Mainstreaming and normalising the abuse and exploitation of women The Sex Factor is a new reality TV program where contestants compete for the chance to become a porn star. It will be shown exclusively online. The Sex Factor is setting to profit from the mainstreaming of pornography and legitimising it as an attractive career choice for […]
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 […]
Profound experiences with W.A students on my last roadtrip. Last month I spoke 27 times in three and a half weeks in the ACT, Queensland, Western Australia and New South Wales. I spoke on the objectification of women and sexualisation of girls in media and popular culture, the sexual world of the 21st century adolescent, […]
I introduced Abigail Bray’s new book Misogyny Re-loaded to you at the end of the year. Here’s a great interview Abigail did recently with Meghan Murphy at Feminist Current. You really should have a listen to it.
The dark world of paedophilia exposed The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, the recent sentencing of Daniel Morcombe’s killer along with the imprisonment last week of former television star Robert Hughes after being found guilty of nine sex offense against three underage girls, have all heightened public attention on the scourge […]
Sexting, Shame and Suicide: a shocking story of sexual assault in the digital age This essay was published last September but I’ve only just come across it. I keep thinking of Audrie and her body defaced and graffitied, the images shared and consumed. Her waking in horror to discover the markings all over her body […]
We Demand Amnesty International Listen to Survivors and Reject the Proposal to Decriminalize All Aspects of Prostitution Petition by Jennifer Kim – Vancouver, Canada This leaked Amnesty International proposal advocating for the full decriminalization of all aspects of prostitution violates the basic human rights and dignities of prostituted individuals. The proposal denies the inextricable link between prostitution […]
Framing Gillard in pornographic terms is part of a concerted backlash against women in power, argues Dr Helen Pringle This is an edited extract from an essay by Dr Helen Pringle in Bewitched and Bedevilled: Women Write the Gillard Years, a collection of essays published by Hardie Grant and edited by Samantha Trenoweth. This book, write the […]
Violence, Teenagers, and Gonzo Porn By Clara Bennathan Reprinted with permission. Posted originally on Bad Housekeeping I have seen a sixteen-year-old boy weeping in distress after getting a girl’s pube stuck in his teeth, I hear he was unshaven. I have seen boys showing each other porn on their iPhones on the train home from […]
[Trigger warning: graphic description of sexual abuse] ‘Amy’ was a victim of sexual abuse by her uncle as a child. He uploaded images of the abuse on to the internet, they became known as the ‘Misty Series’. These images have been globally trafficked since the late 1990s and are the most widely viewed in the […]
‘Misogyny Reloaded’ by Abigail Bray In 2011 Dr Abigail Bray, a researcher and writer now living in the South of France, joined with me in co-editing Big Porn Inc: Exposing the Harms of the Global Pornography Industry published in 2011 by Spinifex Press. Spinifex has just released Abigail’s new book Misogyny Reloaded . This is an extract […]
My past commentary on Olympia Nelson’s image, Art Monthly and Bill Henson I appeared briefly on Australian story last night in a piece about Olympia Nelson, inspired by her significant piece on the rise of the selfie, ‘Dark undercurrents of teenage girls selfies’, published in The Sydney Morning Herald, July 11, 2003, and reprinted here. […]
