femaleness is due to the wish not to be treated as sex objects. A trans identity is a way to escape society's treatment of women and girls, whether it is objectification (always having to look and act like a bimbo, a la some reality shows) or sexual abuse.
I’m not naive. I am informed. I have been studying this for many years. The amount of oppression that LGBTQ people have dealt with created a ton of repression. The advancement of our rights has made more people feel safe enough to explore their identities outside of the paradigm of gender binarism. I speak from my lived experience, and from the lived experience of so many other people like me, not just from opinions based on research. It is incredibly naive and disturbing that you think people can be pushed into embracing a gender identity different from their own. Women have historically always been vilified. Actually they have never ever been respected as much as they are respected now. Your argument simply does not stand and it is filled with transphobia, ignorance and arrogance. And this kind of disinformation is harmful.
I’m a GenX parent, and I’m a transphobe. Meaning: I have witnessed the carnage of state-sponsored permanent, debilitating, loss-of-function elective cosmetic chemical and surgical sex trait modifications performed on teenage girls and boys, and it is indeed terrifying. The worst part of it is the way these ghastly and ghoulish “remedies” for emotional distress are promoted as “lifesaving.” In my jurisdiction, we are living in an “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” scenario, wherein anyone even raising tentative doubts about whether amputation of healthy flesh and organs is an effective suicide prevention for young people gets shrieked at, bullied, and excommunicated from polite society by aggressive “trans allies.”
So yes, I’ve been effectively conditioned to be “phobic” about all things “trans.” I see the rainbow as a terrorist symbol now. And I was once someone who proudly marched in rallies for gay marriage. Call me a hateful bigot, I am full of care and concern about best outcomes for all kids, gay and straight. But I do not believe there is such a thing as a “gender identity” separate from biological sex, and it is horrifying to see kids and families being destroyed by that erroneous concept.
Please do not call yourself a transphobe.
A "phobia" is an irrational fear of something.
It is not at all irrational to oppose the harm being done to young people and to our culture by the transgender ideological movement.
💯
Especially the “used to march in gay rights parades, now see the rainbow as a terrorist symbol.”
Oh how I wish things hadn’t turned out this way, but maybe we were just wrong all along 🤷
something tells me you are not gently "raising tentative doubts" that bewilderingly get you "shrieked at, bullied, and excommunicated". And that something is your colorfully hateful writing, as a proud transphobe.
Obviously nothing can be said here to change your outlook, but I hope you meet a trans person in real life and see their humanity. They're fully realized people, like you and me, and just want the same things we all do--and yes that includes not being (indirectly) called ghastly and ghoulish. You don't need to be afraid (phobic) of them.
I’ve met a LOT of people, young and old, who have undergone loss-of-function elective cosmetic sex trait modifications, chemically and surgically. I fear for their health outcomes, and I’m horrified by the *system* that allocates our medical system’s resources to provide debilitating self-mutilation at any patient’s request. The patients themselves are ostensibly choosing this, but I disagree that a teenager is sufficiently able to comprehend the permanence and debilitation of the cosmetic interventions, so no, I don’t think of it as a choice they are making as much as a medical and ethical abuse that they get what they are insisting they want.
“Ghastly” applies when we are talking about sanctifying the amputation of teenage girls’ healthy breasts. “Ghoulish” applies to those who advocate for and provide this “service.” Am I talking about the hapless teenagers who clamour for the drugs and scalpels to “help them achieve their embodiment goals”? No, I’m talking about the accessories to these crimes. When I meet the people who are casualties of this self-mutilation cult, I treat them kindly, as I would anyone with a body part stunted or missing. If they come charging up to me aggressively, as happened to me recently, I take a step back, and see if they are open to a civil discussion about child protection, and how we define things like health, safety, and care.
There is nothing hateful about me, but I’m very clear that I want safeguarding for the vulnerable, and accountability for those who have harmed the vulnerable.
They don't want the same things we do, they want what other people have. There is no civil right that allows someone to deny other people their own rights.
Why do you lump LGB together with QT? Many would argue they don't belong together. LGB are sexual orientations, they are about who someone is attracted to. What is QT?
