How early porn exposure is impacting young men

0:00Porn on the Internet is hard to avoid. For miners, this can be especially concerning. Voices young as 11 years old have been exposed and subsequently became addicted to porn. Now as young men, some of them are finding help to overcome their addictions through online forums and communities. Hello and welcome to USA Today's The Excerpt. I'm Dana Taylor. Today is Tuesday, March 31, 2026. Joining me now to discuss the rise in porn addiction and how it's affected a whole generation of young men is USA Today Youth Mental Health Reporter Rachel Hale. Rachel, let's get to speak with you again. Thanks for having me on. Rachel, let's begin by digging into how you found out about the problem of porn addiction. Among boys and young men. This is a topic that I wanted to cover for a while since starting this beat.

1:01But it was a question of figuring out the right angle and kind of the right way in and something positive that I found as I was keeping tabs on different ideas is that on Reddit, I saw a number of forums where people were speaking about their recovery processes, the highs and lows of it and what struck me is really interesting is just how many members were part of these groups and how many of these groups there are specifically on Reddit, some of which have upwards of a million followers. And that is what struck me as like making it a really relevant and timely piece is kind of seeing the ways that people are seeking out help for this problem. Of course, porn on the internet is nothing new. So what's made it more accessible to Gen Z? Is it the use of smartphones? Yeah, that's definitely a piece of it. And I'm glad you said Gen Z because I did really have Gen Z specifically in mind with this piece because I think that that is the age group that was the most impacted because you have above

2:02them, you know, more age groups where you would have still need to rely on the very early days of the internet still maybe printing out pictures or looking at vintage magazines. That type of thing is what people would associate with porn or, you know, a DVD player. It wasn't accessible 24-7 yet. And then with Gen Z is when we saw a group come of age with this complete and utter access really at all times in their pocket. And it was before parents know as much as they know now about phones and what we can access on them and the addictive elements of phones. And so a lot of Gen Z young adults men specifically when we're talking about this piece. But we're able to get a cell phone early on. And we're able to find porn early on because it coincided with the rise of popular social media sites before they had some of these built-in filters and restrictions. I think these Gen Z men specifically came of age both with the unfettered phone access and accessing these social media sites, other online sites, before some of those built-in filters were there.

3:08Experts have borne that consuming pornography or other illicit material is damaging for a child's brain house so. So first of all, we know that the brain is not fully developed until 25. So any sort of, you know, chemical inducing hit of dopamine that we would get through certain behaviors that trigger rewards in the brain can impact the brain differently at a younger age in combination with a behavior like porn or substance abuse. So porn in combination with masturbation like alcohol or similar substances can trigger the brain's reward system, which sends a release of dopamine, which can reinforce that behavior and over time create a loop. And when we look long term, that means that the brain's reward pathways can be permanently altered. And that can impact things like impulse control, pleasure and motivation and can also make it so that maybe someone who starts watching one specific type of porn now needs something that's either, you know, watching porn for longer or falling into like more intense specific categories of porn

4:14to satisfy those same reasons that they initially came to watch porn. And is it more, it sounds like it is, but is it more problematic for young boys than young girls? It is. That's what the research shows. It's absolutely an issue with women as well. And there is stigma there. What we know from looking at research and also anecdotally from what I found on these forums is that more men than women struggle with porn use. Would you let me understand how does this problem continue to affect these boys as they mature? If someone starts to view something at a younger age, it can have a really deep impact on the long term way that they perceive relationships, sexual intimacy and their views on women. For many young men, this is their first way that they are introduced to what sex looks like and they're seeing a very unrealistic portrayal of that. And that can lead to having issues with infidelity, trust, other aspects in their relationship, in part because what they expect out of sex and relationships from watching porn might not line up with what their partner is actually able to give them on a day-to-day basis.

5:24You spoke with several young men for this story who seemed to share a similar thought pattern as other addicts and that I can stop when I want to. At what point do they realize they needed help? A lot of men really thought that what they were experiencing was normal and didn't realize that they needed help until they found some of these online forums and realized it's not normal to think about sex 24-7 and to have those thoughts constantly. Other men who did know that they had a problem reached breaking points in their relationships whether that was with a significant other or their families in the way that the porn really became something that they couldn't shake. A lot of these men said that they thought it was something they could quit cold turkey and then realized for one reason or another that they couldn't. One of these young men, Ryan who's now 25, on a nine-month mission trip where he did not have access to porn went through some really significant physical symptoms that you could liken to withdrawal symptoms of sorts, including having headaches, feeling very lethargic.

6:28And that was one way that he realized it. Other men I spoke with talked about having porn induced erectile dysfunction where when they became sexually active in their 20s or at a different age, they realized that they really struggled to engage in sexual activity in real life when they didn't have that porn on the screen. There of course many online forums and communities that promote pornography but the opposite is true as well as you've said, tell me about those. As I was researching like you said, I came across a mix of both of these types of forums and some of them are named similarly. So it's a hard landscape to navigate and it's usually one that people are only going to find if they're really looking for it for these support groups. There's a big intersection of the porn recovery support groups and other male mental health and like male motivational forums on Reddit specifically though there are others. And some of these groups have one million members, some of them upwards of half a million weekly visitors.

