By Jamie Ryan
Pornography has never been more accessible than it is in the digital age, and it is changing the way that people understand and perceive sexual relationships – particularly for young people.
While the technology that we have today has countless benefits, there are also plenty of undeniable negatives. One of these negatives is the unmoderated and unlimited access that these young people have on the internet which has exposed them to explicit content and the damage that it can have on their development and mental health.
Unlike other addictions that are spoken about more such as drug addiction or alcoholism – addiction to pornography does not have visual signifiers to those around someone who is struggling and has thus allowed this silent epidemic to steadily rise over time.
The Economic and Social Research Institute (ERSI) conducted research in 2024 that found that 64% of young men and 13% of young women were actively consuming pornography. This research analysed data from over 4,500 participants at age 20 as part of the ‘Growing Up in Ireland’ (GUI) study.
A 23-year-old victim of this exposure to pornography who wishes to remain anonymous spoke openly about their experience with pornography addiction, and how they feel it has impacted their life today. As a college student, he chose to put his studies on hold due to struggles with porn addiction and its impact on his mental health.
When discussing how they were first introduced to pornography, they explained that they had heard several people at school talking about it. “As a young kid you always want to have a look and experiment with what you’re hearing about at school,” he said.
“Pornography gives the wrong idea of what sex is, and it has infiltrated my head as to what sex actually is in my head,” they further explained.
Anonymous stated that they believed that from a government level, there needed to be more policy to regulate the access that people have to pornography through verification.
While here in Ireland there are no definitive plans to impose an age verification on accessing pornography online, in the United Kingdom from July later this year, all websites and social media platforms on which pornographic material can be seen, are required to introduce thorough age-verification checks such as photographic identification or credit card.
Currently, the most popular pornographic website is ‘Porn Hub’, with several billion people accessing the site worldwide each month – and to access the site, all that is required for the user to claim that they are over the age of 18.
This point was echoed by Dublin based systemic psychotherapist, David Kavanagh, who is an expert in helping people of all ages recover from and deal with porn addiction.
“I don’t see why the Irish Government hasn’t put up paywalls – meaning you can’t access pornography unless you are over 18 and have a credit card,” he said.
“From a clinical perspective, pornography addiction is the inability to look at pornography and to cease looking at pornography. It encapsulates the person’s arousal system to an extent that the can no longer control their behaviours,” Kavanagh explained.
Kavanagh explained how he felt that in Ireland, there is a problem with people talking about pornography and that there is a refusal to accept the harmful impact that pornography can have on young people in both the short- and long-term future.
Kavanagh followed on by explaining that; “Having sex with somebody is an incredibly powerful, emotional and physiological experience – but if somebody only sees pornography as their reference point, they only see a physical act.”
Studies from the Sexual Exploitation and Research Policy Institute (SERP) commissioned by Women’s Aid has shown that there are links between the consumption of pornography, and negative attitudes and violence against women.
SERP Director, Ruth Breslin, explained that in their research they found that; “9 in 10 pornographic films show some type of act of aggression – and in over 90% of those cases the women are responding with pleasure to the act. As a result, we can see that these acts of aggression are being normalised and romanticised.”
Breslin explained that naturally, young men in particular, first access pornography out of curiosity and in many cases – it is their first exposure to sexual intercourse and are being presented with an extremely artificial and aggressive act which can change their perspective on women and sex which objectifies women while simultaneously reducing sex to just a mechanical act.
This was further validated by anonymous when they explained that they struggled to not think of sex when around women in their life, because of the fantasy story elements that they have seen in pornography.
There have been online movements to combat this pornography epidemic. In 2021, the hashtag ‘#CancelPorn’ began trending to bring awareness and denounce the porn industry’s negative impact on society. Unfortunately, without more robust laws and regulation from policymakers, this epidemic will continue to worsen whilst the pornography industry profits.