One of the greatest lies ever told about pornography is that it's harmless. It's not. But youth often believe it is.

Stats show that ~90% of teenage/young adult boys and ~60% of girls view porn on a weekly or more often basis. Suffice it to say that their perception is their peers are all viewing it. Even if you've raised your child and done your best to teach them that porn is "bad", your child is going to be looking around and see all of their friends viewing it and think "how bad can it really be?".

Eventually, they'll get a taste of porn. Whether intentional or not, dopamine will fire and they'll feel the reward circuitry in their brain loving it. It's difficult to smell a delicious cookie, to take a bite out of it, and not eat the whole thing. Every time they pick up their phone, they're going to be faced with the temptation of taking a bite out of the "cookie" (aka view porn). The frequency with which we're all tempted, but especially youth, is borderline unbareable. Youth spend more of their awake hours looking at a screen than not. 100% of the screen time spent on leisure sites (as in, not for school/work), is going to be spent on websites/apps that have a financial incentive to keep your child coming back for more. That's how those sites/apps make money when the service is "free". They give your child something fun/entertaining/attention grabbing to view, and in exchange they sprinkle ads in. In order for this to work though, your child has to keep coming back to the website/app.

Well, guess what type of content captures attention? Sexual content. Guess what type of content is addictive? Sexual content. Guess what type of content keeps the average 15 year old boy coming back? Sexual content. Sure there are plenty of other types of content out there that aren't sexual, but because sexual content is so good at helping these sites/apps make a profit they aren't ever going to get rid of it. Even when the site explicitly bans pornography, users posting their own content will push the boundary of what is allowed, creating extremely sexual content that may not, but some fools definition, be "porn".

So now your child is opening their phone to check tiktok/instagram/youtube/etc 200 times a day, and every time they do they see images/videos designed to capture their attention using sexuality to do so.

It's no wonder they eventually get their hormones raging and click a link on the pretty girls profile that happens to take them to their onlyfans (porn) page. The first time it happens they may close it rather quickly--they were just curious they weren't wanting to view porn. But that split second is enough for the dopamine to fire.

Give it a couple of days or weeks, and when the stresses of life hit, they're feeling sad/lonely, they'll pull open their phone, be bombarded again by the sexual images, they'll remember that "good" feeling their brain had when they clicked that link. They click it again. This time they look for more than a few seconds.

Eventually they start going to the porn page directly. Then they find other porn pages. Then they're viewing porn every week. Then it's every couple of days. They it's every day. Then it's multiple times a day. In short, they're hooked.

But guess what--no one knows they're hooked. They don't publicize how often they view porn--it's always done in private. They don't even realize how hooked they are. The sad truth, is you don't know how "hooked" you are until you sincerely try to quit porn. And not just quit for a day or a week, but forever. It's not until you actually try to quit, that you realize how strong porn's shackles are. This is delayed consequence #1--the addictive nature of porn is hidden out of view from youth, and they don't experience or see it (either in their own life or in that of their peers) until they're already neck deep in the problem themselves.

Delayed consequence #2 - porn wrecks relationships. But it doesn't wreck all relationships. It wrecks long term relationships. Close relationships. Romantic relationships. It wrecks the types of relationships that are the bedrock of marriage, which happens to be the foundation of the family which is the foundation of society. But teenagers aren't having long term romantic relationships. Most last a few months, perhaps a year or two. It's not until their in the 20's or 30's that they actually start thinking about marriage. When your child has finally found their hopeful future spouse, they'll have to decide to come clean about porn or keep it secret. Porn is literally the critical failure of their future marriage. This is why I've said the best gift you can give your child for their future marriage is freedom from addictions, porn being the most common.

These are some thoughts I've had over the past few years about why it's so difficult for teenagers to avoid porn. I know there are other arguments too, but the fact that porn's consequences are delayed, often by decades, makes it very difficult for a child to understand. I hope this helps someone out there.