I don’t need to tell you why rape has been on my mind recently. With the Cornell 7 case making headlines, I haven’t been able to go to the gym or scroll on TikTok without hearing someone’s opinion about what exactly “counts,” who can be trusted, and what’s to blame. It’s all so sickeningly cyclical—just one of countless near-identical “cultural moments” survivors like me have been subjected to in the past decade alone. We get reminded how widespread sexual trauma is as if we could ever forget, spend a moment raising our voices in an attempt to shift the culture, then get to sit back and enjoy the fruit of our labor: public shaming that only seems to effect the least powerful and think pieces about how we’ve “gone too far.”
There’s stiff competition when it comes to the most harmful narrative in all this, but one stands out as particularly grating: the idea that the widespread sexual violence is inspired and encouraged by adult content.
Wall Street Journal and New York Post dedicated full articles to the assertion. Others mention it in passing and comment sections chime in for good measure. It’s a maddening claim, and not just because decades of research have failed to substantiate it. The concept is more insidious than pure misinformation. It subtly reinforces an idea that fuels survivor’s shame and motivates violence: that the primary harm of sexual assault is not trauma but tarnishment. Let’s take a look at the facts.
Sexual Violence and Porn
Porn is not, as Wall Street Journal’s Emma Camp put it, “presumed harmless.” Instead, it’s been scrutinized as a potential source of violence against women for half a century to no avail. The belief that porn causes rape dates back to at least the 1970s, when the Golden Age of Porn roared and some second wave feminists pushed back, Angela Dworkin and Catherine MacKinnon chief among them. The feminist “sex wars” raised some fair questions about the depiction of women in adult media, questions which set the stage for decades of research.
Dozens of studies have turned up little to nothing in regards to porn and sexual violence. At most, there seems to be a weak correlation between sexual aggression and viewing violent pornography. Is this because porn inspires violence or because some people who commit violence enjoy fantasy violence as well? Correlation versus causation is dubious, despite researchers repeatedly refining the question of porn’s impact in search of an effect.
In fact, there’s evidence that men who watch porn may have more egalitarian views towards women on average. From a macro view, the theory that porn is to blame for sexual assault is even flimsier. Sexual violence hasn’t ballooned since the advent of endless adult content at our fingertips. On a population level, the increased availability of porn is actually associated with less sexual aggression. Yet the myth persists.
Trauma vs. Taboo
“Much of even mainstream porn is shockingly violent; degradation and physical abuse of women is what’s titillating. The broader right-wing manosphere takes the violent misogyny of so much mainstream porn and applies it to a broader worldview that flat-out says women are not quite human. This is the misogynist swamp that so many young men swim in.” — Jill Filipovic, Slate
Despite the lack of evidence, “porn encourages violence against women” is a truism to many. Why? Simply put, it feels true. Misogynistic tropes abound in porn as they do in most media, but they tend to manifest a bit differently. While other media carries the same virus of patriarchy, it doesn’t always express itself in such pronounced symptoms. Most mainstream movies try to avoid the overt sexism of previous eras, but adult maintains a strong emotional investment in taboo. It’s a fundamental element of the genre which, honestly, I would hate to see it lose. As long as we’re forced to live in a flawed, inequitable world we deserve the space to explore that experience consensually for pleasure. There’s value in expression that plays with our cultural biases explicitly and allows us to engage with our “shadow selves.”
In porn, unlike your run-of-the-mill buddy comedy or pop song, the primary focus is sex, a realm that’s pretty loaded for most people subjected to misogyny and especially for sexual trauma survivors. The presence of even relatively mild kink elements, like slapping, gagging, and name calling could be particularly upsetting to survivors who’ve only ever encountered those acts in non-consensual situations. This could potentially help explain why they’ve been coded as “aggression” and “violence” by researchers studying porn. It’s understandable…but that doesn’t mean it’s okay. If slapping and spanking are inherently violent, even if we consent and enjoy them, what, exactly, is this violence being committed against? And why does it matter if not for our suffering?
What is Normal?
There’s a sinister assumption I see slithering under the words of those discussing the alledged gang rape at Cornell. They talk about what it’s “normal” for women to want. They describe what women in porn “appear to enjoy.” “Degradation and physical abuse,” one article claims, is the core appeal of porn. The fact that performers in adult content consent is immaterial to these commentators. In fact, Camp finds the happy expressions on adult star’s faces to be harmful. In her view, it’s no wonder young men assault women—they’re being brainwashed by tube sites into thinking women want to be violated. An outraged and surely well-meaning commenter posts “WHO WOULD CONSENT TO A SEVEN HOUR SEXUAL ENCOUNTER?”
