Defining The “Harm” Of Porn

The Times Online has followed up last week’s opinion piece about teens and sex with an article headed Boys who see porn more likely to harass girls. The piece discusses Michael Flood’s report looking at existing research into the effects of porn on adolescents.

“There is compelling evidence from around the world that pornography has negative effects on individuals and communities,” he told the Times.

Naturally I sat right down and read the full report. And you know what? The “evidence” he found in various peer-reviewed journals isn’t all that compelling. Indeed, his summary of the existing literature looking at the “harm” or otherwise of porn found it was generally conflicting or inconclusive or not long-term enough or not particularly thorough. Almost every paragraph of the report says that while there’s plenty of concern that porn can cause harm, there’s no magic bullet that proves the hypothesis.

He says that porn doesn’t cause rape and that research is unable to “encapsulate the complex role that emotions and intent play both in the use of pornography and in sex, a role that may either enhance or minimise harm.” Essentially, a whole bunch of outside factors are the deciding influence as to whether porn is a good or a bad thing.

The point became rather repetitive. Research keeps offering the rather sensible supposition that a teenager’s attitude to porn and sex is usually shaped by their family, their peers, their culture, their exposure to other media and their education. That is, you have to take a holistic approach. If a teen – usually male – is using porn in a negative way you should probably look closely at pre-existing problems or bad attitudes before you blame the porn itself. Bad porn is more like the icing on a very bad cake than the recipe itself.

That aside, there was one aspect of Flood’s report that I found very disturbing. It’s his definition of what constitutes “harm” in the first place – and I think it’s something that needs to be discussed more often. Because in all the hysterical hand flapping of “somebody think of the children!”, nobody really sits down and says: “Well, what is it that we don’t want kids to learn or do when it comes to sex?”

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Flood doesn’t claim these definitions are his own. He farms them out to “the community” in this paragraph:

Not surprisingly, given the high rates of adolescent exposure, concern exists that young people are being inundated with unwanted and wanted, and possibly violent sexual information before they are developmentally capable of constructively dealing with it. This may detrimentally transform sexual attitudes and behaviours and ultimately sexuality and intimate relationships. Concerns within different parts of the community focus on the potential of pornography to:

* interfere with normal sexual development (e.g. encouraging early sexual activity)
* foster ‘open’ sexual lifestyles (e.g. acceptance of casual and extramarital sex, multiple partners, etc.) and ‘unnatural’ practices (e.g. anal and oral sex, homosexuality)
* undermine physical, emotional and psychological wellbeing (generate shame, guilt, anxiety, confusion, poor social bonds, and addictions)
* undermine relationships and foster sexual violence (e.g. Jensen & Okrina 2004; Zillman 2000).

So folks, let’s have a look at these supposed harms, shall we?

Let me go for the obvious one first. Flood raises the terrible spectre of embracing “open sexual lifestyles”! Lord save us, people might actually take up butt sex! Casual sex, multiple partners, homosexuality… the horror! And all because they looked at porn!

I’m rather stunned that a supposedly scientific report would include such a conservative and judgemental definition of “harm.” Just because a “community” (and face it, we’re talking about fundamentalist Christians here) thinks these things are wrong does not prove that they cause verifiable harm to the individuals doing them.

I should point out, Flood later includes erotophilia as another “harmful” effect of viewing porn. If I may be lazy and include the Wikipedia definition:

Erotophilia is a term used by psychologists to describe sexuality on a personality scale. Erotophiles score high on one end of the scale that is characterized by expressing less guilt about sex, talking about sex more openly, and holding more positive attitudes toward sexually explicit material.

Um, I’m not sure about you, but how is this harmful, exactly? It seems to describe me quite well. Should I assume that I’m somehow psychologically damaged? More inclined to go on a homicidal ramapge?

The idea of “less guilt” when it comes to sex seems to completely contradict his third point that porn undermines “physical, emotional and psychological wellbeing” by generating guilt and shame. I would argue that any guilt or shame arising from pornography use comes from outside influences telling an individual that their porn use is wrong. Either that or it’s a pre-existing guilt arising from being raised to believe that sex is dirty and sinful.

Porn may encourage early sexual activity? How early, exactly? And what is “normal” sexual development? Some teens mature faster than others and make a conscious decision to have sex even before the age of consent (which differs, I might add, according to where you are). If a teen has safe sex and enjoys the experience without regret… is that “too early”? Again, it feels like there’s a judgemental, cultural yardstick being used here rather than any empirical standard of “harm”.

Now I don’t have a problem with some of the other definitions used in that list. If porn causes anxiety about body image or confusion about how to have good sex or how to maintain a healthy relationship, that’s bad. If it encourages unsafe sex, that’s bad. If it encourages pre-existing bad attitudes toward women or normalises a negative, possibly violent view of sex, that too is bad. If it becomes an obsession (note, I refuse to use the word “addiction”) and creates a dispute in a relationship, that’s bad.

Those things may actually result in problems for the individual viewing the porn (or their partners) and we should focus our attention and concern on those. And we should always look at those concerns within the broader context of the individual’s personality, upbringing and culture.

That’s the thing: I don’t want to come out swinging completely in favour or mainstream porn. I’ve expressed my distaste for it many times on this blog. I find a lot of it to be sexist, sex-negative, boring, cliched and sometimes cruel and we need to have a continuing discussion about the images and world view that a lot of porn presents. Because it is a part of our culture and it does have some influence on us as consumers.

I am, however, always worried when a study like this is used by media (like The Times) to say “There’s conclusive evidence porn causes harm, let’s ban it!”

That’s exactly what’s happened here in Australia with the internet filter. The whole idea of the filter was actually thought up by Clive Hamilton, who co-wrote a paper with Michael Flood in 2003 about the effects of porn on 16 and 17 year old “children”. They used the fact that almost all teen boys over 16 use porn to whip up hysteria about “children seeing porn on the internet”. This may be partly while I feel so antagonistic towards this latest study by Michael Flood. It feels as though he’s approached the issue from a pre-decided stance and done his best to make it say what he wants… even thought the actual evidence won’t come to the party.

Still, I can’t argue with his final paragraph which actually offers a perfectly rational solution to everyone’s concern about teens and porn: education.

Though restricting exposure will remain a priority, an over-reliance on this approach to protect against the perceived harms of pornography is problematic as it fails to recognise the realities of ready availability and the high acceptance of pornography among young people. Moreover, it fails to examine the holistic way in which adolescents’ sexual expectations, attitudes and behaviours are shaped in our society and the complexity of factors that give rise to the cited harms.

Protecting young people necessarily requires equipping them, and their caregivers, with adequate knowledge, skills and resources (e.g. media literacy; sex education; education about pornography and rights and responsibilities of sexual relationships; safe engagement with technologies) to enable successful navigation toward a sexually healthy adulthood, as well as tackling factors predisposing to sexual violence.

Interestingly, this is exactly the approach advocated by Joybear’s Justin Ribeiro dos Santos in this second Times piece.

“It’s out there and the reality is, we can’t stop that. French and Italian kids are allowed to drink at the dinner table and they don’t have our problems with binge drinking. Maybe it’s the same with porn. We need to stop being so prudish.”

Given the panicky headlines that Michael Flood’s research is going to create, I don’t think that’s going to happen any time soon.

Edit 9 August 2019 following comments on Twitter:

I didn’t write that. Regardless of the merits of the piece or your critique of it, it’s by Colleen Bryant, not me. “Adolescence, pornography, and harm” (AIC), here: https://t.co/DUnxQSOM58

— Dr Michael Flood (@MichaelGLFlood) August 6, 2019