Introduction - Becoming Sexual in Digital Times: The Risks and Harms of Online Pornography

Abstract

ABSTRACT This introduction summarizes the research on the impact of online pornography on sexual health and relationships in young people. I suggest that the difference between pre-Internet and online pornography is not in any straightforward sense only one of degree. I argue that this is because the online medium changes the young person’s relationship to the sexual materials by providing a virtual space within which sexual desire is gratified quickly and non-reflectively, undermining the capacity to mentalize one’s own sexual desire and that of the other.