Failure to filter allows child porn a free run

Walk into an “adult” store and you will see collections of X-rated videos in such series as Teenerama, Kinky Teens, Seventeen, Barely Legal, Schoolgirls, Teeny Vision and Teen Toys. Some videos portray the women as children, with pigtails, knee socks, frilly dresses or school uniforms, having sex with much older men. You can buy magazines like Teenagers, Young Stars, Finally Legal, Cherry Pop, Teeners from Holland, Barely 18, Sweet 18, Just 18, and Innocence.

On the Internet, one of the largest genres of pornography is “teens” porn. Many websites show young women with shaved pubic regions or with hair digitally removed to suggest youth. Overlapping with these, another popular genre is “upskirts” and “peeping Tom” pornography. This features photos and videos of girls and women undressing, showering, and toileting, taken illicitly through windows or using hidden cameras. Given the popularity of such websites, we should be outraged but not surprised when individuals install hidden cameras in girls’ changing rooms.

Mainstream pornography’s obsession with female “teens” contributes to our culture’s “fetishisation” of girls and young women. While teen porn is one genre among many, it encourages consumers to see pre-pubescent girls and teenagers as sexual objects and as always sexually available. And like much pornography, it sometimes expresses contempt for females and depicts them as little more than body parts and orifices.

If we are serious about challenging sexual abuse, then we will have to tackle the pornographic imagery that makes abuse look sexy.