They don't belong together at all. In fact, there are internal contradictions in this "LGBTQ" grouping. How can there be Bs, for example, if gender is a fluid, non-binary thing? (What ever happened to the Bs anyway? Seems they've gone extinct.) And why are the Ts either male -> female or female -> male if there's nothing particularly special about being male or female, being just two of many "genders"?
The tip of the spear of porn is transsexual along with simulated family incest sex - stepparents having sex with stepchildren. The real damaging stuff begins with free sites leading to pay sites. I have lots of questions about the industry that are hard to answer because of the way it is structured. The money is an incentive. But to stay in the business requires increasing levels moral and physical degradation. I don’t concern myself with a person’s orientation. I am concerned with the behaviors of people and their social environment.
Have you researched how homophobic Evangelical Christian parents are transing their kids rather than accepting an effeminate son or tomboy daughter? At the Tavistock GIDS in England, the joke was that there would be "no gay kids left."
> I have been studying this for many years.
A lot of the "research output" there is to study is itself ideology in the form of "science". Especially since it's all soft science, and can easily bend whetever way the wind blows. And even more so when speaking against that wind in the past decades got one out of research grants, book deals, journals, or even totally exciled from academy.
It’s 2025, not 2015. Your shading language like “transphobe” doesn’t work anymore.
There is no such thing as a gender identity
Correlation, meet causation. Maybe the real cause of the spike in girls learning they are trans is the number of Adam Sandler films.
"Correlation is not causation" is a tired cliche.
Correlation is one of the basic mechanisms by which we detect causation.
Lacking an evident hard causal mechanism (e.g. genetics, physics, etc), observance of correlation and applying rational thinking to exclude independent variables that just happen to match trendlines is the very basis of common sense deductions.
Correlation can indeed sometimes point to causation, but sometimes, due to outside factors, causation can occur without correlation. The only way that correlation and causation actually match are in carefully controlled environments.
Just look at all the myths, rumours, and falsehood surrounding video games, each one an incredibly simple system when compared to real life, and see how bad people are at recognizing the cause of things.
> Just look at all the myths, rumours, and falsehood surrounding video games
I don't really consider most of them "myths, rumours, and falsehoods" to be frank. Video games are indeed idiocy inducing, and can both hinder social development and desensitive kids to violence. Causally speaking.
Not to mention a huge waste of life. The people worrying about their kids playing video games? They were right in many ways, even if they didn't use the right language or done formal studies of it.
One can find fancy diagrams laughing at correlation and causation, like "cancer trends follow guitar sales so obviously guitars cause cancer, haha", but memes aside, people seldom really do those spurious correlations.
Most common sense conclusions come from plain pattern recognition of cause and effect. Aside from specialized fields like medicine, nutrition, environmental studies and such "carefully controlled environments" are not really needed to spot cause and effect and be right about it. More often than not when something opens its mouth like a duck, and a duck sound comes out, that being a duck and quacking is the cause, not some mysterious third mechanism.
How about actually reading this? https://www.pittparents.com/p/transgenders-connection-with-pornography
MANY female detransitioners, young women who for a while wanted to be seen as men, mention how viewing the degradation of women in pornography made them want to not be women.
MANY male detransitioners, young men who for a while wanted to not be seen as men, mention how viewing on males abused women in pornography made them not want to be men because they did not want to be seen by others as abusers.
And many of these young people also realized that they are homosexual and had internalized homophobia, so they thought their same-sex attraction meant that their same-sex attraction meant that they were "really" of the opposite sex and so heterosexual.
MANY young people who are "identifying" as "transgender" have been sexually abused and want to dissociate from their sexed bodies in the magical belief that they would not have been sexually abused if they did not have the sexed bodies that they in fact have.
I understand that you’re raising concerns that come from listening to people who have had painful or complicated experiences with gender identity, and it’s important to take those stories seriously. But it’s equally important not to generalize them or turn them into an argument against the legitimacy of trans identities as a whole.
Some detransitioners have described trauma, internalized homophobia, or discomfort with their bodies. These are valid experiences. At the same time, the overwhelming majority of transgender people who access gender-affirming care report lasting benefits, improved mental health, and no regret. This is supported by decades of research and by major medical associations worldwide, including the American Medical Association, the American Psychological Association, and the World Health Organization.
