One of the last things that Thomas Crooks reportedly searched for on the internet before he tried to assassinate former President Donald Trump was pornography. It’s brought the taboo issue of pornographic addiction back into the limelight.
“What we have to understand about pornography is that it literally rewires the brain,“ says Clare Morell, senior policy analyst at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. ”Their prefrontal cortex—which is that part of our brain responsible for our self control, our impulse control, emotional regulation—isn’t fully developed till the age of 25.”
Morell is an advocate for child protection and a leading voice in the conversation about digital safety. She’s also the author of the forthcoming book, “The Tech Exit: A Manifesto for Freeing Our Kids,” which looks at the disastrous effect that pornography and other violent and sexual online content has had on society.
Watch the video:
“Kids don’t even need to go looking for it anymore. It finds them on social media,” says Morell.
Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Jan Jekielek:
Claire Morell, such a pleasure to have you on American Thought Leaders.
Clare Morell:
Thank you so much for having me, Jan.
Mr. Jekielek:
Clare, the Daily Beast reported something very odd about what the FBI source discovered on the phone of Thomas Crooks, the would-be Trump assassin. After he had communicated with his parents, his last internet search was for pornography. What is happening here?
Ms. Morell:
It’s shocking. Why in the world would he search for pornography right before he tries to assassinate Donald Trump? It speaks to how addictive internet pornography is for this generation, because of how common it is and so easy to access. Kids don’t even need to go looking for it anymore—it finds them on social media.
The nature of pornography is to addict its user. If it becomes addictive, then it’s not surprising that someone would be turning to their phone to search for it to get that next dopamine hit. We have to understand that pornography literally rewires the brain, and it rewires the brain in several different ways.
The first thing is that it creates habitual neural pathways, so that the person needs to continue to access pornography due to such a high level of dopamine being released in the brain when they view this type of content. It actually rewires the brain to need that level of dopamine and to actually crave it. This neurotransmitter is released in the brain as a pleasure hormone, but it actually creates cravings so that your brain will repeat that activity.
We have to understand that this is not just kids stumbling across their uncle’s Playboy magazine. It is online, interactive sexual experiences that children are being exposed to, which are extremely violent, which are eliciting this dopamine response that is highly addictive, and which rewire the brain to constantly crave more. It also desensitizes the brain to the pleasures of the natural world due to the level of stimulation provided by online pornography. People constantly crave it and they need more. The normal everyday things around them don’t elicit that response, so they actually become desensitized to things in the real world.
It’s a really alarming problem that many people are not paying attention to. It is the stealth public health crisis of today which is having these mental and physical effects on children, especially at a stage when their brains are still developing. It is habituating children into becoming addicted to something that is inherently harmful to their bodies and their minds. This is having an impact on children’s relationship formation. It is also having a societal-level impact on the children accessing this type of content.
Mr. Jekielek:
What you’re describing has an effect not just on children, but on the whole society. The same phenomenon happens to adults. It’s just that children’s brains are a lot more plastic. Please give us a sense of the scale of this. We’re going to talk about kids today, but this actually applies to adults as well, except the legal dimensions are a bit different.
Ms. Morell:
To your point about the plasticity of children’s brains, that is why we are particularly focusing on kids, because their brains are still developing and those neuron pathways are being formed. If they’re formed towards pornography, it’s going to be very dangerous and hard for them to overcome the addiction. On the prevalence scale, it’s very hard to measure these things. A lot of the surveys that have been done are self-reported. They interview teenagers to understand how many have accessed pornography, if they came across it accidentally, and how often they access it.
A recent survey in 2022 by Common Sense Media was done by a group of teenagers. It found that over three quarters of teens have accessed pornography. The study was done on 13 to 17-year-olds. They found the average age of first exposure is age 12. The majority of these children are encountering it for the first time accidentally by clicking a link that they didn’t understand was going to send them to a pornographic website. This is extremely prevalent.
