A pretty unimpressive article from a PhD candidate - it reads more like a religious high school essay. No evidence, much supposition and indignation.

While there's undoubtedly all sorts of tasteless and unpleasant porn out there, so long as the actors, producers and consumers are consenting adults I can see no reason to restrict its availability - particularly on the basis of poorly constructed arguments like this one. If you don't like it, don't watch it or participate in it. If you want to restrict kids' access install a filter - or better still, talk to them about it.

Coincidentally, there was an unusually intelligent article about pornography in last Saturday's 'Weekend Australian' magazine (unfortunately unavailable online), based on ARC-funded research conducted Alan McKee, Katherine Albury and Catharine Lumby. I'd suggest the author of this pap has a read of it.

Weekend Australian and Catharine Lumby (advisor to the Bulldogs team!!) are hardly much better sources than our PhD author.

I don't see this as an attack on males, any more than I see it as an attack on censorship or free choice to be a prostitute or porn star, or Wollongong Council Town Planner!

However, the free availability of this stuff can and does undermine 'normal' relationships and creates exploitation of, in the main, women, but also men.

I suppose, is there any merit in restricting this material? The argument that people have wives, mothers and sisters and should have been trained better doesn't overcome the addictive nature of pornography or gambling, drinking etc.

We are dealing with a weakness that can and does have catastrophic outcomes for a percentage of society. So do we just sit back?

I'm in agreement with most of what has been posted so far. To an extent even with Reality Check, there is a darkside, some do not handle this stuff well and we need to think about how to deal with that.

Leigh it is an attack on men but perhaps the bigger attack is on women. The women of the authors world appear to be helpless victims unable to enjoy the dirty sweaty stuff for it's own sake. They are women who pretend to like what they don't like to keep men giving them whatever it is that they rely on men for (presumably not sex). They are not grown ups charting their own course through life but dependants.

Those kind of women exist and perhaps they attract and are attracted to the kind of men who'd like the type of porn the author describes.

I've no interest in either that type of porn or in the type of women who pretend to like things so that they can get something else from me. I hope that I'm in the majority on that.

R0bert

The internet, without the usual legal restraints, has become a carte-blanche invitation to men to give vent to all their proclivities. Before most of your responsdents, male, die from apolexy at such affrontery, it is not being suggested that all male desires are perverted.The heat in their answers leads to this conclusion so they can be included in this group.
The level of violence towards women is increasing: female children are being raped at a level hitherto unprecedented, as are older women. So are women in between. One in five murdered women are killed as a result of domestic violence. The statistics are simply too numerous to mention, which may explain the author's lack in doing so. Never mind, I knew where to look them up. They are there for all to see. I can only say to those that demand you waste space by reproducing them here to get off their bottoms and look. The legal system so far seems reluctant to find a solution to internet sexual violence. Why? Is it because the legal system is dominated by men? Is it because the internet is dominated by men? I'm sure there are a myriad of reasons. But they mostly will be found to have vested interests in not stopping it. To the person who stated his gender is once again being maligned, may I remind him that far and away the greatest bulk of sexual violence is perpetrated by men? So he will have to live with his gender being maligned - untill it stops perpetrating violence on women. If women think that men are the biggest problem, I think they can be forgiven for coming to this conclusion. To the Author: Go for it: raise the consciousness of the public in that the internet is now the largest purveyor of sexual violence at a level previously unknown. And of course such sexual violence is having ramifications at large. How could it not? Only the very foolish -or those with a vested interest in it staying that way - will say it is not.

The usual defendants of the perverted industry while more and more kids are sexually abused as a result. The Aboriginal communities have kids under 10 carrying out acts that they watch on porn. Providing facts and figures to those who are so blind to the obvious is a useless exercise. Pornography is rife through the mining industry and very few guys treat women with any respect at all. Go on enjoying your perversion guys but don't complain when some deviant interferes with your children because that is the fruit of allowing this crap to be so widespread.

Amazing how so many intelligent people can defend the indefensible.

I have no trouble with this essay as it seems like an accurate, even under-stated, assessment of the way things are in the never ending world-wide war against women.

There was an article in the Age recently which quoted the research of a USA professor who pointed out that pornography, just in the USA, is a $10 billion industry, and that there are 7000 porn films made every year, and that what it (pornography) does, is to reduce women to three holes and two hands for the gratification and abuse of/by men.

Meanwhile in the USA there is also an epidemic of violence against, and sexual abuse women of all ages. The two phenomenon are very much related.

The same scenario is also occurring world-wide.

There is a related essay titled The Never Ending War Against Women by Ann Jones at Tom Dispatch.