Being trans is not a pathology. It is not caused by exposure to pornography, nor is it a symptom of abuse. Many cisgender people are also deeply harmed by those same things, but we do not conclude that their identities are invalid. What’s often missing in these discussions is nuance. People are complex. Their paths to self-understanding are rarely linear. Some change how they describe themselves over time. That’s part of being human, not proof that trans identity is a mistake or a trend.
If we are truly concerned about sexual violence, misogyny, and homophobia, we should confront those forces directly. Blaming trans identity for the harms caused by a deeply unequal society only adds to the suffering of people who are already marginalized.
You sound so confident when you throw around terms like "decades of research" and "marginalized," Francesca.
Decades of billionaire autogynephile and Pharma funded pseudoscience. Marginalized my ass
2+2 ≠ 5
Trans-identity ≠ real
Appeal to Authority = cognitive fallacy. Gender identity - no such thing.
Having gender dysphoria isn't a trauma response, no, yet there is mounting evidence that part (NOT all) of the spike in LGBTQ+ self-identification in GenZ and Gen Alpha is because of mimetic social dynamics as opposed to truly indwelling, experienced (edited for clarity) conditions. If that fact isn't addressed, then our society will not progress in healthily raising children in a digital age.
My gender dysphoria was a trauma response to being sexually molested as a child. This is an absurd and untrue thing to say.
Sorry, are you agreeing with what I said or disagreeing with it? I can read both out of your comment but am uncertain.
Being transgender is not a ‘psychiatric condition’ in the way that phrase implies. It’s not a pathology or a mental illness - it’s a deeply felt aspect of someone’s identity and experience of gender. Leading medical and psychological organizations, like the World Health Organization and the American Psychiatric Association, have moved away from defining trans identities as mental disorders. Instead, the focus is on affirming care, recognizing the distress that can come from living in a society that doesn’t always accept or understand trans people - not from being trans itself.
Describing transness as a ‘truly indwelling psychiatric condition’ risks reinforcing stigma and misunderstanding. It’s more respectful - and more accurate - to speak of it as a legitimate and human variation in gender experience. If we truly care about raising healthy kids, we should make sure they feel safe and are not demanded by society to ignore huge portions of their identity. We have been there, and it’s not pretty.
No one is "born in the wrong body." It is damaging to people to alienate them from their natal sex when what they really need is therapy to accept the bodies that they live in, not health altering and sterilizing chemicals and mutilating surgeries to try to look like something they can never truly be. 100% a mental illness. And the organizations that you quote as supporting this farce have been captured and bullied by ideological activists pushing their own agenda. Complications from pharmaceuticals and surgeries, a documented increase risk of suicide 10 years into transition, why would you wish that on anyone?
You are talking about something you know nothing about. You are simply full of hate and ignorance. It makes me sad. I hope someone who matters to you is able to get through this hate and make you understand how wrong and hurtful and unscientific your position is. Good day.
Oh, I see where you're coming from. Since you featured males in your book series for and about girls, you clearly believe that females are not a separate sex class deserving of the safety, privacy and dignity of single sex spaces. You believe that girls are not allowed to have boundaries or say no to boys. Boys get to determine what they can have whether girls like it or not. Boy's feelings take precedence over girls' reality. How enlightened and postmodern of you.
You don't know me at all but you're calling me hateful, ignorant, wrong, hurtful and unscientific. Got it.
Perhaps you're not emotionally prepared for this particular topic of discussion Francesca.
Ad hominem attacks (name calling) = evidence of inability or unwillingness to debate the issues raised, could be due to lack of logical reasoning ability or stunted intellectual development or indoctrination into an ideology
Fair enough on my terminology. However, with a word swap, I hold to my point. Gender dysphoria is a legitimate lived experience for some, and for others it is a frame that is claimed for reasons that are different from those for whom it is their only experience. To ignore that categorical distinction among people (especially adolescents) who are trans and people who are not in the same way, is to ignore something that is true in society. And if we ignore what is true, then we cannot truly seek healing.
