I was exposed to porn in 4th grade in 2001. Internet porn on the family desktop in the kitchen by 2003. My parents never stood a chance; I knew so much more about computers than they did.
It's a different animal for sure now. It had a subtle but very negative effect on my ability to start intimate relationships. I can't imagine what it would've been like if I was in highschool seeing OF girls on reddit. In the 2000s, there was a distance between the girls I knew and women I saw in professional porn. But now I know college-age women who have given OF a try. Definitely would have further warped my perceptions.
Can you elaborate on how it would have warped your perceptions?
From what I can see, todays porn is no longer an ideal but more reflective of reality, to the point where people that one interacts with in daily life could have produced it (e.g. OnlyFans).
For example, for me when I was in high school/college Playboy ran a series called Girls of the ACC where they recruited contestants from our local state school. This was over 20 years ago, and to me isn’t so different from the effect of OnlyFans, letting “normal” people participate in pornography.
It's not so much just about body-types, but what to expect from intimacy and how to obtain it. I had exposure in my life to women who exerted control on men by withholding intimacy and sex. You know, stuff like "If he wants sex, he has to give you/do XYZ". This was terrifying because as soon as I started getting crushes and feeling attraction, it was an overwhelming emotional force. If I liked a girl, then the sun rose and set with her. If she asked me for something I felt helpless to say anything but 'yes'. It was psychologically excruciating to feel so strongly about these girls.
When it quickly became clear that the girls I wanted didn't feel that same way about me, it did not change the way I felt about them. Combined with the experiences I had of the 'control men with sex' ethos, my powerful emotions for women seemed like a huge liability. There were a few very painful experiences where a couple of my middle-school crushes toyed with me. Flirting with me then turning around and laughing with their friends about what a virgin I was. Looking back, there were girls who were interested in me, but I failed to recognize it[0],[1].
I sort of developed this idea that in my relationships, sex must be established at the beginning as something that won't be 'used against me', and I sought out relationships with sex at the forefront of my mind. If intercourse wasn't going to be established as freely engaged in more-or-less right away, I took that as my sign it was a no-go.
Meanwhile, I found early on that porn was quite enjoyable. Between that, my painful emotional experiences, and popular media almost always culminating relationships in sex, I got the message that sex was 'the good part' of a relationship.
I started evaluating women mostly in terms of how much I would enjoy the sex, not the overall time spent together. It seemed like the only logical defensive position to take. This is where I think OF would be mind-breaking. I'll come back to this shortly.
I largely sought out non-committal-style FWB type relationships. This turned out to be very impractical and I did not find many women who wanted to start a relationship based on sex. In particular, most of the women I was attracted to were turned off by that approach to a relationship. However, I did find a couple, and those relationships really revolved around their sexual aspects. The nuclear core was how much sexual pleasure we were capable of achieving (they were also porn consumers). I'm fortunate that we weren't really drug users, but the sex was kind of like a drug. Chasing higher highs. They were excellent at first, just what I wanted. But the focus on pleasure became unsustainable: I felt my penis wasn't big enough for her taste, she felt like she wasn't petite enough for my taste, etc.
At some point, if you're chasing "the most pleasure" moving into BDSM and/or involving other people (threesomes, DP, orgies, etc.) start to seem like logical next-moves. We got about ankle-deep in this before things got incredibly emotionally messy. But I did recognize that this stuff was kind-of distant from the normal experience. This wasn't "what everyone is doing", it's just what they wish they were doing. Pornstars and rockstars and pro athletes were the only people that get to enjoy these zeniths of sexual pleasure.
I have been fortunate enough to realize that a holistic view of sex is more like "You can make someone feel really good. Find someone who you like to do everyday things with, share hobbies with. Believe it or not, there are women that like the things you like, and long-term, it's more fun and rewarding to share a hobby[2] than see how hard you can make each other cum."
But if OF had been available, and I was 17-23 seeing 18-25 year old girls doing anal and FFM, MMF, gapes, etc. as it is possible to now without paying a cent, I think the effect on me would have been about the same, but multiplied exponentially. Instead of that kind of thing being the purview of rockstars and pornstars, knowing it would be a challenge to find a woman who wanted that kind of lifestyle, I'd be wondering why it's so hard to find one. I'd think that they look so normal, so like the girls that are my peers.
Or, god forbid, younger me falls for a girl he meets somewhere, then she rejects him, and then he finds out she has an OF. That's an absolute black hole of self-loathing.
[0] e.g. A girl from a class asked me if I liked The Mars Volta. In hindsight it was an obvious attempt at flirting. But I was cool. "What? No they're whiny posers. I only like serious punk like Anti-Flag and Rise Against and AFI". Someone please invent a time machine so I can give myself a black eye then explain it doesn't matter what I like THE CUTE GIRL IS INTERESTED IN YOU.
[1] I think the fact that I was watching porn warped how I thought women would express interest. Sex is something that happens after you figure out you get along. But, given that I was watching fairly hardcore porn, I think I figured a girl who might want sex would signal it in a clearly sexual way. 'Intimacy' is probably a better term than 'sex', but I've already written a small essay so I won't get into that.
[2] Or even build a life together, but again, outside of scope.
That perception distortion is relatively easily solved with things like nudist beaches and home sex tapes. Should probably have parents making home sex tapes and swapping with other parents to give to their kids to give accurate perception.
This is probably a very european viewpoint, but I find it amazing how shocked people are by children seeing porn, but don't bat an eyelid when kids are exposed to violence on television or in movies.
The biggest example from my own childhood was WWE (WWF at the time). The simplicity of the scripts etc seemed to be explicitly targeted towards kids who would then, predictably, try to copy the wrestling moves on their friends.
It's a million times more harmful than seeing the human body sans garments.
Obviously there are specific types of porn that I'd be mildly concerned by my child being exposed to, but generally speaking it's the violence and inherently problematic power structures within that are the fundamental issue, not the nudity.
Porn isn't mere nudity, and much of it is extremely violent. It is designed to flood the brain with dopamine. Brains, especially developing brains, which are constantly flooded with dopamine begin to produce less dopamine to offset the flood. Low levels of dopamine cause all kinds of psychological and emotional issues.
Mainstream isn't terribly violent, but it's also not really a good representation of sex that women seem (in my experience and what my lady friends have told me) to typically enjoy. Lots of vids of roided out guys jackhammering until a woman is raw and her mascara is covering her face.
But there isn't really just 'mainstream' anymore. Weird face-slapping or gagging or bukkake stuff is a click away from the front page, frequently in 'suggested videos'.
Oddly, porn is one of the less harmful things an elementary kid can be exposed to. Empty addiction loops are much more damaging, porn just isn't interesting with no sex drive.
