Billie Eilish says she hates porn because it 'destroyed' her teenage brain. Therapists say porn isn't inherently damaging.

• Billie Eilish told Howard Stern that "violent" porn she watched at age 11 "destroyed" her brain and contributed to sleep paralysis.
• Sex therapists said that young people can be traumatized by porn if they lack proper sex education.

During Billie Eilish's recent appearance on "The Howard Stern Show," she said she began watching "violent" porn as a young person. Now 20, Eilish told host Howard Stern the BDSM content, which she watched before she ever had sex, negatively affected her relationship with sex.

"The first few times I had sex, I was not saying no to things that were not good," Eilish told Stern. "And it's because I thought that that's what I was supposed to be attracted to."

Eilish also said she believes the porn she watched contributed to night terrors and sleep paralysis, and called the erotic content a "disgrace."

"I'm so angry that porn is so loved, and I'm so angry at myself for thinking that it was OK," Eilish said.

Young people who are exposed to porn above their developmental capacities and before they receive proper sex education can indeed grow to misunderstand what healthy sex looks and feels like, Philadelphia-based sex therapist Shadeen Francis told Insider.

But rather than demonize the porn itself, people should be more critical of the lack of sex education that comes prior to a young person getting their hands on erotica.

"In the same way that you're not meant to learn how to drive by watching NASCAR, you're not meant to learn how to be a sexual person from pornography. Pornography is supposed to arouse you," Francis told Insider.

If children don't understand consent, certain sex acts could confuse them

Eilish said her younger self gravitated towards BDSM-themed porn. BDSM, short for bondage-discipline, dominance-submission, and sadism-masochism, is a sexual dynamic that involves two or more people consensually playing with power dynamics.

But for a child who has yet to learn the meaning of sexual consent, these acts could come off as violence for violence's sake, rather than a mutually pleasurable role play, Joe Kort, a Michigan-based sex therapist and founder of The Center for Relationship and Sexual Health, told Insider.

Porn, BDSM-focused or otherwise, doesn't irrevocably destroy a pre-teen's brain, Kort said. But that imagery can give them unrealistic ideas about what sex should be like if they don't have a basic understanding of consent and arousal.

For a pre-teen, "any BDSM is going to look violent and she's not going to understand that these are consenting people who are aroused and turned on by pain. In her mind, it's like watching a horror movie," Kort said.

Therapists say we need more sex education, not less porn

Educating children and teens about consent and sexual pleasure in age-appropriate ways can prevent traumatic experiences with porn, New Mexico-based sex therapist and researcher David Ley told Insider.

He said that pornography, like movies and books, is a fantasy created for entertainment purposes, not education.

Sex education is needed to "understand what porn is and isn't, and what healthy, kinky, sex is, and how to identify her needs and boundaries in sex." Ley said.

Since parents often missed thorough and consent-based sex education themselves, they may not know how to teach their children. Kort recommended Our Whole Lives, a digital resource that breaks down sex education by age group, as a starting point.

For adults who feel their porn consumption as youngsters continues to negatively impact them, Francis said working with a therapist who is not against porn can help.

"[Allowing] people to reclaim agency over what they view, how they view, and what they value is more useful than demonizing a particular form of art or media as purely evil," Francis said.