Clíona Saidléar: Case of teen who raped niece should be a wake-up call on access to porn

The perpetrator of horrific abuse began watching sexual activity online at age nine. Unfettered access to it must be addressed before such attacks become commonplace

A judge heard that a teenager was ‘playing out’ the pornography which he first started viewing at age nine, when he raped his niece.

High Court Judge, Ms Justice Deirdre Murphy, this week called for internet pornography and child access to same to be addressed at primary school level. The RCNI wholeheartedly agree.

She also acknowledged that it might be shocking to think we need to be talking to children in primary school about pornography. The judge asserted that the case she was adjudicating on alone provided evidence for the need to do so.

The judge was delivering sentencing in the latest harrowing child on child sexual violence case involving a boy of 14 subjecting his eight-year-old niece to years of sexual abuse up to and including oral rape. It is the contention put to the court that he was ‘playing out’ the pornography he first started viewing at age nine.

What did this nine-year-old, future convicted sex offender, learn from pornography in this unfettered online space? We largely know the answers to this question.

In Ireland, the majority of boys first access pornography before the age of 13. What they see according to a 2021 UK study is sexual violence. One in eight titles shown to first-time users of mainstream pornography sites, before they have typed in their first search term, describes sexual activity that constitutes sexual violence.

Further, a 2020 study looking at a sample of 4,009 heterosexual scenes depicted in mainstream pornography, found that the free material, and therefore the type of material a nine-year-old would likely access, depicted at least one form of violence in 35% and 45% of scenes, on Pornhub and Xvideos respectively. The most common forms of violence were spanking, gagging, slapping, hair pulling, and choking.

What they are seeing is violence that is sexualised. Studies have also found that pornographic use leads to ‘habituation’ this is the process by which the ‘stimulus’ wears off and the viewer’s need for novel stimulus increases. In pornography this invariably means more violence, degradation, and humiliation.

Almost all of this violence in pornography - 97% - is violence against women and girls.

It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that harm, and in particular men’s violence against women, is baked into pornography. Imagining otherwise is simply that, a thought exercise with little basis in reality.

Further, evidence in a University of Nebraska study in 2017 of 330 undergraduates, found that the younger the males first accessed pornography the more likely they were to want power over women. 

Understood consent

This latest case involved threats from the 14-year-old to his young victim, threats that ensured her compliance and silence, ensured his control over her, even as he abused her for years. These threats also reveal his culpability; this boy understood consent and knew he was crossing the line.

What we must also not lose sight of is that pornography is increasingly being normalised and even promoted to girls. What is taught to girls is that harm to them is to be expected during sex and not just tolerated but that they must enjoy and give every appearance of enjoying the pain and degradation. 

In 2019, one in every 138 girls aged 15–19 in Ireland presented to hospital as a result of self-harm, almost double the number of boys. A 2008 prevalence study put girls in this age groups’ deliberate self-harming at 14%. It seems obvious that we should be asking whether there is a causal link between these two sets of facts.

There is a contention that pornography only exacerbates predispositions, only acting as an enabler for boys who already have tendencies towards violence and bullying. That for others it will be harmless.

What cannot be disputed is that the tendency to violence and bullying in pornography is sexualised and predominantly directed at women and girls. 

And we also have ample evidence on the prevalence of men’s violence against women with the judge citing the recent RCNI data of 80% of adolescents in Dr Michelle Walsh’s study having already experienced sexual harassment.

Even if the contention can stand that pornography itself can be harmless or even helpful, then it is in the same way as elements such as fire or uranium. Their benefits are only possible in highly controlled environments and their use at all times carry the risk of great harm, with, we would contend, pornography having a dubious cost-benefit ratio. Internet access to this potential grave harm must be regulated and controlled.

The same day Justice Murphy’s words were reported, Budget 2022 announced a €5.5m allocation to establish a Media Commission to regulate harm on the internet. It is a start. The Online Safety and Media Regulation Bill is currently making its way through the Oireachtas and must ensure appropriate and robust power is vested in such a Commission.

Dr Clíona Saidléar is Executive Director of Rape Crisis Network Ireland