You could send some commentators out to study a forest and when you come back twelve months later there they would be, still cocking a leg on the nearest shrub and totally oblivious to the forest beyond.

Dear Melinda, the forest is child neglect. Distractions - such as giving men and porn a jolly good feminist thrashing - only serve to take attention away from the main problem, militating against there ever being a holistic solution.

So what about having some concern for the thousands of children who suffer daily

However it is timely to point out that the ACT, the home of Australia's bureaucratic creme de la creme and stamping ground of federal pollies, allows the X rated pornography that is banned in all States. The NT has the pornography regulations similar to the the ACT, however the ACT would probably sell more of this awful stuff in a month than would be sold in the NT in a year. Now any minute I will be expecting reports of widespread child sexual abuse in the ACT.

To mix metaphors, what about putting the horse back in front of the cart and attacking the causes of child neglect?

Cornflower. The incidence of child abuse in the ACT and any connection to X rated porn would take some time to compile.

To me, its as plain as the pre 9/11 twin towers. Feeding people porn, and the continual objectification of men and women (and increasingly young ones if the porn industry has it's way) cannot ever contribute to the holistic solution you speak of.

Simply taking porn (or alchohol) away from Aboriginal communities will not solve the inner problem which leads to excessive consumption and consequent behavour, but it will send a message that someone out there does care about the direction they are going, and in the absence of any other solution, prohibition seems like the best of any short term solution, to give breathing space for them to gain some footup to a better ability to deal with things.

Pornography, on top of social and spiritual debilitation, cultural depression and decay, is not something I would prescribe as medicine for a holistic healing of a people.

When in a weakened state, people are more vulnerable to anything which can seem like a short term quick thrill.

That we see the obvious impact of porn on indigenous communities but not so clearly in our own, in no way diminishes it's impact on us.
Perhaps you lead a sheltered life, but there are things going on among us the like of which I shudder to mention.

There are many among our own community who are not far from the sad state of the indigenous as described in this article, but because they are isolated, we don't see it as clearly.

Oh thank God, the socialist here finally discovered the real reason behind the Indigenous social problems. Porn. Well, I guess when your life is so completely managed, spending your monthly stipend on porn is one method of self-actualising. They say the government has no business in the bedroom but, obviously have no problem following an Aboriginal woman or man into the bathroom. I'm sure the socialist are there just for the articles.

Upon my brief visit to the Kimberleys I was told that we couldn't take photos because pedophiles had been through the communities photographing pubescent girls bathing. The communities didn't want dirty old [white] men photographing the budding breasts of their young girls.

Now whether a drunken man in a township can get the generator going to fire up the computer or even focus on a computer screen - well I don't know.

There has been far too much mud flinging in this case. We now know why Mal Brough claimed that aboriginal trust money was being misappropriated. Mal Brough signed the cheque for NT Mining Royalty money to pay for the Dreamtime festival in his QUEENSLAND electorate.

If you want kiddies to go to school, feed them at school. If you want them to be bathed, clothed and receive medical attention then do it at school. You train dogs using food rewards and quite frankly you can still train me using food rewards so why wouldn't it work on neglected kids.

If you want kiddies to learn to read give them readers they can understand. How well is " the cat sat on the mat" or "the mug was on the rug" going to be received in a community with lino, concrete or dirt floors. Are there feral cats in NT, are there mats or rugs

While in the Kimberley's I was also told that aboriginal families have far more violent relationships than most white families and hunt for someone to blame and punish when anything goes wrong. That may well have been the common white family dynamic 50 or 100 years ago too.

Like most people over 40, I look at the skimpy clothes young women wear and hear public discussion of "brazilian" waxing and think that sex is objectified and that public dress is indecent and almost pornographic.

I am a bit disturbed by Melinda Tankard Reist jumping on this bandwagon. Her views on pornography are well known and she is entitled to hold them.

But she was on the Staff of Sen Harradine for 12 years, has close associations with the religious right and uses the word "feminist" to cloak her more radical views.

I fear she is using the tragedy of child sexual abuse to push her own agenda, not to help in any meaningful way.

It is my understanding that countries like Denmark, Norway have much more liberal pornography laws than Australia, we have yet to hear that in those countries that pornography is linked to violence.

