I have never been a fan of pornography and it’s not because I am over 50. It’s simply that I just consider it demeaning on either side of the divide and disgusting in the main. For the boy who is pleasuring himself (how gross), and for the girl who is in the video, in pornographic pictures’, I have never seen anything more self inflicting. My friend Dr Otive Igbuzor says the girls I see in horrible videos are victims and do not even know that they are in a bad relationship with porn business which erodes their every essence and self-esteem. In the past the women were the ones thought to be used and abused in the perpetuation of a multi-billion dollars business (estimated at 10-13 billion dollars a year). Erotic video vixens have been considered the bad girls of the music industry but stories from the back streets of the music industry tell tales of slavery, drugs and emotional abuse. The tales of the music video industry worldwide cannot be told without the big names in the industry named in the money-yielding erotic business. A lot of very successful well known international music acts invest heavily in pornography turning innocent teenagers into their business. It starts quite innocently. A star struck girl or even boy begins to get really excited when she sees a superstar she admires. She is so star struck she can do his bidding. Then he takes advantage and before you know it, she is dancing naked in his video. She feels privileged but this is often the beginning of emotional abuse by the star, his agents and his minders. To sustain this buzz and in order not to feel shame, she is soon introduced to drugs.
The psychological effect that pornography has on the females involved in this is better imagined; low self-esteem, poor relationships, suicidal tendencies etcetera. The women are also often abused by pornography business owners who lead them into serial sex with all manners of men for the business that in the end they are damaged sets of women whose depravity and depression affect society in the long run in many more ways than we can imagine.
Generally men are considered the beneficiaries of pornography while women are the victims but in recent researches and surveys, the dangerous effects of pornography on men are incredibly daunting. Apart from its addictive nature men who have admitted to being addicted to it since they were twelve, downloading pornography for all of their teenage years, have come clean admitting that they have greater difficulty in their lives with erectile dysfunction otherwise known as ED. The condition which affects men between the ages of 19-40 who were practically brought up on pornography is causing a huge disruption to the sex and reproductive life of our once curious young men and destroying their reproductive lives.
Every respondent interviewed for the Time magazine of April 18 2016 which devoted 8 pages to the challenges being faced by young men in respect to ED, describe their fear of actual sex and actual relationships after years of consuming porn from regular content to many violent ones. Church, a 25 year old part-time wild land firefighter in Portland Oregon started downloading explicit pictures since he was nine years old.
When he got to his senior high year of high school and an opportunity came for a relationship he had a complete disconnect between what his mind wanted and the reaction of his body. He simply could not get the hydraulics going and suffered porn-induced erectile dysfunction.
In addition to all of these is the fact that porn celebrates the degradation of women and normalizes sexual aggression such that the British government has begun the process of requiring porn sites to verify the age of their users or face a fine. Shortly after, the Utah legislature unanimously passed a resolution to treat pornography as a public health issue, according to Time Magazine.
As for women and girls, pornography presents women as who they are not, and the harmful effects are that violence and the degradation of women continue to be accepted by women who indulge in these unwholesome activities. It is a very sad thing indeed that both women and men are destroyed for the sake of profit, disgusting human behaviour and depravity.
Nigeria must begin to find ways to check adult content as the effects, as shown by Time Magazine, is the real danger of destroying an entire society. In times past sex was not such a big issue among teenagers and only married persons even talked about it in whispers. I do not even know what to make of twelve year olds downloading strange stuff. Times have changed, true, but we must guide our children and protect our society. Truly sad tales everywhere these days! Tip: What are your boys and girls watching on-line? Make sure to check. It may destroy their lives.
Eugenia Abu