To answer their question: I would, arguably have, and hopefully will again. Bonnie Blue certainly has. Many people enjoy marathon sex, just like many people enjoy group sex and receiving consensual, negotiated impact. The difference between what’s described in this case and a consensual orgy, to me, seems fairly straightforward. Yet, to these thinkers, it seems the acts are inherently violent, inherently violating, regardless of negotiation and enthusiastic consent. Porn’s depiction of women enjoying them only fuels disgust. The enthusiasm is not just irrelevant, it makes the acts feel more violating. So that raises the question: what, exactly, is being violated?
The answer in the minds of many, I fear, is dignity…or honor…or purity. However you’d like to put it. Although most know better than to speak it out loud (or maybe even admit it to themselves), they seem to be working from a definition of rape with, unfortunately, far more historic precedent than any that revolves around autonomy or trauma. Rape, at least in the West, spent much more time as a property crime against fathers and husbands than anything else. Hence “punishments” for rapists like making them marry the girls they raped or raping their wives in return.
In the historical American context, sex between Black men and white women could be understood as rape purely through the fact of their races. Conversely, Black women’s routine sexual enslavement and forced impregnation was not considered rape, legally or morally. The purity and sexual value of white women has, for most of American history, been what is worth protection. Anyone without this purity (sex workers, Black women, men, etc) was historically not understood as capable of being raped. It’s only been half a century since the US government began acknowledging that married women could be raped by their husbands. Sex within the tight boundaries of acceptable sexual behavior couldn’t be assault, even if it was unwanted and traumatizing. Seeking out sex outside of the tight boundaries of cultural morality was ruining that valuable virtue as much as assault would.
Demonizing Porn Hurts Victims
The above is just one example of many I’ve seen in comments sections about the Cornell case and so many similar cases before. It’s stomach-turning, weaponizing misinformation designed to aggressively shame the alleged victim. Perspectives like this litter comment sections, podcasts, and even mainstream media. The truth is as obvious as it is ignored: Consenting to some sex acts is not consent to any sex act. Enjoying casual sex isn’t the same as enjoying any sex with any person at any time. No one incapacitated with drugs and alcohol can truly consent. While consent can be unspoken and complex, all of these statements are true, no matter how many disbelieve them. Yet they remain controversial. Why?
Much of it comes back to purity and degradation. When we see the destruction of women’s sexual purity as the harm of sexual assault, their lack of “purtity” to begin with negates the possibility of their true violation. If a victim was already the “sort of person” to have promiscuous sex, group sex, kinky sex, or even hookups, whatever act was taken upon them could not have truly been harmful. If their purity wasn’t there to be violated, how could there have been a violation? This is the core harm of the narrative that most sex is degrading to women. This is the narrative that blaming porn reinforces.
Remember The Real Harm
It’s comforting, in a twisted sort of way, to imagine a world where protecting feminine virtue was all that was at stake. It’s difficult to articulate the true impact of sexual assault. If you ask Google, the AI will gladly spit out a lengthy bullet point list that ranges from “interpersonal difficulties” to “somatic complaints.” Personally, I’ve spent hours just this week trying to solidify it in my mind. I can say that it’s the stolen autonomy or tell you about physical pain and interpersonal betrayal. I can intellectualize it as a distillation of systemic disempowerment, and I don’t think I’d be wrong. But the honest truth isn’t so tidy and simple.
On an average day as an assault survivor, objectification is an upsetting and frustrating fact of life. When the news is saturated with commentators treating fraternity gang rape like a cartoonish cryptid with no confirmed sightings, it’s a different story. In the worst moments, my body freezes while my mind flips a seemingly endless catalogue of memories in front of my eyes in full color. The thought of being touched by my loved ones terrifies me. I argue in circles with phantom exes and newscasters about my own complicity. I can hardly tell if the screams I hear are coming from my mouth or just echoing in my mind. In those moments, my favorite interest loses its joy. In those moments, porn’s just more evidence that I’ll never count as fully human. That my worth is symbolic and sensory—that my body is made for external consumption. It’s a sickening sensation, even for someone with years of experience managing my PTSD and appreciating porn despite it all. I can only imagine the perspective of others without that background. I can’t truly blame anyone for following that impulse to its not-so-logical conclusion: that porn is the enemy. That a safe world is just a ban away.
I know better. Sexual assault existed far before the porn industry. The harm of sexual violence isn’t that our bodies get put in “degrading” positions, covered in semen or surrounded by men. It’s the trauma of powerlessness, betrayal and acute disrespect. It’s the suffering caused by lost autonomy. And worse, I know that the same intuitive belief that certain sex acts are inherently tarnishing, can burden survivors with even heavier trauma—trauma that can be comparable to the assault itself; that understanding sex as degrading to women inspires assaults. It’s understandable to bristle at porn, especially as a survivor, but it’s not excusable to use it as a scapegoat. Attacking consensually-made media where women enjoy acts you find “degrading” does nothing to help victims. All it does is reinforce sexual shame and distract from the real, human impact of violated consent.
