Porn affected my perception of sex from a very early age

Growing up, watching pornography seemed to be the normal thing. Porn was casually talked about at school all my friends would watch it and openly admit that they did so. Porn was introduced to me from a very young age, like most of my friends, through social media (Instagram etc.). I watched it throughout secondary school, finding it extremely hard to give up. It affected my perception of sex from a very early age, with little education and discussion at school what the realistic expectations should have been.

At the time, I wish I had known how much porn affects your brain at that age, and how it rewires your dopamine systems and builds unrealist expectations. I think I would have approached sex differently not having watched porn. One thing I did not realise until much later in life was how porn affects how I saw myself. It gave me a completely unrealistic idea of what I, and people around me, were supposed to look like. Everyone in the porn industry would have similar body types, even though I knew it was staged and edited, it still got into my head. I ended up putting pressure on myself to look a certain way, instead of accepting that everyone is different. I feel like porn creates a lot of body image issues among teenagers and they don’t realise it.