Don't listen to self-proclaimed expert sexperts, listen to what the real experts have been saying about the impact of pornography.
• In Quadrant magazine way back in 1993 NSW MP Dr Marlene Goldsmith (RIP) righty says, “We spend millions on affirmative action, we profess (at least publicly) horror at racism and yet misogynistic visual images are, to many, sacrosanct. Women (and children, I would add) are being raped, beaten, murdered, but their right to life and liberty is considered less than the right to purchase or profit from pornography.” Please don’t let this warning from the grave go unheeded.
• Former Aboriginal research consultant, now professor, Judy Atkinson in her book Looking At The Problem cites several atrocities directly caused by porn. She warns, “A worker at a Northern Territory women’s shelter described how women are being raped with a stick after porn videos. Rapes are being perpetrated on drunken women by young boys 10 - 15. Young girls from 8 years upward are being sexually misused by adult Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal men in exchange for beer. They are being shown hard core porn videos and encouraged to perform likewise.”
• “On Mornington Island”, according to the Sydney Morning Herald, “men had forced children as young as 7 to engage in acts depicted in pornographic videos. A 5 year-old boy recently suffered internal injuries after older boys tried to emulate a scene from another video.”
• The Weekend Australian of September 9-10, 2006 reports, “A 12-year-old boy was allegedly raped repeatedly while his hands and feet were bound as a part of horrific sexual assaults by 10 males at a remote Top End community. After being bound with black shoelaces and told to watch a pornographic DVD, he was anally raped by six of the defendants. The alleged rapists were then replaced in the room by three teenagers, who proceeded to have sex with the boy. The youngest defendant was 12, while the oldest was 39.” This horrendous case prompted Northern Territory Magistrate David Leadsman to say it was “the worst he has ever seen.”
• The Australian, 8 September 2006, has an article headlined “Sex Abuse A Part Of Culture, Boys Told.” “Aboriginal boys as young as eight are being used for sex and told, ‘its a cultural thing’, an indigenous researcher in the Northern Territory has warned. “Everyone knows its happening” says PhD student Gary Lee from Charles Darwin University. He reports encountering an eight-year-old boy in a remote island community “whose behaviour was totally sexualised.” Lee says the poor young boy did not know how to relate to an adult except sexually, thanks to exposure to porn. Gary Lee goes on and says, “In remote communities you see giant screens set up with everybody - two, three, four year-old boys - invited to sit around watching porn.”
• Such atrocities prompted the then Federal Minister for Aboriginal Affairs Mal Brough to claim “children had to be protected. Its patently clear coming out of report after report and story after story that there is a major problem with child sexual abuse in Aboriginal communities.” Minister Brough continues and says, “The states and territories must act on this insidious problem.”
• The violence caused by porn is certainly not limited to Australia’s Aboriginal communities although it is hitting them extra hard! The OECD reports that “Australians are more likely than people in any other developed nation to find themselves a victim of serious crime, including sex crimes.” The New Scientist back in 1990 in a cover story entitled The Power of Pornography reports a 2% increase in porn equals a 1% increase in rape and contains a graph showing the rape rate of South Australia to be 5 times that of Queensland. The massive increase of rape is credited with the liberalising of South Australia’s porn laws under the Dunstan government whereas Queenslanders enjoyed restrictive porn laws under Sir Joh’s regime, hence less rape.
• Criminal Victimisation in the Industrialised World by the Dutch Ministry of Justice in the Hague in 1993 found Australia had the highest levels of sex attacks in the industrialised world. ABC TV in 1992 aired Without Consent and documented an EU (European Union) survey where it was found that Australia was the highest country in the world for rape, indecent assault and indecent exposure. Our own Institute of Criminology in A Comparison of Crime in Australia and Other Countries found that Australia leads the world in 14 jurisdictions of sexual assault. The Home Office in London released an international crime survey in 1994 documenting that Australians are at a greater risk of sexual assault than people in any other developed country. Admittedly these studies only included developed countries where rape and violent sex crime stats are documented. There could very well be and probably are countries where the crime of rape is higher than in Australia but these international organisations correctly point out that we have a serious problem. In fact Interpol stats show Australia is the 4th highest country in the world for overall sex offences, America is 22nd from the top.