Part of this is because kids today are carrying smartphones around in their pockets. They have 24/7 access to this type of content. We’ve never had this before. Historically, it would actually be very difficult for children to come across porn, and they would have to intentionally seek it out.
But now with social media, children don’t need to go looking for pornography, it just finds them. A curious child lingering over a post on social media can get quickly sucked down a very inappropriate and dangerous rabbit hole of sexual content. Then the app’s algorithms go to work and just continue to put more and more of that type of content into the child’s feed.
We’ve seen the average age of having your first smartphone decrease to ten-years-old now. That average age of porn exposure being 12-years-old is only going to decrease further. The reality is that we have literally given children computers in their pockets with access to all sorts of apps where they’re just stumbling upon this horrific content.
Mr. Jekielek:
They will find all sorts of things that will be very enticing, but they can’t remotely understand the consequences of looking at it.
Ms. Morell:
Kids are very naturally impulsive. They’re not thinking through the long-term consequences and they’re just naturally curious. Big porn is preying on the natural curiosity of kids. They’re putting this content out on all of the social media. There’s a symbiosis between pornography sites and adult apps, like OnlyFans. These porn performers and porn websites are actually going to social media to recruit new users.
It’s very easy for a kid to stumble across it and think, “Oh, what is this?” They just click on a link without even thinking further. Their prefrontal cortex, which is that part of the brain responsible for self control, impulse control, and emotional regulation, isn’t fully developed until the age of 25. It’s tragic that these children whose brains are not fully developed are being thrust into a very adult online world, without the ability to handle it. I’ve summarized this as saying the great digital paradox of today is that kids have access to adult content more than ever before in human history.
This is the kind of world that they are thrust into.
Mr. Jekielek:
They have access to all sorts of adult content that even adults haven’t had access to throughout history.
Ms. Morell:
Absolutely. This is at unprecedented levels, and never before seen in history because of the technology. At the same time, children have never been less prepared to handle it, because their brains are not fully developed. When they are accessing this social media technology, the constant dopamine hits that they’re getting is stunting the brain’s ability to develop that prefrontal cortex. This reward circuitry of the brain is really overtaking the emotional and self-control aspects of the prefrontal cortex. The technologies have been designed to hijack our brain’s natural vulnerabilities. Their brains are being wired a certain way that is detrimental to their well-being and to their ability for long-term success in life.
Mr. Jekielek:
They are also getting mixed messages about how to deal with such things. There is this snowballing effect of the many factors that get someone through that door and start getting them hooked.
Ms. Morell:
Yes. Let me explain what exactly is going on, so we can understand what is happening. The online world today, not even the most extreme pornographic websites, but social media like Snapchat or TikTok, is full of this type of sexualized content and it’s sending a message. We have to understand that the medium is the message. The message of this medium of social media is that sex is normal, including for children, and includes violent and aggressive sex.
Children are on social media and they want likes and followers. They’re incentivized to post very sexualized photos of themselves. They think it’s normal because the content that they’re taking in is very sexualized. The porn companies and the Big Tech companies are really hijacking children’s vulnerabilities.
This is happening on apps where parents are not fully aware of the harm that is on there. In Snapchat, a very common, popular app for young kids, with four clicks, a child can get onto the Pornhub website. The For You feeds page on Snapchat often advertises this type of content. The parental controls don’t work inside of these apps. If you’ve installed a filter on their phone, you’ve activated a setting that prevents access to adult websites.
What parents don’t realize is that there are browsers within the social media apps. If a child clicks on a Pornhub link inside of the Snapchat app, they will be brought to Pornhub’s website, all within the app, which is something that the parent can’t see into. The filter is not given access to work inside of the app.
With smartphones and hundreds of apps, there are just thousands of portals to this type of content that are incredibly difficult for parents to oversee effectively. This really is a dire situation. That’s why a lot of my work focuses on trying to help pass better laws to back parents up and to protect our kids.
Mr. Jekielek:
You’re suggesting that the medium is the message, as Marshall McLuhan proposed. You were saying that in social media, the content is inherently sexualized. Can you qualify what you mean by that? That’s not necessarily obvious.
