Boys & Sex: Young Men on Hookups, Love, Porn, Consent, and Navigating the New Masculinity

Orenstein explores how porn has permeated essentially all aspects of modern sexuality. For her interview subjects, she didn't bother to ask whether or not they had ever watched porn. Instead, she asked when they had first watched porn. High-speed Internet access ushered in the era of free porn sites, such as PornHub, which receives over a hundred million visitors daily. Porn became the primary means of sex education for countless teenage boys, particularly for those who had never talked with their parents about sex.

Despite acknowledging that sex in porn is unrealistic, teenage boys base their expectations of sexual performance and fulfillment on what they see in the videos they watch. As a result, they often feel anxious about their sexual stamina or ability to get an erection, expecting their performance to match up with porn actors. Additionally, real life sex often becomes a lesser experience than porn. Many have speculated that "porn use is partially responsible for the lower rates of intercourse among millennials" (49). Orenstein ties porn to portrayals of sex in mainstream media, which also serve as a model for how sexual encounters should happen.

Thematically, this chapter centers around the idea that porn pervades contemporary culture. According to Orenstein, today's youth are part of a "massive porn experiment" (41), one that has become the default sex education for teenagers. In the absence of robust sex education programs that partner with schools and families to promote open dialogue about healthy sexuality, porn is the primary instructional tool. As a result, millions of young men have come to understand sex through the lens of pornographic performance.

Orenstein does not condemn or judge porn use, but maintains journalistic objectivity. She captures the perspectives of her interview subjects, contextualizing them within key data points that emphasize the impact of porn use on a global scale.