Making money out of sex and violence: Pornography, young people, and the commercial and

Online: zoom link (register)

Many industries make commercial decisions in the pursuit of profit often without examining their potential repercussions for violence. Such violence includes that arising from a pornographic industry that promotes aggressive sexual behaviours. Pornography has become a default sex educator for many young people, with serious implications for their capacity to negotiate free and full consent, for mutual respect, sexual health, and gender equality. There is growing concern internationally that pornography is contributing to cultural conditions that cultivate sexual assault. Consequently, the pornographic industry has become a violence-related issue that cannot be ignored.

This seminar will begin by examining how wider commercial and social determinants help underpin violence. It will then focus on the pornographic industry where readily available and aggressively marketed online exposure to hardcore pornography is now mainstream. This seminar will examine pornography’s influence on young people and what can be done to tackle it.

Programme:

12h00-12h15

Commercial and social determinants of violence, 
Mark Bellis, Professor, Public Health and Behavioural Sciences, Liverpool John Moores University, United Kingdom

12h15-12h45

Pornography’s prevalence, nature and impacts on young people
Maree Crabbe, Co-founder and Director of “It’s time we talked”, Australia

12h45-13h00

Questions and Answers

Moderator:     Etienne Krug, Director, Department of Social Determinants of Health, WHO