What has happened to bring the aboriginal people to this level?

Firstly we had the invasion of missionaries who used similar fire and brimestone preaching as to the author of this article. I think it is called fear mongering.

The second disaster was the advent of liberalism. In some cases the missions went from the rigid christian structure to having no structure at all.

I plead ignorance to traditional aboriginal lore, however I do understand that under tradtional lore certain protections were in place for individuals. The social fabric was torn apart.

The introduction of alcohol to many indigeous people was what began their downward spiral. The American indians, the Eskimo's.

The really toxic poison to many cultures around the world has been the european culture

It's true you know. The introduction of visual images really does make you want to copy the images received. You don't have a choice. Just ask Catharine McKinnon or Andrea Dworkin.

I mean, I watched a movie on concentration camps once, and now I want to kill Jews. It is clearly inevitable that when a person sees a visual image they lose all sense of will and reasoning. That's why I buy every product I see advertised. Does hell for my credit card, let me tell you...

Wait a minute... Perhaps our original poster is trying to suggest that only the brains of the aboriginal race is somehow thus afflicted?

(Nota bene: I've really got to stop taking the piss out of easy targets)

Authoritarian feminist crap. Evidence? Nah, we don't need that. Correlation equals causation? Sure, why not?

Generalizations tend by their nature to be rather sweeping, but this one's a little over-broad, I think.

>>The really toxic poison to many cultures around the world has been the european culture<<

Culture? Are we talking libraries, opera houses, art galleries here? The intellectual reach of a Galileo, the reasoning of a Socrates or the spiritual insight of a Michaelangelo? If so, I'm not sure that "european culture" has that much to swipe at - at least until you reach Stockhausen and Damien Hirst.

What does cause problems in "differently historied" cultures is the sheer arrogance of those who believe so fiercely that they are morally and intellectually superior, and therefore automatically "right".

The destruction of the aboriginal culture is almost complete. The process started in 1788 and has continued in various guises ever since. In a sense it is a little unfair to place all the blame on the do-gooder christians who destroyed family life in the name of their god, when so many other factors have conspired over the years to achieve the same end.

It is an omelette, and there is no way to reconstitute the eggs. But to place so much emphasis on pornography is to completely misrepresent the problem.

Cornflower well said.

The author sees hard core pawn as a cause rather than an effect. Are otherwise happy and well adjusted people turning into violent child abusers because they watched violent/abusive porn or are they watching violent/abusive porn because they were not so well adjusted in the first place.

The author claims "Up to a third of child sex offenders said they had viewed pornography prior to offending." - that could be read to suggest that two thirds of child sex offenders didn't look at porn prior to offending. Watch out for those who don't watch porn, it would appear that they are twice as likely to sexually abuse children as porn watchers (In case anybody misses it I've joined Lev in taking the piss and and not seriously interpreting the authors claims that way). Would less have offended if they had looked at porn rather than seeking out a victim?

On the other hand those who fail to make responsible decisions about how children are treated should loose some options. If they choose to show porn to children then I've got no issue with porn not being available to the individuals concerned.

R0bert

As usual those caught in the bondage of pornography defending their right to be perverts despite the clear evidence that many people act out what they watch when given the opportunity. Once again the rights of the most vulernable (young children) are ignored while the selfish gratify themselves by watching porn. To deny the link between pornography, rape and child sexual abuse is deceitful at best. I am sure the defenders of pornography would love their daughters performing on screen. How proud they would be to tell others that their children are porn stars.

Oh, what the Hell. I'll bite.

runner, what is the "clear evidence" that people act out what they see in pornography? How does that make one a pervert? What is the evidence that there is a link between pornography, rape and child sexual abuse?

Go get 'em runner!! All those deviated preverts are obviously maliciously spreading their preversion among the innocent and weak-minded. Good thing you've tumbled to their devilish plan.

@runner.

I wonder what sort of person you are who wouldn't be proud of whatever choices your progeny made - as long as it was with their own free will and with consideration.

You remind me of the sort of parent who wouldn't let their daughter marry a black man, or a Jew, or a hippie etc, and would have kittens if they turned out to be a lesbian..

As for your "clear link" research to date indicates an inverse correlation between sexual violence and the availability of erotic material.

