Jonny, 27, from Cambridgeshire says he was addicted to porn by age 12- Admits porn encouraged him to degrade the women he was involved with
- He grew up in the first generation where porn was free to access online
- The youth worker now hopes to warn youngsters about dangers of porn
The moment you meet Jonny Adams, he stands out as an exceptionally polite, thoughtful young man. With a first-class degree in motor sport engineering and with wholesome boy-next-door good looks, he is everything you would hope your son or future son-in-law might be.
But it is testament to the pervasiveness of pornography that, by 12, Jonny was addicted to hard-core internet filth.
Having grown up in the first generation of children with free access to internet porn, he is speaking out to say that not only must we warn our sons about the corrosive effects of porn — we must also tell our daughters.
Jonny Adams, now 27, reveals that growing up with free access to hardcore pornography has affected his relationships with women and mental health. He has now boycotted it completely and hopes to warn others
Because as Jonny, 27, reveals with brutal candour, porn has become more than the most powerful form of sex education in young people’s lives. It has also become a template for the way young men view and treat women.
This is deeply worrying given that a recent NSPCC report found nearly one in ten 12 and 13-year-old boys already fear they are addicted.
As Jonny says: ‘Porn brought me to the brink, triggering anxiety, depression and invasive sexual thoughts about every woman I set eyes on.
‘It also had an incredibly derogatory impact on the way I viewed every member of the opposite sex. Porn not only destroyed my peace of mind. It stopped me seeing women as human beings.’
If this can happen to this well brought up, highly intelligent young man, it can surely happen to anyone.
Raised in a happy home in a picturesque village in Cambridgeshire, Jonny was a friendly, outgoing child who loved sport and excelled academically. As he entered puberty, like most boys his age, he started becoming curious about the opposite sex.
‘Porn brought me to the brink, triggering anxiety, depression and invasive sexual thoughts about every woman I set eyes on, says Jonny, who admits porn had a ‘derogatory impact’ on the way he saw women
Jonny hit adolescence just at the time when porn started being more easily and quickly available on the internet. ‘My family had a computer and after school I had an hour to kill before my mum came home’
The difference was that Jonny hit adolescence just at the time when porn started being more easily and quickly available on the internet.
‘My family had a computer and after school I had an hour to kill before my mum came home from her job as a teacher,’ he says.
‘I had been introduced to women with no clothes on through my older brother’s lads’ mags, so it was not long before I was drawing the curtains and exploring what else I could find for free on the web.’
By the age of 14, Jonny had been given a computer for his schoolwork, allowing him to surf the internet in the privacy of his bedroom. Initially, he says he viewed ‘normal’ sex scenes. But before long the internet led him down dark paths never available in the days when the only access to porn was a top shelf magazine.
When he went to university, Jonny had even more freedom to indulge his habit, and began looking at porn up to four times a day. Yet the girls who fell for him had no idea how much porn affected the way he treated them
‘My taste for porn became insatiable,’ he says. ‘What gave me a kick and satisfied my craving one day didn’t work the next. Before long, I was led into watching more explicit stuff to get the same fix’
‘My taste for porn became insatiable,’ he says. ‘What gave me a kick and satisfied my craving one day didn’t work the next.
‘During my teens, the internet went from dial-up to broadband and the static images of sex turned into sites featuring pages upon pages of live-action video clips.’
He adds: ‘Before long, I was led into watching more explicit stuff to get the same fix — scenes filmed to look like rape, and degrading clips of guys passing round the same girl.
‘As I worked hard at school and got good marks in my exams, my parents never saw any reason to check up on me, so they never fitted computer filters. They had no idea what was freely available.’
Jonny often swapped stories of the extreme acts he had seen with his friends at school the next day.
‘I hid it from my parents, of course, but among my friends there was no guilt or embarrassment,’ he says.
At 21 and with a degree, Jonny landed his dream job as a designer with a Formula One racing car team. Yet instead of feeling on top of the world, he was becoming concerned about the grip porn had over him
‘I counted myself lucky to be growing up at a time when you could access porn for free at the touch of a button. There was no downside that I could see.’
However, there was already a price to be paid — and not just for Jonny. Even before he’d dated his first girlfriend, porn was colouring his view of women. ‘Porn had an incredibly damaging impact on the way I viewed girls because the videos portrayed them as objects whose role was to be used and dominated by men.
DARKEST DATES
Monday is the most popular day to access porn, says internet data, and January the most popular month.
‘After I lost my virginity at 16, I compared every girl I slept with to those I’d seen on screen. I’d make fun of them with my friends if their bodies did not live up to my high ideals.’
