{"id":171546,"date":"2026-03-22T22:59:33","date_gmt":"2026-03-22T22:59:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/171546\/"},"modified":"2026-03-22T22:59:33","modified_gmt":"2026-03-22T22:59:33","slug":"learning-healthy-romance-is-revolutionary-says-miss-manhattan-deseret-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/171546\/","title":{"rendered":"Learning healthy romance is \u2018revolutionary,\u2019 says Miss Manhattan \u2013 Deseret News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Among the many contributing factors<\/a> to sexual violence, one influence that has received less public attention is the socializing influence of pornography that is increasingly violent and degrading. <\/p>\n

Scholar Gail Dines has been a central force in raising awareness about this connection. After publishing a 2010 text titled \u201cHow Porn Has Hijacked Our Sexuality,\u201d she started Culture Reframed<\/a> to educate people on the science-based \u201charms of pornography to children and adolescents.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

During a panel Thursday titled \u201cYoung Women Speak Out Against Porn Culture<\/a>,\u201d Dines underscored the dangers of an increasingly \u201cpornographied\u201d modern culture surrounding many children \u2014 so much so that loving romantic relationships can be hard to imagine. <\/p>\n

Positive sexual socialization as \u2018miraculous\u2019 <\/p>\n

Panelist Ashley Staggers has worked in sexual violence prevention and survivor advocacy \u2014 recently focusing on these issues as Miss Manhattan 2026. She described watching old movies recently and being struck by how \u201cthe climax of the film is often just the two main characters kissing\u201d \u2014 with everyone reacting, \u201cOh my gosh!\u201d<\/p>\n

That changes, Staggers implied, when pornography has become so \u201cnormalized\u201d that \u201cyou don\u2019t even need to go to a porn site to see porn.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s everywhere,\u201d she said, referring to popular Amazon Prime and Netflix shows filled with sexually explicit scenes. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt would be a miracle for someone to come out of this culture with a healthy understanding of what love, sex and relationships actually look like,\u201d Staggers said \u2014 making her want to ask someone like this how they managed to miss the harmful messages coming at them. <\/p>\n

So \u2018warped\u2019 she didn\u2019t recognize the abuse <\/p>\n

YouTube content creator Katie Ramsay has shared with her 230,000 YouTube subscribers the impact of hypersexualized media on youth \u2014 emphasizing on the panel what she called \u201ca pornification of intimacy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI was in a sexually abusive relationship and I didn\u2019t even realize it at the time,\u201d she recalled. \u201cPart of the reason I didn\u2019t understand it was because my sexual boundaries had become warped and blurred from years of exposure to pornography.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ramsay explained, \u201cPorn pushes the idea that the worst thing you can say to your partner is \u2018no.\u2019 Because saying no ruins the moment. And it isn\u2019t sexy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSo women grow up feeling like they have to say \u2018yes\u2019 in order to be the perfect sexual partner,\u201d she continued. \u201cAnd sex stops being something mutual. Instead, it becomes something that is done to you as a woman.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe normalization of pornography plays a huge role in women not even realizing they\u2019ve been raped or sexually assaulted,\u201d Ramsay said, \u201cbecause when the exact scenario you experienced is plastered across porn websites, it becomes difficult to recognize it as violence.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018Fantasy\u2019 or \u2018reality\u2019?<\/p>\n

When people say pornography is \u201cnot reality,\u201d Dines added, they miss how deeply viewers \u201cinternalize the images, the norms and the values of the pornographic script.\u201d<\/p>\n

In that sense, she said, pornography becomes \u201creality\u201d for people \u2014 explaining, \u201cYou don\u2019t have two brains \u2014 one that says, \u2018This is my life,\u2019 and another that says, \u2018This is media and I\u2019ll just put that over there and go back to my real life.\u2019\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cWe have one brain. And that brain processes what goes on around us,\u201d Dines said, underscoring how, at a deep level, humans \u201ctake those images as real \u2026 and then we act upon them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Respectful romance as \u2018revolutionary\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t want to sound like a negative Nancy,\u201d Staggers said. \u201cBut where we are culturally right now, consent is revolutionary. Understanding your own desires, knowing your own boundaries, and having the ability to say them out loud \u2014 that\u2019s revolutionary.\u201d<\/p>\n

In her experience, modern culture \u201cpunishes girls who deny access to their bodies. Sometimes it\u2019s small things. Sometimes it\u2019s big things. But girls learn quickly that refusing access comes with consequences.\u201d<\/p>\n

In pornography, she said, \u201cgirls are being taught that violence is sexy \u2014 that being choked or restrained is something they should enjoy.\u201d <\/p>\n

At the same time, \u201cboys are taught that when girls say no, they\u2019re just playing hard to get.\u201d <\/p>\n

How would they know anything different?<\/p>\n

\u201cYoung people are learning from pornography what sex looks like, what relationships look like and what pleasure should look like,\u201d summarized sociologist Mandy Sanchez, director of programming at Culture Reframed. \u201cIf that\u2019s the only teacher they have, then how do they know anything different?\u201d<\/p>\n

These youth learn at an early age \u201cwho we are and who we should be,\u201d she said, along with \u201cwhat we like, what we don\u2019t like, who we emulate\u201d and what \u201csex looks like, what we should find enjoyable.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHow do we know what we really want when there\u2019s no real teacher other than pornography?\u201d Sanchez asked.<\/p>\n

Unlearning society\u2019s socialization<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we can learn these things,\u201d Sanchez continued, \u201cthen I think we can unlearn them. But what does that unlearning look like?\u201d<\/p>\n

In addition to thinking critically about media, Staggers encouraged reconnecting with internal signals of desire and discomfort, which she says are often \u201csocialized out\u201d of girls. \u201cYou have to learn what it feels like when you want something, and what it feels like when you don\u2019t.\u201d <\/p>\n

One challenge Staggers noted is that some adults fail to recognize abuse because they themselves experienced similar incidents that were never labeled as assault, recalling a moment when she had to tell her own mother she was a survivor. <\/p>\n

This kind of growing awareness, panelists say, can help to reestablish sexual boundaries and genuine consent \u2014 while opening more opportunities for healthy, sweet romance to thrive. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Among the many contributing factors to sexual violence, one influence that has received less public attention is the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":171547,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[75,84,83,9,24,17318,63],"class_list":["post-171546","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-manhattan","tag-manhattan","tag-manhattan-headlines","tag-manhattan-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-news-feed-national","tag-nyc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171546","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=171546"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171546\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/171547"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=171546"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=171546"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=171546"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}