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Today’s Teens are Distributing Child Porn of Themselves Without Knowing It

Originally posted at: https://fightthenewdrug.org/teens-are-distributing-child-porn-of-themselves-without-knowing-it/

The momentary thrill of being noticed by your crush is definitely overshadowed by the many risks of sexting—ending up in court is only one of them.

For today’s teens, sending nudes is considered a normal form of flirting. But no matter how common it is, it’s causing some serious and unexpected trouble.

As just one example, a 16-year-old Maryland girl faced child pornography—also known as child sexual abuse material (CSAM)—charges for making a sexually explicit video of herself and texting it to two of her friends.

The teen, only identified as S.K., was convicted in juvenile court but her case was appealed to the state’s highest court, who will now determine how to treat teens who produce and distribute graphic content of themselves.

S.K.’s case shows the reality of teens today

The video showed S.K. performing oral sex on a 16-year-old male and was shared with S.K.’s two friends, who then shared the video with their school resource officer and other students.

There was a falling out among the friends as the video got around, and S.K.’s mother told the court that her daughter was so upset about the video being shared beyond the two friends that she didn’t attend school for a month.

Because S.K. was convicted in juvenile court, she will not be required to register as a sex offender, which has happened in different sexting cases. Many questions have been raised in legal circles as to the best way to deal with teen sexting cases in court or whether they should even be in court.

After all, CSAM laws are in place to protect teens and children, but what do we do when teens are producing it of themselves?

Age is a serious issue with sexting. Taking an explicit photo of yourself when you’re not yet 18 years old and then sharing it with another person not only puts you at risk of being victimized by “revenge porn“—or the nonconsensual sharing of intimate images, or the threat of sharing intimate images—but also at odds with the law for CSAM distribution.

While the laws are continuously updated and amended, here’s what we do know for teens today: sexting, along with the pressure to ask for or send nude pics, is a constant part of life.

Sexting falls under CSAM laws

In 2018, a study showed that 27% of 12-17 year-olds receive sexts, and almost 15% send them. Perhaps these numbers seem like sexting is a fringe issue, but many young people report that sexting is normal, suggesting “everyone does it.” If teens think sexting is mainstream, they are more likely to join in.

Just as our culture accepts porn as harmless despite the clear negative impacts, sexting is increasingly brushed off. It’s even considered a fun, normal way to explore a new relationship, but in the eyes of what’s legally acceptable, this is not the case for teens.

According to US federal law, CSAM is defined as “any visual depiction of sexually explicit conduct involving a minor (someone under 18 years of age).” Producing, possessing, or distributing (i.e., sharing with friends) nude pictures when you’re still a teenager falls under illegal contraband.

Even though teens sharing images of each other is not the same as a video of a young child being abused, lawmakers are understandably hesitant to allow leniency to any underage explicit images. For now, hitting “send” can have some serious consequences. But as technology evolves, and the culture around sexting evolves with it, that may change.

Beyond the law, sexting is a minefield

The momentary thrill of being noticed by your crush is definitely overshadowed by the many risks of sexting—ending up in court is one of them, albeit an extreme one. Sharing explicit photos of yourself relinquishes control of your privacy, which could result in your images being posted online or circulated around school. Sexting is never totally safe.

If you’re doubtful it could happen to you, consider this: one survey has said 12% of teens have forwarded a sext without the consent of the person involved, and 8.4% knew of one of their own sexts being forwarded without their consent. In other reports, those numbers are much higher.

It’s important to note that surveys have shown that pictures resulting from pressure are much more likely to be shared around than those shared in an already-established relationship with trust.1

Additionally, sexting is like porn in the way it objectifies and dehumanizes the subject. Sexual objectification occurs when people perceive others as sex objects rather than complex human beings deserving of dignity and respect. In fact, in a review of research on sexual violence, two leading experts called sexual objectification the “common thread” that connects different forms of sexual violence.2

Reject dehumanization and objectification

Each one of us can play a part in creating a healthier culture that rejects the normalization of objectification. And that starts not only with putting an end to sexually inappropriate and harmful behaviors but also putting an end to attitudes that support dehumanization.

Sometimes girls sending nude sexts think they can avoid the shame of being identified online by cropping their faces out of their pictures, but this is objectification similar to what the porn industry practices. It allows for the consumption of a body instead of the respect of a whole person, and is that ever healthy in a relationship?

You’re either a “prude” if you don’t join in, or you run the risk of distributing CSAM and some serious consequences if you do send pics. The pressure to join in is very real and can even be flattering. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to be attractive and being noticed for being attractive, but the reality is sexting is a minefield.

We aren’t here to control anyone’s sexual choices or shame anyone. We do know, however, that a respectful crush won’t pressure anyone to send them anything.

