Reason Magazine discusses Billie Eilish's porn problem

There are grades of porn. Some pornography is so tame it's disguised as 'romance' but it is still produced with the intent to illicit arousal. All art is defined as the deliberate and intelligent arrangement of elements designed to illicit a set of specific responses in the spectator. Porn is very narrow in that it is designed specifically to illicit one simple response, which is arousal. How it gets there is very complex and involves a lot of creativity, but everyone's nervous system is basically the same in this regard. the things people find arousing, according to their specific demographic, is actually very predictable.

BDSM, humiliation, degradation, and depictions of non-consensual scenarios are all no more destructive to the mind than a Nightmare on Elm Street film or a Grand Theft Auto game. These are images, ideas, and sounds that are all entirely faked/performed with consenting actors, and in some cases it's just something someone typed on a computer.

Billie Eilish might have a trait known as "Hyper phantasia" where a person can be so engrossed in the images one conjures in their own mind that it actually supplants real stimulus from the real world. It is perhaps the culprit behind what is known commonly as "Attention Deficit Disorder".

Coupled with anxiety and trauma it can develop into a compulsive behavior that can be damaging, but not necessarily. I'm not talking about just porn either. Media of any kind could be compulsively used as a way to escape reality or distract from reality. People binge watching netflix or playing farmville or refreshing social media to put themselves at ease because the problems inside the screen are much simpler and clearer to solve than the ones in real life. And the problems in real life are made unnecessarily more complex and difficult and more expensive because of idiotic government regulations. Guess what will not and has not ever solved a problem? More Government.

If porn is so all-consuming that you can't bring yourself to change your baby's diaper or hold a job or clean your house or maintain normal hygiene, then your problem isn't actually porn. Porn is just what you do to distract yourself while your problems pile up. it could be anything else, like videogames or other forms of media. The problem is general lack of self-control and executive function.

That's not to say media is bad. Media is actually what gives meaning and value to humanity at all. A world without media, art, music, and games is just what cockroaches live like. We might as well devolve back into bacteria if we eliminate culture and art. we should be working towards making more art, not eliminating it.

I also hate to have to tell you this because we should all understand this: Porn isn't addictive.

The word "addiction" has a real legitimate meaning. It's a neuro-physiological phenomenon that is actually decently understood, and pornography simply does not qualify as being addictive. When people say "porn addiction" it's like saying "flightless airplane". It means nothing. It's categorically different. All the research is in, there are no neurochemical dependencies associated with porn of any kind. It doesn't lead to withdrawal symptoms. There's no such thing as a porn 'craving'. People tend to seek porn compulsively out of boredom, anxiety, depressed mood, or in the midst of a real drug addiction, but when people are physically incapable of viewing porn after many years of daily porn consumption, they don't fall apart. People generally have other hobbies, interests, or distractions they can engage in that takes its place. And if someone says they 'can't masturbate without porn' or 'achieve arousal without porn', all they need to do is wait a few hours and try again. Use their imagination. Do other things to excite themselves.

Is it a good idea for an 11 year old girl to watch extreme hardcore porn? Without question it's not. But a lingerie catalog doesn't necessarily hurt. A fan fiction about Agent Mulder having a romantic fling with Doctor Who is maybe not harmful. An animation of a dragon fellating a unicorn on rule34video is not necessarily going to give someone nightmares. I think early exposure to this kind of 'gentle' porn that emphasizes beauty, pleasure, kissing, hugging, caressing, and expressions of love wont warp any young person's mind. Knowledge of sexuality should be taught to young people. -not that I'm saying we need 'porn for kids'. Perhaps what we need is educational media that can teach kids about sex, masturbation, and erotica, that isn't explicit, but also doesn't conceal or hide the truth, so if they do look up porn, which they shouldn't, at least they can avoid traumatizing themselves and know where to begin rather than wander into the extreme rough stuff. Same could also be said for kids looking up images or videos of real world violence in general, like videos of animals being tortured.

