What Violent Porn Taught Me at 13
When I was 13, I met a 32-year-old man on a flip phone, and it was within our first year of talking that he sent me very violent porn. This began the process of being educated about love, sex, and how to be a woman by the porn he sent me.
Many people contact Fight the New Drug to share their personal stories about how porn has affected their life or the life of a loved one. We consider these personal accounts very valuable because, while the science and research is powerful within its own right, personal accounts from real people seem to really hit home about the damage that pornography does to real lives.
“I was very sheltered in my childhood. My parents divorced when I was in 4th grade, and they both became very emotionally absent afterward. I wasn’t educated on sex or porn, and because I wasn’t allowed out of the house much and neither of my parents dated throughout my adolescence, I wasn’t exposed to any real versions of romantic relationships to help me understand what that might look like with a man, or how to engage with a man as a woman.
When I was 13, I met a 32-year-old man on a flip phone that I had been given, which had trials for free chat rooms on it. He was a secret friend for me because I was lonely and wanted to experience some sense of belonging and acceptance from someone. This experience with this man was alluring to me because I felt isolated and abnormal from the other kids around me, and unable to relate to them in many ways, and he gave me compliments and attention.
It was within our first year of talking that he sent me porn, and it was very violent. I felt very upset by what I had seen and knew I didn’t like it. I didn’t want my parents to be upset with me, so I processed these feelings with this man instead. He told me that my reaction was abnormal since most girls enjoyed porn. This began the process of being educated about love, sex, and how to be a woman by both this man’s fantasies and the porn he sent me.
The Abuse Continues
When I was 16, I got a vehicle and decided to drive down to Texas to meet him. I drove down to Texas under the assumption that he loved me because this was the only example of romantic love that I knew. When I got to Texas, he did violent things to me all weekend, but I didn’t register the experience as rape because everything that happened to me matched what I had seen in porn videos for 3 years: my needs not mattering, the violence. Combined with the age difference between us, and the violent things he did, it all matched what I had seen in porn and didn’t register as abnormal.
Related: How Porn Grooms Children to Accept Violence and Abuse in Relationships
For the next 10 years of my life, most of my relationships ended up being very abusive, and the abuse was typically centered around the things expected of me sexually in the relationships. I would feel like a failure as a woman when I was depressed or uncomfortable with doing anything because I genuinely felt that to be a successful woman meant being fetishized and my needs ignored even within a relationship.
Realizing Porn’s Impact
When I began doing more examination of my life, someone asked me how I felt like being exposed to porn as a minor had affected me long-term, and that’s when I realized that the stories of porn had impacted me so much, and it was the voices of porn still controlling me.
Related: 4 Ways Porn Can Warp the Way Women View Themselves
Healing for me looks like asking myself where I am educating myself on love. Am I educating myself on love through unrealistic fantasy-based stories found in movies, porn, etc? For me, I’ve started looking for new stories of real people who have really made their love last and asking them how they did it. And healing for me looks like destroying the “cool girl” trope inside of me and creating my own “cool girl” for myself instead–one who knows how to say no and isn’t afraid to stand up for herself and her own needs/dreams.”
-Edith (name changed for privacy)
Violence in Porn
No teen should ever have to endure the type of abuse Edith did. Child predators often use pornography to groom their victims into thinking abuse and violence is “normal.” We hear all too often from individuals who received most of their sex education from violent porn and how its warped their views of healthy sex. It’s not surprising as 88% of porn videos contain physical aggression, principally spanking, gagging, and slapping, while 48.7% of scenes contain verbal aggression, primarily name-calling. (1) Kids are being taught violence is normal–maybe even a healthy part of sexuality.
Violent porn is common and can worsen cases of domestic violence, normalize violence and abuse for children, and fuel teen dating violence. Like Edith’s story, porn can view the way we see ourselves and others.
It Started With a Phone
Edith first connected with her abuser via a chat room found on a flip phone. Today, through a smartphone, we can connect with millions of strangers worldwide via an endless list of apps and websites. Predators know where kids spend their time and have crafted unique ways to groom, abuse, and violate kids online.
Related: Online Sexual Predators Use Porn to Groom Children Into Sending Intimate Images, Report Shows
According to the NSPCC, 1 in 25 teens between 11–17 years old have sent, received, or been asked to send sexual content to an adult. That’s nearly 200,000 young people in the UK. So what can be done?
TIME’s Best Innovation of 2023: The Bark Phone
Recently, our partners at Bark were one of 200 innovations awarded TIME’s Best Innovation of 2023. Their phone was created to help “parents protect their children in the best possible way from the digital dangers that come with a mobile device.”
Related: Parents, This Is How You Can Spot and Protect Your Child From Online Predators
Their devices enable parents to manage nearly every aspect of a child’s online experience. They’ve set limitations and restrictions to limit a child’s use to talk and text only, allowing the gradual introduction of additional functions and apps. All the while, Bark’s advanced content monitoring works in the background, alerting you to potential dangers, including violent porn like what Edith was exposed to.
Bark is an easy-to-use, smart tool that parents can use to help protect their children online. Bark is the internet safety solution that parents trust and children like if you can believe it. Bark’s affordable, award-winning service proactively monitors text messages, YouTube, emails, and 24 social networks for potential safety concerns so busy parents can save time and gain peace of mind. Best of all, you can try it for FREE for 30 days. Get started by visiting ftnd.org/bark.
Having Conversations With Your Kids
It’s incredible resources like Bark exist to help protect kids online, especially from pornography. In addition to technological safeguards, filters, and monitors, one of the most powerful tools to protect kids is by having honest, open conversations and trust. Even with the very best technology, kids can still be exposed to harmful content, and it’s crucial they feel safe to talk to a trusted adult about what they’ve experienced.
We know having these conversations can be difficult. That’s why we’ve created our Conversation Blueprint to help guide you. This free resource can help you feel confident in discussing pornography with not just your kids but partners and even strangers. Check it out below.
Remember, you’re not alone in this fight. If you’ve been exposed to violent porn, it doesn’t define you; if your child has been exposed to harmful content online, you’re not a bad parent. We’re here fighting with you, and together, we can make a difference.
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Citations
1Authors: Bridges, A.J., Wosnitzer, R., Scharrer, E., Sun, C., Liberman, R. Published October 2010