The possibility of being entangled in CSAM laws is very real. Beyond the law, sexting culture is toxic, suggesting to girls that their worth is their body and to boys that a girl is a sexual object for their pleasure. How is this message helpful to anyone?

Pressing “send” is never worth it, and no one deserves to have their private images shared.

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Why You Can’t Handle Her Pain

Originally posted at: https://sexuallypuremen.beehiiv.com/p/why-you-can-t-handle-her-pain-4aa8

By Dr. Eddie Capparucci

It is a complaint my colleagues and I hear constantly from women devastated by betrayal: “He can’t manage my pain, instead he falls apart and either gets upset or shuts down. It’s always about him!”

If you have acted out through pornography, affairs, or other destructive sexual behaviors, you have probably heard similar words from your partner. Maybe you have even thought to yourself: “I am doing my best, but nothing I say or do makes it better. What more does she want from me?”

Here is the blunt truth: You caused her pain. If it were not for your inability to face emotional discomfort or your drive to seek affirmation or attention elsewhere, you both would not be sitting in this mess.

I am not writing that to shame you. I am saying it to wake you up. Because no matter how much therapy, training, books, seminars, or recovery work they do, many men still fail to show up in the way their betrayed partners desperately need. Perhaps understanding why you struggle to do this can help you lean in better.

The Scene We All Know Too Well

Picture it: She’s sobbing, angry, broken, asking the same questions over and over. And you? You are feeling attacked, misunderstood, or overwhelmed. So, you retreat. You put up walls. You defend yourself. You say things like:

  • “Why are you yelling?”
  • “We have talked about this already.”
  • “I said I am sorry. Can you just move on?”

Sound familiar?

What you do not realize is these reactions are not only unhelpful—they are pouring gasoline on her grief.

Why Men Shut Down: The Real Problem

Let us strip away the excuses. Your defensiveness is not about her reaction—it is about your inability to handle the weight of her pain. Period. Instead, you are still that young child running away from conflict, trying to avoid an overbearing or emotionally unsafe parent.

But those are not the circumstance you are facing today. She needs you to help her deal with the tremendous emotional and mental distress you vomited on her. She needs relief from the pain you inflicted. Unfortunately, you do not have the emotional or mental muscles to lift what she needs you to carry. The good news? With practice you can build them.

When betrayal is exposed, your partner enters what I call a tsunami of grief. Her entire reality has been shattered. She is lost—confused, terrified, desperate for answers, desperate for safety. You have placed her on the Pain Field and she wants to get off.

And here is the kicker: you have the roadmap. You are the one who detonated this bomb, and you are the only one who can show her whether the man who destroyed her world is capable of rebuilding it. But instead of leaning in, you get caught up in your own discomfort, your own fears, your own sense of unfairness.

You think, “This isn’t fair. I’ve apologized. I’ve promised to change.”

But do you know what was not fair? The years of acting out. The lies. The deception. The emotional neglect. That was not fair.

And until you can set aside your self-protection (put in place to deal with your youthful distress) and meet her where she is—in her Pain Field—she will not feel safe, no matter how many days sober you have been or how much recovery work you have done.

The Root of the Problem: Emotional Immaturity

So why do men fail over and over in these moments? It boils down to two things: emotional immaturity and fear.

1. We Were Never Taught to Process Emotions.

From a young age, many boys hear: Man up. Stop crying. Toughen up. We learned to shut down pain instead of sitting with it. As adults, when our partner’s grief floods the room, we panic. We have never learned to tolerate emotional distress—our own or anyone else’s. But let me tell you something: sitting in pain will not kill you. It will only feel that way. However, doing the hard work of learning to deal with emotional discomfort is the only way to mature into the man you want to be.

2. We Are Shame-Driven.

After betrayal, shame takes over: “I’m a failure. I’m a monster. She’ll never forgive me.” Shame does not lead to empathy—it leads to self-protection. We put up walls, deflect, minimize. We make it about us – again. And let us be honest: you were me-focused when you were acting out. Do you think staying me-focused is going to help her heal?

3. We Mistake Control for Safety.

When emotions rise, immature men try to regain control: we argue, explain, walk away, or change the topic. Anything to stop the discomfort. But here is the truth: control is not connection. You cannot control her grief into going away. You can only connect with it and help her feel less alone.

What Your Partner Really Needs

Here is what emotional maturity looks like in action:

  • Validate her pain.
    Say: “I know my actions devastated you and you have every right to angry and sad. I am here to listen to everything you need to say.”
  • Stay on her Pain Field.
    When she is angry, sobbing, or repeating herself, do not defend. Do not argue. Do not make it about you. This is her grief talking, not an attack on your worth. You can handle this.
  • Own your choices without excuses.
    Stop saying: “I did not mean to” or “It was not that bad.” These words make her feel unsafe and unseen. True safety is created by full ownership—no minimization, no deflection. Own it!

