“There’s this idea that porn equals sex,” says journalist Pamela Paul, author of Pornified: How Porn is Transforming Our Lives, Our Relationships, and Our Families. “But in fact, it’s the opposite. People using porn are often alone, interacting with a commercialized media.” She adds, “If you believe that the media can affect you, then porn must affect you too.”

In itself, that might not be so shocking a statement, but in the context of the exponential explosion of easily accessible Internet porn, the effects are widespread and likely to touch everyone’s lives. This is exactly why the Calgary Sexual Health Centre (CSHC) is hosting a free community discussion with Pamela Paul about the impact of porn. Pam Krause, executive director of the CSHC, particularly notices porn’s impact on youth.

“Over the past few years, we’ve noticed the types of questions youth are asking are probably linked to porn — porn is now a common way that youth learn about sex. But no one is having a conversation about it.”

And perhaps a conversation is what people are yearning for. When conducting interviews for Pornified, Paul was surprised at how eager people were to discuss it.

“People were willing and interested to talk to me. Some I’d talk to for hours and hours, and at the end they’d ask to continue the conversation later,” she says, explaining that “because there’s generally no conversation [about porn], they hadn’t had the opportunity to explore, say, ‘Why does it interest me to watch a man ejaculating on a crying woman’s face?’”

Following Paul’s example, the CSHC will not gear the discussion towards moralistic judgments of the sex industry. Rather, since it permeates so much of modern culture, the goal is to have a frank exploration of what impact this saturation is having.

“It’s important to discuss,” says Krause emphatically. “Not in terms of whether it’s a good thing or a bad thing, whether it should or shouldn’t be. It’s there, and we need to deal with its impact on people and relationships.”

That impact has changed over the years. Easy access to porn has created a ravenous hunger for wilder, kinked-out scenarios, when more vanilla fare no longer carries the kick required.

“Porn has become more normalized,” notes Krause. “The extreme margins are now the mainstream.” Paul is on the same wavelength, saying “There’s a growing acceptance and mainstreaming of porn.”

Still, conscientious objectors to porn might not realize just how far it’s gone. “After Pornified came out, many people — both men and women — thought that the people quoted in the book were extreme, really at the far end,” says Paul. “This was not the case. In fact, only one chapter deals with compulsive consumers of porn. Most [interviewees] didn’t think there was a problem with their habits.”

Consenting adults and porn aficionados aside, the most sobering aspect of a “pornified” culture is its effect on youth, which the CSHC has already witnessed. While a child’s introduction to porn in days of yore might have been coming across an errant Playboy, today it’s more likely to be an extreme depiction of commercialized sexuality.

“Suppose the first time a girl encounters porn is a screaming woman being doubly penetrated,” muses Paul. “Meanwhile, this girl is wondering whether a boy likes her....”

Paul’s findings, at times troubling, are also enlightening. Have your say and join the discussion. Learn how to swim in a sea of porn.