Ms. Morell:
Yes, let me explain. Social media is designed to incentivize people to try to get as many followers and likes as possible. It’s an entire ecosystem based on metrics. It’s not based on relationships—it’s based on metrics. How many people are following you? How many people have liked your photos?
By nature, humans are drawn to sex and humans desire sex. Children are curious about this, and not just children, but adults as well. What starts to trend on social media is the more sexualized or racy or extreme. It’s not just sexualized content, but also extreme content, violent content, and the most sensational stuff that preys on our vices and basest desires. It’s really sad that they are preying on these aspects that the human brain is naturally curious about or drawn to.
This content tends to trend the highest on social media because the algorithms pick up what people are liking, what they’re lingering over, what they’re watching, and then it quickly feeds them more and more of that content. Children are on these platforms and they want friends and they want followers and they want likes. They understand that the more sexualized photo and the sexy selfie is what garners likes, so they’re incentivized to post that type of content. It really drags children into this adult world.
A Harvard professor, Leah Plunkett, did some research on TikTok live spaces where she found that viewers were kind of urging and egging on young girls to perform acts on TikTok live streams that towed the line of child pornography. She said that it was like going down the street to a strip club filled with 15-year-olds. This is not something that our children should be encountering or being incentivized to do. But the online world is encouraging this, so it just spirals and feeds on itself.
Mr. Jekielek:
What is big porn?
Ms. Morell:
Big porn is the businesses that are producing these pornography websites and selling porn. The biggest one that people would know about is Pornhub. People see that it’s a free service, so how are they making their money? Similar to Big Tech, big porn is pivoted to this advertising model where they provide the content for free, but they’re making money off of ads. They’re trying to get people hooked, so then you will pay for their premium service which is an ad-free version.
There are these huge companies and Pornhub is the biggest. They have created websites where you can go and access this type of pornographic content. They are commodifying the content and selling data to advertisers. Advertisers are their business model and that’s how they are making money. It’s a very predatory industry, in the way alcohol or tobacco or other predatory industries are. They try to addict users to their products so that they'll continue to want more and more and buy it.
In this case, childhood innocence is the collateral damage. They’re putting their products on social media and catching young children in their nets, who are then drawn to this type of website. That’s how I would define big porn. These are the companies that run the websites that are behind the content that is being promoted on social media.
Mr. Jekielek:
Pornography is a big issue, but it’s not really talked about. The Thomas Crooks connection is the first time I’ve seen it talked about in a while. It just doesn’t come up very often.
Ms. Morell:
One of the things that is difficult about pornography is that there’s a stigma to it. It’s difficult because it is such a sensitive topic to be discussed publicly. But if we’re going to protect children and make a difference, we have to be willing to have the hard conversations. Because of how ubiquitous it is, people often feel implicated by it.
Here is a statistic to help us understand an Australian study in 2017. When asked about pornography use, 100 percent of 15 to 29-year-old men had seen or viewed pornography. In that survey, they could not find a single 15 to 29-year-old survey that had not viewed it. To the point about how the smartphone and the Internet and social media have changed the nature of this, everyone is now affected. Everyone has come across this or seen it.
Unfortunately, because it is so addictive, it can very easily hook people and draw them in. It becomes a shameful struggle where people don’t even know how to talk about how they feel so drawn and addicted to this. That is the power of it. When it hooks and addicts people, it makes it very difficult for them to reach out for help or to talk about this publicly.
People often feel guilt or shame for their addiction, and I really feel for them. I’m not trying to shame people who have become addicted to pornography, because it’s actually not their fault. Big porn has designed it this way to prey on our human weaknesses and vulnerabilities. We have to be willing to take them on to get to the root of the problem. We need to say, “Yes, we want to shut down access for kids, and try to make it as difficult to access as possible.”
