©️ By Sophie Lewis | The Grooming Files | @sophielewiseditorial
The Porn Crisis
What happens when a child’s first sexual experience… isn’t theirs?
It doesn’t start with desire. It starts with exposure.
A pop-up. A schoolmate’s phone. A search out of curiosity that opens a door they can’t close.
And what they see isn’t love, isn’t trust, and isn’t sex. It’s performance. Pain. Control.
It’s porn.
What does that do to a developing brain?
Children exposed to pornography before puberty are:
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More likely to show reduced empathy and increased aggression
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More likely to normalise violence, submission, and silence in sexual scripts
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At risk of developing compulsive sexual behaviours or unrealistic expectations
Owens et al. (2012) found that early exposure is linked to greater sexual permissiveness and objectification. Flood (2007) warned that children struggle to distinguish between fantasy and real-life sexual relationships.
This isn’t education, it’s programming.
This is not rare. It’s everywhere.
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In the UK, over 50% of 11–13-year-olds have seen pornography online.
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One in ten under 10s have already been exposed.
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Most kids see porn years before any formal sex education.
(Sources: NSPCC, 2023 / Ofcom Media Use Report)
No consent. No preparation. No understanding. Just confusion, arousal, shame and silence.
That’s not curiosity. That’s grooming.
The loop begins early:
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Stimulus: The first video — shocking, arousing, taboo
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Secrecy: They say nothing, but remember everything
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Shame: They feel confused, maybe dirty — but go back anyway
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Escalation: Curiosity becomes compulsion.
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Normalisation: Violence, degradation, silence become “just what sex is”
This is how a child’s sexuality is shaped, not by connection or love, but by code, algorithms, and monetised fantasy.
This is the pipeline no one wants to admit:
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Exposure at 10
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Habit by 12
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Escalation by 14
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Confusion, addiction, desensitisation
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And for some? Acting out. Testing boundaries. Crossing lines.
We’re not saying porn causes offending. We’re saying it can create the conditions where offending becomes more likely, especially in children already struggling with trauma, identity, or impulse control.
This isn’t harmless. It’s strategic.
If you wanted to groom a generation into confusion, objectification, and disconnection… this is exactly how you’d do it.
And the industry knows it.
Up Next:
Part 3 – From Porn to Predation
Escalation. Desensitisation. Offender testimony. What happens when watching isn’t enough anymore?
