By Rachael Wong
There is a horrifying story in the Australian this week about a new study by Collective Shout and parenting educator Maggie Dent, which details the increase in sexual harassment against female teachers and students by porn-fuelled boys.
In a survey of over 1000 teachers, nearly half reported sexual harassment from boys in class.
Teachers said male students had propositioned them for sex, threatened them with rape, mimicked sex acts, asked for nude photos or made sex noises at them in class.
But the most shocking part? Children as young as five have been exhibiting similar behaviours after accessing and sharing porn through phones, laptops and on social media.
And when we talk about porn, we’re not just talking about videos with sexual content (which would be bad enough), but content including extreme misogyny, degrading violence, rape and even child sexual abuse.
The teachers are also witnessing widespread sexual behaviours by male students directed at female students, with girls for example, being coerced into sending sexual images to boys in class – which is child sexual abuse material if the person is under 18.
This is where our pornified culture, especially early exposure to porn, has led us. Teachers and students can’t even go to school without the threat of sexual harassment and assault from male teens and even children.
But like the female teachers and students, the boys in question are also victims of an insidious, predatory, multi-billion-dollar industry that specifically targets them in online pop-ups and on social media because it knows that the younger it hooks them in, the more likely they are to become addicted, and become consumers for years if not life.
This is something that therefore requires collective responsibility and a collective response.
Parents, first and foremost, must educate themselves about the harms of pornography and how kids are becoming increasingly exposed to it so that they can educate their kids and monitor and restrict what they can access (the anti-porn organisation Fight the New Drug, especially it's documentary 'Brain Heart World', is a great resource to start with). No matter how ‘good’ your kid is, the porn industry is relentless and will find a way to capture them if parents don’t have the appropriate conversations and boundaries.
Education about the harms of pornography should be reinforced in schools at an age-appropriate time and manner, and ‘education’ that sexualises children, encourages porn use or promotes other harmful sexual behaviours should be rooted out. For example, books like Yumi Styne's and Melissa Kang's 'Welcome to Sex', which contains graphic sexual material and instructs kids how to send nudes amongst other harmful sexual behaviour, has no place in schools. There must be transparency with parents about what is being taught and parents must be kept informed of any concerning behaviour involving their children.
As individuals, if you or someone you know is exposed to unsolicited pornographic material online, you must report it. We must also hold our governments and local representatives to account on this issue.
And finally, the government should be imposing heavy penalties on websites and hosts that don’t enforce safeguards to prevent children from accessing pornography. For the naysayers, this is not censorship, this is child safeguarding.
I actually think that porn should be banned altogether, as it offers not one single positive benefit except to those who are lining their pockets with the profits of sexual exploitation – both of those in the pornographic content, and of those viewing it.
Limitations should be placed with the utmost restraint and caution on free speech, but for those who class porn as ‘speech’ and think it should fall under the free speech umbrella, there is plenty of speech we don’t think should be protected, like defamation, perjury, threats, harassment, incitement to violence and so on.
Porn is just as damaging, if not more damaging, than these examples: it is normalising the sexual objectification of and sexual violence against women and girls, it is contributing to increased child on child sexual abuse, it is promoting misogynistic, racist and other kinds of vile attitudes and behaviours, it is leading to severe addictions along with associated physical, psychological and relational issues especially among men and boys, and its intentionally designed increase in demand has led to the creation of videos that involve victims of rape and sex trafficking, with sites like Pornhub being found guilty of hosting and profiting off such content.
Porn is one of the single greatest scourges on our society and allowing it the free reign it has had online for so many years has been a devastating failed social experiment that has left a wave of destruction in its wake, which will only continue unless we take proactive steps to stop it.
Rachael Wong is the CEO of Women’s Forum Australia
Women’s Forum Australia is an independent think tank that undertakes research, education and public policy advocacy on issues affecting women and girls, with a particular focus on addressing behaviours and practices that are harmful and abusive to them. We are a non-partisan, non-religious, tax-deductible charity. We do not receive any government funding and rely solely on donations to make an impact. Support our work today.
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