7:28And I in my research came across more than five, maybe a dozen of these groups total. And so what really struck me about it is just how many men are struggling with this and of those men who are going to seek that support. How many might be struggling silently to where they would have sought out these groups and some of these different forums will have monthly challenges. People will use these forums to post updates about their recovery journey to share their stories and to seek out support from others. Often younger boys seeking out advice, maybe from older people on the forums and of course these forums aren't exclusive just to men. But after speaking to moderators, it was clear anecdotally that there are a lot of men who are using these forums as a first up place. Why would someone choose to use these forums over seeking professional help? As is true when we look at other behavioral or substance issues, there's a lot of stigma associated with this. It's something that people really don't want to talk about even though we know that it's impacting so many people's lives.

8:30And when you combine that with what we know about the male loneliness epidemic and that males have less people in their lives who they feel comfortable talking to about their emotional hardships, males have less close friends who they feel comfortable talking to about this type of thing. It makes sense that these anonymous forums could be a really comfortable first step to seek this out that feel less intimidating than seeking out professional support. Rachel, you spoke with several mental help professionals for this story. What did they tell you? One thing that's really interesting about this is that there's a very wide debate in the medical field about whether or not compulsive porn use should be classified as an addiction or not. And the DSM-5 does not recognize compulsive porn use as a formal disorder, though these online communities of men who have been impacted say that to them it feels like an addiction. Medically, that's not something where there's agreement on how it should be classified. But what these mental health professionals I spoke with do all agree on is that this is a serious problem that is impacting more young men now than before.

9:37And that for a lot of these men and this lines up with what these young men who I interviewed told me porn is an outlet for something. It's a way to cope with other issues going on in people's lives and at a point that porn can become something that is a really deep part of someone's mental health struggles. I think that though there's vast debate in the field on how compulsive porn you should be classified is clear that these young men are struggling and that medical professionals are united on trying to figure out the best way to help those young men deal with it. We also know that from some of the reports that we linked in this article, including a 2022 one from Common Sense Media, 71% of teenagers report intentionally viewing porn in the last week. And the average respondent in that survey said they first viewed porn at age 12. Those are strikingly high numbers and a strikingly low one in terms of the age where some teenagers first viewed porn. In the process of reporting on this story, what did you find to be the most surprising?

10:43What really struck me in this is, I'll mention two things, one of them is how long people have struggled with this. I spoke with some people who were introduced to porn at 11 or 12 years old and are now struggling with it as 25 year olds, 35 year olds. Addictions that span 15 or 25 years to grapple with that for so much of your life, some of these young men told me that they don't know who they are without porn because it was introduced to them at such young age. They don't know who they are in a relationship without porn or who they are as a student or a friend without having those urges constantly in their mind. So that really struck me as something that was compelling and also how large of a barrier this is in people's day to day lives. I had people tell me that they would spend upwards of six hours a day watching porn and that it would start to cut into their daily school or workflow and that, you know, one of these men I interviewed told me he started leaving classroom as early as sixth grade two or three times a day to go to the bathroom to watch porn.

11:46And so just how big of a detriment this problem can be to people's day to day life really struck me just because it's something that is usually so hidden. Finally Rachel, is there anything you'd like to share with parents who might be concerned about their own children girls or boys? I would want parents to know that there is no shame in teenagers having sexual urges. We know that that's healthy. It's a question of making sure that they are not coming upon illicit content early and content that could be harmful and so I do think it goes back to, you know, kind of the digital access the people have at a young age because the difference between finding this type of material at 11 or 12 versus in your later teens or your early 20s can make a large difference developmentally and how someone thinks through sexual intimacy and relationships. But I would also say that for parents who might have a teen that's struggling with this to avoid the shame that comes with it because we know that the shame in stigma is what is keeping so many people from seeking out professional help about this.

12:53So validating that this is a real problem that millions of people deal with and that it is a really legitimate reason to go out and seek professional help. And I would also just add that while these support forums are a great first step, they should be used with professional counsel. And, you know, I hope that for people who find these forums, they'll use it as a first step to then speak with an additional licensed mental health professional if they continue to struggle with compil support news. Rachel Hale is a USA Today Youth Mental Health Reporter. Rachel, thank you so much for sharing your reporting here on the excerpt. Thank you for having me. Thanks to our senior producer, Kaylee Monahan for production assistance, our executive producer is Laura Beatty. Let us know what you think of this episode by sending a note to podcasts at USA Today.com. Thanks for listening. I'm Dana Taylor. I'll be back tomorrow morning with another episode of USA Today's The excerpt. Draft season means millions of fans refreshing their team's pages on USA Today Network right now.

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