Mental Health

Open Access: No.

Abstract

A response to pornography and its harms to girls in particular should be primarily formulated within the context of a broad-based approach addressing different forms of violence against women and girls (VAWG). Working with the understanding of violence set out in the UN Declaration on the Elimination of Violence Against Women, this chapter provides an analysis of how pornography works, what it does, and how it is used, particularly in regard to children. The main trends in access to and consumption of pornography by children, and its impact on their lives, are examined through a selection of case studies drawn from prosecutions of children on pornography-related charges. Analysis of these cases does document individual behaviour but also displays collective patterns of production, circulation, access and use of pornography. The cases also direct attention to gendered patterns of violence and cruelty against girls and women, the significance of which escapes a “public health” framework in understanding pornography. My conclusion is that an important advantage of a comprehensive VAWG approach to pornography is that it offers a way to change the public discussion of pornography through greater receptiveness to the voices and experience of girls, rather than to a porn aesthetic of violence and cruelty as “cool”.

Relevance

“A “public health” framework offers a largely gender-neutral approach to pornography, which may yield short-term advantages in terms of political and popular persuasion. I acknowledge that pornography and associated practices do harm to boys and young men, as well as girls, and I have no wish to counsel neglect of the problem of violence against boys and young men, whether it be perpetrated by boys or girls, men or women. However, there is a need for a comprehensive strategy in terms of VAWG [violence against women and girls] because of the systematically gendered patterns of sexual abuse and violence in our society, and the role of pornography and of the sex industry more generally in enacting those patterns. Pornographic objects and practices reflect, construct, normalise and even valorize violence and systemic inequality on the basis of sex.”

“I understand pornography not as a harmless “fantasy” but in terms of practices of subordination of women and girls, practices that in turn often lead to or are associated with other forms of “acting out” violence and abuse against them. Pornographic “objects” take different forms, and different people adopt different practices in their making, use and consumption, which do not affect everyone in exactly the same ways. But pornographic objects and practices all find a place within a regime of the subordination of women, which enacts sex inequality. Rather than expressing choice, power and agency for women, pornography takes form as systemic gendered inequalities of power.”

Citation

Pringle, H. (2025). Living in a Pornographic World: Constraint on the Autonomy of Girls and Women. In J. A. Scutt (Ed.), Women, Power and Autonomy: Rights, Respect and Representation in Law and Society (pp. 527-5). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1080/19317611.2025.2584545