What A.J. Brown Just Said Out Loud
Today’s blog is inspired by a recent interview with Eagles WR A.J. Brown, where he openly discussed his belief that many athletes — especially those with money and fame — are addicted to pornography. He argues that when that addiction mixes with status and access, it fuels objectification of women and unhealthy intimate relationships.
This is the type of honesty we at TeamsOfMen wish more famous athletes would model.
Brown is pulling back the curtain on two overlapping manbox scripts:
If I score and succeed in my sport, that automatically earns me access to women’s bodies.
Pornography is normal, harmless, and just “what guys do.”
Your players — if they’re being honest — will admit (or at least privately recognize) that they’ve been trained to equate athletic success with sexual conquest. It’s embedded in locker room jokes. In music. In highlight culture. In group chats. In the silent metrics young men keep in their own heads.
Success = more attention.
More attention = more sex.
More sex = more status.
That equation gets internalized early.
Brown also names something we rarely discuss openly: porn. Not as a punchline. Not as a moral panic. But as a neurological and relational issue.
If what he’s saying is even partially true, then we can’t ignore it.
Our guys are watching it.
Our staff is watching it.
We are probably watching it.
And pretending this conversation doesn’t belong in the “life skills” category is negligence. Porn trains the brain to disconnect arousal from relationship. It trains repetition without intimacy. It trains consumption without consequence. And when that gets layered on top of fame, money, and access — the objectification can accelerate.
This is not about shame. This is about awareness.
If you are serious about building emotionally fluent, respectful young men, you cannot skip the topic of pornography. It is one of the largest unspoken influences shaping their expectations about sex, women, and relationships.
There are resources available. Organizations like Fight the New Drug provide research-based education on how pornography affects the brain and relationships. Whether you agree with every angle or not, it gives you starting points — language, science, conversation scripts — to engage your team and your own family.
We don’t get to claim we’re developing men while ignoring one of the most powerful shaping forces in their lives.
Brown did his part by naming it.
The question is whether we will.
Coach Prompts
Where are your players learning their expectations about sex and relationships?
Have you created any structured space to discuss pornography and its impact?
Do your players see women as partners… or rewards?
Player Prompts
Where did you first learn what sex and relationships were supposed to look like?
Do you think pornography shapes expectations about women? How?
What would it look like to define success differently?