But we have to really go to the root of the problem and address the porn companies in order to help people become freed from this. Anecdotally, I know lots of people who have struggled with this for years and they’re actively trying to fight it. To do so, they basically have to lock down all their devices, just like an alcoholic who can’t even have a sip of alcohol. If they were an alcoholic, they would have to completely shut off access, but it’s difficult when it’s the internet.
Mr. Jekielek:
There needs to be some kind of accountability system like Alcoholics Anonymous or something of that nature.
Ms. Morell:
Yes. Addiction scientists define what is addictive by how much dopamine the activity or the substance releases. Drugs like heroin or cocaine are highly addictive because they release an unnaturally high amount of dopamine. Studies have found that online, interactive pornography has a very similar effect. It releases a very high level of dopamine, which means that it’s inherently addictive, because dopamine creates cravings. As soon as they’ve seen it, they want to click to watch more and they want the next hit.
We do have to treat this as a very addictive substance and regulate it the same way we have regulated alcohol, tobacco, and drugs. We know they are difficult for people to resist and harmful to health and development, particularly to that of children. We cut off the root of how people are getting access to this. But it’s very difficult when it’s on the internet and it’s something that is in our pockets 24/7.
Mr. Jekielek:
When you talk about dopamine, I also think of oxytocin. Much of this problem has to do with the fact that the device is with you all the time. It makes it harder for you to have those human relationships, which in turn also drives that cycle. You see people walking around with their phones or you see a family sitting there and everyone is staring at their phone.
Ms. Morell:
Yes. There’s a real difference between dopamine and oxytocin, which Arthur Brooks has mentioned in his studies about happiness. Both dopamine and oxytocin are related pleasure hormones. But dopamine just creates a craving so that you repeat that activity which just gave you that experience of pleasure. It actually doesn’t create satisfaction in the brain. It’s actually just creating a constant craving for more and more.
Whereas we get oxytocin from real life interactions. That hormone is released from eye contact and physical touch. It’s actually the hormone that bonds us to other humans. It bonds mothers to their babies. It bonds husband and wife. It bonds friends because we’re interacting and we’re experiencing oxytocin when we’re in person together with eye contact and physical touch. It helps create bonds of trust, mutual love, and the responsibility that we need to survive and thrive as a civilization.
The online world does not produce oxytocin. It produces these shallow connections, not real relationships, and it’s all based around dopamine. Every time kids get a like on their post or a new follower, they get a little hit of dopamine that draws them back for more. I’ve explained to parents and policymakers that when you put screen time limits in place, the screen time limit isn’t sufficient. Even if they’re on for only 15 minutes a day, they’re going to be constantly craving more.
The online world will dominate their mental space the rest of the day. They’re going to be thinking about who liked their photo or who started following them. They will think, “I have to go on and check.” It is this constant urge to go on and look and get that next hit of dopamine.
Pornography does the same thing and creates this dopamine response. You just want to view more and it’s never enough and you never gain satisfaction. From a civilizational standpoint, we’re wiring these kids to become dopamine addicts and dopamine-addicted users of social media or online pornography. They’re not able to form relationships in real life.
There have been studies that show that oxytocin isn’t released through a screen. Even when you are on a Zoom call and talking to someone through the screen, you’re not actually getting oxytocin. It’s something that can only happen in the real world. If we’re allowing kids to inhabit the virtual world and they’re growing up completely online, then what does that mean for the formation of marriages and families, the building blocks of civilization? What if kids aren’t able to develop and learn how to form relationships in the real world—relationships that bring true happiness and satisfaction?
That is something that we are now seeing. There are rising rates of loneliness, anxiety, and depression. But also there is a movement of people that are becoming more connected than ever. That is because the social media connection is so shallow. It’s all based on this dopamine that just creates craving for more. It doesn’t actually bring satisfaction and happiness.
Then what do we want for our kids? We want their long term success and happiness. We need to focus on helping them inhabit the real world and form real life relationships. Studies that have been done on happiness show that the number one predictor of success as an adult and of life satisfaction is childhood self-control.
