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As far as I remember, my parents and teachers had explicitly told us not to look at bad pictures (read naked pictures) in magazines or newspapers (entertainment section). In fact, my mom even went ahead and proclaimed that looking at pictures of naked woman is the biggest reason for teenage boys to go blind. So initially, it was quite challenging for me to even entertain the notion of watching porn.
My only exposure to nudity was through watching TV. Sometimes a Condom Ad would come up and I recall my mum hurrying to change the channel. Sometimes, there would be a kissing scene or a semi-nude scene in a Bollywood/Hollywood movie. My mother would just scold me on my movie choices. My parents did not offer any explanations, but only silence. There would be no discussions, but only guilt.
But in class 10th, something happened and Puberty hit me harder than Dhoni hitting the cricket ball. Also, one of my close friends had watched porn and he became class hero overnight. To my surprise, he did not go blind. Filled with the knowledge that my eyes are safe and falling prey to the peer pressure that I am the only boy in my class, who hasn’t watched porn; I went online. I opened the Incognito window and typed those magical words on google – “Free Porn Websites”.
And that’s it, I got hooked. First time when I watched porn, I was grossed out maxxx... like - why is this girl shouting so much, is she in pain?? Is it necessary to make a boy cum? Is that the end of sex!? How do females get pleasure?? Spanking seems to be fun. I believed Porn to be true – that this is how sex works. In fact, I got addicted to watching it. For 5 straight months, I watched porn every day and masturbation followed. My grades got impacted, I was sleeping less and my health also started deteriorating.
But this is how we treat the topic of porn in our households and in our schools. There is no discussion and advice. The curiosity and peer-pressure along with freely available porn content doesn’t help the teens who start consuming pornographic content early. Some get addicted, some start thinking that this is the reality, which impacts their future relationships and also their self image.