Pornography & Unrealistic Expectations
A couple of years ago, in January of 2017 to be exact, Pornhub released their annual yearly digest which featured Egypt as one of the countries to view motherly and lesbian-related porn during 2016. In case you’re unaware, Pornhub is one of the most popular pornography websites on the internet. Unsurprisingly, that year, Egypt turned out to be the country with 44% of the Middle Eastern area that searched Google for explicit terms for porn. These two facts made headlines multiple times in a slew of articles online. With porn consumption on a constant rise, we can only assume that these numbers have only grown worse over the years.
You might be wondering why a rise in porn consumption is such an alarming fact. Well, that’s because pornography isn’t just an explicit video of two people having sex, it’s a catastrophe in the form of digital media. It is statistically proven that porn has been the cause of ruining relationships for a multitude of reasons; sexual dissatisfaction, mistrust, lack of attraction towards your partner and sexual uncertainty are some of those reasons. Porn promotes unsafe sexual practices and that is a big problem in and of itself. It also promotes human trafficking and encourages objectifying people and that can closely relate to an increase in sexual harassment. In extreme cases of porn consumers, they end up wasting so many hours viewing porn, self-isolating and it might turn into addiction at one point.
Considering Egypt is a very conservative country, sexual topics are rarely discussed with teenagers and young adults. So what do teenagers do when they’re stuck and don’t understand something? They usually rely on trusty Google to understand. What begins as an innocent search to cure confusion turns into a curious tread into the jungle that is the porn industry and ends up being where these poor teens receive their sex education. Most, if not all, teens and children have learned about sex through porn. I can’t stress enough how unsafe and worrisome this is. Unsurprisingly, most of these teens and children are boys since Egyptian parents tend to give their sons much more freedom and privacy than their daughters; a huge unsupervised window where the boys can easily stumble upon porn without their parents’ knowledge.
On the other hand, boys who receive proper sex education are mostly, if not always, closely related to a gynaecologist. Relatives who happen to be gynaecologists, especially ones who are women, usually set out to properly educate the boys to erase ignorance and promote healthy sex lives. They teach them about healthy practices, infections, how the male and female reproductive systems work, and what to do and what not to do.
Pornography sets unrealistic expectations about sex. They are arranged scenes after all. What boys fail to know when they first get into porn is that a great portion of it is just acting. What you see in porn is not what happens in life. Porn paints sex as this act where everyone looks perfect while having sex and various kinks are showcased to be the norm. Body standards are blown out of proportion with porn actors and actresses and the innocent boys who have no other point of reference consider them to be the everyday average. They become insecure about their bodies and start demanding unrealistic beauty standards from their partners.
It should be known that sex is a messy act. Mistakes will be made here and there because it is a new experience and it takes time to learn and get used to. It’s not going to be all romantic all the time like portrayed in western movies and it won’t be all animalistic and unhinged as portrayed in porn. Your experience is yours and your preferences should be greatly taken into account. Just because a porn actress can do something, doesn’t mean all girls can do it or have to do it. Just because porn actors have certain abilities, doesn’t mean all guys can do it or have to do it. Bodies of all shapes and sizes, men and women, are beautiful no matter what the world tries to force on you. Try to be less self-conscious and enjoy this beautiful experience with your partner. Communication is a crucial thing in sex. Partners need to clearly state their limits, what they like and dislike, and their expectations and establish a safe zone to discuss their sex life. There should be no shame in this.
Lastly, I’d like to promote providing sex education classes in school. This will receive outrage, yes, but children must be properly educated even when no one is expecting them to have sex until marriage. Children need to learn about their bodies and how they work properly to eliminate the stigma of loving your body. Teaching children in school about sex will reduce the chances of them needing to go online and research on their own about it and end up stumbling upon porn. And if schools refuse to do it, we need to follow the example of the gynaecologist relatives and teach the children at home, both boys and girls. Awkwardness and shyness are to be expected when these conversations occur but it’s important to push through and have them in all seriousness for the good of everyone involved. I hope you consider my message for happier and healthier new generations.