The exploitation of women and girls through pornography, prostitution, and sex trafficking represents a grave violation of our sex-based rights, as outlined in the Declaration on Women’s Sex-Based Rights. These practices perpetuate violence, commodification, and the degradation of women, treating our bodies as objects for consumption and profit. Pornography both harms individual women and also reinforces the systemic oppression of women as a class. All women have a vested interest in bringing an end to the woman-hating industry of pornography.
Article 8 of the Declaration emphasizes the need for the elimination of violence against women, noting that “violence against women is one of the crucial social mechanisms by which women as a sex are forced into a subordinate position compared with men as a sex” (Women’s Declaration International, n.d.). Pornography fuels violence against women in multiple overlapping ways. First, the human rights violations against the women involved in the production of pornography are massive. These violations include having sex with partners who are not desired and engaging in acts that are not desired; being paid does not vitiate the fundamental absence of enthusiastic participation. Pornography is, therefore, filmed rape—recorded acts of coercion and exploitation that are presented as entertainment, perpetuating and normalizing sexual violence. Second, the consumption of pornography impacts the way males view and treat women and the way they conceptualize sex. It also influences how women perceive themselves and their role in sexual relationships.
Pornography, which frequently portrays women not only as the sex that is to be sexually dominated, but as victims in violent and degrading scenarios, normalizes and perpetuates violence against women. It is sex-role stereotypes on steroids, where the power difference between the sexes is normalized and eroticized. Consumers of pornography typically need to escalate the level of violence and abuse over time to achieve the same degree of excitement and satisfaction. The need for escalation fuels ever-increasing demand for both the filmed and off-camera abuse of prostituted and trafficked women and girls. This escalation of violence underscores the urgent need to address pornography, prostitution, and sex trafficking as interconnected violations of women’s fundamental human rights. In fact, it has been argued that commercial pornography should be understood as a form of prostitution.
Article 9 of the Declaration reaffirms the need for the protection of the rights of the child. Children are impacted by pornography both as viewers and as victims of sexual predators who consume child pornography. Interdisciplinary research on childhood violence has found that “a causal relationship exists between adult and juvenile males’ exposure to child pornography […] and their perpetration of child sexual victimization” (Dowd et al., n.d., p. 59). That is, men who consume child pornography become more likely to sexually abuse children.
In addition to increasing victimization of children by adult men, children are also harmed by their own exposure to pornography. Consistently, pornography exposure in children and adolescents is found to be associated with more sexist attitudes and more sexual aggression – both in terms of perpetration and victimization. That is, boys exposed to pornography are more likely to perpetrate sexual assault, and girls exposed to pornography are more likely to be victims of sexual assault.
The most cited survey of online pornography finds that acts of aggression, almost always against women, are found in over 88% of pornographic scenes, often including both physical and verbal aggression (Bridges et al., 2010). A child’s inadvertent exposure to such content can be confusing, upsetting, and traumatizing, and is in fact linked to adverse sexual health later in life. In particular, the American Psychological Association found that for girls, exposure to explicit sexual behaviors, including via pornography, “has negative effects in a variety of domains” (Zurbriggen et al., 2007, p. 2). These effects include but are not limited to: risky sexual behavior, higher rates of eating disorders, depression, low self-esteem, and reduced academic performance.
Article 9 of the Declaration notes that the protection of the rights of the child “should include effective and appropriate legal measures with a view to abolishing traditional and emerging practices which enforce sex role stereotypes on girls and boys” (Women’s Declaration International, n.d.). With rates of pornography exposure in youth ever increasing, WDI USA argues that this is a key emerging enforcer of gender (i.e., stereotypes of masculinity as dominance/aggression, and of femininity as submission/victimization) in today’s world.
One of the ways in which pornography is an enforcer of gender is through sex-dissociation in both girls and boys, and women and men. The rise of young women as “gender identity” patients correlates with the rise of ubiquitous violent pornography and sexualized media. This paradigm of normalized and eroticized violence exacerbates internalized sexism in girls and young women, intensifying the negative associations with womanhood. Men, by contrast, tend to create their “woman gender identities” through increased consumption of pornographic content targeting the fetishization of emasculation and gender role reversal (sissification hypnotization”).
Article 1 of the Declaration on Women’s Sex-Based Rights reaffirms that the rights of women are, and must be, based on sex and not “gender identity”. Reversing the spread of pornography in all its forms is a key step in ending the widespread discrimination against women that is caused by allowing men into the category of women in law, policy, and practice.
In alignment with the Declaration on Women’s Sex-Based Rights, WDI USA advocates for the complete eradication of pornography, prostitution, and sex trafficking as interconnected forms of violence against women. We urge governments, organizations, and individuals to acknowledge the inherent link among these harmful practices and to implement concrete measures that safeguard the physical and reproductive integrity of all women and girls. By doing so, we can safeguard the sex-based rights of women and girls and ensure our full and equal participation in society, free from the pervasive harms of pornography and exploitation.
References
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