Whether you regularly enjoy pornography or view it as the degradation of society, one thing is certain: it's here to stay. Porn has been around since man first learned that he could create images by scraping rocks on the side of his cave dwelling, and today it's a multi-billion dollar industry. While porn may have many uses, educating the youth about sex is not one of them. Experts argue that the best way to handle early porn exposure is to give equally early sex education.

Teenagers watch a lot of porn. A recent Canadian survey found that 40 percent of boys between the fourth and 11th grade look for porn online, and for many, this search is frequent. There is not much empirical evidence to show that all this early exposure to porn is having a negative effect on youth. Still, some worry that without more outlets for realistic sexual education to counterbalance the fantasies portrayed in porn, young people may gain a warped idea of sexuality.

Studies have tried to prove links between early exposure to pornography and unhealthy sexual activity later in life, but the truth is that researchers aren’t exactly sure what porn is doing to children. Still, porn star Steven St. Croix claims he’s already seeing these effects first hand. “What has been lost is the intimacy, the fun, the attraction, the exploration of a new partner or pleasing a partner in a new way,” he told BuzzFeed.

It’s important to remember that pornographic films and images were created for an adult audience who presumably already understood the fundamentals of sexuality. Younger, less-expierienced audiences will likely have more difficulty telling the real from the fake in these large porn productions.

“Pornography is not meant to teach about sexual education, it is meant for adults, and has no place in the hands of children,” porn star and UCLA grad Tasha Reign, told The Daily Beast. “I think sex ed is equally, if not more, important than mathematics or English.”

While we can’t keep young teens from watching porn, we can give them the tools they need to know the difference between education and entertainment. To do this however, we may need to reboot our sex education syllabus. Sex education in American schools has long been accused of lacking. Although the system has come a long way from the “abstinence only approach” there is still a need for more broad-based sex ed programs to help balance out all the acting that teens may view in a XXX film.

“It is really important that we help people differentiate between 'porn sex' and 'non-porn sex,'" professional porn star Jessica Drake told BuzzFeed. “The most important thing we need to teach young people is that porn is fantasy, and I think it’s really important that parents incorporate this when talking about sex.”

Dr. Gail F. Melson, professor emerita in Perdue’s Department of Human Development and Family Studies suggested that school-based sex ed classes include information on contraception, safe sex practices, and the biology of sex alongside the benefits of abstinence. She claims that this approach has been shown “to result in having first sex at a later age, greater use of contraception, more testing for STDs, and even, into adulthood, fewer crisis pregnancies,” The Daily Beast reported.