19-year-old pop musician Billie Eilish has opened up about the devastating effect that exposure to porn at an early age had on her.
During Monday’s episode of “The Howard Stern Show,” Eilish opened up to Sirius XM Radio host Howard Stern about the harmful impacts of her pre-teen consumption of pornography.
In the interview, Eilish said that she began watching porn at the age of 11, spoke candidly about its detrimental impact on her mental health, saying it “destroyed” her brain. The singer said her early exposure to the mature content also shaped her views about sexual consent.
“I used to watch a lot of porn, to be honest,” she told Stern.
“I started watching porn when I was like 11. I think it really destroyed my brain, and I feel incredibly devastated that I was exposed to so much porn,” She added.
The singer also criticized how pornography depicts women’s bodies. Speaking about the same, she said:
“I didn’t understand why that was a bad thing – I thought it was how you learned how to have sex. I was an advocate and I thought I was one of the guys and would talk about it and think I was really cool for not having a problem with it and not seeing why it was bad.”
Eilish also opened up about her own sexual experiences and reflected on how they were affected because of her watching porn. The singer revealed that it was a problem how porn skewered the understanding of consent and other key elements of an intimate relationship.
Eilish told Stern that she frequently watched violent porn, and the first few times she had sex, she didn’t say “no” to things that were “not good” because she thought that’s what she was supposed to find attractive.
She also admitted to having suffered nightmares because some of the content she watched was so violent and abusive.
“I’m so angry that porn is so loved, and I’m so angry at myself for thinking that it was okay,” she said. “The way that vaginas look in porn is f—king crazy. No vaginas look like that. Women’s bodies don’t look like that. We don’t come like that.”
Eilish, 19, came onto the music scene at 14 and made it big at 17. She’s attracted fans of all ages, but much of her fanbase is young, which makes her an ideal bridge between generation smartphone and the parents who didn’t grow up with pornography constantly accessible at their fingertips.
Social media posts in response to Eilish’s observations about the adult film industry show mixed reactions. Some fans expressed their support for Eilish’s stance, asserting that pornography is the essence of “monetizing misogyny,” while others alleged the singer was body-shaming sex workers.
Here are some of the comments of folks online:
“The backlash to Billie Eilish’s comments is predictable. Women and girls stating that porn is hurting them is a message to an industry based on monetizing misogyny -that too few people want to hear.”
“Why am I not surprised that Sex Work Twitter is going after Billie Eilish for stating facts about porn.”
“I think people’s issues were with her body shaming sex workers, like there are many valid criticisms of the porn industry, but insulting other people’s appearances isn’t a good look.”
Source: Upworthy