• There is a proven connection between pornography and rape. The US Department of Justice National Task Force on Child Exploitation and Pornography reported, “The connections between pornography and violent sex related crimes including rape of women and molestation of children have been proved by scientific research and hard data. The connections between pornography and rape are no longer supposition.”
• In an address to the Victorian Criminal Justice Symposium (16 March 1991) Dr Don Thompson, Chairman of Forensic Psychology at Monash University and consultant to the Australian Law Reform Commission stated categorically that “pornography is causally related to sexually violent behaviour.” (I have a transcript of his talk.) Former Principal Prosecutor for the Queen in Victoria Richard Read says there is definitely a very clear link between pornography and sex crimes.
• Assistant Police Commissioner Mark Murdoch in New South Wales, Australia’s largest police force, is the corporate police spokesman for domestic violence. He says porn use among our young men is ”the fastest growing part of the problem of domestic violence” (SMH 7 Dec 2014) yet, unlike in America, we never hear the word porn in our White Ribbon campaigns. In an article headlined How Porn is Turning Boys into Rapists, Asst Commissioner Murdoch insists that “easy access to porn has caused sexual assaults by young men to double in five years.” (The Mercury 12 October 2014)
• Inspector Sprague set up the Spectrum Task Force in Melbourne (Australia’s largest police task force of its kind ever established) to investigate the still unsolved Mr Cruel abduction, sexual assault and murder of little 12 year-old Karmein Chan. Inspector Sprague says he’s convinced “there’s a strong link between pornography and the amount of sex crimes we get.” Even the Italian Medical Journal
Medicine, Mind and Adolescence reports the negative results of porn are “clear and consistent.”
• In her book Pornified author Pamela Paul quotes “A Systematic Review of the Effects of Aggressive and Nonaggressive Pornography” by Drs Lyon and Larsen. 81 peer-reviewed research studies in a meta-analysis concluded that exposure to pornography does have an important causal impact. “Non- violent pornography contributes to aggressive and callous attitudes and behaviour toward women.” The Canadian Fraser Commission on Pornography and Prostitution’s startling conclusion when it came to forcing women into unwanted sex acts found “commonly available, non-violent pornography had a substantially greater impact than violent pornography.” These scientific findings, and there are many more, negate the tired and erroneous argument from Australia’s ignorant legislators that since Aussie porn is “non violent” it is OK. Don’t believe that lie.
Yes, Internet porn is still a major problem - but it is NOT the only porn problem - that needs to be addressed. Qld still allows the legal sale, display and access of Australian Penthouse magazine to children and is another problem that should no longer be ignored. I have personally lobbied MPs in the southern states and have successfully placed Australian Penthouse magazine, and other porn mags, in a “Restricted Category.” Qld MPs, even the so called good guys, refuse to do so!We are presently and have been working on protections from Internet Porn for years by asking for an Opt-In law such as exists in the UK and Iceland whereby those who want Internet porn must apply for it. AFF defeated the once thriving Australian Dial-a-Porn industry by lobbying for and passing Opt-In laws. It can be done and it will work! Criminal sanctions are applied against the ISPs who send Internet porn to those who do not ask for it. You can ask your federal legislators to pass such protective measures also but the purpose of this letter is to get sensible restrictions placed on X Rated porn in the Territories and to better protect our women and children. As numbers are the key here, please pass this info on to others in your church, home group, neighbourhood and especially anyone belonging to Australia’s Christian activist groups.
Jack Sonnemann
jack@ausfamily.org m
0488 460 404
Australian Federation for the Family;
c/o Grove Post Office
Grove, Tasmania 7109