Pornography’s Impact on Youth, Consent, and Culture: An Interview with Dr. Gail Dines

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): A Further Inquiry

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2025/07/17

Part 1 of 2

Dr. Gail Dines is the Founder and CEO of Culture Reframed and Professor Emerita of Sociology and Women’s Studies at Wheelock College, Boston. With over 30 years of research on the pornography industry, she is recognized globally as a leading expert on how pornography shapes society, culture, and sexuality. Dr. Dines has served as a consultant to governmental agencies in the U.S. and internationally, including the UK, Norway, Iceland, and Canada. In 2016 she founded Culture Reframed, where she continues to champion education around the harms of pornography. Dr. Dines is also the co-editor of the best-selling textbook Gender, Race and Class in Media and the author of Pornland: How Porn Has Hijacked Our Sexuality, which has been translated into five languages and adapted into a documentary film. Her work has been featured in major media outlets, including ABC, CNN, BBC, MSNBC, The New York Times, Time, The Guardian, and Vogue. Dr. Dines is a regular guest on television and radio and is prominently featured in documentaries such as The Price of Pleasure and The Strength to Resist.

Dines outlines over 40 years of research linking pornography to sexual aggression, violence against women, and the erosion of healthy relationships. Dines contrasts radical and liberal feminist perspectives, critiques the porn industry’s exploitative tactics, and highlights how pornography serves as inadequate sex education for youth. She argues for porn-resilient education and supports survivors navigating trauma. Dines warns that mainstream pornography normalizes misogyny, racism, and coercion, undermining consent and equality at every societal level.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Today, we are here with Professor Gail Dines, also founder of Culture Reframed. My first question, Gail: what is the connection between pornography and violence against women?

Professor Gail Dines: We have over 40 years of empirical research from different disciplines that show that boys and men who consume pornography are more likely to engage in sexually aggressive behaviour, more likely to accept rape myths, more likely to develop harmful sexual attitudes toward women, and may experience increased anxiety, depression, and reduced empathy for victims of sexual violence. This happens because they are repeatedly exposed to depictions of sexual violence and objectification. Most mainstream internet pornography today is hardcore—it’s cruel, brutal, and dehumanizing toward women.

As men and boys watch and become aroused by it, they internalize the ideologies embedded in these images. A key point about pornography is that it portrays women as always consenting, no matter how degrading or violent the act is. This gives the impression that women enjoy being mistreated, which is often far from the truth, as they may be coerced or paid to act in these scenes. This reinforces the harmful idea that it is acceptable to dehumanize and abuse women. We have substantial peer-reviewed research from fields such as psychology, sociology, and media studies that corroborates these findings.

Jacobsen: What research links pornography to sexual aggression?

Dines: Regarding the research linking pornography to sexual aggression, our website, culturereframed.org, offers fact sheets. One in particular, titled “Understanding The Harms of Pornography,” lists many studies. Additionally, our academic library contains over 500 peer-reviewed articles on this topic. Scholars such as Paul Wright, Chyng Sun, and Jennifer Johnson have contributed important work. The strength of social science research is not in isolated studies but in the coherent pattern that emerges when we review a large body of work. The research shows a clear correlation between pornography consumption and violence against women.

Jacobsen: How does hypersexualized media align with human rights violations, particularly about youth?

Dines: Hypersexualized media, even content that isn’t classified as pornography, and pornography itself can be viewed as violations of civil rights because they infringe on young people’s ability to construct their sexuality. The multi-billion-dollar media and pornography industries are shaping the sexual attitudes and behaviours of young people worldwide, which strips them of their autonomy in this area. These industries commodify and monetize sexuality, taking control away from individuals and turning it into a product.

Young people deserve the opportunity to develop a sexuality that is meaningful to them, not one dictated by the interests of pornographers seeking profit. Additionally, there are significant human rights violations against women in pornography. The treatment many women endure in the production of hardcore pornography can be likened to torture, violating international human rights conventions. If the same acts were done to any other group, they would likely be recognized as torture. That’s how extreme much of mainstream pornography has become.

Jacobsen: What are the social and health consequences of pornography consumption?

Dines: Basically, pornography is shifting how we think about women, men, sex, relationships, connection, and consent—all of these issues. What you see in society is that when pornography becomes the “wallpaper” of your life, as it does for young people today, it becomes the main form of sex education. This shifts the norms and values of the culture, and it’s happening internationally. This is not a local problem. Any child with a device connected to the internet is being fed a steady diet of misogyny and racism—there’s an incredible amount of racism in pornography—and the idea that men and boys have a right to ownership of women’s bodies, regardless of what women want. There’s also the notion that women’s bodies exist to be commodified and used however men wish. This sets up women and girls to be victims of male violence. Meanwhile, we are trying to build a world of equality between men and women.

Pornography shreds that possibility—not only in terms of sex but also in employment, the legal system, and more. It sends the message that women exist only to be penetrated, and often in the most vile and cruel ways possible. So, pornography undermines women’s rights across multiple levels and within multiple institutions.

