Medicine Institute of Psicosexual argues that the dangers and risks of consuming pornography should be taught in the classroom.
"My expectations about what sex should be were totally distorted," says 25-year-old British girl Nicki Briant.
She says that pornography has left her with negative feelings about sex, a persistent feeling of inadequacy and problems with her own body.
"Sex in pornography seems very orchestrated and perfect, and very much geared towards men. I found that it was never, never equal to any kind of sexual experience I had, so I thought something could be wrong," says Nicki, who is a gym manager and personal trainer
"In real life, sex is very messy, sticky, crazy, and nothing goes as planned."
To prevent teenagers from having this negative relationship with their bodies and sex, non-profit Plan UK and the Institute of Psycho-sexual Medicine advocate that the dangers of pornography be taught in schools.
In the UK, this possibility is already being considered in some places: the government of Wales says it is looking at how to address the issue of pornography in its new school curriculum.
In February, a report by the British Film Classification Committee on the need to protect children and young people from online pornography revealed that 18% of teenagers over the age of 16 who were sexually active did or were asked to do things they saw in porn movie.
The survey, carried out with 1,100 children and adolescents between 11 and 17 years old in the United Kingdom, showed that 29% of the participants have already felt bad about their own body in face of the appearance of the people portrayed in pornography.
And about 30% of teenagers over 16 said that sex did not live up to the expectations created by pornography.
Nicki says that she never received a "normal explanation" about sex, and that in her home there was "a lot of shame about it".
At the age of 11, she was first exposed to pornography through social networks such as Tumblr, and that would have a major influence on her later life.
"There is this image of the woman in pornography where she is very submissive, a little loud and almost irritating. I even imitated this type of performance because I thought it was the right thing, that this was what men wanted."
And the standardized images made her feel that her body was "deeply" wrong, leading her to consider plastic surgery, such as vaginal reconstruction.
Nicki ended up being so traumatized that she decided to move away from pornography and seek help through sex therapy and yoga and meditation retreats.
"The pornography I consumed when I was younger distorted my body self-image and what I thought or expected sex to be. I feel it could have been much more damaging if I hadn't realized it before it was too late," he says.
Carol Mercedes
Hot Pink Publisher / United Photo Press Magazine
