Written submission from Not Buying It (SPP0085)

Sexual Harassment of Women and Girls & Pornography

Recommendations:

1. Preventing Underage Access to Porn:

• Ensure Age Verification is successful in the UK

• Lobby urgently for age verification at the Global Level

• Do not allow Mindgeek, the company behind the world’s largest porn sites, Pornhub, Redtube and YouPorn, to be part of the age verification process

2. Preventing Access to Abuse Porn:

• Ensure all porn currently non-R18 classifiable (ie over 90% of porn) is prohibited under BBFC guidelines and blocked by ISPS

• Instigate a large scale, long term public awareness campaign as to why all porn is too abusive to be legal

• Work at the global level to end access to (and production of) abuse porn

3. The Sex Industry

• Adopt the Nordic Model

• Relook at current legislation around the soft end of the sex trade, lap dancing, which is failing women in clubs, failing local communities and failing wider social attitudes towards all women. *

4. End Objectification

• Use the Times Up and similar movements for prolonged public awareness over the harm of the objectification of women and girls and for this to go part and parcel with ending violence against women and girls.

• This to include education, perhaps in part through instigating a celebratory ‘Women’s History Week’ or supporting a ‘Comic Relief’ for women

• Properly resource NGOs who challenge objectification and the porn and sex trade, who typically have to fight against the might of these industries with little or no resources.

• Use equality law (such as the Public Sector Equality Duty) to ensure media regulators (who are public bodies, bound by the PSED) comply to end excessive sexualisation, the advertising of the porn and sex trade and abuse porn. This includes the ASA (who currently allow sex ads in newspapers), IPSO (with an appalling track record on the portrayal of women and ethnic minorities) and, we would suggest, all ‘self regulatory’ internet giants. *
• We would welcome the opportunity to speak to you about these issues in particular, alongside everything highlighted in this document.

Response

We are a coalition of women’s groups, academics, survivors and others.

We welcome the chance to respond to this consultation on harassment and its links with pornography. We urge that urgent action be taken to end the availability of all filmed sexual abuse – which sadly now comprises all mainstream porn.

At least 90% of mainstream porn now showing violence against women – women being sexually assaulted, often by gangs of men using them in violent sex, hitting and choking them, while they cry and scream in pain. No jury would hesitate to sentence each and every man involved in pornography for sexual assault, GBH and rape if there were no camera involved. Much of the rest is worse – pseudo and real child porn, torture and mutilations. All of this is still readily available, often with no age restrictions, on global porn hubs [1],[2].

It is futile to think there will be any meaningful reduction in violence against women, any ‘Times Up’ for sexual harassment when millions of men are viewing (and being sexually aroused by) sexual abuse.

We would suggest that since violence against women happens because of men’s attitudes then anything that can conceivably threaten those attitudes, particularly in a society where 10 million women experience male violence, is unacceptable.  Full stop.

We ask why a direct link between the sexual violence of porn (where real women are being abused) and real–life violence, harassment and discrimination against women needs to be ‘proven’?

We know that no such ‘proof’ would be needed for any other abused group – whether children, gay or ethnic minority. We would accept that material that is clearly showing abuse and clearly perpetuating abusive attitudes is unacceptable in and of itself and for that reason alone it would be banned. We feel the same principles need to be used (and argued for) when it comes to harm done to women.

We would also suggest that the lack of action to end the high level of abuse now seen in all mainstream porn is an abandonment of human rights and a breach of the Government’s Public Sector Equality Duty (or whichever body the regulation of porn is handed out to, in this case the BBFC). We ask for urgent action to be taken and confirmation that the Digital Communication Act will allow for this.

It is unclear what porn will be blocked under the Digital Communications Act, since this refers only to the ability to block ‘extreme porn’. We urge for all non-R18 compliant porn to be blocked, aka almost all porn, since almost all porn is far too abusive to receive an R18 classification. If this were to be done a massive public awareness campaign over the true nature of porn and its harm (to the women in it and to women in wider society) is needed.

It is however, a welcome move that age verification on all porn will soon come into place (although concerning that the owners of the world’s largest porn sites, MindGeek, might be involved in that age verification process, particularly when the sites they operate are full of abuse porn, torture and child porn). We urge the UK Government to lobby for such age restrictions globally as a matter of urgency.

