Billie Eilish has opened up about being exposed to pornography at a young age, and the damaging affect it had on her.
The 19-year-old singer said porn completely ‘destroyed’ her brain and had a negative impact on her sex life, while expressing concerns about what pornography teaches men and women about sexual behaviour and consent.
Speaking on SiriusXM’s The Howard Stern Show, Billie Eilish said: “As a woman, I think porn is a disgrace and I used to watch a lot of porn to be honest. I started watching porn when I was like 11 and I didn’t understand why it was a bad thing. I thought that was how you learned to have sex.
“I was an advocate and I thought I was ‘one of the guys’, and would talk about it and think I was really cool for not having a problem with it, and not seeing why it was bad.”
She added: “I think it really destroyed my brain and I feel incredibly devastated that I was exposed to so much porn,” revealing that her mother was ‘horrified’ when she told her.
Billie went on to explain how this led to being exposed to particularly ‘violent’ and ‘abusive’ pornography, which had a detrimental effect on her first sexual experiences, because she thought that’s what she was “supposed to be attracted to”.
“It got to a point where I couldn’t watch anything else unless it was violent, I didn’t think it was attractive,” she said. “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. I’m so angry that porn is so loved, and I’m so angry at myself for thinking that it was OK… it’s how so many people think they’re supposed to learn.”
Billie also commented on how pornography perpetuates unrealistic beauty ideals and female sexual pleasure. “The way vaginas look in porn is f***ing crazy,” she said. “No vaginas look like that. Women’s bodies don’t look like that. We don’t come like that.”
Notably, Billie refers to pornography on her recent track ‘Male Fantasy’, which appears on her latest album ‘Happier Than Ever’, released in July this year.
In the opening lines of the song, Billie sings the lyrics:
Home alone, trying not to eat, distract myself with pornography/
I hate the way she looks at me/
I can’t stand the dialogue/
She would never be that satisfied, it’s a male fantasy/
I’m going back to therapy.