Prolific levels of “overt” violence depicted in “mainstream” pornography is fuelling instances of physical and sexual aggression towards women, a newly published Irish report has suggested.
The report, titled Facing Reality: Addressing the Role of Pornography in the Pandemic of Violence against Women and Girls, posits that the majority of freely available pornography on the internet “constitutes sexual violence”, and that, in turn, this violence is shaping the attitudes and behaviours of those who consume pornography.
The report was prepared by the Sexual Exploitation Research and Policy (SERP) Institute, commissioned by Women’s Aid and funded by Community Foundation Ireland.
The report consulted existing literature on pornography as well as “key domestic and international experts”, with a particular focus on the “nature of pornography, its consumption, its impacts, and the consequences of consumption for gender equality, sexuality and gender-based violence”.
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Depictions of violence in pornography “actively distort and break the boundary between ‘sex’ and ‘sexual violence’”, the report says, and impact negatively on adults and young people – leading directly to sexual violence, unhealthy relationships, hostile misogyny and a compounding of gender inequality.
“There is a significant body of research evidence demonstrating the relationship between consumption of pornography, in particular regular consumption, and the perpetration of violence against women and girls,” the report notes.
The report cites instances of strangulation and verbal degradation as common examples of aggression toward women depicted in pornography. An analysis of 300 scenes from “popular” pornographic videos found that close to 90 per cent contained instances of physical aggression.
The report also notes the proliferation of pornographic content depicting incest, as well as the ease in which child sexual abuse material can be accessed on popular pornography websites. Another study cited notes the availability of content filmed and shared without consent, such as instances of “upskirting” and even rape.
Following the publication of the report on Thursday, Women’s Aid called for action to counter the “harms” caused by pornography “through frank public discussion, education, child protection measures and targeting the business model of the multibillion euro porn industry”.
Sarah Benson, chief executive of Women’s Aid, said its aim was to put “sand in the gears” of the pornography industry.
“We are not saying we can dismantle it,” she said. Rather, she said Ireland could look to other jurisdictions where moves to regulate and disrupt the industry had been enacted.
Ms Benson noted that in 2020, Visa and Mastercard suspended processing payments on Pornhub after a New York Times investigation found unlawful content on the website. “There are ways to go after the business model,” she said.
She said a “huge amount” of content available on mainstream porn websites – as well as other video-sharing sites – was “depicting serious harm”.
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