According to a study by Emily Rothman a professor at Boston University, published in the journal ‘Archives of Sexual Behaviour’, young adults prefer pornography as their most helpful source of information on how to have sex. The bad news is that young adults are misunderstanding the purpose of porn. Most free, online pornography is there for entertainment and to make money for the creators. The research team analysed responses from 357 young adults (18-24 years old) and 324 adolescents (14-17 years old). From a public health perspective, Rothman says it is worrisome that a sizable percentage of young adults consider porn a helpful source of information about how to have sex.
Pornography
Japan passes bill to prevent exploitation of young people in porn (Japan)
A bill to prevent young people from being exploited in pornographic productions was passed in an effort to end the abuse of young people. The bill allows people who agree to appear in pornographic content to terminate their contracts at any time before the film’s public release as well as up to a year afterward. If the contract is terminated, video vendors are obliged to recover the products and delete the footage, and cannot claim compensation from the performers. False representations or acts of intimidation will be punishable by a prison term of up to three years or a fine of up to 3 million yen ($22,000) for an individual, or 100 million yen for a corporation.
Ban porn to save families (USA)
Republican Senate candidate J.D. Vance told a Catholic magazine that pornography should be banned because it’s stopping Americans from getting married and starting families. According to Vance the combination of porn and abortion have basically created a lonely, isolated generation that isn’t getting married, they’re not having families, and they’re actually not even totally sure how to interact with each other. Vance further stated that American values are declining due to the consumption of pornography. He contributed the recent school shootings to the absence of strong family values and not the lack of gun control. We made a political choice that the freedom to consume pornography was more important than the public goods, like marriage and family and happiness, he continued. “We must make new and better choices in the future.
Internet service providers must find and remove online child pornography (Belgium)
Under new European Commission laws, Google, Meta and other online service providers will be compelled to detect and remove online child pornography. Companies who do not follow the requirements face fines of up to 6% of their annual revenue or global turnover, as determined by EU countries. The EU executive said on Wednesday that its plan aims to replace the present system of voluntary detection and reporting by businesses, which has proven insufficient to protect youngsters. It stated more than one million allegations of child sexual abuse in the EU27 in 2020, with the COVID-19 epidemic contributing to a 64 percent increase in such reports in 2021 compared to the previous year. Furthermore, 60 percent of all child sexual abuse material is hosted on EU servers.
European Union (EU) commission proposes plan to fight child pornography (Belgium)
The EU’s executive arm unveiled a plan to require online platforms to detect and report the sharing of child sex abuse images on the internet. This would force companies operating in the EU to detect, report and remove the material. An increase in online child sex abuse has been noticed globally. Reports of internet child abuse rose from 1 million to almost 22 million during 2014-2020 and over 65 million images and videos of child sexually abused images were identified. Detection, reporting and removal of child sexual abuse online is also urgently needed to prevent the sharing of images and videos of the sexual abuse of children, which retraumatizes the victims often years after the sexual abuse has ended.”
Pornography is harmful and we need a new public health approach to it – as with alcohol and tobacco (UK)
Sophia Worringer, a parliamentary researcher, claims that pornography is harmful and must be treated with a public health approach. She asks the question that if pornography was not harmful as some people claim, why then did the Parish incident (Member of Parliament watching porn) spark such a public outpouring. Many women feel threatened when hearing that pornography has been viewed in their presence because they know the degrading and damaging nature of its essence. It is also difficult to separate the expansion of the multi-billion dollar pornography industry from the trafficking of young women and children around the world. Pornographic online videos, open the door for exploitation and abuse. Pornography is not passive. It changes expectations of sex, removes sex from consenting loving relationships, and rewires your brain meaning you are always wanting more.
Pornography is harmful and we need a new public health approach to it – as with alcohol and tobacco (UK)
Sophia Worringer, a parliamentary researcher, claims that pornography is harmful and must be treated with a public health approach. She asks the question, if pornography was not harmful as some people claim, why then did the Parish incident (Member of Parliament watching porn) spark such a public outpouring. Many women feel threatened when hearing that pornography has been viewed in their presence because they know the degrading and damaging nature of its essence. It is also difficult to separate the expansion of the multi-billion dollar pornography industry from the trafficking of young women and children around the world. Pornographic online videos open the door for exploitation and abuse. Pornography is not passive. It changes expectations of sex, removes sex from consenting loving relationships, and rewires your brain meaning you are always wanting more.
New law to fully prosecute child sex offenders (USA)
A new law signed by Governor Brian Kemp will put more measures in place to prosecute child sex offenders to the fullest. This law received support from democrats and republicans. They’re hitting our kids in vulnerable spots, according to Rose Grant-Wiseman, the Executive Director of the Coastal Child Advocacy Centre. The bill treats each act of child molestation as a separate offense and makes each image or video of child pornography a separate offense. For each thing that you have done or committed, that could be five years, that could be ten years, that could be fifteen. It could be a life sentence,” Grant-Wiseman stated. Someone who has thousands of images would have a stronger punishment then someone with a few.
Portland sees rise in sextortion schemes amongst teens (USA)
As the internet and social media have evolved, so have the dangers that come with it, especially amongst youth. The level of integration of the internet with our society has given rise to cyberbullying, a form of bullying explicitly done online which uses hateful, abusive or threatening messages and media content. With the lack of regulations among tech companies and inadequate tools for parents to protect their children, the internet has also given rise to a much more dangerous threat: sextortion. Sextortion is defined as scamming victims, who are often underage, typically ranging between 14 and 17 years, to send explicit photos and content to predators. Once the scammers have acquired the photos, they typically threaten or blackmail the victim. It’s a dark but sadly real form of abuse that can be more common than people think.
Companies to ask for ID before giving access to pornography (USA)
The Louisiana Legislature is trying to protect children from porn and they’re asking for adults to present their ID when trying to access it. Children have much easier access to pornography than they used to have. According to Dr. Gail Dines, an anti-porn advocate, children under the age of 10 now account for 22 percent of underage online porn consumption. While 10-14-year-olds make up 36%. The average age of first exposure to pornography is 11 years old. The Representative pushing the bill, Laurie Schlegel, stated that the bill would make it so that the verification would only reveal if the user is over 18. Unlimited access to pornography on the internet is causing a public health crisis for our children, Schlegel affirmed. The law passed out of the committee without any opposition.