What Makes an Essay Great?

The article that I chose to read, “What Teenagers Are Learning From Online Porn”, from the New York Times delves into the power porn has or can have over young adults who are discovering their sexuality. Maggie Jones interviews teens in high school about their experience with porn and what they think it means for their futures. Many boys she interviewed stated that they thought that was the normal thing, and what was portrayed was realistic. Many thought all girls would like the things shown in these videos. Many were quoted as saying they had also gained some performance anxiety from the acts they saw in the videos they watched, that maybe they could never live up to the expectation set by these actors and actresses. An interesting thing included in the article is that girls were thought to not know what they wanted. “But I think some of the girls are afraid.” That’s a quote from a third interviewee at the school. He said that some girls are influenced by social media more than real life experiences. There were discussions of consent, kinks, and overall preferences. There was also an imbalance between the amount of girls that were interviewed and the amount of boys: 0. I think as far as it being voted one of the most popular articles, it was written very tastefully. Often, when writing about sex, it’s easy to include more crude language and examples, but I think Maggie does a good job of keeping it professional while also getting her point across. The research used was also very helpful. Pulling from polls and statistics on the parents’ side of things is informative as well. “Half as many parents thought their 14- and 18-year-olds had seen porn as had in fact watched it. And depending on the sex act, parents underestimated what their kids saw by as much as 10 times.” I think the addition of this side of the story is a way to stay well rounded and includes more than just the watchers themselves.