There was some sort of saint, maybe St Augustine who started the original book of sins. Basically it kind of became the bible for sins.

Gradually all sorts of sexual behaviour became a sin. There may have been a stage that only the missionary position wasn't a sin, as long as it was with your husband/wife. Thus ended paganism.

This probably set the scene for Freud etc.

Now I wonder what has created the market for porn?

When porn was available only on the black market (no pun intended) of cause violence was associated with it, because violence is part of the criminal element.

Rape and child abuse existed for a long time before porn ever came on the scene. So did violence, murder and robbery.

Several observations have been made by people charged with sex offences. Among them are that pornography portray that women want to and need to be raped. Pornography increases the belief that children enjoy having sex with adults (or should I say deviants).

Pornography is about selfishness, violence and manipulation. This is the opposite to a man and a women giving themselves to each other.

Again many of the posters here deny the corruption of man's heart that leads to child sexual abuse and many other perversions. Pornography leads many to base their self esteem on how much sex and how many partners they can have. No wonder our mental institutions are have so many guilt ridden broken people.
Lev
You ar right that I would be heart broken if my daughter chose to be a lesbian. I would however still love her.You however reveal yourself to be a very judgemental person assuming I would not want my daughter marrying a black man or a Jew.

If Melinda is right and sexual criminal behaviour is because of pornography and to solve it is to ban it, then the high rate of violent offences committed by and large by men (more than 80% ABS) can also be solved. Ban all movies, rap songs, videos, games etc that portray violence. Result: no more violence.

Now we know what makes those men commit murder, assault, bank robberies etc. They're acting out what they've just seen at Birch, Carroll and Coyle!

What a meaningless and unhelpful article addressing the break down of remote communities.

Boazy, if you think it is only in isolated cases that these things happen in our cities you are living isolated from what is happening here in your own back yard.

As to that there are girls who did not understand they could refuse sex. Where exactly is the link to porn in that?

"Up to a third of child sex offenders said they had viewed pornography prior to offending."

"Research shows that significant exposure to “standard” pornography...increases men's self-reported likelihood to commit sexual abuse." (NB: SELF-REPORTED)

So what are we to say fellow bloggers? Let's just ignore those statistics?

From what I read, it's you bloggers doing the generalising.

Melinda has every right to say what she's saying.

JamesH - Rape and porn may have always existed but never in my face before like it is today.

Yvonne - I think you've worked it out..."They're acting out what they've just seen at Birch, Carroll and Coyle!"

Johnj - you've got it in one. "All those deviated preverts are obviously maliciously spreading their preversion among the innocent and weak-minded." That's how they make their money.

The pornography industry is starting to encroach on my family's public space and I have had enough. The ABC radio news bulletin is constantly reporting the explicit details of yet another sex abuse case against children. Simply driving down the street I am confronted on every corner by billboards and buses with photographs of sultry and erotic looking naked or half dressed women.

X-rated pornography is simply the darkest extreme of a sinister industry stopping at nothing to make money at the expense of our family's safety, freedom and right to undisturbed public space.

Many children and adults watching this x-rated porn start to think that this behavior is normal, and that this is an acceptable way of treating females. Ok, not every man will go as far as offending in ways such as rape or pedophilia but to have this abnormal view or what sex is all about in your head, and think that it is normal will not benefit anyone - and especially not the females who will be the object of these views.

Its a bit like what would happen if the only thing that many in the middle east saw about the US was the Jerry Springer show, and took this to be their "normal" image of the US. You can't get a rounded view from extreme content. Its just not balanced.

We shouldn't allow the proliferation of pornography which distorts the views of many in society and gives them the totally wrong idea about sex, totally removed from love.

If a naked woman/man or a picture of a naked woman/man or some one mentioning naked women/men "makes" you objectify women/men or "makes" you commit the vulgar statutory crimes of rape or incest then Your problem is not porn. Your problem is that your mental maturation has been stunted or diseased by other factors greater than any picture or language could ever suggest to promote anyone "doing what the pictures told them".

Though I must confess my mower gets up to some quite nasty language. If I'm ever caught indiscriminately launching 80mike mortars from my yard at my neighbours I'll try it out on the Judge. The mower made me do it. I'm sure I'll be heard out.

