Billie Eilish began watching porn at 11: ‘It really destroyed my brain’
By Andrew Court - New York Post
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Billie Eilish says porn “destroyed my brain” after she began watching graphic online movies while she was still in elementary school.
The singing sensation — who is now 19 — made the shocking confession during “The Howard Stern Show” on Monday.
“As a woman, I think porn is a disgrace,” Eilish declared in the interview. “I used to watch a lot of porn, to be honest. I started watching porn when I was like 11.”
The “Ocean Eyes” crooner continued: “I think it really destroyed my brain and I feel incredibly devastated that I was exposed to so much porn.”
Eilish also admitted that she began watching more and more graphic types of pornography, which warped her ideas about sex and relationships.
“It got to a point where I couldn’t watch anything else unless it was violent, I didn’t think it was attractive,” she confessed.
“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.”
The singer told Stern that she began watching “abusive” BDSM porn, which she says causes her to now suffer from night terrors and sleep paralysis.
“I’m so angry that porn is so loved,” Eilish blasted. “And I’m so angry at myself for thinking that it was OK.”
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Eilish also slammed the porn industry for creating unrealistic expectations of women’s bodies.
“The way that vaginas look in porn is f–king crazy,” she commented. “No vaginas look like that. Women’s bodies don’t look like that. We don’t come like that.”
Brad Salzman, founder of the New York Sexual Addiction Center, said it’s not unusual for children to first begin watching online porn at the age of 11.
“It’s actually the norm,” said Salzman, who has treated young men suffering from sex and porn addiction. Many of them are in their early 20s — not much older than Eilish herself.
“Parents aren’t paying attention and it [porn exposure] can affect them for the rest of their lives,” Salzman said. “It totally colors their perception of what normal sexuality is supposed to look like and it changes the way they think that they’re supposed to interact. They can begin seeing other people as sex objects as opposed to human beings.”
Ziv Cohen, clinical assistant professor of psychiatry at Cornell University, agreed that the age of porn exposure is shockingly young. He said some parents have approached him in a panic after discovering that their 7 and 8 year old children have been accessing porn.
“For young children to be exposed to that gives them a very skewed and inaccurate image of sex,” Cohen said. “Its not positive for their perception of intimacy and the opposite sex.”
Salzman said there are three components that make porn addictive, “none of which existed 20 years ago.”
“It’s totally accessible, totally anonymous, and totally affordable — or free. There’s an unlimited supply in any flavor you want.”
Salzman was not surprised that Eilish eventually began to access more and more extreme types of porn. “It has to become more frequent, more extreme, more risky — people have to keep turning up the volume. That’s why people drift into categories they never would have gotten into in the first place — to chase the high,” Salzman said.
“People have to realize that internet pornography is not a harmless pastime. It might be the most addictive drug we have today,” Salzman added.
Cohen said parents should have open and honest conversations with their children about pornography. He said it’s not “realistic” that all children will be able to avoid exposure. But some of the effects of seeing pornography can be mitigated by a healthy and stable environment consisting of loving and attentive adults.
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Meanwhile, Eilish told Stern that she wants to keep her dating life out of the public eye.
While she was honest about her experiences with porn, the singer was far shyer when questioned about her relationship status.
“I’m not a serial dater … I don’t go to stuff and flirt with people,” Eilish stated.
“It’s really hard to meet people when people are either terrified of you or think that you’re out of their league,” she added. “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.”
