Dear Friend,
A new longitudinal study has uncovered an extremely sobering fact: aggression in pornography has tripled in the last 25 years.
This figure was found by sampling 255 of the “most viewed” videos on Pornhub. In other words: this is not niche. Violence in pornography is mainstream and popular.
The study noted that only a small percentage of aggression was clearly depicted as nonconsensual … but this should not comfort us.
Firstly, it is not necessarily a good thing for aggression to be depicted “consensually.” In fact, it is a very bad thing, because it normalizes the idea that women want violence, or that violence is just par for the course in sex. With this being the case, is it any wonder that the majority of sexually active teenage girls have been choked during a sexual encounter?
Secondly, it seems the study only sampled videos from Pornhub that are still on its site today. This would mean it did not include any videos that were deleted when the company purged 80% of its content, following explosive public outrage about the real rape, child sexual abuse, and other nonconsensual content on the site.
How much more violence and clear non-consent would the researchers have uncovered before that purge? And what about sites other than Pornhub, who have not performed any such mass deletion?
Thirdly, non-consent is very often invisible. Many survivors have spoken out about how they were forced to smile for the camera despite being coerced and abused. Further, many abuse videos actually do depict a consensual sex act but were recorded or distributed without consent.
This study paints a very chilling picture about the path our society is on.
Violence against women and girls is growing more and more normalized by the day. Young boys are growing up believing that aggressing against girls is just what you do. Young girls are growing up believing they have to accept that, because it’s what the boys expect.
We must push back against this.
📣ACTION: Call for Age Verification Legislation to Protect Children from Pornography!
