Our Movement Director Melinda Tankard Reist appeared before the NSW Standing Committee on Social issues examining the ‘Impacts of harmful pornography on mental, and physical health’ at its first public hearing Monday. This was her opening statement.

The pornography industry is significantly responsible for the harmful sexual socialisation of a generation of young people.

The world’s largest department of education has contributed to rising rates of violence against women, harmful sexual behaviours/peer-on-peer sexual abuse at levels never before seen. 

A generation of boys exposed to rape porn, sadism, torture, incest porn, at the click of a button.

The French equality watchdog found 90% of porn features violence against women with much of it amounting to torture.

30–60 percent of all incidents of childhood sexual abuse are carried out by other children and young people.  Data from the landmark Australian Child Maltreatment Study (ACMS) state: “Child Sexual Abuse by known adolescents [in non-romantic relationships] is by far the single most common category of offending.”

Professor Michael Salter in the Child Light submission, states: “The widespread availability of pornography appears to be driving the increased perpetration of sexual violence by children, particularly boys. 

Girls report routine sexual harassment and abuse by male students: touching, rape threats, sexual bullying, body shaming, sexual moaning and sexual gestures and boys trying to choke them. Boys commonly share porn at schools, airdropping it to kids on the bus, sending girls live masturbation videos.

79.9% of teachers were seeing more sexualised behaviour in schools from as young as Year 2 including children simulating sex acts on other children as documented in our report ‘Sexual Harassment of Teachers’ [SHOT] released by Collective Shout and author and parenting expert Maggie Dent late last year.

Many teachers identified pornography exposure as a significant driver of the rise in harmful sexual behaviours in schools. One said:

“I believe there is an increasing disconnect between women as human beings, and women as objects and I attribute this corrosion of respectful and boundary driven relationships to unfettered access to pornography.” 

We urge you to use every lever at your disposal to ameliorate these harms.

Read our Submission on the Impacts of Harmful Pornography on Mental, Emotional and Physical Health here.

See also: Sexual Harassment of Teachers’ [SHoT] report, Collective Shout/Maggie Dent, here.

X = formerly known as Twitter | Elon Musk = Owner of X 

Violence against women takes on the form of a bonding ritual amongst groups of men who put what they have viewed in pornography into practice.

Guest post by Dr Em

Originally published at Uncommon Ground Media

A court has heard how Footballer Mike Emery raped a sleeping woman twice in one night and sent naked photos of her to his teammates asking them: “Anyone want a go?” Emery sent these photos of his alleged rape victim with a laughing emoji ‘to two WhatsApp group chats, comprising 70’ men. They did not go to the police, or call for help, instead, one man responded 'Show us her gash', to which ‘Emery allegedly sent a photograph showing the woman's vaginal area’. Emery’s victim only found out about the intimate photos of her he had shared with all of these men after Warrington Rylands club chairman Mark Pye informed her. A jury found Emery not guilty, because, one presumes, this is seemingly normal behaviour. Indeed, it is happening frequently. A different footballer and a different rape made the headlines again in 2024 as the former Man City and Real Madrid player Robinho was ordered to be jailed in his home country after he was found guilty of taking part in the gang rape of an Albanian woman celebrating her 23rd birthday at a Milan nightclub. A court in Milan had stated that Robinho had acted with "special contempt for the victim, who was brutally humiliated”.

Billie Eilish has spoken publicly about her experiences with porn and how she has been harmed by it

Age verification is the bare minimum governments can do to protect children from porn

By James Evans*

Campaigns Manager Caitlin Roper was recently invited to participate in an online debate for a French media outlet on the question, Is there such a thing as ethical porn?

Guest blog by James Evans*

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By James*, Collective Shout Supporter, UK

Radicalisation: the process whereby an individual comes to adopt increasingly radical views in opposition to the accepted norms.