This is how you begin to rebuild trust. Not with promises. Not with words. Not with doing more recovery work. But by how you show up in her pain.

My Challenge to You

Next time your partner expresses pain, pause. Take a deep breath. Say to yourself:
“I want to understand more.” And then listen. Really listen. Be curious. Pick up on her pain point and stay with her there, even if it is uncomfortable. That discomfort is the training ground for the man you need to become.

A Word to the Women

Ladies, I know this is exhausting. I know it feels like he should “just get it.” Please understand emotional maturity is not built overnight. Many of these men are emotionally underdeveloped and been this way all their lives. They can grow—but it takes time, effort, and a lot of falling short before they learn to stand strong in your pain.

When he is getting flooded, let him take a short break to emotionally regulate. If you do not allow him a break he will become emotionally dysregulated and you will end up with a guy engaging in all of the annoying behaviors you are asking him to stop. When he gets emotionally dysregulated, his brain reacts as if his amygdala has been hijacked – it is not rational thinking.

A break is not avoidance—it is a way to keep the conversation safe for both of you. When he returns, your chances of having a productive and healing dialogue increase dramatically.

Final Word

Men, your sobriety is not enough. Your recovery steps are not enough. What makes you safe is not what you say you will do, but how you show up in the face of her pain. It is about your actions.

This is emotional maturity. This is manhood. This is where healing begins—for her, for you, for your relationship.

Try reading these mantras together before starting the next hard conversation.

Him: “I will choose courage over comfort. I am here to help you heal, not to hide. Your pain is safe with me and I will not allow my fear to shut you down.”
Her: “I will choose hope over despair. I will elect to understand your communication struggles and appreciate your efforts when trying to see my pain.”

Dr. Eddie Capparucci is a licensed counselor, speaker, and creator of the Inner Child Model™ for treating addictive behaviors. His mission is to help men complete their recovery by embracing emotional maturity and restoring their relationships. You can reach him at innerchildmodel@gmail.com.

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The Impact of Early Porn Exposure on Boys and How to Protect Them

Originally posted at: https://fightthenewdrug.org/early-porn-exposure-impact/

Porn exposure in boys begins as early as 5, leading to potential brain changes and aggressive behaviors. With easy access to increasingly violent and addictive content, it’s crucial to educate and protect children. Here’s what you can do to help.

The problem starts at 13.

That’s the average age that boys are exposed to porn, according to multiple studies.1 And that’s not even the worst part. Some studies suggest that pornography exposure in boys can happen as early as 5.2

At five, boys should be learning to read, developing their imagination, and building early friendships, not being exposed to pornography. But in our era of smartphones and unlimited internet, pornography access has largely become a quick internet search and click away. And restrictions on computers can be easily overridden.

A recent article by Mamamia addressed the difficulties of raising boys when pornography is so easily accessible and difficult to censor. Mamamia covered how common it was for young boys to watch porn. They found that out of “830 young Australians aged 16 to 20, half of young men watch porn at least once a week and nearly 20 percent almost daily.”3

The problem is both the type and the amount of porn that boys are watching has changed.

Porn has changed

Back in 1953, Hugh Hefner released his first Playboy. Still, images of naked models opened the doors for modern-day pornography. Just three years later, VCR emerged, and in the 80s, video pornography became available in the United States for the first time. Still, you must show your ID to prove you’re 18, but it’s becoming more accessible. Nothing, however, compares to how accessible it became once the internet started in the 1990s. Suddenly, anyone can access just about any type of porn they want with just a quick search.

Now porn sites consistently remain some of the top most used websites in the world. As of May 2024, Pornhub was the leading adult content and pornographic website for global users. It averaged about 5.49 billion monthly visits. Xvideos ranked next with about 4.02 billion monthly visits.4

That’s an average of 92 billion visits for 2024. That’s 252 million visits a day. 175 thousand visits every minute. So if it took you six minutes to read this article, Pornhub and Xvideos would have already received over a million visits.

Porn started out as just still images, but now it’s grown to be something much bigger than that.

Porn enables violence and aggression towards women

Not only did how accessible, affordable, and anonymous porn became change, but the type of porn that people were producing changed too. A concerned mom in Mamamia addressed the growing disparity between what started out as still images but has grown to something much worse. “The online environment and the porn and depiction of violence against women in particular is something most adults didn’t grow up with themselves.”

