This year I’ve had the privilege of addressing a few thousand medical professionals at one-day seminars run by Health Ed around the country, most recently in Brisbane. My subject: ‘Is pornography becoming a public health issue?’ I’m finding it interesting that where it seemed only a few of us were once saying this, now there are eminent bodies coming to the same conclusion. This is encouraging – if significant medical bodies are recognising the problem, perhaps it will be taken seriously and more resources provided to address it. The British Medical Journal has just reported on a UK conference on the issue. And there’s also a piece in the Edmonton Journal by a Canadian psychologist of the harms of online pornography and the destructive impact of the sex industry.
…[Pamela Luna, a governing councillor of the American Public Health Association] who co-chairs the American Public Health Association’s film festival, said that girls who were being systematically recruited by the hard core pornography industry all over the world were discarded and left “mentally and emotionally wrecked,” as highlighted in one of the films, Hot Girls Wanted. She said that public health professionals should do more to prevent this happening, by using the media to exert a positive influence on young people’s behaviour, strengthen resilience, and deter young people from risky behaviours.
“We have to look at the media, we have to understand it, we have to use it in a way that’s powerful, we have to have our voices heard, we need to be advising on films, we need to be there—we can’t sit back,” she said.
Peter Donnelly, professor of public health medicine at St Andrew’s University, Scotland, said that the “very violent and denigrating” nature of much internet pornography was a deep concern. He said, “All males need to think very carefully about their use of pornography, because if there’s no market, you begin to change this. What you hear in the films and from other young men you speak to is they’re not sure what it is to be a young man these days, and they need help in expressing their masculinity in a way that feels constructive and comfortable.” Read full article.
…The commercialization of human sexuality is pervasive, and I believe the primary force driving this is online pornography, which shapes child and adolescent sexual identity and attitudes toward female and male sexual roles.
In a recent longitudinal study of American youth aged 10 to 15, 19 to 27 per cent reported exposure to X-rated material in the past 12 months. A recent review of the research observed that “consistent findings have emerged linking adolescent use of pornography that depicts violence with increased degrees of sexually aggressive behaviour” and that “research suggests that adolescents who use pornography, especially that found on the Internet, have lower degrees of social integration, increases in conduct problems, higher levels of delinquent behaviour, higher incidence of depressive symptoms and decreased emotional bonding with caregivers.”
This “pornification of culture” — the seepage of pornographic images, language, behaviours and attitudes into popular cultural forms such as advertising, music and films — is rolling through our society like a tsunami. Unless we openly acknowledge, understand and resist this disturbing trend, the issue of where, how and when men pay for sex will simply be an afterthought.
As a psychotherapist, I specialize in supporting women and men as they recover from working on the streets, in body rub parlours, brothels and as escorts. In the 12 years I’ve been doing this, I’ve found the vast majority grow up in desperation and deprivation, and become ensnared as adolescents within an exploitative machine that deepens their degradation and stigmatization. I have yet to meet anyone who truly and freely chose selling sex services as a preferred way of life.” Read full article.
One Response
Pornography a public health hazard??? To whom I ask – oh yes those men again. Men claimed that mens’ pimp industry – aka prostitution was a public health hazard and guess what men’s solution to this ‘health hazard’ was?
Here in the UK the men decided to pass laws named the Contagious Diseases Acts in 1864 wherein male police officers (because during the 19th century there were only male police officers) had the right to arrest any woman going about her business on men’s public streets, because police suspected she was a ‘prostitute.’ Women not men were imprisoned and subjected to sexual assault by being forced to undergo internal examinations. The males who were the ones transmitting STDS to the prostituted women remained invisible because as usual men blamed women for transmitting STDs to the male buyers! The dynamics of how and why males en mass continued to purchase prostituted women was ignored because that wasn’t a ‘public health issue!’
