Back then, hard-core brown-paper-wrapped pornography came from the Northern Territory or the ACT.

A national ban and tightening of customs regulations would have thwarted the distribution of porn, and particularly “sexually violent” material. 

Was it the lawless nature of the NT? Or the cesspool of vice and degradation that is the ACT? Even the ACT Liberal Party was opposed to banning the distribution of porn.

By 2000 tightened guidelines for X-rated videos banned “objectionable” material. The speeding-up of the internet, and ready access to overseas sites has now made porn readily available to all, including teenagers.

I may have told this story before, but a couple of years back a reader stopped me in The Marketplace. “It’s that Kim Kardashian. It’s all her fault,” he opened.

My bemused expression caused him to explain that any teenager could simply Google her name, and find porn sites.

I checked when I went home. One site showed various celebrities, and as this gentleman had explained, the Kim Kardashian episode was quite distasteful.  

Other celebrities like Taylor Swift were featured, too, but they are often “fake” videos. Only last week Scarlett Johansson urged women who find themselves the victims of fake porn to take action. She said she felt for regular women who find themselves photoshopped into sex tapes.

While the Taylor Swift episodes are apparently fakes, I haven’t read denials from the likes of Paris Hilton.

We have laws banning “revenge porn”, but we still allow this internet rubbish to corrupt our young. Why aren’t feminists campaigning to have porn blocked on the internet? This type of thing certainly does not aid respect for women, and in fact portrays women as mere sex objects.

The internet, and those various sex-dating sites took their toll on Andrew Broad, the parliamentarian involved in the “sugar baby” case. He accessed a website that connects young women with wealthier older men. The fool sent "Sweet Sophia Rose" a text message saying: "I’ve booked a flashy room to seduce you back to.”

“I pull you close, run my strong hands down your back, softly kiss your neck and whisper 'G'day mate’,” all wonderful porn stuff that has ruined a promising parliamentary career and compromised his marriage.

Peta Credlin, perhaps speaking for all women in his electorate, was quoted in The Canberra Times as saying, "I grew up there. They’ll take a very dim view of this sort of carry-on from a married bloke.” Or from a single bloke, she could have added.

But the Canberra Times had earlier run an article in October entitled, “Canberra students turn to 'sugar daddies' to pay tuition fees, rent.”

The story went on, “The website matching young women with older men is making an aggressive push for more students to sign up, offering free premium memberships to anyone who signs up using an email address that includes .edu.

“SeekingArrangement, the world's largest sugar dating website, says it has 38 registered "sugar babies" from the Australian National University and 22 from the University of Canberra,” and “… spokeswoman Kimberly de la Cruz says the website "absolutely does not allow" the promotion of prostitution or pay-per-meet offers …”

By definition isn’t “prostitution” agreeing to sex for payment? Casual sex and long-term sex arrangements for payment are still prostitution. These university students aren’t merely earning to pay their fees. They will regret their actions emotionally and reputationally for the rest of their lives.

I Googled “sugar babies” and found that the SMH and Canberra Times have been running similar stories for years. Do you want your daughter or grand-daughter to attend university in Canberra?

So young women are only valued for sex? Porn and the internet can take the blame for our sliding moral standards. And as the sugar baby stories show, women are as guilty as men.

What happened to dating on campus, getting engaged, getting married? Finding your life partner and starting a family used to be the norm. What price respect?