Unfortunately, studies only confirm this mom’s worry. Research suggests that 1 in 3 pornographic videos contain some sort of violence against women. In a 2010 study on the “best-selling” pornography videos, a study found that  “the 304 scenes analyzed 88.2% contained physical aggression, principally spanking, gagging, and slapping, while 48.7% of scenes contained verbal aggression, primarily name-calling. Perpetrators of aggression were usually male, whereas targets of aggression were overwhelmingly female.”5

A recent NSW health report showed exposure to violent porn was one of the four common factors behind harmful adolescent behaviors.

A study from 2021 suggests that porn encourages aggressive behavior in men toward women. The study surveyed 320 men and found that the objectification and aggression that often happens in porn leads men to be associated with “aggressive attitudes” and “aggressive behaviors.”6

A study from 2016 found that pornography consumption was associated with a likelihood of “sexual aggression among adults and adolescents.”7 The study also found that there was no significant research to support the idea that men with tendencies for sexually aggressive behavior were only watching pornography to support their “already established sexual scripts” (199). Instead, it found that “pornography consumption predicted boys’ later sexual aggression” (199).

That means porn has an impact on whether boys will develop these behaviors. Porn establishes aggression and objectification, possibly developing these behaviors in boys who may not have had them initially.

Porn changes boys brains

The problem isn’t just that boys are being exposed to porn at a young age or that porn has changed. It’s that a combination of these two things has an actual impact on a young boy’s brain.

Although not formally diagnosed as an addiction, porn induces dopamine in a way that mimics addiction. JAMA Psychiatry found that, like with alcohol or cocaine addicts, there is a smaller grey matter volume. They concluded that neural changes in the “brains of pornography users…mirrors the use of addictive drugs.”8

The fact that porn is so violent, easy to access, and anonymous makes it dangerous for young boys to see. And unlike alcohol, cocaine, or other addictive substances, there’s hardly anything standing between young boys and getting access to it.

Luckily, we have some tips on how to fight it.

What you can do

Mamamia pointed out that often, “parents aren’t aware their child is watching porn or the nature of the porn they’re watching, so education is the first step.” One mom discussed how she was already having educating conversations with her seven-year-old boy. “We break it down and talk to him about boundaries… and if he feels scared or uncomfortable, there are only two things he needs to do: turn away and tell a safe person.”

Like Mamamia, we agree that education is so important in the fight against pornography. That’s why we’ve compiled different resources to make educating your kids, friends, or even yourself easy and accessible.

Some of our resources include our age-appropriate and engaging presentation series about the harms of porn and what you can do, our Brain, Heart, World documentary, hundreds of Youtube videos, and of course, this blog.

You’re not alone. We believe in you, so keep fighting!

Citations

1British Board of Film Classification. (2020). Young people, pornography & age-verification. BBFC. Retrieved from https://www.bbfc.co.uk/about-classification/research; https://www.jmir.org/2023/1/e43116/PDF

2https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2017/08/pornography-exposure

3https://www.mamamia.com.au/how-porn-is-affecting-young-boys/

4https://www.statista.com/statistics/1445661/most-visited-porn-websites-worldwide/

5https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/epdf/10.1177/1077801210382866

6Zhou, Y., Liu, T., Yan, Y., & Paul, B. (2021). Pornography use, two forms of dehumanization, and sexual aggression: Attitudes vs. behaviors. Null, 1-20.

7Journal of Communication, Volume 66, Issue 1, February 2016, Pages 183–205, https://doi.org/10.1111/jcom.12201

8https://acpeds.org/position-statements/the-impact-of-pornography-on-children#_edn13

9Robb, M.B., & Mann, S. (2023). Teens and pornography. San Francisco, CA: Common Sense.

10Martellozzo, E., Monaghan, A., Adler, J. R., Davidson, J., Leyva, R., & Horvath, M. A. H. (2016). “I wasn’t sure it was normal to watch it”: A quantitative and qualitative examination of the impact of online pornography on the values, attitudes, beliefs and behaviours of children and young people. Middlesex University, NSPCC, & Office of the Children’s Commissioner.

11Robb, M.B., & Mann, S. (2023). Teens and pornography. San Francisco, CA: Common Sense.

12Fritz, N., Malic, V., Paul, B., & Zhou, Y. (2020). A descriptive analysis of the types, targets, and relative frequency of aggression in mainstream pornography. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 49(8), 3041-3053. doi:10.1007/s10508-020-01773-0

13Bridges et al., 2010, “Aggression and Sexual Behavior in Best-Selling Pornography Videos: A Content Analysis,” Violence Against Women.

14Fight the New Drug. (2024, May). Get the Facts (Series of web articles). Fight the New Drug.

15Robb, M.B., & Mann, S. (2023). Teens and pornography. San Francisco, CA: Common Sense.

16Fight the New Drug. (2024, May). Get the Facts (Series of web articles). Fight the New Drug.