
When I turned on the computer this morning to see a story about how female students have been targeted in a pornography ring run by school boys, my stomach turned. I have been a secondary school teacher for over a decade and the schools implicated in the scandal are all familiar to me.
Over the past few years we have been shocked by the dramatic rise in domestic violence. We have seen a state government taskforce established and generous funding pledged from the Federal Government in order to put an end to domestic and family violence.
Despite this, the problem grows and the pornography industry thrives. Over the last few years we have witnessed an onslaught of freely available pornography. At the click of a button, anyone with an internet connection has easy and unrestricted access to a smorgasbord of sex.
At this point some might pull out the ‘prude’ card. Many may advocate for ‘adult rights’ that we should be free and liberal, that sex is now casual and porn is just normal… So let’s just look at the research.
A Utah senator has stated that pornography is causing major social and emotional problems. Post continues below…
In February 2015, Collective Shout hosted the first-ever Australian symposium on the harmfulness of pornography to young people. Pornography was identified as being a public health crisis requiring urgent intervention.
In March of 2015 the Senate Environment and Communications Reference Committee held an inquiry into harm being done to Australian children through access to pornography. In a submission written by Collective Shout in March this year, the devastating effects of pornography were all too clear to see.
In the submission, the Director of the Gold Coast Centre Against Sexual Violence Di Macleod wrote:
“In the past few years we have had a huge increase in intimate partner rape of women from 14 to 80+. The biggest common denominator is consumption of porn by the offender. With offenders not able to differentiate between fantasy and reality, believing women are ‘up for it’ 24/7, ascribing to the myth that ‘no means yes and yes means anal’, oblivious to injuries caused and never ever considering consent. We have seen a huge increase in deprivation of liberty, physical injuries, torture, drugging, filming and sharing footage without consent.
I founded the center 25 years ago and what is now considered to be the norm in 2015 is frightening. I wonder where we will be in another 10 years!”
As a teacher I have witnessed first hand the rising number of sexual acts between students and an increase in reports of sexual harassment and assault.
Top Comments
You've misunderstood everything here... what these 'kids' have isn't porn. It's a criminal website where criminal acts are taking place. Pornography last time I checked is all legal, entirely unrelated, nothing to do with these horrific little shits stealing peoples pictures and posting them for all the world to see... this is more about how parents bring up kids these days rather than whether or not they watched a porn video.
"Pornography
overwhelmingly centers on acts of violence and degradation toward
women." ... I have never in my entire life seen such a pornographic film
ever, and I look at porn. These people finding violent porn must be
looking really really really hard, and have some kind of special secret
underground society of violent porn... because it doesn't exist in
normal avenues of porn delivery.
When you say Dr Michael Flood says “consistent and reliable evidence that exposure to pornography is
related to male sexual aggression against women.” you need to specify that he discussed 'children' watching porn in his (2009) article "The harms of pornography exposure among children and young people" ... but the fact of the matter is ... children shouldn't watch porn. Who the hell lets children watch porn? You've got to be kidding.
He also goes on to discuss how the experiments to find what he proposes here are basically useless and that "pornography by itself is unlikely to influencean individual’s entire sexual expression, and consumption may be part of a broader sexual repertoire, ‘a larger sexual space and sexual experimentation'."
Talk about twisting words to suit your agenda.
Bull shit. I am mid 30s male and also regularly watch porn. I prefer intimate erotic porn. It takes time and effort to filter through the rough degrading crap to find decent stuff. You are right that the site in the spot light is illegal and porn is not. How do you think the people posting on that site got their values though?
1. The article is talking about the effects Pornography has on Domestic violence. The research is in. It's conclusive. No matter how you look at it pornography encourages objectification of women - which in turn leads to violence.
2. Just because you have never personally seen violent Pornography does not mean that it doesn't exist. You criticise someone for "twisting" evidence and yet your arguments are based purely on your own person thoughts and experiences...
3. This article is about how pornography is affecting children. No matter how you look at it pornography is shaping what children see as normal / acceptable, and not in a good way. Evidence has not been twisted. Children shouldn't be exposed to pornography (at least we agree on this) - but they are. This article is about what we should do about it - to stop it.
Consent - We also need to stop asking if our child wants to do something that they have to do. Instead you give them two similar choices eg "you can do a puzzle and read a book then brush your teeth, or you can read 2 books then brush your teeth" OR for older ppl "you can use the computer for Something for 1 hour then go to bed, or you can use the computer for Anything for 30mins and then read a book and go to bed" (and possibly turn off the internet).
I see so often a parent asking if their child wants to do something that must be done and they say no, and they then make them do it. That's sending completely the wrong message.
Eg - Put "sex" in these conversations and you immediately see that the former is the wrong response and is not a good model of consent. The latter is a better model for acknowledging feelings in things we must do, like visit an aunt, go shopping etc, but with sex it's just wrong - no one has to have sex. Teaching the difference can be very powerful.
"Do you want to do such and such?"
"No"
"Well, we're doing it anyway."
"We are going to so such and such, how do you like that?"
"I don't want to."
"I understand, but it's something we have to do."