91Èȱ¬

Around my mid-twenties I remember having a bit of a startling moment, reflecting that I’ve spent more time in my life watching pornography than not watching pornography.

That’s not to say I’d spent over half my life solidly, uninterruptedly watching pornography (although you could have accused me of trying in my teenage years)- I attended school, did my A levels and went to University (a bit), I slept around 8 hours a night, averaged 3 meals a day - basically there wouldn’t have been time.

What I mean is, having started watching porn at probably around 12 or 13 years old, I realised that’s more years regularly watching porn than not. And, frighteningly, I don’t think that’s uncommon for men of my generation.

And that’s why I wanted to make my new podcast series, Jacob Hawley: On Love, and to begin the series by focussing on pornography and the effect it has on us. I believe mine’s a unique generation in that we’ve consumed porn more than our parents did, with greater ease than ever before. Most importantly, my generation have been consuming pornography at a formative time in our lives, and I reckon its impossible that this hasn’t effected our understandings of love and intimacy.

For me it started when a lad brought a porn mag into school after he’d found it in a hedge. We were properly young, maybe eleven or twelve, and I remember everyone gathering round, giddy and excited, giggling and tittering at these images of women who were probably old enough to be our Mums. I remember discovering that Television X, one of the naughtier, more hidden channels on the Freeview box, had a 5 minute free view around 10 o'clock, and that became firmly inked in the diary. One of the boys I played football with knew how to download pixelated images of breasts onto our Nokias, and that was a good Tuesday.

Basically, as young men in our early teens in the noughties, we were like horny pigs sniffing out pornographic truffles.

And that didn’t necessarily feel like a problem at the time, but looking back now, it strikes me that so much of my early exposures to sex came through pornography. I didn’t talk about sex with my parents, and the sex education at my school came in the form of a teacher reluctantly dragging the big TV and VHS player in and sitting awkwardly behind his desk as we watched a 20-year old video on ‘what sex is’. I don’t really remember what happened in that video but I do remember that one of the more nervous lads in my class vomited.

By the time I was 25, I was finding that porn was effecting what I expected during sex, effecting how I felt about myself and my own sexual performance, and generally making me feel rubbish.

The negative mental impact of things going wrong in the bedroom is obvious, but more complicated perhaps is the ease with which I was accessing porn, the regularity with which I was watching it when alone, and the emptiness I would feel afterwards.

At the time I was working a part time day job three days a week, the other days I was ‘working from home’ on my comedy, and the routine of starting those days by watching porn became more and more miserable. It felt monotonous, predictable and utterly joyless, knowing that this would be how I’d start my morning and then procrastinate throughout the day, guiltily weighing up whether I should do it again, knowing it may damage my evening with my then partner.

I didn’t ever acknowledge the way it was making me feel, I never thought of it as a problem, I never spoke to anyone about it, assuming this was just how we’re all supposed to live.

And then a mate told me he’d stopped. He’d stopped watching porn.

In the same way you might stop smoking, or do a dry January. He’d acknowledged it was causing him problems, so he’d made a call on it. I’d never heard a lad of my age talking about porn as a serious problem or as anything other than 'banter'.

So I did the same. I ‘relapsed’ a couple of times, it took a few weeks and a lot of effort, but I can now say it's behind me, and I feel a lot better for it.

But here’s the thing - I don’t want to kink shame anyone who enjoys porn.

There are all sorts of things in life, substances, cigarettes, that I’ve tried, enjoyed for a time, then decided I want to cut out, but fair play to anyone who can enjoy them if they do so without hurting anyone.

Neither do I want to shame the people who are involved in making porn. I kind of think of it like this - I don’t listen to techno. I’ve listened to techno in the past, I’ve gone out of my way to seek out techno, I’ve wasted evenings on techno, and techno has, most definitely made me a bad person in the past. But I know, and love, people who like techno. It's a small part of who they are, and it's something that they manage to enjoy in ways that, to my mind, do not make them bad people. I even know people who make techno. Again, it doesn’t necessarily define them. And despite everything, they’re okay.

In all seriousness, I don’t think it's fair to judge anyone involved in that industry without hearing their stories. So, with this podcast, that’s what I’m doing.

I’m in my late twenties and, if I’m honest, as a man in a monogamous, heterosexual relationship with someone I never want to be separated from, who doesn’t watch porn, I feel out of touch with the way that love’s changing; with the way people are experimenting with new things, even commodifying love and intimacy in new ways.

So, let’s make a podcast about it.

We kick off the series speaking to experts and academics on the psychological effects of porn, catch-up with actor Tyger Drew-Honey about his parent’s careers in porn, talk to cam girls in America, and speak to an old mate of mine who I recently found out has become pretty successful on OnlyFans (I found this out because Boy George shared one of his pictures).

And if anyone can relate to my experience, if you’re working from home, as many people are, and you feel you have an unhealthy relationship with pornography, try taking a little break from it. Try other things to keep your mind occupied. Like a podcast.

Jacob Hawley is a comedian and the presenter and creator of 91Èȱ¬ Sounds’s award-winning podcast Jacob Hawley: On Drugs. The second series Jacob Hawley: On Love is out now.

Jacob is also the creator and star of 91Èȱ¬ Radio 4’s Welcome to Britain, a solo show based on his critically acclaimed debut stand-up hour Howl, with a follow up based on his second, sell out Edinburgh show ‘Faliraki’ which will air in 2021.

Jacob has rapidly generated interest as one of the boldest new voices on the circuit with his astute observations and political passion. His live shows have sold out at both The Edinburgh Fringe and at London’s Soho Theatre.

Twitter: @hawleyjacob

Instagram: @jacobhawley