Jacobsen: You raised an interesting point about the nature of consent. What is the framework of consent in pornographic imagery and in the industry itself?

Dines: First, let’s start with the imagery because the industry is slightly different. In the images, she consents to everything. The one word you rarely hear in pornography is “no.” It’s rare. If you go onto Pornhub or YouTube, where most men and boys consume pornography, you won’t hear “no.” Now, there are some rape porn sites where the woman says “no,” but those are at the far end of the spectrum. I study mainstream pornography, such as what’s on Pornhub. In terms of consent, we never know if a woman truly consents; this is where the industry comes in. While they might sign a consent form, we don’t know under what conditions it was signed.

Also, pornography is where racism, sexism, capitalism, and colonialism intersect. The poorer a woman is, the more likely she will be a woman of colour with fewer resources, and the more likely she is to end up in the porn industry. These are not Ivy League graduates lining up to do this. These are women who have had few choices. When you have limited options in life, especially due to economic hardship, you cannot freely argue that consent is fully informed or voluntary.

Jacobsen: For those able to exit the industry, what are the ways they manage to do so, and what are the psychological and emotional impacts, as well as the physical effects?

Dines: It’s extremely hard for women to leave pornography. First of all, we know that women in pornography experience the same levels of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) as prostituted women. Many of them are also under pimp control. The psychological, emotional, and physical tolls are severe, making it difficult for them to leave the industry.

And also, where are you going to go? Especially in pornography, where your image is everywhere, women who have been in the industry, even if they get out, live in constant fear that their employers, children, and partners will find their images or even their next-door neighbours. The issue becomes extremely difficult. You never really escape pornography once you’ve been part of it. Even if you leave the industry, you’re never fully out of it because your image remains online. It can take many years to recover emotionally and physically.

Many women endure severe physical harm—STIs and injuries to the anus, vagina, and mouth due to the hardcore nature of the acts. What’s interesting is that, in the case of prostitution and trafficking, there are many survivor-led groups helping women exit the industry. This support isn’t as prevalent for women in pornography, and the reason is that these women feel so exposed. They feel vulnerable even after leaving the industry because their images remain there.

Remember, an image on Pornhub can go viral, spreading across all the porn sites, so you never know who has seen it. You never know if the person you meet has seen it, which creates a constant feeling of vulnerability.

Jacobsen: You made an important distinction between liberal feminism and radical feminism. Can you clarify that distinction about pornography?

Dines: Yes. The critical distinction is in the ideological framing. Radical feminists were among the first to highlight the violence of pornography—both in terms of the harm to women in the industry and the impact on women in the society. Radical feminism grew out of a focus on violence against women. Over time, they recognized that pornography is part of that violence.

Liberal feminism, on the other hand, tends to be more neoliberal, emphasizing individualism. The argument often centers around the idea that “she chose it,” that it’s about sexual agency. But what we know about these women is that this is not a true sexual agency. If anything, it strips them of their sexual agency and does the same to all women. Women often look at pornography to see what they should be doing for the men who consume it. Radical feminists are anti-pornography because they see both its production and consumption as a major form of violence against women, and they understand that it contributes to real-world violence as well.

Jacobsen: What are the tactics of the pornography industry, and how are they similar to those of the tobacco industry?

Dines: The pornography industry employs tactics similar to the tobacco industry, such as bringing in pseudo-academics to argue that there’s no harm, framing research in ways that downplay the issues, and lobbying. The pornography industry has a powerful lobbying arm, much like the tobacco industry did. They know the harm their product causes, but they’re not interested in liberating women from harm—they’re in it to make money.

And so, all predatory industries will do whatever it takes to make money, irrespective of the incredible social impact it will have. The United States is known for not having as strong a FACTED (Family Life and Sexual Health Education) program as Canada. However, Canada, at its best, still has its gaps.

Jacobsen: So, how does pornography act, as you mentioned earlier, as a filler for sex education and a particularly poor one for young people, and potentially for older people who missed it?

Dines: Let’s focus on younger people. Developing an interest in sex, is a natural part of development, often starting from puberty But because we don’t have good sex education—even in U.S. states that are required to provide it—the content is outdated and doesn’t speak to the reality that kids live in today. So where are kids going to turn when they have access to devices and a vast amount of free pornography? Pornography fills that gap, but poorly.

What is needed, and what Culture Reframed provides, is a porn-critical sex education curriculum. If you visit our website, we have a program for high school teachers (and some middle school teachers), which includes PowerPoints and detailed instructions on how to teach it. We don’t show pornography, obviously, but we focus on building porn-resilient young people. Unfortunately, in many cases, sex education isn’t prioritized, and many sex ed teachers aren’t even specialized in the subject.

They might be math or physical education teachers, told a month before, “You’re teaching sex ed.” We frequently hear from people who are unprepared and have no idea where to start. Interestingly, studies show that students immediately pick up on this lack of expertise. Research indicates that students are aware that their sex ed teachers don’t know how to teach the subject, don’t want to do it, and aren’t addressing issues relevant to their lives. As a result, sex education has effectively been handed over to pornographers.

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