Summary

• Research spanning 40 years demonstrates a correlation between porn viewing and harmful attitudes towards women.

• Research demonstrates harm to both the attitudes of viewers of porn, and by implication their social contacts and society as a whole, as well as harm to performers in porn.

• Viewers may experience addiction, are less inclined to value relationships and are more likely to indulge in criminal behaviour eg sexual assault, rape, paedophilia and Zoophilia etc.

• They are also more likely to indulge in unsafe sex, which carries higher risks of STDs and HIV.

• Society as a whole suffers a significant escalation in violence, primarily against women and children, and a breakdown in social relationships.

• Pornography portrays sex with as many strangers as possible as normal, desirable, and without consequences, and those who use pornography tend to have more sex partners than others. The factor most associated with HIV transmission is increased number of partners.

• It should be noted that there are vast numbers of highly viewed porn videos depicting sexual harassment, including ‘real life’ upskirting; women being groped, fingered and even assaulted in public spaces; men masturbating in public spaces; men ejaculating on unsuspecting women in public spaces and many more 1.

Harm to Porn Workers

• Performers suffer psychological and physical harms - anal and vaginal tears, anal prolapse, Hep A and numerous other infections - violence through being subjected to forced sex acts, PTSD as a result of the trauma of their experience, drug and alcohol addiction in order to survive the experience. The tearing of anal tissue makes it easier for the HIV virus to enter the body. 

• The life chances of porn workers are destroyed as 5 mins on film lasts forever online and employment opportunities are  severely limited once women exceed their ‘sell by date’. This means that very often the only route available to them to earn a living is prostitution.

• Performers are particularly at risk of HIV, STDs, infertility, Hepatitis A and C, intestinal parasites, cervical cancers, puncturing of internal organs, breast damage.

• Sexual behaviour involving faeces and urine can lead to influenza, pneumonia, hepatitis A, hepatitis C, and intestinal parasites. Anal sex can also cause ripping of the anal tissue, anal fissures and puncturing of internal organs.

Harm in Consumption of Pornography

Mary Anne Layden Director of the SexuaL Trauma and Psychopathology Program, Centre for Cognitive Therapy, Dept of Psychiatry, University of Pennsylvania conducted the most detailed study of porn’s harms in a Meta-analysis of 80 studies which ranged over 40 years 37 .

• Porn is one of the most effective methods of teaching in our culture. Having all the elements of effective teaching, Images, privacy, anonymity, role models but most potent of all - sexual arousal.  Because porn viewing is rewarded by orgasm this results in it being almost indelibly embedded in the viewers’ brains.

• Porn gives permission to viewers to engage in the behaviour they see – eg when viewers see apparently sexually aroused women being beaten, raped and degraded and smiling children having sex with adults they are being taught that women and children want these behaviours. Therefore there is no need for the viewer in real life to heed a woman’s or child’s plea for them to stop.

• Males shown imagery of a woman aroused by sexual violence, and then shown pornography that involved rape, were more likely than those who hadn’t to say that the rape victim suffered less and that she enjoyed it and that women in general enjoyed rape. 1

• A study of Japanese males exposed to a depiction of rape in which the women enjoyed the rape, were more likely to believe that women in general enjoy rape and that they make false accusation of rape, compared to males exposed to a rape in which the woman showed pain. 2

• Several other studies echo this finding, that males who viewed sexual violence sored higher on tests which measured acceptance of interpersonal violence and acceptance of the rape myth than males who viewed either a physically violent or neutral film. 3

• Even when males were at first shown pornography which was not violent but degraded and sexually objectified women, when later shown pornography depicting rape they said that the victim experienced pleasure and ‘got what she wanted’. 4,5,6

• Studies also found that women who were exposed to pornography as a child are more likely to believe that women enjoy, or are asking for, rape.

• These women exposed to pornography as children recommended half as long a sentence for rapists than those not exposed to pornography. 7, 8

• There was also a correlation demonstrated between the levels of pornography use and acceptance of violent attitudes towards women.

• High-use pornography users were more accepting than low-level users of the ‘rape myth’, of violence against women, of adversarial sex beliefs, of reported likelihood of committing rape and forced sex acts and sexual callousness.