Now we have the same old same old male lies being widely accepted and make no mistake the men will blame women for supposedly creating and maintaining mens’ very profitable pornography industry. The whole focus of myth of ‘public health issue’ is a deliberate attempt by men to depoliticse the issue of filmed male sexual violence against women and girls into one of supposedly ‘public health.’ But as I have shown above, ‘public health issues’ are not gender neutral they are male centric wherein it is about maintaining and justifying male right to dominate and oppress women. Men have subjected women to forced incarceration because men have claimed women are suffering from ‘hysteria’ and hence are mad; men have forced women to submit to clitorectomy because men claimed women are ‘over sexed.’ Men imprison women for working as prostituted women but the real perpetrators those men who purchase women and girls continue not to be criminalised. ‘Public health issues’ are about ensuring men continue to access pornography whilst being offered counselling to ensure they can continue to maintain ‘erection on demand!’ This is the crux of the ‘public health issue’ – mens’ concerns that boys and adult males will not be able to experience ‘erection on demand’ and sexually dominate women – because this is how men construct male sexuality.
Pornography is mens’ filmed male sexual violence against women and girls. Who created the pornography industry? Men of course but that has to be ignored because asking why men created this industry and why this male created industry is being avidly accessed by men and boys would mean focusing on male power over women and how this is maintained and justified. Why do men work so hard claiming filmed male sexual violence against women and girls is not ‘real’ but merely males’ sexualised fantasies?
Nowhere in these reports/speeches/articles is there any mention of the suffering mens’ pornography industry causes to women and girls because as usual women and girls are invisibilised and focus is on male health and male well-being! The language is male centric and I quote:
‘recent review of the research observed that “consistent findings have emerged linking adolescent use of pornography that depicts violence with increased degrees of sexually aggressive behaviour.’
What is the sex of those ‘adolescents?’ Are they females or males? Are adolescent girls linking mens’ filmed male sexual violence against women and girls as acts girls can inflict on boys? I think not – rather it is the reverse – adolescent boys viewing pornography and then sexually preying on adolescent girls and subjecting them to the same sadistic male sexual violence these boys have viewed. This is the real issue – mens’ pornography teaching boys and young men it is their male sex right to subject any female to sadistic male sexual violence because eroticising male sexual violence against women and girls accords the male viewer feelings of immense sexual pleasure and reinforces mens’ lies that males have innate right to subject any female to whatever sexual violence affords him sexual pleasure!
There is no symmetry whatsoever between how girls and young women are being coerced by males into believing a female’s sole reason for existence is to be males’ disposable sexual service stations. Boys and men are not being indoctrinated by mens’ pornography industry into believing males are ‘dehumanised beings’ wherein females can subject them to whatever female sexual violence they wish!
Pornography is ‘sexually exciting’ because men designed it to sexually arouse males which is why males are avidly viewing said porn. Some women too are sexually aroused by these male images of male sexual violence against women and girls but that does not negate the fact pornography promotes mens’ lies that male sexual domination/female sexual submission is morally acceptable. Domination of one group namely males over the other group namely women is not what Feminism is about. But men have successfully made their pornography ‘normal and acceptable male behaviour’ because no human is harmed since females aren’t human apparently!
Men recognise that males torturing other males is not ‘sexy or entertaining’ but is a violation of mens’ human right to bodily integrity but filmed male sexual violence against women and girls is not a violation of women’s human rights because it is ‘sexually entertaining to the male viewers!’
News flash – pornography is how men view women and girls – pornography is filmed male sexual violence against women and girls. Pornography is mens’ very powerful propaganda tool in maintaining and justifying male domination/male oppression over all women and girls.
Mens’ pimp industry – aka prostitution is interconnected with mens’ pornography industry – both industries maintain and justify male pseudo sex right to sexually prey on women and girls with impunity. There is no symmetry between prostituted women and prostituted males. It is overwhelmingly women and girls males are purchasing to rape and subject to male sexual violence. The males involved in mens’ pimp industry are the pimps and brothel owners. The tiny number of males being sold to other men are boys not adult men. But men always claim ‘if women stand on their heads so do men in equal numbers!’
Read The Industrial Vagina by Sheila Jeffreys because she provides overwhelming evidence prostitution is a male created industry and it is men who are the ones profiting from this industry – not women and girls.
Amazingly this article written by Doon Mackichan on the issue of male sexual violence against women and girls was published in UK’s magazine The New Statesman. Mackichan ‘joins up the dots’ and she does not claim pornography is a ‘public health issue.’ Ms. Mackichan names the real issue as pandemic male sexual violence against women and girls wherein mens’ pornography plays a central role in normalising and justifying said male sexual violence against women and girls.
http://www.newstatesman.com/culture/2014/07/enough-enough-tv-s-crime-porn-endemic-violence-assault-women-has-stop