Image Source: IndiaGlitz

Kids have an uncanny habit of sneaking past boundaries and fences and doing exactly what they are told not to do. And because celebs are no different than normal people, Billie Eilish conceded that she bypassed the strictly 18+ porn website warnings, claiming to have seen adult pictures from a young age. Needless to say, watching pornography at such a tender age resulted in many drawbacks, with the singer adding that it 'destroyed' her brain. 

The famous Grammy winner opened about her experience with consuming porn content when she was practically a child as she sat down for a talk at SiriusXM's The Howard Stern Show this Monday. The singer revealed that watching the highly graphic sexual content, later on, went to tarnish the way she experienced her sexual awakening as she grew up. 

The British singer revealed that she was just 11 years old when she first watched porn and got hooked to it in the conquest to feel more like “one of the guys”. Now that the singer is a responsible adult, she also stated the fact that she thinks that porn is a "disgrace."

She elaborated, “As a woman, I think porn is a disgrace. I used to watch a lot of porn, to be honest. I started watching porn when I was like 11.” Referring to the negative impact it had on her mental health, she admitted, “I think it really destroyed my brain, and I feel incredibly devastated that I was exposed to so much porn.”

Not only did it shift the way she looked at sexual consent, but the highly graphic, abusive, and damaging content also resulted in her experience with sleep paralysis and night terrors. She also thought that what happened in the videos was normal, and that is what she had to expect from her first sexual experience. It led to negative experiences for the singer and what it meant to consent and also muddled what she was “supposed to be attracted to”.

“It got to a point where I couldn’t watch anything else unless it was violent. I didn’t think it was attractive,” explained the singer. “I was a virgin. I had never done anything. And so, it led to problems." "The first few times I had sex, I was not saying no to things that were not good. It was because I thought that’s what I was supposed to be attracted to. I’m so angry that porn is so loved, and I’m so angry at myself for thinking that it was okay,” revealed the star.

But this is not all of it. Porn is not only damaging in the way the sexual content it shows or the fact that young kids might bypass security and head to watch content they are not supposed to look at. One of the most disturbing aspects of porn has to be the fact that it presents an unreal outlook on bodies mostly, the female body. 

The people portrayed in porn are shown having unrealistic body proportions, and even mostly unsexual body parts are fetishized into something that calls down the male gaze. Women are made to look extremely out of proportion, with extensive surgeries, not to mention that their most intimate parts, such as the vulva, are also made to undergo surgeries to look a certain way. 

Of course, when little children consume this content, apart from the fact that it literally destroys their outlook on the world, they tend to see the world through a false notion of beauty, struggling with who they are looking for false affirmations of being attractive. People, and generally children, tend to forget that porn is directed and choreographed just like any other cinematic film, and it does not follow real-life scenarios as people would in romantic situations. 

Unfortunately, if children do watch these disgusting echoes of human sexual endeavors, they set themselves up for a lifetime of disappointment. 

Billie Eilish hence talked about the very damaging unrealistic beauty standards of the pornography industry saying, "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,” she added. 

Not only are women made to feel insecure about their bodies, but men also undergo severe insecurity about their physique and body as compared to the men portrayed in such films. Needless to mention, the scenes and positions shown in porn are also highly unrealistic to achieve in real life and are actually orchestrated under severe scrutiny by professionals.

The interview then ceremoniously descended towards the singer's very own and private love life. When Stern prodded Elish about if she has managed to meet someone special in her romantic life, Elish conceded that she does not regularly meet great people and people are usually either afraid of asking her out or think that she is not in their reach. "It's really hard to meet people when people are either terrified of you or think that you're out of their league," the singer had added. 

The singer has tried her hands at dating to see what works for her, but she is not a “serial dater.” Sharing that she had almost thought that she might not find someone worth her while, she revealed, "Last year, I thought that I'd be single for the rest of my life. I genuinely couldn't even picture myself in a relationship of any sort." But she added, "I got over that pretty fast."

Eilish said she felt she would never feel love again a while ago; Credits: Hindustan Times

The star herself had struggled with many damaging perceptions of beauty over the years, and undoubtedly, porn had played a part in damaging it for the young singer. Still, she has grown up to be a smart individual and has learned to be a great human being.