How can this distinction be “cathegorical”? I’m curious. I don’t disagree that there may be some people who are influenced by the surroundings to embrace an identity that’s not truly theirs. You know which identity was historically chosen in this context? Heterosexuality. Lots of people felt they did not have the courage to face the hate, the shame, the conflict… and they just gave up and pretended to be straight. Why, though, are you not expressing concern about those people, who are the majority of those who have embraced a false identity? The idea that people choose something as profound as a different gender identity, and face the vitriol and rights limitations that come with it, just to… follow a trend (?) is very superficial and preposterous. Humans usually pick the path of least resistance, and for many LGBTQ+ people that meant pretending to be straight, at a huge cost for their life, for their wellbeing and the well being of their loved ones. Anyhow, this has nothing to do with porn and with this post. So I’ll move on, I just couldn’t let the casual transphobia go unchallenged. I wish you a good day.
I told you, Fran, stop putting LGB with the TQ. Not the same thing.
Hi, I appreciate you sharing your thoughts. We might have a tendency of speaking right past each other on such charged topics, and it would be a shame if that's where the conversation ended. So I'll respond with an observation I have about this conversation, a question to you, and a reason why I am trying to make the connections I have already made.
First, I noticed that you said people "choose" a gender identity. I'm hesitant to use that language, because I think a lot of the choices we make in life aren't rational. What I mean is that the way we steer ourselves through life is often below the waterline of the consciousness. If you're familiar with Haidt's illustration of our thinking brain as an elephant rider and our feeling brain as the elephant, then I'd say that even the way we construct our identity in this world is mostly elephant; we are adept at using post-hoc rationalizations to convince ourselves that we are actively controlling our reactions and responses in life. Does that make sense? And to add the question - actually, I have two. How would you define that people make choices based on the "path of least resistance?" Is that the only factor in identity-level choices? Second, what do you think are the strengths and weaknesses in society's response to gender dysphoria over the past 20 years?
Lastly, I've accumulated many anecdotes of individuals who struggle with their birth sex and gender as a result of pre-pubescent exposure to hardcore pornography. Most recently, I listened to a conversation (on a podcast about emotional intelligence and finding meaning in life) with a Ghanaian woman who said that after exposure to Internet porn at age 7(!), she found herself having visceral responses to the idea of being female, resulting in a sexually hyperactive identity while wishing that she were truly androgynous and not a woman. I've got more than a dozen bookmarks of such stories, and even if they are from 0.1% of girls worldwide, would that not be a crisis with tens of thousands of victims? That's why I'm insisting that the status quo needs to be examined and recreated.
Yes it is. Self harm (via GAC) and deciding to pretend to be something you're not for the rest of your life are prima facie evidence of poor ill mental health.
Hey, that's cool how you know what "being trans" is and isn't. "it is simply a possible relationship to a person's gender identity" and stuff. Dead simple. Thanks for clearing that up.
Are you being sarcastic? It can be very difficult to discern when someone is being sarcastic.
I am, yes.
You are mislead. There are many trans people who have made that connection, one famously stated that "sissy porn made me trans". Girls see how they are portrayed in porn and want nothing to do with it. Particularly those who have already suffered sexual abuse. Better to be unattractive to men than become their piece of meat. And nothing is more unattractive to a heterosexual man that another man, or a female who looks like one.
There's no such thing as a "gender identity"
Porn is the market research and marketing campaign for the trans industry.
You recite the propaganda well, but you don't appear to understand the difference between reciting and reasoning.
Your performative indignation is the only card you have to play.
Exactly what makes you an expert on this topic? Why are you so sure that gay or trans isn’t a trauma response? Maybe not for all, but definitely for some.
>Being trans isn’t a trauma response, it is simply a possible relationship to a person’s gender identity.
Some "possible relationships to a person’s gender identity" are trauma responses...
2+2 ≠ 5
Trans-identity ≠ real
For many years thought I might be trans because I didn't want to be a man anymore, because I felt being a man was "bad." (In other words, I was traumatized out of believing in the dignity of my gender.) In your words, it's indeed a possible relationship to one's gender identity—and relationships are affected by our life experiences and viewpoints. Once I healed my relationship with my gender, boom, turns out I was happy being a man. This is not to say it's a common story at all, but it's my story.
+1 Francesca. (also, not that you need it, but sorry for the vitriol out here.)
