"I have found that the earlier men use porn," says Dines, "the more likely they are to have trouble developing close, intimate relationships with real women. Market research conducted by internet providers found that the average age a boy first sees porn today is 11 a study from the University of Alberta found that one third of 13-year-old boys admitted viewing porn and a survey published by Psychologies magazine in the UK last month found that a third of 14- to 16-year-olds had first seen sexual images online when they were 10 or younger – 81% of those polled looked at porn online at home, while 63% could easily access it on their mobile phones. Even the porn industry is shocked by how much violence the fans want, she says at the industry conferences that Dines attends, porn makers have increasingly been discussing the trend for more extreme practices. According to Dines's research the prevalence of porn means that men are becoming desensitised to it, and are therefore seeking out ever harsher, more violent and degrading images.
The book documents the recent history of porn, including the technological shifts that have made it accessible on mobile phones, videogames and laptops. "We are now bringing up a generation of boys on cruel, violent porn," she says, "and given what we know about how images affect people, this is going to have a profound influence on their sexuality, behaviour and attitudes towards women." She wrote it primarily to educate people about what pornography today is really like, she says, and to banish any notion of it as benign titillation. The scene highlighted Dines's explosive charisma and the fact that, since the death of Andrea Dworkin, she has risen to that most difficult and interesting of public roles: the world's leading anti-pornography campaigner.ĭines is also a highly regarded academic and her new book, Pornland: How Porn Has Hijacked Our Sexuality, has just come out in the US, and is available online here. Activists in the audience were newly inspired, and men at the event – many of whom had never viewed pornography as a problem before – queued up afterwards to pledge their support. T he last time I saw Gail Dines speak, at a conference in Boston, she moved the audience to tears with her description of the problems caused by pornography, and provoked laughter with her sharp observations about pornographers themselves.
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