Check, check, check. Jerry, pull the high end out will ya. I'm still getting some hiss back here.

“A toxic trifecta of drugs, alcohol and pornography is fuelling a culture of violence against women and children. “

Add a fourth – social welfare payments. – if some folk had to actually “earn” a living, instead of receiving handouts, they might have less free-time in which to drink, abuse their children and other family members (as well as themselves if they are deploying pornography in the most usual manner).

As for “We need to address the harm caused by pornography everywhere.”

Alcoholics cannot handle alcohol but plenty of folk, myself included, enjoy alcohol in moderation and without any detrimental impact.

Millions of folk buy petrol every week not to sniff.

Now we get to the point of the “Wowser Tankard” diatribe

“But pornography feeds and legitimises violence against women and children of all backgrounds. Some have argued that pornography is as harmful to women as racist material is to the people it targets. The proliferation of pornography leads to increases in sexual violence against all women.”

Wrong!

The argument that pornography actually satiates some desires and therefore contributes to a reduction of abuse could equally be made.

In my time I have been exposed to some very erotic and some “baser” presentations of pornography.
Like millions of other men, I am not driven to act out my sexual fantasies based on that exposure.

Turning a liberal society into some sort of anti-porn police state is no answer, anymore than prohibition stopped the operation of speak-easys in USA in 1920’s.

That some individuals (apparently of an indigenous origin) cannot deal with naked pictures of women is no reason to ban all men from viewing pictures of naked women, anymore than the existence of petrol sniffers is a reason to make “opal” (anti-sniffing petrol) the only thing to be pumped out of any bowser in Australia.

No one is forced to read porn, so lets respect grown-ups sufficiently to make their own choiceson the matter of pornography.

MaryW "Up to a third of child sex offenders said they had viewed pornography prior to offending."

What did the other 2/3 view?

While watching the re-runs of the Benny Hill show an older relative noted that 30+ years ago the series was denounced as smut. They were days when everything closed on Sunday and boys lived in fear of the regular thrashings at school. Those were days when boys took risks and had schoolyard fights that were supposed to make men of them. Apparently, girls were relegated to the kitchen to peel potatoes and be 'nice'. Great days for those who believed that their leaders knew what was best for them and information flow was restricted to 'never you mind'.

Am I right in assuming that many of those who worry-wort about what other adults watch are keen to return to those days?

My concern about the article is that it is opportunist and hijacks the debate about child abuse and neglect. Fact is, over decades there have been numerous summits on child abuse and neglect with all levels of government and peak agencies involved but where are the practical results?

It is time that the implementation of such initiatives was properly audited because although much paper has been produced by the Australian Government Department of Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs, the original problems have increased dramatically, not diminished. Maybe there are too many people meeting, administering, liaising, coordinating and publicising and there are too few people actually at the sharp end achieving results. Maybe what government does best is bury problems under tonnes of glossy brochures.

We really should insist that any approval of government funds is accompanied by a simple English statement of goals and measures of attainment (of those goals). Sunset clauses would also help.

It is astounding how politicians and bureaucrats can avoid accountability. In the case of child abuse and neglect they are all shrugging their shoulders as though they had never encountered the problem before.

So dear author, what about a some hard words and suggestions to 'keep the B's honest' this time around. Arguably child abuse and neglect are more worthwhile targets than Benny Hill and those dirty women's and men's magazines.

I am hardly surprised that many hear have decided to present opinion without knowledge.

- M. Whitehouse. "Up to a third of child sex offenders said they had viewed pornography prior to offending." Even if your statistic is true (which it probably isn't), would you care to think about it? You have just said that 2/3rds of those who commit child sex offenses *don't* view erotic material. You have just implied that viewing such material *reduces* the probability of CSA.

Further you claim "[r]ape and porn may have always existed but never in my face before like it is today". Perhaps you should avail yourself of an education in history. You can start with the first link below.

- Runner. I am impressed by your ability to make assertions without evidence. You claim that "[P]ornography is about selfishness, violence and manipulation", and undoubtably some is - and much is not. You appear to be extremely unfamiliar with the genre. The fact however that you have generalised to an absolute level indicates the limitations to your reasoning. I challenge you to raise a genuinely moral reason why people of their own free will cannot perform sexual acts in front of a camera.

