I was in sixth grade the first time I saw a pornographic video. Another 11-year-old boy had stolen it from his father’s collection (pretty seedy, I know) and brought it to a birthday party for the lot of us to enjoy. Feeling my innocence fleeting, I protested. Yeah, like that did anything besides make me the most unpopular guy in the room. So rather than watch the “Wet Video” (as it was titled), I put my head inside my sleeping bag. And from inside my down-insulated cocoon, I could hear my peers turning from boys to what I now refer to as “bros.”

The bro is an unfortunate breed that, quite often, nearly every other male I encounter falls into. Sure, I may sound condescending about this, but allow me to make this very clear: every man has a “bro” side, whether acute or obtuse. I definitely have bro moments, but I prefer to downplay that side of my personality. It is repugnant.

The exact definition of a bro goes something like this …

BRO (n): a self-centered alpha male with an affinity for consumption of pornography and alcoholic beverages. May enjoy degrading women and wearing large amounts of Old Spice.

There are varying degrees of bro-ity.

A minute case may be a shy boy who drinks occasionally, or, when with a girl in a romantic situation, can get more frisky than he initially appears.

A middle ground case can be like my friend in high school who had a folder on his computer desktop titled “Glee,” which contained a massive porno collection. He used to tell me about competitions between kids at his university to see who could have the most gigabytes of porn on their computer, and I would sit there with an awkward smile. Despite his love of porn and the masturbation that ensued, this friend was very respectful to his girlfriends and a nice guy on the whole, so he does not qualify for the next category of bro: the jackass.

The jackass is the most popular of bro groups. They are the guys with pictures of naked women plastered to their walls above their empty 40s. They’re the ones that have “sex” listed as an interest in their Facebook profiles, or at least “Random Play.” They wear their masculinity like an indie rock boy wears his heart on his sleeve.

I lament the downfall of chivalry and the uprise of the bro. But it’s not like society isn’t assisting this trend.

For one thing, we allowed Ashton Kutcher, Johnny Knoxville and his entire cast of “Jackass” to get famous. And we actually pay to see their terrible movies. Also, we kept “The Man Show” and their notorious “Juggies” on the air.

Secondly, we support sexual deviance — I mean, we helped R. Kelly’s sex-driven seventh album “Chocolate Factory” hit No. 1 on the Billboard Charts shortly after his much-covered sex scandal with a minor surfaced.

But, most importantly, we are incredible consumers of all the wrong products. Twelve percent of all sites on the Internet are pornography-oriented, according to www.familysafemedia.com. Let that sink in for a moment. Of the endless expanse that is the World Wide Web, 12 percent of it is devoted to nudity and debauchery. Just another interesting tidbit on porno while we’re on the subject – the pornography industry generates more revenue than the combined revenues of all professional football, baseball and basketball franchises — a whopping $57 billion worldwide. Yikes.

In an age when sex is our most marketable industry or at least compliments most other industries, it’s not surprising that seeing naked people getting down is in such high demand. The Internet has made it incredibly easy to do so.

And even if you do watch porn, why brag about it? It’s not an impressive or particularly flattering trait – it’s just generic. I will admit right now that I have seen pornography before, and unfortunately sought it out at times. And I always felt sleazy doing so. Isn’t there a sense of shame left? We’re only further progressing the bro prototype.

And it’s everywhere now. Boys I use to think had morals or at least verbal restraint are starting to tell me about this girl with a “hot ass” or the next girl they’d like to “bone.” If you don’t think there’s an abundance of bros at Northeastern, log onto Direct Connect and look at some people’s download folders. You’ll see. It’s a plague.

So, if you are astute, you may say: What’s the solution to this? Well, unfortunately, there really is no solution. I knew this in sixth grade from inside my sleeping bag. The courteous way of life has taken a backseat to the bro, to where women are surprised when offered a coat or given flowers.

College boys will be college boys. And that’s fine. You can be a bro and watch sports and drink beer and call each other “bro,” as long as you keep it in moderation. But if possible, can you keep the porn conversation and women degradation part out of it and maybe hold a door for the ladies once in a while? If so, that would make the world outside the sleeping bag a lot less frightening.