Porn’s Role in Domestic Violence Finally on the Table
The government’s recent announcement of an “age assurance” trial to filter the internet is a good start in combatting domestic violence — but it doesn’t go far enough.
“Pornography features prominently in the accounts of women experiencing Intimate Partner Sexual Violence.” — University of Melbourne Professor Laura Tarzia and RMIT University’s Dr Meagan Tyler
Anyone concerned about the dehumanisation of women and girls through pornography is typically mocked as a ‘wowser’ from both sides of the political fence — from the left and from the libertarian right.
But the renewed outrage at Australia’s horrific murder rate of women has thrust porn’s role into the spotlight, thanks to the courage of criminologist Michael Salter.
Last week, after a hastily convened National Cabinet meeting in Canberra, Communications Minister Michelle Rowland announced a $6.5 million commitment to a pilot program of age-assurance technologies to block children accessing pornography online.
“The Australian government will commit $6.5 million in the May budget for a pilot of age-assurance technologies to better protect children online and reduce their exposure to harmful content,” she said.
“The pilot will identify available age-assurance products and assess their efficacy, including in relation to privacy and security. The outcomes of this pilot will support the E-Safety commissioner’s ongoing regulatory work to implement codes or standards under the Online Safety Act to reduce children’s exposure to inappropriate content and that includes online pornography.”
Family First welcomes this as a good start.
Domestic Violence Is Only Getting Worse
Despite politicians’ promises and the spending of hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayers’ money on “prevention” programs, violence against women has only gotten worse and the murder rate higher.
A woman is killed every four days in Australia by a domestic partner.
While surely some husbands are killers, it seems overwhelmingly the danger comes in the form of “intimate partner violence” — from partners who have not made a life-long commitment through marriage to the woman they killed.
Shock and outrage is the right response.
But what’s also clearly not working is the ideological “blame all men and boys” approach to dealing with this scourge.
As Claire Lehmann writes in The Australian, we’ve all seen “ad campaigns that encourage boys and men not to slam doors or tell sexist jokes, as well as educational efforts in schools on ‘toxic masculinity’”.
While these messages are not wrong in themselves, they have not worked. The imputation that “maleness” in and of itself is the problem is wrong.
Salter has been arguing the focus of government must change.
He told the told the Sydney Morning Herald:
In the wake of this horrific spate of [alleged] murders over the last couple of weeks, we’re seeing prevention leaders say: this is about conversations that fathers need to have with their sons; men need to step up and speak out.
We’ve been doing that for 10 years, and we’re still here.
Alcohol, pornography and gambling are clear accelerants to men’s violence… Why is it the responsibility of a 13-year-old boy to change the culture around sexual violence, when it’s not the responsibility of an adult man earning millions of dollars a year promoting violent pornography to that teenage boy?
Salter’s observations about porn — along with the role of alcohol and gambling — needs to be taken seriously.
He welcomed last week’s announcement posting on X:
This is fantastic news. The government will implement the eSafetyOffice’s original roadmap to age verification of adult pornography, which involved a trial of age assurance technology.
Domestic Violence and Pornography
We are in this mess partly because as a society since the sexual revolution we have normalised porn and legalised prostitution, which inherently is a form of violence against women.
Through popular culture we’ve made sexualised images of girls and women the wallpaper of successive generations’ lives.
So-called soft porn is highly addictive and becomes a gateway to violent porn and other forms of depravity.
We’ve venerated Playboy founder Hugh Heffner and refused to filter the internet, despite the Rudd Government’s attempts which were shot down by the Liberal party and libertarians.
We’ve since given every kid an iPhone — a portal to porn — and now wonder why we have a problem with violence against women and girls.
While not all porn users murder women, all porn dehumanises women and girls.
Sadly the average age of exposure to pornography for boys keeps getting lower.
Some say the average age is 10 but that is probably on the high side.
The Australian Institute of Family Studies says:
Nearly half of children between the ages of 9-16 experience regular exposure to sexual images. Young males are more likely than females to deliberately seek out pornography and to do so frequently. Pornography may strengthen attitudes supportive of sexual violence and violence against women.
While the AIFS may be equivocal about the link between porn and violence against women, even its suggestion of a link should ring alarm bells given the ubiquity of porn.
But much social science research, sadly ignored or scorned by the left and the libertarian right, is unequivocal.
Recent research by University of Melbourne Professor Laura Tarzia and RMIT University’s Dr Meagan Tyler has found that “pornography features prominently in the accounts of women experiencing Intimate Partner Sexual Violence (IPSV)”.
Any plan National Cabinet comes up with that doesn’t attack the problem of pornography and the easy access to it will fail to get to one of the root causes of violence against women and girls.
A culture which has devalued marriage and family values in favour of the ideas of Hugh Hefner and the internet’s Pornhub is going to struggle with preventing intimate partner violence against girls and women.
In fact, it won’t just struggle, it will fail.
The violence and killings will continue.
Last week’s announcement of an “age assurance” trial to filter the internet is a good start but it doesn’t go far enough.
___
Republished with thanks to Family First. Image courtesy of Unsplash.
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Thank you, Lyle, for your article and wise words. We must remember, too, that exposure to pornography not only loads offensive images into the memory bank which will then spoil all the “beautiful things”, it also impacts on the development of the brain. When adolescents engage in sexually intimate practices and/or are exposed to pornography, there is a serious impact on the development of the brain. They are locked into adolescent behaviour henceforth. The higher brain does not develop properly and the lower brain takes control. Impulsivity and uncontrolled rage are significant characteristics observed in men who have such a background. What is being done to limit children’s exposure to porn is good but not good enough. We must be much more supportive of ‘the family’ right from the beginning. Let’s start with supporting full-time mothers in every way we can, including financially. Instead of opening more childcare centres let’s give the money to supporting families with full-time mothers. Thank you again, Lyle.
The best solution I can think of would be for the “age-assurance” level to be set for an age of 85. And as with many of the major social problems, the best answer is to preach the Gospel!
For 15 years, I have been involved (both as a volunteer & as part of paid employment rolls) in facilitating the LOVE BITES program (a domestic violence & sexual assault prevention program) to the year 10 cohort of high schools (predominately state high schools) in my area. For all the news we hear of government funding to address domestic violence, this program receives no government funding. To service the region appropriately with this program, an administrative coordinator could be employed part time, but instead we struggle to manage the coordination of it among people who are dedicated to the program, in the ‘spare time’ they don’t have. Unfortunately, most government funding is provided according to measurable results obtainable within an election cycle. It can be very challenging to quantitatively provide data showing that because John or Jane attended a LOVE BITES program in their high school years, they didn’t go on to become statistics in violent relationships later in life or were better equipped to deal with such issues, should they find themselves in a bad relationship.
In a recent LOVE BITES session in response to post program survey, a participant responded to – “Did you think Love Bites applies to real life?” with – “It does most part, but it makes it out that you can’t be sexual in
a casual way with your partner/s, even with trust”.
I hear in this response a longing for authentic, trusting relationships, whilst at the same time dealing with the pervasive pressures of society, to drift into casual sexual partnerships. One main challenge in
presenting ‘LOVE BITES’, is building in young people a clear understanding & language, for a ‘culture of consent’, when they are growing up in a world that is strongly influenced by a multi-billion-dollar porn industry, to which they can have 24/7 internet access via a personal smart phone. Whilst not specifically a Christian program, the values that often come through ‘Love Bites’, are predominately in line with a Christian ethos, as evidenced by the above reflection from a program participant.