Sex in porn, media, and culture

This is especially true for porn, where bodies and scenarios are exaggerated to fit a fantasy.

We’re not denying porn can be fun to watch — but it can also give us an inaccurate idea of how sex should look and feel.

That’s why it’s important to be critical of some of the stereotypes you see in porn, and to be mindful of how its views and values might affect your own approach to sex and relationships.

📗 Porn is sexually explicit media intended to arouse the person watching. These days, porn is most common in the form of videos on the internet, but there are also images, pictures, magazines, written erotica, and even audio-based porn.

When you want to learn something new, you might search for a video showing you what to do. Porn can be useful in this way.

However, most porn isn’t intended to be educational or realistic. What looks good on screen doesn’t always feel good in real life. One thing most professional porn have in common: It's usually made with the goal of making money, and will cater to the fantasies of the people who pay the most.

Watching, reading, or listening to porn is actually really, really common.

🧐 Did you know?

90% of young people have seen some kind of porn by the age of 16.

However, we don’t often talk about how it’s different from sex in the real world or how it might change how we think about sex and relationships in our own lives.