About three weeks ago, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced a $925 million initiative to fight violence against women in Australia. Since then, “violent porn” has become a hot topic in our country. The pointing finger of the moralist pins pornography as the cause for rising gender-based violence. Sex workers and other advocates have argued why this is an evasive and problematic hill to die on. Still, various politicians continue to weigh in and build their case against porn.
A quote that was circulated in the news last week from federal environment minister Tanya Plibersek when speaking to the ABC on the “exploding” numbers of sexual assaults among young people.
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“Kids are seeing pornography that includes choking and anal sex before they’ve had their first kiss. They’ve got pornography in their pocket… It’s having an impact on their brains and on their relationships,” she said.
But is porn really to blame?
With a long-term professional career in sex and porn, I’ve become well-versed in the prevailing sexual attitudes of men, and I’d like to set some facts straight.
Women experiencing violence has been a problem long before the widespread use of smartphones and the first printed pornography magazine.
For much of history, it has even been socially acceptable. Marital rape was only completely criminalised in the late 80s – in Plibersek’s lifetime and before the computer was common in the home. This is an example of how porn is a glaring red herring when it comes to sexual violence against women.
Following the “Me Too” movement, the so-called “exploding” number of reports of sexual violence reflects an environment in our country where women feel more empowered than ever to seek justice for abuse. Despite the recent shocking numbers of fatalities, these rising statistics are more likely to correlate with an uptick in disclosure than incidents – a positive result of shoring up our consent laws in recent years, improving access to justice and listening to victims.
To put some looming theories to bed – several studies have shown that there is little correlation between porn and enacted violence. And research shows children are more literate than we give them credit for when it comes to porn and myths about porn addiction, and that exposure to porn can in fact be affirming for young people exploring their sexuality and gender.
This brings me to the topic of anal sex.
When Plibersek referenced anal sex in the same breath as violence and degradation, the frankly homophobic insinuation is that anal sex is akin to abuse. If anyone wasn’t sure, anal sex is a form of intimacy that many people enjoy, including in particular queer people.
Queer people have been, and still are, pitched as something children are victims to just as porn is now. But apostolic and conservative parenting that associates anal sex with violence and sin is the exact reason why some children seek it out on the internet in the first place rather than speaking to their parents.
I agree with Plibersek that parents, community leaders and role models need to address the subject of children accessing porn. Ensuring that content intended for adults does not end up in a child’s algorithm is something we could do better at – but ultimately, the harms of this do not warrant widespread blame for femicide.
As a sex worker, I experience first-hand what happens when policies are made based on paternalistic and victimising discourse and I sympathise with young people having 54-year-old politicians making decisions on their behalf under the guise of protection.
But approaches that focus on suppressing perceived moral issues don’t work. Controls for children’s internet usage while not giving them a proper education on sex and consent won’t work. And treating children and men as casualties to porn is patronising and insulting to their intelligence. Children are our future; driven by curiosity, and smart enough to bypass age verification processes.
So we arrive back at the righteous environment minister, Tanya Plibersek, who in 2023 alone green-lit four coal mines across the country, so it’s bold of her to be calling out how we could better nurture children’s futures and morals.
Our country is close to falling off the climate cliff and our kids are more vulnerable to the inaction of our leaders than what they see on their phones. Maybe young people are scrambling for a sense of control because their future is being propelled into climate catastrophe. When it comes to the future of our planet, it seems our government is doing the most fucking.
Darcy Deviant is a sex worker and writer based in Melbourne. Follow Darcy on Instagram here.
