In the October 16 edition of the DA, there was an article entitled, 'The tough conversation we must have about pornography'.
The authors were Serina McDuff, CEO of Respect Victoria and Dr Kate Fitzgibbon, a professor of Social Sciences and member of the Monash Gender and Family Violence Prevention Centre.
One of the notable points was the French High Council on Equality found that 90 per cent of pornography shows violence illegal under French law. The authors note the role of violent pornography is largely absent from discussions around the prevention of violence against women.
Porn is as near as a phone or computer. Duff and McKinnon wonder how Australia can reduce gender-based violence when young people have easy access to content that normalises violent behaviour, where suffering is eroticised.
The DA editorial on November 2 pointed to Australia's level of gendered violence. The Our Watch website said in 2019 there were 63 women killed in Australia; that 10 women a day presented to hospital with injuries perpetrated at home.
Patty Kinnersly, CEO of Our Watch, wrote in the DA on Saturday, November 11 that one in two boys has accessed porn by age 13. If you believe that none of the boys in your family would ever have seen this stuff, just remember porn is as near as their classmate's phone.
If you think porn is merely nudity and sex education, think again. Most adults have never seen porn - it wasn't available during our upbringing. Porn, as the French High Council found, is not the way for your child to learn about sex.
For starters, there is no emphasis on hygiene. There is rarely condom use, and never a discussion about life-threatening sexually transmitted infections that can come from casual sex.
Porn situations are designed to attract young men. Mainstream sites show more than boyfriend-girlfriend encounters.
Female sex partners include sisters, step-sisters, mothers, dad's new wife, next door neighbours, leading on to seducing girls walking by, and so on.
Any reasonable person would find this disgusting.
If you wonder how I know, it took little searching. Just looking at the topics and titles was enough to convey the warped intent.
In porn, girls are always willing, thereby tempting the young man. This is where the real-life violence begins.
The porn-saturated young boy grows into a man who thinks the way women are portrayed in porn movies is normal. He begins to believe that girls always want sex. So why isn't his girl leading him on, as in the videos?
If the porn addict has graduated to more violent porn, then violence with sex becomes normal. Worse, it is easy to locate sites that illustrate actual violence to women. Deliberate injury or even death is part of the "entertainment".
Little wonder that, as the DA editorial stated: "Women aged 18 to 34 are almost three times more likely to experience intimate partner violence."
These 18 to 34 year-olds are the first generation to have had access to porn since they were young.
The answer? If the government can ponder a disinformation bill that will work by inflicting draconian penalties on providers such as Google, why can't porn be banned by imposing similar penalties?