Any time a kid views any image of someone being hurt, without a deep understanding of what violence really means is going to be harmful. A lot of kids are still physically beaten by their guardians to this day, or witness their guardians abuse others in their household. All of this is far more traumatizing and brutalizing to the psyche than an image or a story on a screen. Violence inside a screen is usually (the exception being on the news) not real. A kid can be told it's pretend. For a show. No one is really being harmed. No one is being put through anything they didn't agree to. Tom Cruise breaks his leg doing his own stunts because he wants to. We all know this, we get to watch the behind-the-scenes and see how the special effects are done.

This doesn't usually happen for porn. There is Behind The Scenes content of porn shoots, but it's not usually bundled with the actual scene that people view. An extreme porn where a woman is being slaped in the face, stepped on, penetrated roughly, hair pulled, spit on, etc. is all stuff the performers discuss like a legal contract beforehand. This isn't shown because it can ruin the 'fantasy' of those seeking it. But a kid doesn't understand this is all pretend in the same way a Mission Imppossible movie is pretend.

When kids who experience real-world violence view violent media, all it does is further normalize it.

When kids are guarded from real-world violence, taught that violence is only acceptable as self-defense, and they have parents that protect them from violence rather than inflict it, and they view violent media, it shows them a depiction of violence in a safe way, through a screen, with the understanding that it's just pretend, and that it's supposed to illicit a feeling of dread, misery, and revulsion.

A kid that gets beaten by their parents every day that plays Mortal Kombat feels nothing when they see the game characters being dismembered and disemboweled. A kids that has loving caring parents that plays Mortal Kombat feels nauseous.

Perhaps what should have happened for Billie is that someone should have sat her down and had a frank and open conversation about BDSM in real life and in porn, what real world violence is, what fantasy violence is, and how consenting adults can play pretend for fun and mutual enjoyment. But also how this is not ALL there is. Sex isn't JUST whips and chains. There's much more to porn than OW, MY ASSHOLE: GHETTO EDITION 14. There's also a lot of porn of men being degraded, subjugated, enslaved, tortured, bullied, beaten, by women or other men. Cuckold porn is all about the masochistic jealousy experienced by men. But a lot of young boys see this material and think this is real. They think the Big Black man is taking all their potential future partners and legitimately feel depression and guilt about being aroused by it and don't understand it's all just a story. Pretend. Fake. They don't even understand why they are aroused by it. They don't know what masochism is at the age of 12.

People have to educate themselves about kinks, pornography, all the types of porn, the scientific research on what people like, why they like it, as well as the reality of the industry of porn itself. And they also have to understand that not all porn is just videos uploaded by studios. There's also plenty of animation, hentai, video games, dating simulators, virtual reality, online role play, and erotic literature. Printed Pornographic images of women engaged in sex acts with octopus date back to the 1800s. Rest assured, cavemen have been creating and viewing erotic images since before agriculture was invented. Parents have to get over themselves, be involved in their kid's life more than not at all, and be somewhat aware of the traffic running through their phone plan/wireless router.

porn viewing by kids should be inhibited by parents, but falling for the trap of religious extremists to incrementally abolish porn or make adults embarrass themselves to access porn is the wrong way to go and sure to lead to unintended consequences that end up making things worse (as is the case with everything the government ever does).

I don't think kids younger than 18 should view content that is excessively violent, gory, depicts rape, and yeah, even penetration. Instead, kids should learn about sex and the procedure of what leads up to sex from films because films are often better at teaching humans about their humanity than most parents. That is if it's a good film. This is up to parents to do. The industry of porn is so multi-faceted that regulating it in a meaningful way that doesn't result in unintended bad consequences is impossible.

Nobody wants to talk to their kids or their parents about sex and pornography, but too bad. You gotta do it. It's just like talking about drugs and alcohol, or learning to drive, or getting a job, or all the other things we need to teach and learn about being a functional human. No one likes flossing their teeth but you just gotta do it.