• These studies indicate that the use of pornography, even that which does not include sexual violence, endorses and even changes beliefs about rape and sexual violence. 9

In other words viewers learn that there is no need to listen to a woman who is resisting, crying, struggling or saying no, because ultimately she wants it and will enjoy it. 10

Porn And Violence

Porn and Sexual Assault - Men

Studies from as far back as 1994 found that all types of pornography viewing, with the exception of soft core, were correlated with actual rape. Those reporting higher exposure to violent pornography were six times more likely to report having raped than those reporting low exposure 11 . The usage and level of abuse in mainstream porn is exponentially higher now than when this work was carried out. And the effects will surely be substantially greater.

Studies from the 1990s to 2000s also showed a high rate of using hard-core pornography in adult sex offenders:

Child molesters (67%), incest offenders (53%), rapists (83%) were significantly higher users than non-offenders (29%). Child molesters (37%) and rapists (35%) were more likely to use pornography as an instigator to offending than were incest offenders (13%).  It should be pointed out that while these offenders used rape and child pornography to instigate their offenses, they often also used adult and consensual pornography 12,13, 14,15.

It should be noted that incest porn is now the most popular porn on global platform such as Pornhub, with entire channels dedicated to it and some individuals videos gaining over 300 million views. Perhaps an increase in incest is soon to be expected?

Porn and Sexual Assault – Adolescent Boys

The findings for adolescent boys are similar, with those who had committed sex offences showing a significantly higher rate of exposure to pornography as well as exposure at a much younger age.

42% of such offenders had been exposed as opposed to 29% of juveniles who were not sex offenders. It was also found that the offenders had been exposed at an early age (five to eight years old), while juvenile child molesters had more frequently been exposed to pornography than those who did not molest children Only 11% of juvenile sex offenders said they did not use sexually explicit material 12,13, 14,15.

Frequency and Repetition of Exposure

Pornography’s effect depends not just what subjects are exposed to but how often. The more frequently men used pornography and the more violent the pornography they used, the more likely they were to coerce others into sex, including to use of physical coercion ie rape. 18

Testimony of Victims of Assault

Rape Victims

Studies on female victims of rape suggest a clear link between porn use and sexual assault:

In one study, 100 women were questioned who presented at a rape crisis centre. 28% percent said that their abuser used pornography; 58% did not know if he used pornography. Of those whose abuser used pornography, 40% said the pornography was part of the abuse, being used either during the abuse or just prior to it, and 43% said that it affected the nature of the abuse. None of them thought it decreased the frequency of the abuse, but 21% thought it increased the frequency, and 14% believed it increased the level of violence. In fact, 18% thought their abuser became more sadistic with the use of pornography. Of the total, 12% said the abuser imitated the pornography and 14% said someone had tried to force them to do something he had seen in pornography.  19

This research was carried out in 2000 when porn was far less pervasive, less used and less violent than at present.

Domestic Violence Victims

Domestic violence studies have also shown that pornography use increases the incidence  of domestic violence. The violence may be physical, emotional or sexual.

Battered women experienced significantly more sexual violence than women who were not battered.  For example, 39% of the battered women said that their partners had tried to get them to act out pornographic scenes they’d been shown, as compared to 3% of other women. 22

The offender’s use of pornography and alcohol significantly increases a battered woman’s odds of being sexually abused. Pornography alone increases the odds by a factor of almost two, and the combination of pornography and alcohol increases this by a factor of three. 23 

40% of abused women indicated that their partner used violent pornography. Of those whose partners used pornography, 53% said that they had been asked or forced to enact scenes that they had been shown and 26% had been reminded of pornography during their abuse. Of the 40% of the abused women who had been raped, 73 % stated that their partners had used pornography. 24

Meta Analyses

Meta-analysis of 33 studies revealed that exposure to either violent or nonviolent pornography increase behavioural aggression.  These studies taken as a whole indicate that many types of pornography and frequent use of pornography are connected to negative behaviours - both violent fantasies or actual violent assaults - with violent pornography having the strongest negative effect. These patterns are seen in adults and in minors, and are found in studies focused on perpetrators and victims. 20

