Hardcore porn consumption fuels violent sex among Qld teenagers

Queensland schoolgirls are being forced into unwanted acts as hardcore porn inspires their male peers to engage in violent sex.

Hardcore porn is inspiring adolescent boys to commit violent sexual acts on their peers, with schoolgirls being choked, slapped and forced into unwanted anal sex.

On-demand access to graphic porn depicting violence against women has led young boys to believe that’s “what girls want”, with experts calling on schools to immediately tackle the growing crisis.

Top Blokes, a mental health program charity tailored for boys, is urging schools to educate male students on proper sexual consent well before their teen years.

State manager Rachel Hinds said easy access to pornography meant boys often spent years watching graphic sexual acts – which rarely feature consent, communication or condoms – before engaging in sexual activity.

“They have a four or five year education on what love, sex and intimacy looks like, through high levels of high-violence porn,” she said.

“If we think about pornography and the way that women are depicted within porn, it really creates a culture where women are viewed as less than. That women enjoy being degraded. That women enjoy being treated as an object.”

Top Blokes Queensland state manager Rachel Hinds. Picture: Annette Dew

Meanwhile, school girls on an online petition calling for earlier education on consent have shared shocking allegations of being coerced – often by their teenage boyfriends – into “acting out” graphic and violent sex scenes mirroring pornography.

One wrote “most of my sexual interaction during high school felt like boys trying to imitate porn”, while another said “I am constantly living in fear that my partner will leave me if I don’t do one of these pornographic sexual acts.

“Even in my casual dating life I have had men slap me or choke me without even asking if I liked that, because pornography teaches men that that’s what women want and asking them if that’s what they actually want doesn’t cross their mind.”

Another girl claimed she was regularly forced by her then boyfriend to engage in “unsafe and violent anal sex”.

A recent report from the Australian Institute of Family Studies found about half of all children aged 9 to 16 had regular exposure to pornography, with boys more likely to deliberately and frequently see it out.

Ms Hinds said while research into the long-term health effects of high levels of exposure to porn was limited, evidence of porn-related erectile dysfunction was mounting.

“If you are a young man who’s watching high levels of very violent porn, when it comes to having ‘normal’ sex, your brain does not compute that as something to be stimulated by,” she said.

“Some initial research has found up to 33 per cent of young men suffer from some form of erectile dysfunction where they are no longer able to be stimulated through normal sex.”

Top Blokes launched in Queensland late last year, with more than 40 schools lodging expressions of interest.

“The response has been overwhelming, and I think what I learnt from that is that our schools are in crisis and they don’t know what to do,” Ms Hinds said.

“Our program is a mental health program, but what we know is that you can’t just target mental health and not talk about all the other things that are happening in young boys’ lives.

“I don’t think we’re doing enough in the education space for both our boys and our girls.

“When we do leave it up to individual schools or individual teachers to make decisions on whether or not they feel comfortable teaching topics like sexual consent or pornography, then we’re leaving huge holes in our young people’s education”.

QUT professor Marilyn Campbell said a real danger was young children inadvertently accessing pornographic materials through everyday devices, such as tablets.

“Most of the porn is incredibly violent,” she said.

“They think, ‘this is what girls want, and even though they might say no, they mean yes’.”

But she said talking about sex and pornography “must start in the family”.

“We cannot expect schools to bring up children with limited input from parents,” Professor Campbell said.

“Families can no longer be coy or embarrassed about sexual matters, if they are they’re doing their child a great disservice.”

Originally published as Hardcore porn consumption fuels violent sex among Qld teenagers