An invasion of pornography

Alcohol and drugs are well accepted as causing rampant dysfunction in places already beaten down by dispossession, disempowerment, unemployment, ill health and poor education. But the trauma caused by the invasion of pornography has not been properly acknowledged at an official level.

The Northern Territory Government’s Little Children Are Sacred report, about violence against Indigenous women and children in the Territory, changes that.

A toxic trifecta of drugs, alcohol and pornography is fuelling a culture of violence against women and children. They are being bashed, raped, disabled and killed. Their communities have disintegrated; they live lives of desperation and terror.

Predictably, the sex industry and their sex radical friends are crying “censorship” in response to the Federal Government’s decision to crack down on porn in these communities. They want business as usual. Yet Indigenous women themselves are identifying pornography as one of the agents of destruction in their communities.

Children suffering porn-driven sexual abuse should come before sex industry profits. Children whose genitals have to be reconstructed, and the babies with sexually transmitted infections, need protection now.

The Little Children are Sacred report tells of rampant sexually aggressive behaviour, of children being exposed to porn films and re-enacting what they have seen, of porn being used by adults to groom children for sex. Sexual callousness reigns. The reports authors state:

It was … confirmed … that pornography was a major factor in communities and that it should be stopped. The daily diet of sexually explicit material has had a major impact, presenting young and adolescent Aboriginals with a view of mainstream sexual practice and behaviour which is jaundiced. It encourages them to act out the fantasies they see on screen or in magazines. Exposure to pornography was also blamed for the sexualised behaviour evident in quite young children.

Pornography has contributed to a breakdown in cultural restraint; the devastation of moral and ethical systems which once protected women and children.

These isolated communities have been destroyed by white men bearing not gifts, but pornography. Pornography has fed dysfunction, increased cycles of violence and added cumulative experiences of trauma.

The report continues:

It is apparent that children in Aboriginal communities are widely exposed to inappropriate sexual activity such as pornography, adult films and adults having sex within the child’s view.

This exposure can produce a number of effects, particularly resulting in the “sexualisation” of childhood and the creation of normalcy around sexual activity that may be used to engage children in sexual activity. It may also result in sexual “acting out”, and actual offending, by children and young people against others …

Children were becoming more out of control as a consequence of living in an environment in which increased levels of abusive behaviour are seen as normal.

The Inquiry was told that sexually aberrant behaviour involving both boys and girls was becoming more common among even younger children. In all communities, both men and women were concerned that teenagers were becoming more violent, more sexual and more anarchic.

And young girls didn’t even know they could refuse sexual advances, the report states:

… In a more sinister development, the boys in some communities coerced girls to have sex with them and, in one community, it was reported that girls did not understand that they had a choice to refuse sex.

Exposure to pornography could be linked to a “belief in rape myths, the increased acceptance of the use of physical force in sexual relations and a lessening of compassion for child victims”.

Pornography “may play an important function for an offender in facilitating his offending … It may … lower inhibitions around offending and increase the likelihood of an assault”.

There are of course a range of offenders both within the communities and coming in from outside where neglected children make easy pickings.

Pornography gives men permission to see women and children as sexual objects, there for the taking.

The 1999 Report of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Women’s Task Force on Violence also highlighted the link between X-rated films and sexual violence against women and children:

“The incidence of sexual violence is rising and is [in] a direct relationship to negative and deformed male socialisation associated with alcohol and other drug misuse, and the prevalence of pornographic videos in some Communities,” that report stated.

The government needs not only to ban pornography in the Northern Territory but to stop it being shipped out of Canberra. If the ACT Government will not take responsibility for its porn trade, it is time for the Federal Government to show even greater resolve and override the territory’s laws.

And it’s not only members of Indigenous communities who need to be freed from this sludge.

Yes, pornography is contributing to a moral tsunami in Indigenous communities. But pornography feeds and legitimises violence against women and children of all backgrounds. Some have argued that pornography is as harmful to women as racist material is to the people it targets. The proliferation of pornography leads to increases in sexual violence against all women.

Many men who commit crimes of sexual violence live on a diet of pornography. Up to a third of child sex offenders said they had viewed pornography prior to offending.

The Ninth Australasian Conference on Child Abuse and Neglect in November 2003 was told by staff from the Child at Risk Assessment Unit, Canberra Hospital that exposure to X-rated pornography is a significant factor in children younger than 10-years-old sexually abusing other children.

In the first six months of 2003, 48 children under 10 were identified as having engaged in sexually abusive acts. Access to graphic sexual images had shaped the trend.

In 2003 the Australia Institute found one in 20 boys aged 16-17 watch X-rated videos once a week and more than a fifth did so at least once a month. This has to distort their view of women.

Research shows that significant exposure to “standard” pornography desensitises men to the pain women experience in sexual assault; decreases compassion toward women in general; creates a need for more violent and bizarre forms of sex; desensitises users to hard core pornography; and increases men's self-reported likelihood to commit sexual abuse.

We need to address the harm caused by pornography everywhere.