When he went to university, Jonny had even more freedom to indulge his habit, and began looking at porn up to four times a day. Yet the girls who fell for his fresh-faced looks had no idea how much porn affected the way he treated them.
‘Sex to me was never about intimacy or affection. I saw it as the opportunity to play out what I had seen on screen,’ he says.
‘I was controlling. I would get the girls to do the things that turned me on visually. It was all about my pleasure, not theirs.’
Incredibly, Jonny never met much resistance to his requests. ‘Girls seemed to know what I expected — probably from seeing porn themselves,’ he says.
Surrounded by other young men who grew up with the same influences, none of his behaviour seemed unusual.
Raised in a happy home in a picturesque village in Cambridgeshire, Jonny was a friendly, outgoing child who loved sport and excelled academically. But by age 12, Jonny was addicted to hard-core internet filth
‘All my mates acted the same,’ he says. ‘We all put down women with the same judgmental comments. The girls never realised, but the misogyny was shocking.
‘It became a challenge to see how much we could get girls to do, so we could brag about it. We persuaded girls to send naked pictures of themselves that we promised to keep secret, but which we kept on our phones and then showed each other.’
At 21 and with a degree, Jonny landed his dream job as a designer with a Formula One racing car team.
Yet instead of feeling on top of the world, he was becoming concerned about the grip porn had over him, for it had started to affect his mental wellbeing.
As well as making him more demanding of women, porn also made him more critical of himself. ‘I was 14 when I realised I was never going to match up to the bulked-up men with 12 inch manhoods I saw on my computer,’ he says.
‘As a result, I felt so ashamed I tried to avoid being seen naked in the shower after soccer matches.
‘By the time I started my first job, the insecurity that I was not good enough became worse. I felt so insecure I suffered bouts of impotency when I had sex.
‘All my mates acted the same,’ he says. ‘We all put down women with the same judgmental comments. The girls never realised, but the misogyny was shocking’
‘I would then be so panicked that I would spend the evenings after I got home from work searching the web for new clips to arouse me and reassure me nothing was wrong.
‘Afterwards, I felt an incredible low — I felt degraded and alone.’
Pornography had wormed its way so far into his brain that it affected his thoughts when he saw a woman.
‘I had developed such an underwear fetish that if I so much as glimpsed a woman’s bra strap, I would start fantasising,’ he says.
‘If I met a lady who was much older or married and whom I had no sexual interest in, unwelcome images of her in a sexual situation would pop into my head.’
Jonny hit rock bottom at 24. ‘I kept it a secret, but inside I was depressed. I had also given up hope of ever finding love. I believed relationships were meaningless.’
Jonny hit rock bottom at 24. ‘I kept it a secret, but inside I was depressed,’ he reveals. ‘I had also given up hope of ever finding love. I believed relationships were meaningless’
Gary Wilson, author of the new book Your Brain On Porn, says Jonny followed a classic pattern of young men raised on porn.
Yet he says experts are only just waking up to how porn affects mental health. Symptoms can include anxiety, depression, suicidal thoughts, insecurity and difficulties forming relationships.
The younger and longer boys view porn, the more engrained the lessons they learn become. Considering the constant craving for novelty has been shown to draw young porn users towards extreme fetishes, it’s a worrying trend.
Wilson, who has studied how porn affects the neuro-science of the brain, says: ‘Research shows that the younger they are when boys start to use porn, the more likely they are to view more extreme material.
‘In an informal 2012 poll of mostly young people, 63 per cent agreed that: “My tastes became increasingly extreme or deviant.” Half were concerned about it.’
In a bid to free himself from his porn addiction, in 2011, Jonny started going to his local church, where he made new friends.
‘I started to look back on my life and see the hollowness of devaluing people,’ he says.
‘I realised that sex is something precious between two people. I was able to talk to people who accepted what I had done and supported me nevertheless.’
In 2012, Jonny left his job because he wanted to do something more worthwhile and became a youth worker, helping teenagers to deal with the same issue.
In the three years since, he has not looked at porn, but admits: ‘It’s been a hard fight to break free. Until recently I still had flashbacks of some of the videos I saw.’
Jonny is deeply concerned about the effect freely available porn may have on the next generation, who can view it 24 hours a day on smart phones. ‘I frequently meet youngsters who think nothing of showing each other graphic images on their phones of girls who think they have to pose naked to be liked.
‘Like I did, these boys don’t see porn as a bad thing — not yet, anyway. I want to tell this generation, and the next, that porn is not harmless fun. I am scared for the girls growing up with men who behaved the way I did.
‘It hurts in more ways than people realise and can do untold damage.’
Tanith Carey is author of Girls, Uninterrupted: Steps For Building Stronger Girls In A Challenging World (Icon Books, £7.99).
;