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It is difficult to say exactly how we should apply Baudrillard’s ideas to concrete empirical data. As a thought experiment, we can imagine how young people’s sexuality, understanding of the body and views on various sexual practices, such as anal sex, are shaped by the pornographic industry through the films it produces. For instance, it has been shown that men and women who have watched porno films are more likely to practice anal sex than are those who have not watched such films (Häggström-Nordin et al. 2005, Hammarén & Johansson 2002). Young men and women who have watched porno films are also more likely to practice oral sex compared to those who have not. These ‘porn consumers’ also have experienced more masturbation, same-sex intercourse and one-night-stand and express a greater sexual self-confidence and a more ‘liberal’ view on prostitution and pornography (Hammarén & Johansson 2002). At the same time, pornography colours young people’s ideas of how bodies should look and influences their understandings of their own bodies in a negative way (Sørensen & Knudsen 2006). But young people act in a complex way in relation to these problems. For example, when they present themselves on the Internet (in various competitions), they often make soft-core porn code references with regard to gender and body, aware that they are being judged by others who are influenced by porn references (ibid.).

One common opinion is that pornography does not cause behaviour, but instead represents existing behaviour, although it puts its own spin on it, and thus makes that behaviour seem more common. Is it then still possible to say that pornography is the direct cause of certain sexual practices? Such a claim would be difficult to defend. However, we can see that certain behaviours are more likely to occur among people who have seen a porno film than among people who have not. Accordingly, the images that colonize our inner world tend to influence us, often unconsciously, and it is conceivable that our sex lives sometimes follow a script taken from the world of pornography. We can follow Baudrillard’s reasoning this far, but even if we find more and more support for his ideas, is it really possible to imagine a total dissolution of the distinction between everyday life and the media? The question, as stated earlier, is to what degree it is possible to differentiate between real-life sexuality and sexuality as portrayed in the media?

According to Löfgren-Mårtenson & Månsson (2006) young people often seems to distinguish between pornographic images and sexual relations in real life. They are reflexive and have skills to interpret the message in porn as a construction. Furthermore, their own sexual experiences often function as a kind of ‘vaccine’ against exaggerated pictures and ideals. This research strengthens the idea that it is difficult to avoid the distinction between images and ‘real life’. But are not all sexual relations constructed through discourses and images? According to Sørensen (2006) experiences in real life influences how we interpret pornography and vice versa, and other studies shows a relationship between porn consumption and sexual practice. Consequently there seem to be a narrow relationship between the two. However, one must ask how can we interpret the distinction the young people make? If we sense that our sexual lives are being influenced by images of sexuality, do we feel a need to define what our own sexuality really is about and then purify it by banishing ‘bad’ and ‘impure’ sexuality to the world of pornography? The conceptions of the young people are perhaps an attempt to construct sexual relations in real life as authentic and real opposed to the fiction of pornography. At the same time it is complicated. New mythologies and fantasies seem to arise that actually make the sexual secret, i.e., that the ‘real’ sexuality is difficult to represent and depict.

Pornography seems to operate as a ‘present absence’ in the young people’s life, a power that in various (and sometimes hidden) ways influences or is integrated into the everyday life of sexuality. A parallel process is the development of new trends in the area of pornography (Månsson & Söderlind 2004). Today it is possible for young teenagers to put pictures of themselves on special websites on the Internet. By combining different cultural symbols and artefacts they create sexual self-representations on the Internet. This development underscores people’s fascination with the ‘porn amateur’ and ordinary people’s sexual lives. These trends seem to dull the distinction between the ‘porn world’ and sexual relations in real life and bring Baudrillard’s conceptions to the fore.

Hirdman shows, for example, how girl’s use influences from soft-core pornography to construct themselves as sexual actors on the Internet (Hirdman 2006). Hirdman claims that the girls‘ pictures communicate physicality and sexuality and try to develop a relationship with an observer (assumed to be a man), while the boys’ pictures signal distance and a lack of bodily awareness. Consequently, it is the girls’ bodies that become the symbols of sexuality, whereas the boys’ represent indifference to this female “porn-chic” sexuality. Sørensen also discusses youth sites on the Internet and claims that these sites makes it possible for young people to imitate porn models, which shows, he claims, how ‘everyday life’ influences media and vice versa (Sørensen 2006). These media trends actually bring Foucault’s thoughts to the fore and show how images and discourses serve as a point of departure for the active formation of new sexual representations and identities. Thus, new discourses result in the creation of new pleasures and new and intricate interplay between concepts of body, sexuality and gender.

If, as Baudrillard claims, Disneyland and the US are the same thing, then perhaps the world of pornography corresponds in the same way to people’s actual sexuality. If the boundaries between the imaginary and the real no longer apply, or at least are weakened, then the boundaries between eroticism and pornography, between good and evil, and between good and bad sexuality are also weakened. If we conduct a thought experiment in the spirit of Baudrillard, we can imagine that the porno industry is actually one of the realities in which we live – a world that provides pictures, sexual narratives and subject matter for people’s sexuality.