Finally, it seems, there is a conversation about the elephant in the domestic violence room. We don’t need more statistics to prove that addiction to alcohol, gambling and illegal drugs plays a huge role in domestic violence. But what about addiction to pornography? World-wide, hundreds of millions of people, mostly male, are easy prey for the peddlers of online pornography. It is a multi-billion-dollar industry that feeds the appetite of both the curious and the insatiable with much of the former camp moving swiftly to the latter.
As of January 2023, porn sites are getting more visitors than Amazon, Twitter and Netflix combined, with somewhere between 46-74 per cent of men and 16-41 per cent of women watching porn regularly (although some estimates go as high as 91.5 per cent and 60 per cent respectively).
Porn is sometimes described as a supernormal stimulus, taking our brain’s natural desire for intimacy and providing us with an exaggerated hyper-real version, thus altering what our brains perceive to be normal. In 2014, neuroscientists based at the University of Cambridge ran an experiment on impulsivity, compulsion and addiction found that people with ‘compulsive sexual behaviour’ like porn addiction showed different patterns of brain activity when viewing erotic images compared to ‘healthy’ controls. Similar patterns can be seen in the brains of drug addicts. This has led many researchers to conclude that porn ‘hijacks’ the brain and alters the way users think.
According to research, porn consumers are more likely to ‘sexually objectify and dehumanize others, more likely to express an intent to rape, less likely to intervene during a sexual assault, more likely to victim-blame survivors of sexual assault, more likely to support violence against women, more likely to forward sexts without consent, and more likely to commit actual acts of sexual violence.’ In the research, that last point comes up often: frequent users of pornography are more likely to engage in physically aggressive sex acts.
Psychologist Prof Neil Malamuth of the University of California says decades of research have revealed that for men, ‘excessive viewing of pornography is consistently associated with sexist attitudes, coercive acts, aggressive behaviour and other dangerous outcomes’.
However, the silence around any negative social effects of our digital lives being saturated in pornography has been deafening. Until now, why has there – in Australia at least – been almost no public conversation on this? Why has it rarely been linked to family violence? Why are we so afraid to discuss this elephant?
Could it be that we don’t want to condemn the consumption of pornography because that would make us hypocrites? Or is it just that what we choose to do online is ‘our’ business, that we have a right to indulge our lust privately, that we are looking only at non-violent pornography? Because most studies and surveys focus on the link between violent pornography and partner (or other) abuse, including rape and murder, do we justify our own choices by saying ‘Well, we’re hurting no one.’?
'Around 45 per cent of pornographic material depicting physical violence or aggression, with males overwhelmingly the perpetrators and women the victims. This violence is not only shown without repercussions, but violence is often shown to be welcomed by the victims.'
That argument is becoming harder to make, with around 45 per cent of pornographic material depicting physical violence or aggression, with males overwhelmingly the perpetrators and women the victims. This violence is not only shown without repercussions, but violence is often shown to be welcomed by the victims.
Defenders might argue that there remains a chicken and egg question: does consuming pornography make men violent or do violent men tend to watch pornography?
Among the vast body of research, a 2016 meta-analysis presenting aggregated data from 22 studies across seven countries, confirming a significant association between pornography consumption and committing acts of sexual aggression, with a notable emphasis on the exacerbating role of violent content in pornography. Results were consistent across various studies and geographical locations. The authors suggested a need for policy interventions and educational programs aimed at mitigating the consumption of violent pornography and addressing its potential to foster sexually aggressive behavior.
If the links between porn consumption and violence weren’t clear before, they are now.
And if that wasn’t enough, all major porn sites have had issues with featuring child sexual abuse material, nonconsensual content, and abuse. With consistent issues in content moderation on websites, there’s still no way to guarantee whether the material being watched has been produced legally or ethically.
Sadly, but not surprisingly, many men dismiss this issue. Although there are notable exceptions, such as Tanya Plibersek, Melinda Tankard Reist and Chanel Contos, it seems that many women are also reluctant to speak out against this social evil. Might it not be time then to enlist the voices, and especially the public voices, of women who, in growing numbers, are victims of this? That’s not to say women are to blame. Men, for the most part, are responsible. Proportionally speaking, we are the addicts; we are the perpetrators; we make the disastrous choices that create the sometimes horrific damage.
Though the form the addiction takes may vary, addiction to internet pornography is common, particularly among men. For many, it is difficult to let go of because it is so easily accessible. That’s not to say that everyone who looks at online pornography is, or becomes, an addict. But like the compulsive drinker, gambler or drug user, that likelihood increases with every viewing.
Given the pervasiveness of pornography, and the extent to which pornography is consumed by people under 18, this is a conversation long overdue. And it’s a conversation that more men and more women need the courage to lend their voices to.
The federal government has thankfully begun to acknowledge the seriousness of the issue. Only this month, Albanese announced $6.5m to fund a pilot program to prevent children from accessing pornography as a response to the domestic violence problem in Australia. It’s not perfect, but it should count as movement in the right direction.
Compulsive porn consumption is not the sole or even primary cause of domestic violence. No one is suggesting that. But only by addressing the role porn plays as an underlying and unspoken part of the domestic violence problem can we reasonably expect to attain a healthier society, and a less violent one.
Bill Farrelly is a retired Sydney Morning Herald journalist.
David Halliday is editor of Eureka Street.