Is Online Porn Leaving Kids Too Sex-Savvy?
Oct. 28 -- A college student at Duke University clearly remembers how he crept into his parents' bedroom as a boy to find a cache of pornographic magazines that his parents had hidden away.
"My little friend was over at my house, and my parents were gone, and we decided we were going to look for pornography," the male student, who chose to remain anonymous, told 20/20's Lynn Sherr in 1993. His friend suggested that the porn could be hidden in the same place his parents hid his birthday presents — his mom's closet.
"And so we went in there, and there was this big box up on the shelf. And we opened it up and there were like tens and tens and tens of Playboys and Penthouses and things and, you know, it's just like porn bonanza," he said.
A decade later, young boys don't have to sneak around looking for porn. The hard-core images known as "adult entertainment" are everywhere. Go online and you'll easily find it on the Web, or in your e-mail in-box, regardless of your age or gender. Porn finds you at home, at work, even at the library — usually through uninvited spam.
But experts are concerned that boys who access pornography early on are spoiling their future sex lives. Exposure to porn can make young men less inhibited sexually, because they've seen it all, said Laura Berman, a sex therapist and the director of the Berman Center in Chicago.
"But it can also make them more inhibited, because they've never been involved with a real, live person, who has needs and feelings, and limits," said Laura Berman. "An Internet woman never says no, so she's easier to deal with than a real woman."
Porno Pop-Ups at Age 10
The sexual images on the Internet have a definite impact on young boys, who are now getting pornography pop-ups on their screen, Berman said.
"You become de-sensitized," Laura Berman said. "After looking at hours of Internet porn, sex is no longer exciting, or titillating. For these young men, who grow up watching these images and seeing them as ideal, they are disappointed by real women and real experiences."
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