Saying porn induces gender dysphoria is a bold claim to make without any evidence (yes, talking to you @forthekids). Even evidence aside, I think the proposed mechanisms/reasons suggested here are...strange and unintuitive (in the case of boys) or absent (for girls).
To suggest that _porn_ is the only--or even the main--source where boys might be exposed to the issues with masculinity is..invalid. Society and history are smothered in examples. And then to suggest that this leads to GD is also a big leap.
No reason is given for girls wanting to transition, although, one could imagine some negative response. But again, it's a steep claim to propose GD.
And finally, why isn't the response the uniform? Boys want to reject toxic masculinity..yet girls are attracted towards it?
The boys don't want to reject toxic masculinity, they want to participate in it from the female side. It is called autogynophilia. And, as for girls, they are very susceptible to social contagion, social pressures and groupthink (see: anorexia, cutting, tics). Perfect example of falling prey to groupthink is our friend Francesca here, whose postmodern brain has lost all critical thinking skills, like most of the "Be Kind' generation. It starts out by trying to be tolerant and accepting, and before you know it, you are cheerleading for the most horrific, destructive, ghastly medical scandal in history and smiling while your sex class loses all rights to single sex anything.
Let's remember that boys are just as susceptible to social contagion as girls. It's human quality.
I am not your friend. You are free to base your point of view on fantasy-based theories, and handpicked anecdotal data that has no scientific backing whatsoever. But you are not free to call me your friend. I don’t know you, and I’m happy to keep things that way.
My friend Francesca is pro teenage girl breast amputation.
Thanks for taking this on, Estrojen. Agree with you all the way. So sad about the girls being encouraged to destroy their bodies and give up their rights to safe spaces and privacy which we fought so hard for.
oof
Ah, I see, it was a strategic choice to not be tolerant or accepting.
Wow. Just when I was starting to pay attention to your arguments, you drop this thought terminating heap. What exactly does being "tolerant" or "accepting" have to do with any of the actual arguments here? It always seems to end up here with the trans advocates. "You're a bad person. Have a good day."
They can't think or won't think or both.
There's no such thing as "gender identity." There's no such thing as "homosexuality." Even Foucault knew as much.
Do not attach trans to homosexuality, the LGB community appears to have had enough of said relationship.
Dogma. You have not backed up and you cannot back up your apparent statement that it's impossible for trans identification to have anything to do with porn; you have simply reiterated trans orthodoxy about "gender identity" and then conflated transgenderism with homosexuality in the hopes that readers will just assume that trans identification is like being gay. If you want to talk about trans, then talk about trans, not gay; if you believe that porn cannot influence trans identification, then tell us why.
I have long suspected that the rise of trans interest on the heels of the porn explosion was no coincidence. Trans can be seen as a flight from sexuality rather than the embrace of something different. (Others will disagree and that is their right.)
Yet it is my sense that what is marketed currently is devoid of merit, celebrating violence and the debasement of both sexes. No one is wrong to run away and, to that extent, compassion for those who experience gender dysphoria is in order.
"Gender dysphoria" is not what heterosexual adult males are experiencing when they announce that they are really women and lesbians. They are exhibiting the sexual fetish of autogynephilia, which is characterized by males being sexually aroused at the thought that they have female bodies, most notably female breasts.
Not a fetish, a paraphilia. A paraphilia involves inflicting it on others without their consent. Violating boundaries and norms are part of the arousal.
Thanks for pointing out that there are differences in how expert use the terms fetish and paraphilia, even though lay people might use them interchangeably. Here is a good article for those interested in understanding more: https://psychcentral.com/blog/kinks-fetishes-paraphilias-treating-issues-with-non-traditional-sexuality#1
True, but do you really think AGP drives young adolescent boys? Why the huge spike in young girls who declare themselves non binary on their way to trans man? I’m genuinely curious. There has to be a common instigating factor. Statistics don’t lie. The incidence of homosexuality in both males and females has remained stable for years. There has been a literal trans explosion.
AGPs are getting younger and younger due to online porn. Blanchard studied them mostly prior to the internet porn era.
No, AGP does not cause adolescent boys to imagine that they are girls. Nor are young women motivated to call themselves as "nonbinary" or then move on to seeing themselves as "trans men".
