Monthly Archives: February 2012

Women’s Support Project booklets on sexual exploitation

Women’s Support Project booklets on sexual exploitation

Recently the Women’s Support Project launched a new series of five short information booklets on different aspects of sexual exploitation. The booklets each focus on a different concern within sexual exploitation and provide key information, background reading and also ideas on how to discuss these sometimes sensitive and controversial issues with young people. The booklets cover the following five aspects of sexual exploitation: PORNIFICATION GROOMING SEXTING SEXUAL EXPLOITATION SEXUALISATION The leaflets also contain some valuable tips on how you can help tackle problems created through sexual exploitation, including taking actions on a local / social level. The pornification leaflet for instance points out how you can target TV stations, local supermarkets and DVD shops with regards to their display and sale of pornographic items. The...

EMMA Winter edition. The dream of being a porn star – Part II: The reality of the porn industry

EMMA Winter edition. The dream of being a porn star – Part II: The reality of the porn industry

Warning: this article contains descriptions and/or references to violence and/or sexual assault In the 2011 Winter edition of EMMA (Germany’s leading feminist magazine in Germany, and the only political magazine in Europe entirely run by women) a large part of the magazine was dedicated to pornography. We’ve translated them into English. Below is the second of three parts we will be publishing of The dream of being a porn star, a detailed account from a survivor of the pornography industry. My first shoot was in Berlin, in a garage. It was a film that wasn’t shot for the German market as it was too extreme. The film was for the Dutch and Belgian market, where those things were allowed. But I was told everything...

London Conference Next Month: A New Category of Child Abuse

London Conference Next Month: A New Category of Child Abuse

Is corporate and commercial targeting of children and young people a new form of child abuse? Has western society reached a critical point in the way it targets children and young people which leads them towards addictive hybrid consumer orientated lives? We have 24 hour bombardment of their minds to eat, purchase, imitate, possess or conform. Much of the targeting of children and young people is on the basis that there is no objective consent or informed knowledge. On the 22nd and 23rd March 2012 two groundbreaking events take place in London to explore critical issues in relation to child protection, child welfare and child development. The events are supported by KIDS COMPANY, OBJECT, BASW, BASPCAN, The Safeguarding Children e-Academy Speakers include: Susie Orbach,...

EMMA Winter edition. The dream of being a porn star – Part I: The road to porn

EMMA Winter edition. The dream of being a porn star – Part I: The road to porn

Warning: this article contains descriptions and/or references to violence and/or sexual assault In the Winter 2011 edition of EMMA (Germany’s leading feminist magazine in Germany, and the only political magazine in Europe entirely run by women) a large part of the magazine was dedicated to pornography. We’ve translated them into English. Below is the first of three parts we will be publishing of The dream of being a porn star, a detailed account from a survivor of the pornography industry. Kim is sitting opposite Alice Schwarzer (Germany’s most prominent feminist and publisher of EMMA) and Chantal Louis (Editor of EMMA) and talks. She talks and talks, for one hour; two. And what she said even dumbfounded Alice Schwarzer and Chantal Louis who did not...

Australian teachers urged to address porn in sex education

Australian teachers urged to address porn in sex education

Below is an article from today’s Sydney Morning Herald about the findings of two Australian researchers who have examined the influence that porn is having on the sexuality and sexual behaviour of teenagers. Porn industry ‘veterans’ who took part in the research noted that there had been a shift from ”lovey-dovey sex” to Gonzo sex, a cinematic style where a hand-held camera is used to film what is often a violent scene. They also interviewed young female performers, who confirmed that pornography had become more violent in recent years, and that they had to pretend to enjoy being treated badly. The researchers argue that “young people urgently need help to critique pornography’s representations of gender and sex, and to help them distinguish between what...

Blame the industries, not the people who follow them

Blame the industries, not the people who follow them

No matter how many news articles one reads, there will always be one that takes one by surprise – not necessarily in a good way. I know I shouldn’t give the Daily Mail any attention, but I read their featured article “Since when did women’s lib mean dressing like a porn star?” with a mixture of feelings I am not sure how to place; it was probably a mix of understanding some of the issues raised as well as baffled annoyance. Somewhere halfway through the piece the author appropriately pointed out that the fashion choices of today’s women and girls are informed by a hypersexualised mainstream porn and pop culture noting that “it is becoming increasingly clear that the harsh and brutal aesthetics of...

Report on ECCR debate: Vulnerable Workers, Trafficking, Pornography and the Economics of Exploitation

Report on ECCR debate: Vulnerable Workers, Trafficking, Pornography and the Economics of Exploitation

Back in November an open debate was held by the ECCR (Eucomenical Council for Corporate Responsibility) on Vulnerable Workers, Trafficking, Pornography and the Economics of Exploitation: London 2012 and beyond. Speakers included Dr Stella Creasy MP, Shadow Minister for Crime Prevention, D.I. Kevin Hyland, Metropolitan Police Trafficking & Prostitution Unit, Dr Sasha Rakoff, CEO, OBJECT and Bill Seddon, CEO, Central Finance Board of the Methodist Church. The debate took place on November 17th, here is a short report on what was said. Kevin Hyland began by focusing on sex trafficking. An estimated 1 million young women are sold worldwide for sex every year. The Metropolitan Police have had recent success in jailing sex trafficking gangs. The police are asking newspaper publishing companies to stop accepting...

EMMA Winter edition. A large-scale human experiment

EMMA Winter edition. A large-scale human experiment

In the Winter 2011 edition of EMMA (Germany’s leading feminist magazine in Germany, and the only political magazine in Europe entirely run by women) a large part of the magazine was dedicated to pornography. We felt that a couple of articles in that edition of EMMA would be of interest to a lot of you, so we decided to translate them into English. The first article A large-scale human experiment shows that the concerns about the harms of pornography are being raised world-wide. The second article The dream of being a porn star, which we have split into three posts that will be published over the coming weeks, is a detailed account from a survivor of the pornography industry. A large-scale human experiment In...

Over 1in5 UK Children view ‘inappropriate content’ on their smartphones

Over 1in5 UK Children view ‘inappropriate content’ on their smartphones

A study, compiled by YouGov for Carphone Warehouse has found that 21% of 8 to 15 year olds in the UK have accessed ‘inappropriate content’ from their mobile phone. The investigation into the mobile web behaviour of 8 -15 year-olds in the UK found that 2.8 million or 25% of UK children aged 8-12 have smart phones, and more than one in five of those children admitted to accessing websites that they know are “not for them.” However, answers to other questions in study indicate that this number may be higher with 87% saying they know that they do not have parental restrictions on their mobile phones. Other possibly interesting stats are that the number of children watching ‘online videos or video clips’ on...