Pornography: this activity harmful to children as well as adult men

Mélanie Gomez, edited by Alexandre Dalifard / Photo credit: GABRIEL BOUYS / AFP 06h13, 04 October 2023

The bill to secure the digital space and, among other things, to better fight against pornographic sites that do not control the age of their visitors, will be presented this Wednesday to the Assembly. On this occasion, Ifop publishes a survey conducted for the site Mon PetitVPN, which shows for the first time in France how pornography conveys the scripts of a "toxic sexuality", and therefore "also" influences the sexuality of adults by associating male domination and especially non-consent.

1 in 4 men admit to having sex despite their partner's refusal

First worrying figure in this study, one in four men admit to having already had sex despite the refusal of his partner. A frightening figure but not surprising sex therapist Margot Fried Filliozat. "There are all these standards related to pornography where precisely, we do not ask. Man is in a dominant position and that imprints our brains. And suddenly, we have almost become accustomed to "we must first do and then at worst apologize," she said at the microphone of Europe 1.

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On the women's side, the situation is no better. 50% of them say that their consent was not respected during violent sexual practices, including the first time they practiced them. Once again porn in excess that leads to drifts. "The problem with pornography, as it reshuffles our arousal circuits, we always need more, like with a drug, to have the same level of arousal. So, little by little, we become desensitized," says Margot Fried Filliozat.

Finally, the earlier the exposure to porn, the greater the damage. Among men exposed to pornographic content, before the age of 11, 57% of them, adults, think that many women say "NO" but that it means yes.