This is an excellent book that explains some of the reasons there has been such a surge in adolescents becoming obsessed with their so-called "gender identity:": https://www.amazon.com/Irreversible-Damage-Transgender-Seducing-Daughters/dp/168451228X
There are actually several "instigating factors".
*Young people are being force-fed transgender ideology by "progressive" teachers and other school staff, including school counselors.
*Social media and the isolation of children and adolescents due to school closures because of Covid has greatly increased social anxiety and other anxiety among younger people.
*Social media also boosts social contagions, particularly among young females (Young females are always more prone to social contagions.)
*Kids are being told that normal adolescent insecurities and confusions about sexual orientation, the changes in their bodies during puberty, and the overall adolescent search for "who am I" actually means they "might be transgender".
Here's another excellent book about this:
https://www.amazon.com/Lost-Trans-Nation-Psychiatrists-Madness/dp/1510777741
There are excellent interviews with both Abigail Shrier and Dr. Miriam Grossman on Youtube.
These are two websites with lots of excellent reference materials about why young people are being caught up in concerns about "gender identity":
https://segm.org/
https://genspect.org/
Autogynephiles have gender dysphoria, often worse than HSTS's. This is well documented throughout Blanchard, Lawrence, etc. I also observed it first hand.
For those who do not know, HSTS refers to males who want to be seen as women who are attracted to men or females who want to be seen as men who are attracted to women. This means they are homosexual. Autogynephiles are males who are attracted to females, I.e., heterosexual.
Compassion, yes. Debilitating loss-of-function elective cosmetic chemical and surgical sex trait modifications, no.
Reading this brings tears to my eyes. I am well aware of the shame and destruction that porn can bring, particularly when viewed at a young age (mine was 7). Despite my efforts, I am still battling this constant addiction. Thank you for taking the time to write this.
It is better to continue battling than it is to surrender. Thanks for sharing, and I said a prayer for you.
I agree. Thank you @Murray_HR 😊🙏
Wow. This is powerful. I am a female ER doctor who treats girls and women in the aftermath of sexual trauma and mental health crises. I just want to applaud you for taking a stance and sharing your voice.
My best childhood friend was shown hardcore porn by her stepfather. It twisted her into a double-life of being a "normal" girl and one who was sex-obsessed. She entered prostitution as a young woman and ended up running a brothel. She eventually got out of it, got married, had two children, but her understanding of "love" was permanently damaged.
As parents it is urgent that we speak with our children about porn (in age-appropriate ways) and why it damages our hearts and minds. If children know that they can talk about what they accidentally, or purposely, encountered online it can help keep them from spiralling into porn addiction. Having devices only in common areas of the home, not bedrooms, can help avoid temptation and development of secrets.
Smartphones are "pocket porn". One of the most helpful ways to support children in avoiding porn exposure is delaying phones, and opting for simple flip phones.
Thank you Freya for this crucial wake up call to parents!
Smartphones are pocketporn. That term needs to go viral and parents need help with protecting their children from the harmful effects of porn.
This is why I wrote a piece last week calling on parents to stop giving smartphones & tablets to minors. Otherwise, internet porn is impossible to protect our kids from. Moms, we must protect our girls (and boys). And I believe we have a moral, and Biblical, obligation to do so.
https://dearchristianparent.substack.com/p/dear-christian-mom-of-boys
"Gazing into screens instead of eyes; preferring pixels over people; this whole numb retreat from one another."
Wow!!! That hit hard. So accurate and sad...
Excelllent article—thank you for writing this.
Such an important topic. Thank you for writing this.
"This is liberation, though. This is what we call progress, having everything except our humanity. Having intimate access to anything we want, except each other."
Heartbreaking and true. Thank you, Freya.
I cannot even begin to quantify the amount of times I have seen online conversations or had in-person conversations where something along these lines are uttered in response to a woman who is distraught about her partner’s use of porn, typically from another woman: “porn use is natural, what do you expect from men?!”
To which my response, whether I state it or just choose to keep it in my own head, is “no it isn’t”.
We seem to have confused the natural attraction to attractive people and sexually suggestive behaviors with 24/7 instant access to literally every possible variety of person doing literally every single possible variation of sex act—with no effort or investment required on the part of the viewer.