You may also note I didn't not write that you would not want your daughter marrying a black man or a Jew, just that your attitude is similar. The fact that you would be "heartbroken" if she reveals herself to be a lesbian, proves this. I suggest to you that if you do not love a person who engages in whatever choices they desire, of their own violition and reason, then your love is quite truncuated, incomplete and indeed quite false.

Once again, I reiterate that the clear link is that sexual violence and pornography have an *inverse* correlation.

The following are recent peer reviewed publications which I suppose many wish were untrue. But facts, as always, remain stubborn.

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=913013
http://www.law.stanford.edu/display/images/dynamic/events_media/Kendall%20cover%20+%20paper.pdf
http://www.hawaii.edu/PCSS/online_artcls/pornography/prngrphy_rape_jp.html

For those who are genuinely interested in learning, or have their assumptions challenged, I recommend these papers for their procedural exactness, empirical range and scholarly approach.

Lev, I've not read all the way through the Japanese study but the other two were very interesting. At least we know one source for a positive correlation between pornography and sexual violence - Reagan's political rather than scientific commission.

I can't imagine such evidence will have much impact on religious extremists though. They are quite happily able to ignore the correlations between good sex education and a lowering of the rates of unwanted pregnancies so a correlation between access to porn and a lowering of reported rape cases is hardly likely to phase them. At least one of those pushing the porn causes rape line also thinks creation has a better scientific basis than evolution - go figure.

R0bert

Did anyone watch Insight on SBS last night? The audience was largely made up of Aboriginal people.

Not a word about porn. But lots about alcohol, drugs and the lack of ability to safely report the crime and safe houses and education.

Porn may excite the sensibilities of the Melindas, Whitehouses et al, but unfortunately criminal behaviour is not so easily solved by banning substances and censorship.

Anybody who has actually seen porn will tell you that generally it is boring, very often extremely poorly acted and unless this is all new territory works more often on the funny bone than the G spot.

Sure there is ugly violent porn, but those who get a kick out of that sort of stuff and want to 'act it out' would do so anyway. As the wowsers state 2/3 of offenders didn't need porn at all to violate others.

It is a myth that our society is more violent than in the past. Now we are made aware of it through news and crimes being reported. A woman is safer today unescorted by a man then she was a hundred years ago, even at night.

Nowadays, all persons, men, women and children are encouraged to report crimes of violence. In the past the shame of being beaten up or sexually assaulted by father, priest, uncle, anybody with authority kept victims and their families silent. This seems to be the case in remote aboriginal communities. I suspect it doesn't have as much to do with being Aboriginal as it does with remoteness and lack of independent law and order.

STOP
we need to all remember the influence the church has had in these disenfranchised communities
and the law
many religious groups and other's whom had the trust of aboriginal children are responsible for abusing them!Monkey see, monkey do
-its only all just coming to the surface now (duh) being realistic its bigger than many want to admit. I met a fantastic Indigenous woman not so long ago whom told me that herself and a girlfriend were picked up by police one night and offered a lift home, the 'police' first took them somewhere else and demanded sex, thats just too horrible and, Ey, who would ever belive them...they just kept it too themselves.

If there were strong quality evidence that pornography (and that term seems in serious need of a firm definition), then maybe such interference is justifiable. Unfortunately it appears there just isn't any such evidence.

Almost all crimes: murder, sexual assault, child molestation, robbery, through to trivial offenses like trespass, are offensive in a liberal democracy like ours, because they involve one person's unjustifiable interference with another.

When a person tries to control what another can do or look at in the privacy of their own home, in the absence of a real justification, it is just another kind of unjustifiable intereference, and is similarly offensive.

In any case, our democracy cannot meaningfully survive in a society based on a theory that adults don't have the capacity to make free decisions.

If we truly are puppets of whatever we see or don't see, I would rather see 'everything' and have all those puppeteers fighting for control, than allowing myself to become the puppet of the likes of Melinda Reist, who would only let me see a world that suits her purposes.

Pornography is Harmful!

Check my (non-religious) website:

http://www.againstpornography.org/

Regards,

Maggie.

