"I have a huge problem with pornography"
About this Quote
Sue Johanson’s blunt line lands with the authority of a nurse-turned-broadcaster who spent decades fielding late-night calls about sex, love, and confusion. The problem she names is not with desire or pleasure but with a commercial product that too often masquerades as education. Her life’s work was demystifying sex with warmth and candor, and from that vantage point she saw how pornography can warp expectations: scripted encounters edited for spectacle become the template by which many judge real bodies, real timing, and real emotions. When callers compared themselves to performers or fretted about what they thought they were supposed to do, she heard the anxiety, the shame, and the silence that followed.
The critique is fundamentally pedagogical and ethical. Pornography is designed to entertain, not to model consent, communication, or mutual care. It rewards exaggeration and performance, blurring boundaries and sidelining the negotiation that makes intimacy safe and satisfying. Young people encountering it before meaningful sex education may internalize a highlight reel as a standard, then carry those expectations into relationships where fear of inadequacy or pressure to perform crowds out curiosity and respect. Johanson worried about how that cycle undermines confidence and closeness, not only for viewers but also for partners who feel reduced to roles.
Context matters: her peak broadcast years overlapped with the internet’s rapid expansion, when access outpaced literacy. She was not a moral scold; she was famously pro-pleasure, pro-communication, and anti-shame. Yet that very stance sharpened her concern about an industry that can normalize coercive tropes and conceal labor conditions while selling itself as normal sex. Her answer was always practical: treat porn as fiction, not instruction; talk openly with partners; seek accurate information; center consent and mutual pleasure. The problem, in her view, is what happens when a profitable fantasy fills a vacuum in education and empathy. She wanted to close that vacuum with clarity, kindness, and real-world skill.
The critique is fundamentally pedagogical and ethical. Pornography is designed to entertain, not to model consent, communication, or mutual care. It rewards exaggeration and performance, blurring boundaries and sidelining the negotiation that makes intimacy safe and satisfying. Young people encountering it before meaningful sex education may internalize a highlight reel as a standard, then carry those expectations into relationships where fear of inadequacy or pressure to perform crowds out curiosity and respect. Johanson worried about how that cycle undermines confidence and closeness, not only for viewers but also for partners who feel reduced to roles.
Context matters: her peak broadcast years overlapped with the internet’s rapid expansion, when access outpaced literacy. She was not a moral scold; she was famously pro-pleasure, pro-communication, and anti-shame. Yet that very stance sharpened her concern about an industry that can normalize coercive tropes and conceal labor conditions while selling itself as normal sex. Her answer was always practical: treat porn as fiction, not instruction; talk openly with partners; seek accurate information; center consent and mutual pleasure. The problem, in her view, is what happens when a profitable fantasy fills a vacuum in education and empathy. She wanted to close that vacuum with clarity, kindness, and real-world skill.
Quote Details
| Topic | Mental Health |
|---|
More Quotes by Sue
Add to List
