Pornography plays a vital role in the development of children’s expectations of sex. They see it, and in its current form it means nothing, but later in life they will remember what they first saw. I do.

In the 1990s there was porn, but not like the porn of today. In the UK we had Eurotrash, a late night risky look at europe’s relationship with sex – co-hosted by Jean-Paul Gaultier, of course. Not quite porn, I know but this helped shape my, and many other boys, relationship with sex. Without Eurotrash I would have had to wait until my twenties to realise that women wrestled in jelly, and many other food types, or that breasts came in ridiculous sizes (Lola Ferrari). It had a use, but that will come in a later post.

Porn in the UK, 1990s, was magazine led and the internet wasn’t a thing, yet Pamela Anderson crept into our lives. Pam was on Baywatch, every Saturday we watched it, yep running was fantastic and swimming, CJ Parker was the one we all wanted and then newspapers featured her Playboy spread but apart from boobs, you couldn’t see much – as expected. You had to rely on your mates who lived on the council estates to be corrupted by older lads, they were shown the actual thing and when they came to school and said “You know in Playboy and Daily Sport you can see her *****?”

Moth to a flame springs to mind. This was a different time, when looking back, the objectification of women was everywhere and not in a subtle way at all, we were young but we looked at women naked and we all aspired to see certain things and when we were older, to have certain things. I know that when I looked at a females body when I was younger I loved breasts, but I saw them everyday in one of the UK newspapers, they were no big deal. When I started seeing vaginas my mind expanded, I particularly remember enjoying seeing the vagina from behind, you were able to see it in its entirety and that literally blew my mind as a young kid. Playboy and the like, featuring celebrities naked, basically fuelled the environment we have now when it comes to celebs and nudity. Do you think we would ever have had the fappening without the culture Playboy, or of tabloid photographers taking upskirt images? They started it.

This is quite difficult to say. Porn has an educational influence over young males, maybe even females too nowadays, but I don’t know. Women using porn has gone up over the years according to Pornhub, but young girls using it, I’m not so sure, they may see it, but not use it the way that boys do. Boys are explorers by nature, when the parents are out, we look around… I did, and in recent times I know our son has – he found my wife’s vibrator, which was hilarious and led to an important conversation about sex. See, educational.

My education into sex came, not from school or experience, from exploring. I remember reading an article in readers wives, typical plumber situation, but my mind was blown that I could actually be in a kitchen when I am older and have a woman take advantage of me and be wearing nothing under a small nightie. That was my expectation of that scenario.

Another time I went into my parents bedroom, maybe when I was looking for christmas presents (I was that exploring kid that ruined his own christmas surprises for a decade). I rummaged in the cupboards, they had a fitted bedroom so standing on the bed was easy to look into the high ones where they literally thought they could hide stuff. Newsflash, you couldn’t and didn’t.

I found 1990s Lovers Guide. I read the title, seemed harmless, on the front cover was a couple in a warm embrace. Nice. So I put it in the VHS player and hit the play button. This video taught me things that school wouldn’t. I saw a women pleasure herself after a shower on the bed, fully, not in a porno way. There are instructions, detailed looks of a woman vagina, I learned where the clitoris was at 12 years old, I knew about labia, vulva and the g-spot at 12 years old. To counter this it also taught me about premature ejaculation and the squeeze technique, it also told me about the psychological impact sex can have on men when it comes to performance and the expectation of a sexual partner (again which can be directly impacted from watching porn – sorry, not all men have 12 inch dicks and last 30 minutes without coming). This is all in hindsight. At the time I was occupied with the fact that I could see a couple getting ready to go out and the husband got a look at his wife’s breasts as her dress opened slightly when she was fastening her shoes, she was braless… Wait! Wait women did that? A gold mine and fuel for masturbation for a long time, especially when Lovers Guide 2 was released.

Essentially I am saying that I was quick to learn where a woman was pleasured, how to treat a woman in bed and what makes her feel good. I learned that women had orgasms like I did, although different. While this wasn’t essentially porn, it was an instructional video, inspiration for couples, I viewed it as porn at the time. I used this in the exact way that adolescents use porn now. But I’m not sure that with all of the porn available at the drop of a hat that it will be as helpful to them as it was to me.

The worries that experts in the field have about boys being encouraged to treat women as sex slaves, to be abusive and uncaring because of porn is real. What we see we want to do. Don’t be shocked that a guy wants to come on your face, that he maybe wants his hand around your neck and that he gets carried away. It what he has been watching for a long time. If that’s how you see women being treated from a young age, that’s what you will think they want. Don’t get me wrong, I know there are women out there that like rough sex, that like the physical side of sex, and thats fine. I am merely talking about guys going into a relationship with a female and expecting them, right off the bat, to be into facials and the like. This in a nutshell is why it is important for schools to teach kids early about sex. You have to counter that potential first porn experience.

Schools teaching about sex, sexting and risks at an early ages is important for development in 2019 and beyond. I know in the UK people will freak out about this, but I think that parents have to be clever about it. Porn is a very useful education tool, and the kids are using it and consuming it regardless of whether parents want education in schools or not.

Imagine this. It’s like a sport. Any sport. If your kids watched tennis on TV, Roger Federer for example, they watched him all the time, but never played it. Football, they watch Messi or Ronaldo, never played the game and thus were never taught how to play, no technique, no game knowledge, no anticipation of that the other player or team may do. And then when they hit their twenties, they pick up a racket for the first time, or laced up boots and took a ball to the field. They take their first swing and, miss. Every time. They get passed the football, and no control, they can’t pass back, they can’t shoot, head or tackle, they have no idea what their teammates expect.

Their expectations are warped. Only when you learn the basics of sex (treat women and men nicely, it’s about pleasure) can you venture out into more extravagance once you have established what you both like.