People who learned and developed self-control and the ability for delayed gratification became the happiest adults. Social media and online pornography in particular undermine that ability to develop delayed gratification and self-control. We’re really eroding away the foundation that we would want to build for a life of happiness.
Mr. Jekielek:
Pornography is a heightened version of a lot of these online interactions, which prevent the development of normal human interactions. Then it creates a certain level of isolation.
Ms. Morell:
Kids are inherently habit forming. We’re trying to help them develop habits that will make them an independent, successful adult. Allowing them to become habituated towards screens really just caves in on them. It’s creating dependency and addiction to these devices, or to the terrible content that they’re coming across online. That is something to really pay attention to. Children are being shaped and influenced by something, and they’re always being formed. What are we allowing them to be formed by?
Mr. Jekielek:
There is not much out there about teaching delayed gratification. It would be good for both children and adults to have that knowledge. Everything today is all about instant gratification.
Ms. Morell:
Yes, and it’s all hyper-novel and you'll never run out of content. The social media feed is designed to be infinite. It’s called Infinite Scroll or autoplay, these features that are always feeding you more. It’s really teaching our children to become consumers. It’s teaching them that life is about endlessly consuming content.
Whereas, if you ask most parents, they want their child to be a contributor to society. But the screens are working towards the opposite goal of what parents really want. They are just training our children to consume and to be mindlessly entertained. They are stunting their ability to be creative and to be productive.
Mr. Jekielek:
You have given this a lot of thought. I’ve been reading Jonathan Haidt’s book. He advocates for removing screens from schools altogether, and he celebrates every time that happens. What is your opinion on this?
Ms. Morell:
I have a book coming out next summer called, “The Tech Exit: A Manifesto for Freeing Our Kids.” The reason for the title is because I’m pleading with parents to push these technologies out of childhood entirely. I am saying that smartphones and social media are too dangerous and too harmful to children. The harm reduction measures that Big Tech and their libertarian allies and even pediatricians have proposed to parents is that you can mitigate these harms with screen time limits and parental controls. I am saying that is not possible.
The level and the nature of the harms can’t be effectively mitigated by screen time limits and parental controls. I’m urging parents to not accept the premise that these technologies are an inevitable part of childhood. You can actually give your child a childhood free of social media and smartphones and other interactive screens. We can protect their childhood and their brain development so that they can enter adulthood as a successful, independent adult with agency and freedom and self-control and delayed gratification.
We don’t need to accept these technologies as part of childhood if we know that they’re inherently harmful for kids, and they’re also harmful for adults. But there’s a deeper concern with children, because their brains and bodies and habits are still being developed. We want to protect this period of special vulnerability, so that they can develop into mature and healthy adults.
I try to explain to parents that this actually is possible. Parents and families have done this and they are flourishing because of it. The book really tries to create a positive vision of what childhood can look like and what is possible when we leave these technologies behind.
Mr. Jekielek:
But even if you do that, they’re still going to get exposed to these technologies.
Ms. Morell:
Yes, we can’t completely shield them from technology today.
Mr. Jekielek:
The steps that you are describing still cannot be a completely full measure. Is that even possible in this day and age?
Ms. Morell:
No. The greatest challenge to parenting in the digital age is that these technologies have become ubiquitous and unfortunately, ubiquitous amongst children. My book tries to encourage parents about what they can do. I suggest creating a home and a family that is free of these technologies. The greatest influence on a child is their home and their family, so if we can make these spaces free of these technologies, that will go a long way.
But you’re right that it is not enough. The book also addresses what communities can do together. Parents can actually band together with other parents and families in their neighborhood, school, or church to say, “Together, let’s not give these devices to our kids.” Then your child actually has friends and peers who are also device-free. They’re playing outside with each other and doing activities together.
Even if you can find just four or five other families, it’s a really powerful antidote to the digital age that we live in. If you can create these communities where childhood is full of running around outside, playing music, playing games, and not just being tethered to a screen. The book also addresses what schools can do. Schools can take another step towards protecting the student social environment from the influence of these technologies.