Maggies willingness to consider other points of view is expressed on her website

"WHAT THIS WEBSITE IS NOT FOR:

-- Defending pornography, stripping, and/or prostitution (if you send me any of your knee-jerk lame excuses such as "Women freely choose", "Porn reduces rape", "Freedom of expression", or "you pro-censorship anti-sex prude", etc., your e-mails will be ignored "

The list of things that get ignored goes on from there although if you send a really nasty insult Maggie might use it selectively to show the negative effects of porn "-- Sending your insults (if you send me any abusive e-mails, they will be ignored. Some might get published on this website and used against you as a proof of pornography's negative effects on you)."

White male hetrosexuals are the only ones who can be blamed for anything
"-- Insulting and/or blaming women, people of color, and/or homosexuals for anything (if you send me any such e-mails, they will be ignored; I might publish some of them in a new section just to further prove that there are misogynist, racist, and/or homophobic people like you out there)." (What about white male gay users of porn?)

My reading of her website so far can be summed up by the following - start with some assumptions, blend some truth with some not so true statements and ignore any claims or evidence to the contrary. Represent opposing viewpoints selectively to paint your opponents in a bad light.

I've skimmed the rest but what I saw was a very closed mind unwilling to consider other viewpoints, evidence to the contrary etc. I saw someone willing to misrepresent the other viewpoints to paint them in a bad light - not an uncommon tactic but a warning that anything said may be a misrepresentation.

Generally phrased in nice terms but seemingly driven by dogma rather than a desire for truth or understanding.

I've not read further on the website, maybe it get better elsewhere but the front page was enough to give me the message that there was no real likelyhood of honest discussion.

R0bert

What I find enormously irritating as a woman in this day and age is the persistent insistence of some feminists of the victimization of women by men and ignoring the complicity of women themselves. This goes for issues from FGM to pornography.

Women who are against pornography or even FGM must address women's victimization of other women first. Not ignore the active participation of women and only blame men. To address any injustice, perceived or real, against women women need to acknowledge the injustices that women perpetrate on each other first.

Some 'feminists' are still stuck in last century's mind set. We should be moving on to the next stage.

R0bert,

Your comments are quite accurate. The site is clearly thrown together with no real interest in engaging in rigorous analysis of the issue. The author makes this quite clear in the first page, by prohibiting discussion of matter which contradicts their prejudices on the issue.

The statistics are important, but have nothing to do with the topic. The definition initially almost decides to define pornography as violence as a matter of tautology, but then contradicts the definition further on. The final definition (of the author's) is bizarre; it would appear they have an aesthetic distate for men paying money and then masturbating.

Basically, it is epistemologically extremely weak and ontologically random. It is unworthy of serious consideration.

yvonne, thank you very well said.

Did you read the intro page to the site. Their was another prohibition which basically said that prostitutes, strippers and porn stars held no blame for porn. Apparently the only people capable of exercising adult decisions about involvement in porn are men. That does not suggest that the author has a very high view of womens ability to make decisions for themselves.

I wonder what she makes of amatures posting to porn sites and women who use porn for their own pleasure, I guess thats because some male has victimised them.

Really it all gets very insulting to women if you lift the victimisation veil even slightly.

There was an interesting item in Brisbanes MX newspaper today about research on why men and women want sex, supposedly 20 of the top 25 reasons are the same for men and women. http://lib.bioinfo.pl/pmid:17610060 gets to a description of the research paper but you seem to need a login to get to the paper.

Lev very much an advocacy site rather than any attempt at honest portrayal.

R0bert

R0bert, yes, I read and scrolled through the anti pornography site.

My beef is not about anybody being against pornography per se, but the myth that women are only victims. As you pointed out, it is insulting to women, it insults me at least, that there is this myth going around that women are not really capable of making decisions. Not only that, if a 'wrong' decision is made a woman somehow did so because of some male onslaught against which she is helpless and is personally free of responsibility. To have and be responsible for the self is empowering.

I have a teenage daughter and if there is something I want for her is for her to be empowered, to be able to make decisions for herself and accept the consequences/outcomes, both good and bad as her own. Exactly the same I want for my two young adult sons.

There are issues in our society that need addressing and debate. Anything that affects our society causes harm to and victimizes BOTH men and women, because both men and women are active perpetrators or complicit.