How old are most girls when we first realize that we can turn off safe search? What about when we’re first told that our virginity makes us special? Girls’ teenage discoveries of online pornography tend to coincide with puberty and the first pressures to keep themselves pure. This dangerous combination makes it near impossible for teenage girls to develop a healthy sex life.

The rise of the internet has made cheap, easily accessible pornography a staple of sexual awakening. With this availability, old stereotypes are beginning to crumble, including the idea that only men enjoy pornography. Unfortunately, at about the same age that girls first gain access to porn, they begin to face the reality of a slut shaming culture.  Statistics show that 52% of fourteen year old girls have watched pornography, according to covenanteyes.com. At age 14, girls begin to be sexualized by men, putting pressure on them to act a certain way, and many start experimenting with sex. According to the Guttmacher Institute, less than 16% of teens report having had sex at age 14, but that climbs to 48% of teens by 17. While the availability of porn may help to dismantle misconceptions about female libido, it also creates a dangerous environment for young girls. In a slut shaming culture, porn has the ability to influence inexperienced girls to an exceptional degree.

While porn may be fun, its role as an introduction to sex can lead to insecurities and dangerous misconceptions. As long as a slut shaming culture persists, porn will be the main exposure young girls have to sex, giving those teenagers a very skewed idea of a normal sex life.

The Problem With Slut Shaming

The misleading and sexist aspects of porn are more of a concern in a world where porn is the main source of sexual exposure and information. Unfortunately, this is the situation in much of the United States. A lack of proper sexual education goes hand in hand with a slut shaming culture, creating a hostile attitude toward open, honest discussions of sex in real life.

Slut shaming is often aimed at girls and women who enjoy an active sex life. Women are told that having too many partners or enjoying sex too much is a shameful thing. Therefore, it is difficult to have a public discussion or pass on advice about sex without being negatively labelled as a slut. By saying that a woman who is knowledgeable about sex is also immoral, slut shaming makes it difficult for women to pass on honest advice about their sexual experiences.

Slut shaming also puts unhealthy pressure on girls who are beginning to learn about sex. Even admitting that you watch porn can be considered scandalous for a girl. If a young girl is beginning to think about her own experiences with sex, she is quickly met with a barrage of social commentary, telling her not to sleep around or to enjoy sex too much. Women who have a full sex life are described as dirty or emotionally damaged. This narrative is present in many sex education programs, especially those that focus on abstinence. In these programs women who have had sex are compared to pieces of chewed up gum. This can have a serious emotional effect on a young girl who has no access to honest conversations about female sexual pleasure.

Slut shaming presents only one narrative about sex: that girls shouldn’t sleep around or enjoy sex. This cuts off methods of discussion about sex outside of pornography and can also make young girls feel guilty for exploring through porn. Porn can then exacerbate this effect by displaying shameful depictions of female pleasure. Altogether, slut shaming creates a culture where girls are embarrassed to ask about the realities of sex, leaving them vulnerable to dangerous misconceptions.

The Problem With Porn

Most adults know that porn isn’t necessarily realistic. There are a lot of discrepancies between a performance and actual sex. Mainstream porn misrepresents the realities of sex, including a lot of the more practical issues. It also creates very skewed ideas of what both women and men want from their sexual partners.

Porn often likes to skim past some of the most important parts of a typical sexual experience. This happens because the awkward or practical moments of sex aren’t always “sexy.” These moments may not be ideal for porn, but they are incredibly important in real life. In short, porn tends to skip over the “three C’s”: consent, condoms, and communication.

Consent is rarely shown in porn, despite being an essential part of real sexual experiences. An explicit question about going further is almost never asked, instead depicting that implied consent is enough. This leads young girls to believe that they have somehow silently consented. It also removes the red flags that should pop up when someone doesn’t explicitly ask for consent.

Likewise, porn rarely includes birth control or methods of STI prevention. In real life, asking someone to put on a condom and waiting for them to do it may not always be the sexiest moment, but it’s one of the most important. Girls who learn from porn are more likely to believe that pulling out is effective, or that “it doesn’t feel as good” is a valid excuse to skip the condom. It’s fine to hook up with the guy who brought you pizza with extra sausage, but don’t trust him to be STI free.

