As someone who has engaged in sex with younger men (avg age) and with friends outside of the sex industry who have done the same - we have found this aggressivity to be surprisingly popular. Condoms are also not brought up as an option by them. Very different from our peers who came of age during the AIDS crisis.

We’ve had this conversation before, but amoung peer groups and YA communities where a majority of them are seeing loads of porn before having any RL sex experience, the sex they’re having is starting out modeled by porn. And a lot of it is staying that way. Too, when it comes to sexuality, most of us imprint with our earliest experiences in a pretty deep way, so with those for whom all of their initial sexual experiences are pretty porny….well.

(You also have to bear in mind that while it’s easier for adults whose sexual experiences have varied from porn to tell the difference between reality and media, it’s not so easy for the teens, especially since they’re in a generation where from very early on, the lines between reality and media have been very blurred for them. This is a generation who have come of age AFTER the start of reality TV. Too, a lot of porn — as does plenty of other media in any fantasy genre, but with porn, often, I think all the more so — purposefully blurs that line. It rarely bills itself as fiction. Too, their web skills aren’t as savvy as many adults think, and most of them are not finding the indie stuff, and in the case of the young men, they’re usually that interested in seeking alternatives out in the first place.)

I don’t see the gangbang-as-reality so much as I see things like blowjobs as mandatory, facials as an often-given, women being passive as sexy, a total lack of discussion during sex or negotiation before, women needing to be able to reach orgasm without any activity really centered on them, as well as — and I’d say this is what they express most — the young women needing to be sexually available 24/7 and also aroused (or faking it very well) 24/7 for male partners. They also express pretty pervasive pressures for threesomes, and — of course — those in which there are two girls. Women needing to present for sex (lingerie, makeup, etc.) and men not needing to even so much as wash their freaking hands is another biggie.

And for sure, some of these sorts of things are by no means coming JUST from porn, and a lot of them are ALSO coming from television, Hollywood film, etc.. And I’d agree with you: I think the body-image issues, sparing implants and the like, are coming less from porn than from fashion and mainstream media. It’s safe to say that women’s bodies have never been presented realistically in media culture, period. This isn’t new.

I just know there’s a disbelief I can’t suspend because I talk to a lot of kids every day who bring up these kinds of issues without my bringing them up, and discounting what they are saying and expressing doesn’t strike me as apt or fair: I don’t know better than them per what their experiences have been, per how they feel porn is often a real problem in their sex lives and partnerships, etc.

Regardless, I think we’re in the same sort of spot that some of our parents were with say, the strong media messages of the 50’s. In other words, those were pretty forceful messages that were rarely tempered with discussion about them, critique and questioning of them, etc. I think that you also have to consider the fact that for a lot of them, porn (or the word “no”) is their ONLY sex ed, and how then, it might be understood without other messages. In other words, this is a media-saturated culture, and one not friendly to really impressionable minds, or those without some solid critical thinking skills, AND without strong interpersonal skills and esteem. I think if the conversations about it are had, the deconstruction of it is done with them, and the recognition of the fact that it’s NOT some tiny or insignificant thing for them they can easily seperate from reality — or that their partners can — an awful lot of the problems it presents can be relatively easily mitigated.

But not without acknowledging their reality and what, in open discourse, where they don’t feel like they have to give the “right” answer, they have to say about it. I was pretty amazed, even hearing from them as I had, when I did the surveys for the book to see that in the paragraph I asked them to talk about pornography, a majority of them were pretty strongly anti-porn, and not because of concerns about worker exploitation, but because of the way it made them feel, and the impacts they felt it has on them and their sexual lives. THEY have strong criticisms of it, so I’m pretty certain it’s not really fair for any of us adults to dismiss them because our experiences may have been different than theirs, or for any reason, really.

(Sorry, went on a bit there, but I’m saturated in this, every day, from a perspective few people ever even see, especially on a large scale.)

I so love kink.com too. They are the best. I wish they’d hire me as a model. :D