The final chapter of my book addresses policymakers. I say that in the past, when we as a society recognized that something like tobacco or alcohol was harmful to children, we did not leave it to individual parents. We said that for the common good and the sake of childhood health and well-being, we would push these things out of childhood entirely. I’m advocating that lawmakers should do the same when it comes to social media and particularly online pornography, and make sure that that is age-gated and age-restricted to back parents up.
The last thing I'll say is that no parent can perfectly protect their child. I do believe it is parents’ job to do everything in their power to protect their child, but we also have to prepare our children. I do encourage parents that the best way to protect their kids is by preparing them for when they come across something that is pornographic and how to respond in that situation. Parents need to have those conversations with children early and often, knowing that the age of the smartphone has decreased to age ten and knowing that the age of porn exposure is now age 12.
I really encourage parents to start talking to their children early and often, saying, “If you come across something, I want you to tell me. I want you to turn away and look away. I want you to talk to me about it. You’re not going to be in trouble for coming across it. But I want to have you talk to me. I want to help you through that.” This is so that parents become the go-to source.
Because children are naturally curious and you want them to turn to their parents and not to the internet or their friends to find out how to navigate this. There’s both a role to protect, but we also have to be very clear-eyed that this stuff is surrounding them constantly. We also want to prepare them for how to handle it if they come across something.
Mr. Jekielek:
What does that conversation look like? Maybe you’ve had one.
Ms. Morell:
Sure, I’m happy to talk about that. I should just be clear, I’m not yet a parent of tweens or teens. My oldest child is four-years-old. But I have lots of friends who are parents who I’ve had these conversations with, and I asked them to model this for me. An organization I would recommend to parents is called, “Protect Young Eyes.” Their founder, Chris McKenna, talks about, “Ten before Ten,” which means ten porn talks before the age of ten.
He explains that the porn talk is not some long one-time, sit-down conversation where you explain all these things to your kids. It’s just daily reminders like, “Hey, if you see something inappropriate or that makes you uncomfortable on your friend’s phone or your friend shows you something, I want you to talk to me about it.” Again, you are reassuring them that you are a safe space where they can come to you with those questions or that experience and you can then walk them through it.
I would recommend a book, “Good Pictures, Bad Pictures,” that I read to my four-year-old. They have, “Good Pictures, Bad Pictures, Junior,” where they talk about how there are good pictures and there are bad pictures. If you come across a bad picture, the book explains that you should close your eyes or turn away from the screen. Then tell your parents or a trusted adult what you saw and let them help you through it.
It explains that bad pictures are pictures that show private parts or a person does not have their clothes on. Like there’s language you can use even with young kids to introduce what is a bad picture and saying that this is not something to be looking at. I would really recommend this to parents.
I don’t think that the age of four is too early, because you want them to understand that we don’t look at those kinds of pictures, and that your parents will help you if you come across them. There are a number of states that have passed laws related to restricting access for kids to pornography.
Mr. Jekielek:
How effective are these laws, given what we know? What else can be done?
Ms. Morell:
This is one of the most encouraging aspects of a really sad problem. We really delved into the kind of harms and the sad reality of online pornography that kids are coming across. But the positive news is that states are stepping up and passing these laws. Over 12 states have passed laws requiring age verification for pornography websites. That means if you click on a link to PornHub to access the site, you have to prove that you’re over the age of 18.
These laws are going to have an incredible impact. They are having an impact in the sense that PornHub didn’t even want to comply with the law in seven states, so they are not going to give access to PornHub in Virginia or Texas. Pornhub is actually pulling out of states in response to some of these laws, which is a victory in itself.
But the bigger victory is about when a kid in a state where one of these laws has been passed accidentally clicks on a link to PornHub inside of Snapchat. This is where the parental control filter can’t reach. Now, if the child were to click on that link and get brought to PornHub’s website, they’re not going to be able to see anything. They would have to show that they are over the age of 18 and verify their age.