Paedophilia

Studies have assessed the link between paedophilia and child pornography. Individuals who used child pornography but had not molested a child (yet) were even more likely to fit the diagnosis of paedophilia than those who have offended against children  but who do not use child pornography.  21

Prostitution use and Pornography Viewing

Research from 1999, when porn was far harder to come by and far less violent, indicates that men who use prostitutes were twice as likely to have watched a pornographic movie over the last year (66%) than a national sample (33%). Men who go to prostitutes frequently were more likely to have seen a pornographic movie (74%) than those who have gone to a prostitute only once (53%). 25

Porn – Harming Relations

As far back as 1984, researchers found that men who view pornography are more likely to rate their female partners as less attractive and to be less satisfied with their partners’ attractiveness, sexual performance and level of affection, and expressed a greater desire for sex without emotional involvement.  26

Studies from as far back as the 1980’s show that pornography use in men is associated with greater acceptance of sex outside of marriage and less child-centeredness during marriage.  The reduced desire for children is especially pronounced in a reduced desire for female children.  29

Both women and men exposed to pornography had reduced support for women’s equality.  30

Pornography and Paraphilias (Deviance)

Paraphilias are psychiatric disorders of sexuality as defined by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association These are behaviours in which the object of the sexual desire is abnormal (e.g., an animal), or the behaviour itself is sexually abnormal (e.g. sadomasochism). Some paraphilias can be engaged in alone (e.g., fetishism), and some involve people who do not consent (e.g. exhibitionism). 

Sexual deviance can be learned. Some men may initially look at deviant pornography out of curiosity. Some may move on to harder forms because softer material no longer arouses them. Either way they may learn deviant beliefs and behaviour from it. Through pornography males who would never have considered sex that involves faeces (coprophilia), urine (urophilia), and animals (bestiality) may now learn about, get aroused by, and engage in these very things. 

Those who were exposed to pornography were more likely to believe that unusual and pathological sexual behaviours are more common and more normal. These beliefs are permission-giving beliefs and become releasers of behaviour. Research from 10 years ago suggests that the frequency of sex with animals, sex in groups and sex with violence was double in those exposed to deviant pornography when compared to those who were not. 27

Given the high level of deviance in modern day porn, this effect will be substantially greater.

Pornography also encourages physically risky behavior. In pornography noone is shown contracting and dying from AIDS, in fact no negative consequences are ever shown for having ‘deviant’ sex.

Yet ‘deviant’ forms of sexual behaviour carry a number of physical risks. The most obvious one is acquiring sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV. These can lead to other diseases and disorders (e.g. cervical cancer and infertility). Sexual behaviour involving feaces and urine can lead to influenza, pneumonia, hepatitis A, hepatitis C, and intestinal parasites. Anal sex can cause ripping of the anal tissue, anal fissures, and puncturing of internal organs. The tearing of anal tissue makes it easier for the HIV virus to enter the body. 

Pornography also portrays sex with as many strangers as possible as normal, desirable, and without consequences, and those who use pornography tend to have more sexual partners than others. The factor most associated with HIV transmission is increased number of partners.

Porn :  The Neuroscience – Porn as a Public Health Issue

In ‘Pornography addiction: A  neuroscience perspective’ Dr  Donal Hilton and Dr Clark Watts  conduct a comprehensive  review of addiction  research  and conclude that endogenous addictions such as eating and sex  display similar anatomical damage to the brain as so called ‘real drugs’ or exogenous addictions 38.

Addiction neuroscience has for quite some time recognised that all addictions create anatomical and pathological changes in addition to chemical changes. These changes they label as ‘hypofrontal syndromes’ .

This basically refers to damage in the braking system of the brain, similar to the damage incurred in tumours, stroke and trauma.

In behavioural terms, this damage manifests as impulsivity, compulsivity,  emotional lability, impaired judgement and aggressiveness  to varying  degrees.

What is ground breaking is that the brains of the endogenous addicted such as the obese or the sexually compulsive  also display  similar volume loss in the  frontal lobes as well as damage in the areas  related to judgement and control as those addicted to exogenous drugs.

To sum up Drs Hilton and  Watts advocate the adoption of an addiction model in the medical mode when looking at the effects of pornography. They explain that the adoption of such a medical model will lead to social policy recommendations to address the harms of pornography addiction.

March 2018

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