Porn. Such a taboo word. One that immediately inspires disgust for many people. It is avoided in all polite conversations, so why is it such a norm for men?

High school guys are encouraged by their peers to watch it. According to an analysis of the most popular porn sites conducted by InternetSafety101, nine out of 10 teenage boys (87 percent) and one out of three teenage girls (31 percent) report using porn. The mobile porn industry is expected to reach $2.8 billion by 2015.

A large part of the Internet is entirely devoted to porn. According to an analysis of the most popular porn sites conducted by InternetSafety101, 30 percent of the Internet is porn. That is disgusting, and porn is not okay.

There are a few catastrophic problems with it. Porn leads to the objectification of women and men. It makes people see the actors as objects. No one watches porn to see the actors’ personalities. It completely dehumanizes the actors to the point where they are not seen as real people.

Porn is almost entirely male-oriented. According to an analysis of the most popular porn sites conducted by InternetSafety101, of the 304 porn scenes that were analyzed, 88.2 percent contained physical aggression and 47.8 percent contained verbal aggression, like name-calling. The vast majority of the aggressors were male and the victims were female. Porn disturbingly portrays women as sex objects who need to be dominated.

This is obviously an issue. When men watch too much porn, it affects how they treat their girlfriends. According to the analysis of porn sites from InternetSafety101, teenagers who look at violent X-rated material are six times more likely to report forcing someone to do something sexual online or in-person than those who do not look at violent, X-rated material.

Porn creates completely unrealistic expectations and standards for relationships. The thing that a lot of people do not understand is that porn is not real. It is a performance. Healthy relationships are not going to be like porn films. In order for a relationship to work, people cannot treat their lovers like porn stars. It is disrespectful, and the vast majority of women do not like being disrespected in their relationships. This is common sense, folks.

One of the reasons that porn is so popular is that it is addictive. According to research conducted by an organization against porn, FightTheNewDrug.org, when people look at porn, their brains release dopamine. The dopamine creates new pathways in the brain and causes pleasure. The dopamine release leads people back to the same behavior that caused it, i.e. watching porn. Over time, the constant overload of chemicals in the brain makes people need to watch more porn in order to get the same high. This is why it is so difficult for porn-users to cut back on watching porn at first.

However, not all hope is lost. There are various movements of men and women against porn.  Some of these movements are FightTheNewDrug.org and NoPlaceForSheep.com. Porn may be addictive, but like any addiction, it can be fought.

Don’t watch porn just to be like your peers. It has terrible effects and quite frankly is just disgusting. Fight the norm.

Rachel Amrhein is an Opinion Columnist for The Patriot and jcpatriot.com.