Ask Sam letter

Hi there,

It's normal to start to be curious about sex as you get older. Some young people choose to watch porn to find out what sex is like, but it can be very unrealistic. Although it's possible to watch porn and to have no harmful effects, there are dangers that you need to be aware of.

Masturbation is normal and is something lots of people do - no matter what age, sexuality or gender they are. There's nothing wrong with masturbating as often as you like and it's not dangerous to do so.

Porn can seem like a good way to find out what sex is like, but it's not usually like real life at all. People use porn in different ways - some may use it as something to masturbate. For this reason porn is often designed to focus on very specific parts of sex. This can give a distorted view of what sex is like.

As well as giving an unrealistic impression of sex it can sometimes lead to problems later on. If you have got used to masturbating only to porn, it can make it difficult to be aroused by other things.

It's difficult to know if you're going to be affected in this way or not. It's quite common to have problems keeping an erection when you first start having sex anyway, whether you watched porn or not. Most of the time problems with erections are psychological and go away on their own. Lots of men have a problem with erections at some point - it's usually temporary and probably won't mess up your life.

There are other dangers to watching porn - including seeing things you didn't mean to see, accidentally watching porn that is illegal and finding that it starts to become addictive. To find out more about these dangers you can take a look at our page about porn for more advice.​

Thanks for your letter.

Take care,

Sam

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