It’s going to block kids’ access and keep them safe from this type of content, which is a really critical piece of the problem. We are now able to block these websites that we don’t want children to access, so they will effectively be blocked from accessing them. That law has passed in 12 states, and in seven of those states it has gone into effect. PornHub just decided they don’t want to do business here, so they aren’t even offering their website at all in those states.
The fight is not over, in that a lot of these laws are being litigated. The big porn companies are suing and trying to enjoin them. They say that the laws restrict adults’ access to free speech, because pornography is considered free speech. But obscenity is not free speech.
With many of these laws and particularly Texas’s law, the definition of what kinds of websites are blocked is narrowly defined as, “material harmful to minors,” which focuses on obscene content. That type of speech is not protected even for adults.
These laws have really been narrowly crafted and narrowly tailored. The age verification technology that we have today means that adults can verify their age in very easy, quick, and anonymous ways. This is not going to place a burden on adult free speech. For those reasons I do think it passes constitutional muster. But that will be litigated before the Supreme Court.
The law out of Texas was upheld by the Fifth Circuit. It was appealed up to the Supreme Court and they granted cert. This will be a very pivotal case for the future of many of these laws. We will see what the Supreme Court does with this law, but I’m very hopeful that it will survive the constitutional challenge.
Mr. Jekielek:
We live in a very complex time. You are talking about adult rights vs. children’s mental health and then deciding which is more important.
Ms. Morell:
It’s not even just children’s mental health. We have wrongly weighted adult rights over and above protecting our children. The kind of content that the kids are accessing online, and what is being advertised and promoted to them on social media is not your uncle’s Playboy magazine. It is by nature violent, graphic, degrading, and dehumanizing.
It portrays things that are shameful for even adults to watch. It’s just it’s horrific to imagine that children are watching this. There are things like rape and choking and slapping and kicking. Again, it is just violent, degrading, dehumanizing porn. One of the top trending searches on Pornhub is incest porn. Trans or sissy porn is also on the rise. It’s just extremely violent and graphic.
To me, children being exposed to this online is akin to child sexual abuse. They’re being subjected to an interactive sexual experience where extreme violence is being depicted. We know the effects it has on the brain, but it’s not just their personal mental health and development. It’s also the societal impacts that this is going to have, because children are being habituated to believe that sex is violent. Their expectations for a relationship are being completely warped in a very degrading, dehumanizing way.
I'll just share this last anecdote. A teacher in Ireland surveyed his high school students on what they thought was expected of them from the other sex in a romantic relationship. The girls expected to be slapped, choked, kicked, and be submissive in a very aggressive type of interaction. The guys thought they were expected to be with a stranger, be with as many people as possible, be domineering, be aggressive, and slap, choke, and kick.
These are actually the societal level effects of pornography. Think about the building blocks of marriage and the family. We want children to form healthy relationships and not think that this kind of violent interaction is normal. Children imitate what they see and their mirror neurons are very strong. What they behold on the screen they feel compelled to act out and to imitate.
We are now seeing rates of child-on-child sexual abuse that we’ve just never seen before. ER doctors and nurses are seeing instances of child sexual assault, such as an 11 or 12-year-old boy assaulting a four to eight-year-old girl. There have been reports of students acting out sexually on their teachers at school.
We shouldn’t be surprised, because we already know children are natural imitators. They are easily influenced by what they are taking in. If that is what they’re taking in, then that’s what they are imitating. That is what they are acting out on others and what they are expecting to be part of a relationship.
There is a deeper concern here, beyond the individual mental health of children. That is a key part of it, but there are also the societal level effects from our over-prioritizing of adults’ right to access this type of speech, vs. actually protecting our children and the future of our country.
Mr. Jekielek:
We will be covering this topic a lot more on American Thought Leaders. Clare Morell, such a pleasure to have you on the show.
Ms. Morell:
Thank you so much Jan.
This interview was edited for clarity and brevity.
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