This isn’t normal, look into history—this is unprecedented. And please, do not be one of those people who compares erotic artwork from the 1700s or whatever to hardcore porn of today, it isn’t the same, everyone knows that, please save it.
Not only is it not normal to access such experiences without having to put some sort of effort into the matter, it isn’t normal to be stimulated in such a manner. This should be obvious, but somehow apparently isn’t to many. It’s the old “common doesn’t mean normal” thing.
When we add in the fact that this isn’t just an adult problem but is now a problem of childhood, the premise should be all the more obvious. The willful ignorance and purposeful disregard of this problem by adults who defend the industry because of their own attachment to it speaks to both the worst parts of human nature and the power of the product. The industry is to blame, but so are individual adults who defend it.
Take two seconds to think critically about history, human nature and the world we live in and realize that just because we grew up with it doesn’t mean this is healthy and fine.
perfectly stated thank you
All true and also far reaching in its impact. This has impacted the millennials and genx demos as well. Online porn been a creeping, insidious force that has disoriented relationships and forced us into an ambivalence about intimacy. We have a declining population rate that I think has some attribution to this issue because it has disincentivized real-world emotional/physical longing. Not only does it traumatize, but sex, like so many other things that have been outsourced to the virtual space, becomes something we can engage in a disembodied way. The most embodied experience becomes remote and perfunctory - hidden behind a screen or a paywall. We don’t have to “bother” to build connection, go on a date or explore the art of seduction. That last part seems so cringy and quaint as I type it out, but so much of our civilization’s art and literature comes from the power of longing and mystery. When everything, including sex, is just a click and a password away, in some weird liminal space where there is no accountability or humanity, why make the effort otherwise.
Breaks my heart. This is the tip of the iceberg. Thank you for discussing it.
Please get this message out! This is root of so much that’s going wrong in our society. Thank you!
We have universalized child sexual abuse. Boys especially are the target and cannot possibly consent to their reaction to discovering our culture’s foul open secret.
The appalling influence on the english language of this putrid product is one of the worst aspects of this horror show.
For me, the gaslighting was the worst part. For a decade when I mustered the courage to admit and talk about my daily "porn" use, every counsellor or therapist (usually a woman) looked at me strangely and said some version of "but that's ok, everyone watches porn” - like that was supposed to be comforting, instead of brutally demoralizing and trust-destroying. The media actively promote it. Academics justify it with their ridiculous “studies” as harmless. I felt like I was trapped in the invasion of the body snatchers. We need a “me too” for boys, and a call for accountability from academics, educators and media who whitewashed this for decades.
I’m over 5 years off of it now but my self-respect is still decimated. I wanted to be a teacher but couldn’t bring myself to look students in the eye, how could I since once a day I was visiting Pornhub to look at women masturbate. IT IS A DRUG STRONGER THEN CRACK. It destroyed my integrity and there was zero understanding, only insistence that the shame I felt was the problem, not the fact that I was traumatized by it, and angry at the gaslighting about something so obviously terrible. The consequences Freya describes hit me like a truck 15 years ago as I knew this was happening, and no one seemed to believe me or care. Everyone laughing and ignoring it was worse than the actual act. The inability to articulate this or get anyone to listen drove me to resent society. I am dumbfounded at our unwillingness to look at its connection to incels, school shooters, p diddy, Gisele picot, human trafficking, male loneliness, female depression, sextortion, virulent online misogyny, lack of trust in each other etc.
Read this article to the end for a perfect example of media, political and academic collusion on this issue.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/trudeau-poilievre-porn-age-verification-1.7122645
An example from current Canadian high-school sex ed:
https://thirstyforthetalk.org/learn-the-lingo/
https://thirstyforthetalk.org/no-filter-questions/
"Porn":
Pictures/film/litterature that is highly sexually explicit, showing individuals having sex or in sexual situations. Legally, individuals watching porn, and individuals in the porn material, must be over 18 years of age. The purpose of porn is to sexually arouse.
Example: “My friend really enjoys watching porn.”
What is furry porn?
This is a type of pornography containing images, videos or animations of animals having sex. Reach out to us if you have questions about your situation and want more information.
Powerfully written. My heart goes out to you 💛