This is an edited transcript of Michael Sheath’s speech at the ‘Breaking the Cycle: Exposing the links between male violence, pornography & prostitution’ conference in London on 11 November 2023. The recording is online. Michael’s speech starts at 20:23.
I base my views on a career spent working with sexual offending and sexual deviance: ten years as a main grade Probation Officer from 1988, followed by twenty-five years as a Practitioner with The Lucy Faithfull Foundation, which runs the Stop it Now! Helpline. That latter role brought me into contact with some hundreds of men who had been convicted of possessing Child Sexual Exploitation Material (CSEM).
What is Child Sexual Exploitation Material?
At the turn of the Millenium, Interpol offered a definition of Child Sexual Exploitation Material as being ‘the consequence of sexual abuse perpetrated against a child’, which suggests, correctly, that the material has its inevitable genesis in the sexual abuse of children. Children are sexually abused for the pleasure of the perpetrator, and the abuse is recorded for the pleasure and entertainment of others.
The second element of the definition contained the proposition that CSEM ‘could be defined as any means of depicting or promoting the sexual abuse of a child.’ The key words here are ‘depict’ and ‘promote.’ ‘Depict’ simply means show, in this case showing a child being sexually abused. ‘Promote’ is more nuanced, but suggests something akin to an ideological underpinning of the image: the viewer is offered the sense that children can be sexual objects, and that their abuse can be regarded as a form of entertainment.
The term ‘child pornography’ is taboo in my field, since it contains a suggestion that abusive images might be regarded as akin to mainstream pornography where, the conventions suggest, those depicted are consenting and unharmed. ‘Kiddy porn’ and ‘Child porn’, or even ‘CP’ are terms used by offenders in the privacy of their anonymous online engagements; the terms are cosy, and deny the intrinsic exploitation.
For some years, as someone engaging with arrested downloaders of CSEM, I was convinced that many of them began their viewing habit by looking at mainstream pornography: ‘just the normal stuff, nothing weird’, as they would suggest. Let us, then, explore the normal, not weird world of mainstream pornography.
The overlap with mainstream pornography
Imagine for a moment opening the search history of a loved one’s computer, to find that he has been viewing pornography with the following titles: ‘Boyfriend forced gf for sex’, ‘Aunty grabs the nerdy boy’s virginity’, ‘Teen whore used and abused part 2’, (presumable there is a part 1.), ‘Daddy I don’t want to go to School!’, ‘Beach Spy Changing Room Two Girls’, and ‘Daddy keeps f*****g daughter till she likes it’.
However concerned one might be about the viewer’s choice of entertainment, the fact is that all of the titles mentioned have been found on mainstream sites: they are all legal.
These titles were discovered through some pioneering research by Fiona Vera Gray and her colleagues. They considered 131,738 titles of pornographic videos on free-to-view sites Pornhub, XHamster and Xvideo, the first two of which are owned by ‘Ethical Capital Partners’, which is a provocation to our notion of ethics. The films were not viewed, but the titles were analysed for words suggestive of sexual violence, that construct being based on the World Health Organisation definition of such matters.
‘Sexual activity between family members’, essentially incest, was suggested by words like, ‘mom’, ‘aunty’, ‘dad’, ‘daughter’ and so on, with the title ‘When mom’s mad, dad goes to his daughter’, a common theme in incest fantasies where women fail to meet men’s expectations, or challenge their comfort, and their daughters provide an alternative source or sexual adventure.
‘Aggression and assault’ were indicated by words such as, ‘grope’, ‘molest’, ‘kick’, ‘punch’, and ‘choke’. The visitor of a ‘mainstream’ and legal site can choose to watch a film entitled ‘Meth whore wife throat f…. d and pounded by dealer.’
Image-based sexual abuse and voyeurism might be offered in films containing the key words ‘hidden’, ‘spy’ and ‘leaked’, with the title ‘Upskirted in the train’ suggesting an entertainment that, if it were enacted in the UK, has been a criminal offence since 2019.
‘Coercive and exploitative sexual activity’ might be found where the title included words such as ‘teen’, ‘very young’, schoolgirl’, ‘helpless’, ‘drunk’ and ‘asleep.’ The mainstream viewer might like to watch ‘Chubby Spanish teen needs the cash.’
