A series of filmmakers say internet porn alone now shapes manyyoung people's perception of sex and, in many cases, replaces theexperience of real physical relationships.

"There are kids who have seen pornography from a very early age,before they are ever gonna have sex," said Larry Clark, one of thedirectors of the eccentric Destricted - a compilation ofexplicit sex-centered stories.

In his own short film, Clark interviews young men about theirsexual preferences and then allows one candidate to appear with hisfavorite porn-star.

"When I was a kid no one told me nothing. Now you can go onto theinternet and find out anything ... (Young people) are looking atpornography and they are thinking that this is the way to havesex," Clark said, noting his film was educational.

US director John Cameron Mitchell, who has broughtShortbus to Cannes, agrees that young people areincreasingly using the internet to replace real sex.

In Shortbus, he has collected an ensemble ofnon-professional actors who engage in real on-screen sex andmasturbation in an attempt to de-mystify the subject. He does notconsider his film to be pornography.

He said that the United States had a puritanical view of sexwhich turned it into an issue in young people's minds. In oneparticularly provocative scene in his film, three gay men engage ina sex session while singing The Star-Spangled Banner."

I really believe our country specifically needs to take a lookat that stuff. You crush something, it pops up somewhere else, itcomes back to haunt you," he said.

Film critics in Cannes say risque images, which would beconsidered distasteful by many were they to be shown in amainstream movie theater, are unlikely to shock a film festivalaudience, and in any case are not necessarily new.

Danish director Anders Morgenthaler reverted to animation to hitout at the porn industry in his film Princess, whichdisturbed some by portraying child abuse and violence.

Morgenthaler tells the story of a priest who is determined todestroy all films of his deceased porn star sister and to take careof her five-year old daughter, a traumatized child.

"I decided to make a film about porn influence in societybecause I saw porn seeking its way into everything, into clothes ortoys. There is a 'porn way' of selling things because it sells verywell. I got very angry at the role of porn."

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