Finally, mainstream porn tends to ignore the amount of communication that is required to have enjoyable sex, especially with a stranger. Laughing about awkwardness and explaining what you like are important parts of sex, especially early on, and they’re rarely shown in porn. Instead, porn seems to show everyone wanting the same things. Women want bigger, longer, and harder. Guys want easier, louder, and bustier. This could not be further from the truth. In reality, sexual preferences come in all different forms. Porn doesn’t convey the importance of paying attention to your partner and learning what they enjoy.

While the errors in porn may be glaringly obvious to an adult, they’re not so obvious to a less experienced teenager. These unrealistic representations can be highly influential and harmful, creating an expectation of sex without communication or precaution.

Slut Shaming in Porn

Porn also reflects the slut shaming that is prevalent in everyday life, beginning with the myth that only boys watch porn. A slut shaming culture says that girls won’t watch porn because they have less interest in sex, a myth that is unfortunately prevalent. Clearly girls and women are watching pornography, but women are not being represented fairly in what they’re seeing.

While feminist porn exists, a lot of porn is sexist. Women in porn are often shown as wanting to have sex with men for personal gain, rather than because of their own interests in pleasure. The narrative of a woman sleeping with a delivery man in order to avoid paying, or sleeping with her boss or teacher to get special treatment, is ridiculously common. This idea perpetuates the stereotype of women being unlikely to enjoy sex just for the sake of pleasure. Sluts are depicted as opportunists instead of normal human beings who happen to enjoy sex.

The sexism in porn is also obvious in “lesbian” porn, where girls pleasure each other for a clearly male audience. The women in the porno are referred to as “friends” so that there is no concern that they might be more interested in each other than a man. (These women also commonly have ridiculously long nails that would make any lesbian sprint in the other direction!) The production of porn that masquerades as LGBT, but is actually aimed at straight men implies that women only hook up with each other for the attention of men, not for their own pleasure or sexual exploration. Once again: porn perpetuates slut shaming ideas. Young girls who use porn to learn about enjoying sex may begin to internalize these ideas, even believing that they are immoral or unfeminine for enjoying pornography.

The Solution in Sex Education

Some people think that the answer to these problems is to make porn harder to access or put restrictions on the pornography industry. In reality, that’s unlikely to solve the problem. Teenagers have been getting their hands on porn since well before the first computer. A few crackdowns won’t stop them. Instead, teenagers need to be offered a more realistic view of sex from a source they can trust. Being offered an honest, straightforward conversation about healthy sexual relationships is the best way to make sure that teens aren’t getting all their ideas from porn and the best way to combat a slut shaming narrative.

According to the Guttmacher Institute, only twenty-two states and the District of Columbia mandated sex education in 2015. In over half the country, schools are able to skip educating their students on any sort of sexually transmitted diseases or safe sex practices. In the states that do provide sex education, it is often incomplete, dishonest, or both.

Providing sex education that honestly addresses the fact that teenagers have sex opens the door to complete and effective education. By avoiding abstinence only programs, teenagers can be taught about how to use various methods of birth control and protect themselves from STIs. Sex positive education should also include discussions of consent, ensuring that teenagers understand how to communicate with their partners. This helps spread awareness of the importance of affirmative consent, instead of just the absence of the word “no.” An open discussion of sex removes the stigma present in a slut-shaming culture and depicts sex as something normal and healthy as long as everything is safe and consensual.

Sex education also needs to acknowledge the reality of sex. Like porn, traditional sex ed. skips over discussion and fumbling. It does not give teens advice on how to deal with the awkwardness and comedy that often comes with early sexual experiences. Sex positive education addresses sex as a reality of life instead of putting women and their virginity on a pedestal. By speaking honestly about sex and showing teenagers that their experiences are normal, sex positive education can provide a productive discussion about a healthy sex life.

The problems of porn and slut shaming go hand-in-hand in a culture that simultaneously sexualizes women and condemns their sexuality. Both of these issues can be addressed by providing teens with universal, honest, complete sexual education. While the issues surrounding poor sexual education affect both genders, this is especially important for teenage girls. Without accurate and available sexual education, girls are left without a viable outlet for sexual discussion. This cycle leads to a higher chance of insecurity and vulnerability surrounding early sexual experiences.

The slut shaming that suppresses discussion also forces porn into the role of an educational tool. In the end, it is a slut shaming culture that puts teenagers at risk of dangerous misconceptions about what constitutes a healthy sex life.