In all, around 12% of the titles considered contained suggestions of sexual violence, almost always being focused on women or girls. As an aside, it is vanishingly rare to find a title suggesting romance or full-blooded consent: the title ‘Nice woman and nice man have a nice time’ does not seem to find favour.
Direct or implied sexual violence, based on this research, appears to be something of a mainstay of the legal pornography industry.
Cognitive distortions
What of the ideology of pornography? It seems odd to consider that whilst online pornography retailers consider themselves an arm of the entertainment industry, that they should offer or promote, whether implicitly or explicitly an ideological view of women as objects to be punished and degraded.
Tony Ward’s work on ‘Schema’ suggests that both rapists and child molesters view the world of sexual intimacy through a distorted lens. Two of the seven schema Ward identifies that are said to drive the behaviour of sexual offenders may be relevant when considering the implicit messages of mainstream pornography as a whole, and violent titles in particular.
One is ‘Entitlement’, a term in common usage now, but given a specific meaning by Ward. ‘Entitlement’ as a driver suggests that men consider themselves and their needs to be superior to others, be that women or children. In terms of pornographic desire, a need for entertainment, distraction or arousal may trump any notion of dignity, empathy, or concern about the rights of others. Going beyond that, the pain and humiliation of women may be the goal, rather than the unconsidered side effect of the material; more on that later.
The ‘Dangerous World’ schema offers a view of the world that is Hobbesian, with men, and women, in a constant state of war, competitiveness, diffidence and glory seeking. Men view women as capricious, deceitful, and withholding, a trait that can only be overcome through violence or subjection.
In some cases, women can be seen as so powerful and distant that children may be regarded as providing a safer form of sexual release. This, in part, may explain the fetishisation of teenage girls, since they are in womanly form but are even less powerful and more biddable. ‘Teen’ has been consistently in the top rank of search terms on pornography sites, and slight, young-looking women are much in demand.
Contempt, triumph and control
This brings us to the ambivalent relationship many viewers of pornography have with the objects on offer. Heather Wood cites three forces being at work in the viewer.
He holds the desired object in contempt, despite finding it desirable: women in pornography are simultaneously arousing and contemptible, and they can be treated mercilessly.
He triumphs over the woman: she cannot change her mind about how she has been presented or used, because her image is captured and is always available to him, a form of sexual imperialism.
Finally, he is in control: he can view what he wants, when he wants, for as long as he wants, without any fear of rejection or resistance.
Notions of control, contempt and triumph require subjugation, humiliation and discomfort, these latter experiences are not the unintended consequences of the entertainment, they are one of its core goals.
Conclusion
It seems to me that the distance between CSEM and mainstream pornography is not as great as we might like. The ideological constructs and justifications of identified viewers of illegal and exploitative material appear, at some levels, to be coterminous with a significant tranche of mainstream content.
It is fascinating that we (rightly) view children as worthy of protection from sexual harm and from digital exploitation, but that this protection vanishes when they reach adulthood. A seventeen year old is a child, whilst an eighteen year old is ‘in play’ and may be thrown to the wolves and subsequently blamed for her ‘bad choices.’
The impact of mainstream pornography, on boys is worth a million words in its own right: what lessons do pubescent boys learn from their unfettered access to pornography, at a time when their erotic template is nascent?
Much of the content and ideological underpinning of online mainstream pornography is, in my view, depicting and promoting sexual violence against women. It is not simply ‘adult entertainment.’
Breaking the Cycle
Michael spoke on the morning panel at the conference. You can watch him here (starting at 20:23):
References
- Fiona Vera Gray, Clare McGlynn, Ibad Kureshi and Kate Butterby. ‘Sexual violence as a sexual script in mainstream online pornography.’ The British Journal of Criminology. 2021, XX, 1-18.
- Tony Ward. ‘Sexual offenders’ cognitive distortions as implicit theories. Aggression and Violent Behaviour. Volume 5, issue 5, September 2000.
- Heather Wood, ‘Compulsive use of virtual sex and internet pornography.’ In: ‘Lectures on Violence, Perversion and Delinquency.’ Routledge. 2007.