What wаs once considered а top-shelf guilty secret hаs turned into а mаinstreаm culturаl hаbit with аccess for аll, at the touch of a button, and with the popularization of smartphones available at our fingertips at all times swiftly and privately. Porn not only offers us entertainment in the form of explicit content it also shapes the way we behave in bed, defines sex and worst of all it acts as a new channel through which young people learn about sex and intimacy while at the same time they are telling us that it is liberating.

We are currently living in a society where pornography acts as our de facto sex educator merely used as if it was an instruction manual. This is mainly due to the fact that sex education in schools — in some even non-existent — both in developed and developing countries usually don’t fill the gaps when it comes to porn, sexual consent, and relationships, only focusing on the biological mechanical parts of the sex.

A survey carried last year in the UK among British adults found that online pornography, sexting, abuse, and violence are topics that they said should be tackled in class. It’s imperative that governments ensure that sex-ed goes beyond biology. This will prevent sexually transmitted diseases and sexual aggressions, not only in schools but altogether in society.

Porn represents a wide cultural influence we can no longer ignore. The industry skews our perceptions about sexuality, intimacy, and marriage, ultimately distorting our reality which damages the way we love and how we perceive sex and relationships. Just like advertising, sex shown in pornographic films isn’t real. It’s an imposed fantasy, an illusion. In the real world: penises come in different sizes and shapes — this also applies to body types — erections don’t last for impossible amounts of time, people have unshaved pubic hair, sex isn’t hard, painful and quick — at least not all the time.

Real life sexual experiences happen in a social context. Sexual engagement can be incredibly complex since it’s a form of human communication and interaction. We can’t expect adult film studios to understand in a vacuum such an intricate human concept.

A growing body of evidence suggests that most of the time porn portrays a toxic version of what natural sex should look like. An unequal sexist version fabricated typically for men, and on top of it, the industry dictates what’s appealing and what should be considered sexy and what not in bed. Pornography eroticizes and normalizes violence in the form of kink and fetish, but also through aggression and control. This is dangerous since the only sex education some individuals have gotten entirely comes from the industry itself. We are in front of a huge sex social epidemic when the twisted unrealistic fantasies shown in adult content become a reality, this hugely contributes to a mainstream idea that violence in sex — usually against women — should be tolerated and desirable, but also enhances a culture of harassment which in the past year has had an incredible fallout.

“Most commercial, mainstream pornography presents women in very narrow and callous and hostile ways.” — Michael Flood, Sociologist

The porn that is being produced and sold to us is full of ideas and beliefs that are completely distorted, and that are in fact, opposite of what real sex, love, and relationships are like. Loving-healthy relationships are built on respect, equality, honesty. But in porn, this is quite the contrary, there, love and sex are based on domination, control, disrespect, and violence. Sweet, affectionate, caring interaction doesn’t sell, but degradation and abuse do. And there’s something deeply disturbing and concerning about an industry who profits from that.

A recent study has found that the 50 most popular pornographic videos had a staggering 88% of scenes that included physical aggression, 48% of scenes included verbal aggression as well. The researchers observed a total of 3,376 aggressive acts, including gagging in 54% of scenes, choking in 27% of scenes and spanking in 75% of scenes where most of the violence featured was largely towards women and girls.

Surprisingly, porn even damages our marriages and relationships. Research has shown that married couples who start watching porn are twice more likely to divorce than those who don’t. For women, it’s even worse, the chance of a woman splitting is three times as likely if they watch it alone according to the American Sociological Association.

Nowadays, more men and women have the constant extreme habit of seeking an external sustained feeling of pleasure and reward, we do it with social media, alcohol, gambling, and sex it’s also part of this dopamine equation, this ultimately supersedes aspects of our functioning lives and relationships.

Research suggests that porn triggers a neurological response that impacts intrinsic feelings of pleasure and reward subsequently distorting and damaging the brain. In addition, pornography hijacks the proper functioning of the brain and has a long-lasting effect on the consumer’s lives and thoughts. All of this is particularly harmful to those people prone to problematic and addictive behaviors.

“Pornography is pornography, what is there to see? Movies are attempting to destroy something that’s supposed to be the most beautiful thing a man and a woman can have by making it cheap and common. It’s what you don’t see that’s attractive.” — Nancy Reagan

Porn film studios frequently coerced performers — usually women — into rough-violent scenes they previously hadn’t agreed upon. Several advocates argue that the problem goes even further stating that these nasty practices fuel human trafficking.

Solutions do exist. For starters, porn companies can produce movies with realistic sexual content that can be used constructively as an educational tool. As consumers, this is a societal problem that should concern us all. It seems sometimes that we are powerless when it comes to big consolidated companies, like the porn industry. But in order to bring change, we need to tackle these issues by making more informed decisions about factors that damage the way we behave sexually.

We also, as adults must hold adult companies accountable for unfair representations of gender, sex, power and aggression, and to work along with young people to aspire to relationships and sexuality that in the end are respectful, loving, mutually nurturing and fully consenting. Online communities like NoFap on Reddit are helping young men and women with their porn habit addictions and are making a lot of progress in the past 7 years. For some members the forum it is a means to address concerns with their adult content consumption, while others see it as a means to healthier relationships.

Powerful companies like Pornhub could, for example, address social needs as part of their core business and try to produce or host more realistic kinds of content as a way to help sexual literacy. Policymakers and educators should work along with adult content providers and companies on how they can use their platforms to communicate a more comprehensive sexual experience for their users, especially young uneducated ones. This is a more integral and effective way of making social change.

Governments should examine the influences of porn, and come up with plans to promote respectful, equal and pleasurable roles for all genders, taking an inclusive approach that comprises the realities of sex, pleasure, and gender issues. Simultaneously, sex education should be compulsory in all schools and as Conservative MP Maria Miller told The BBC “Parents and children know they need help and that is why I want compulsory lessons at school to help children better understand the signs of an abusive relationship, issues such as consent, and the harm that is done by sexting and underage viewing of pornography. Better relationship education can help children handle these pressures better.”

We urgently need to spark the conversation about sex, love and intimacy in our society, so big porn companies won’t have to do it for us.