Porn or Sex Ed?

Where do you get most of your information about sex?

a) Friends
b) Parents
c) School
d) Porn

If you said Porn, you wouldn’t be alone (unfortunately). We can’t argue that movies and television shows and even porn can be a big influence when it comes to our ideas about sex.  I know pop culture has had a huge influence on my life.  This is both wonderful (thank you Buffy the Vampire Slayer for mad role model skills) and profoundly stupid (there was that car accident when I tried to drive like Edward Cullen). Pop culture has influenced everything from my choice of music and books to my choice of where to hang out or even what to order for lunch (thanks, SuperSize Me!) But as a source of information? Sexual health? Science? Sex education? No, no, and oh no.

In the age of information and access, why doesn’t learning about sex from porn really help?   After all, shouldn’t we have a bunch of sources of information? Different views? That would be true if pornography offered more than one point of view, but since porn is mostly written by men, and produced by men, and marketed to, guess who (hint: MEN), it generally offers only a male fantasy perspective.  Pornography is about fantasies, not reality. And sex, and the consequences of sex, are very much a reality.  Real sources of information, be they text books, or science blogs, or educated sources are going to give you concrete information that can help you think about your own sex life, and reliable information that could even save your life.

Even when you know that what you’re watching is fiction, porn takes it to the extreme. Imagination and wild ideas are wonderful for art and literature, but when those ideas affect your body and your lifestyle, this is bad stuff. In a recent sex-study, teenage boy were shown 10 pairs of breasts, and all of them said that they found the surgically enhanced pairs to be the most attractive.  Even worse, the females in the group said the same thing.  When your fantasy ideal of the human body doesn’t even exist in nature, and definitely not in your average person, how are you going to feel when your body doesn’t look like that?

Where you get your information from is really important. Stick with scientific sources and clinics and doctors that will give you factual information. Remember that what you see and hear in the entertainment world is exactly that: entertainment.

Where do we go when we need reliable information about all things sex related? Some of our favorite sources (in no particular order) are:

Scarleteen.com
Birth control information, sex education, support, advice, and an interesting blog

PlannedParenthood.org
No, it’s not just abortions. Health advice, body image, STI info, birth control info, and unbiased medical advice

Guttmacher.org
Great research and policy reviews, and lots of information on the newest studies about birth control, STIs, AIDS prevention, and statistics. If you have a report to do or want more information about sex health laws and policies, this is a great source.

Teensource.org
But we’re preaching to the choir there, eh?