The Unit against Violence against Women of the Government Delegation in Navarre held today in Civican the conference “Adolescents and pornography: early access and consequences” attended by almost a hundred people, including police who provide training in schools within the framework of the Master Plan for the Coexistence and Improvement of the Security of Schools and their Environments.
The first of the presentations was given by Elena Bandrés, who is a journalist and professor of Communication at the University of Zaragoza and a member of the association “Journalists for equality”. He talked about “Pornography and youth: how to talk about the consequences”. He has assured that porn is an epidemic and that we are dealing with a “pornoactive” generation in which consumption is generalized around the age of 14.
Bandrés has pointed out that every day in Spain there are millions of visits to pornographic pages, most of them through the mobile phone. “Young people believe that porn is real and what porn does is set the parameters of inequality,” he said. In addition, for 30 percent of teens, pornography is the only source of information about sexuality.
He has assured that every day up to 3,000 exposures are received to sexualized, pornographic or gender-stereotyped images, from advertising, to video games, music, cinema or television series. All these elements reflect “a social contempt for women, even if unconsciously,” Bandrés said, and pornography “eroticizes that contempt.” Prevention through education, legal controls and the promotion of egalitarian relationships are key to combating pornography, he said.
For her part, health psychologist and clinical sexologist Alexandra Crettaz spoke about “Sexual, affective and relational education against gender cyberviolence and pornoviolence”. It has contributed to the increase in cases of digital gender violence in all its manifestations, such as sexting (sharing images of erotic or pornographic content) or sextortion (extortion to prevent private images from being shared). “Love is not control,” he said, “but there are many forms of control through the mobile phone.”
Crettaz has pointed out that the new pornography, pornoviolence, teaches sexual violence towards women and stimulates the culture of rape. “We talk about the pleasure of men and the suffering of women and, in this way, we build desire by seeing violence,” he said.
Regarding the after-effects, he talked about the risky behaviours for physical and emotional health that the consumption of pornography can generate, the psychological repercussions, sexual dysfunctions and an empathic disconnection.
To foster healthy and egalitarian relationships, Crettaz has opted for a comprehensive sex education.