Exposed: The Rise of Extreme Porn, by Clare McGlynn
The relationship between online pornography and violence against women and girls (VAWG) might seem unclear, but Professor Clare McGlynn’s new book reveals exactly how the two are linked.
Exploring the rise and mainstreaming of so-called ‘extreme porn’, Exposed examines the influence of this online content on our desires and relationships – looking at its role in perpetuating cultural misogyny, sexism and racism.
Against this backdrop, McGlynn argues that fighting back against the pervasiveness and dominance of what she describes as ‘patriarchal porn’ is an essential part of tackling the normalisation and eroticisation of VAWG.
Refuge is delighted to be able to share some extracts of Exposed, below.
Not all porn
Exposed makes clear that its focus is on a particular kind of porn: “The problem is not with porn itself. The problem is patriarchal porn. This is the porn on the largest, mainstream porn websites – often referred to as Big Porn. It’s easily discoverable on social media, particularly X/Twitter, and through any search engine.
This porn targets heterosexual men and presents a particular way of being a man and having sex that is commonly aggressive, forceful, domineering, degrading and only ever concerned with men’s satisfaction. Meanwhile, women are regularly portrayed as unwilling, often humiliated, frequently subjected to violence. When not being coerced, women are shown liking almost anything and everything, no matter how dehumanising. All of this reinforces the social status of women as inferior and existing for the pleasure of men, eroticising gender inequality.
It is patriarchal because these websites are so popular and frequented so often that they are inevitably shaping society’s attitudes, culture, laws and policies. It is not niche, or reserved for the dark web, requiring a level of determination to seek it out. It is ubiquitous, and it’s sustaining age-old values.”
Elaborating on this patriarchal cultural context, McGlynn explains:
“It’s a world in which women’s interests, rights and dignity are subordinated to those of men. It’s a system structured around hierarchies of power, especially those based on race, ethnicity, sexuality and disability. As a result, patriarchy can take many forms, with women from racially minoritised groups experiencing oppression very differently from white women – a dynamic which Audre Lorde calls the ‘racist patriarchy’. In eroticising male dominance, it attempts to sell us an unjust system as a desirable natural order. It does this so successfully by transforming gendered inequality into a source of sexual gratification.”
From an intersectional perspective, “Big Porn also propagates deeply harmful stereotypes about racial and minority ethnic groups, reinforcing and eroticising colonialist and racist narratives. Legacies of slavery are evoked and sexualised, and representations of Asian people are reduced to stereotypes and fetishised.”
Sexual scripts
A sexual script refers to the unwritten ideas and behaviours that we apply to our sexual interaction. In Exposed, Clare unpicks how Big Porn is contributing to these norms and dynamics, exploring how this influence is having an impact “across all areas of life”.
“The sexual scripts of porn are commonly violent, misogynistic, racist and sexist, as well as propagating dangerous assumptions about young girls, incest and rape. They are minimising the harms of practices such as choking and strangulation and making us think that men’s pleasure is rightly prioritised and that women enjoy sex where they get hurt, abused, dominated or persuaded into it.
These sexually violent scripts influence the cultural context, the messaging, which normalises and justifies many forms of abuse and violence against women and girls. They shape the boundaries between appropriate and inappropriate sexual conduct through representations that stigmatise and criminalise some sexual behaviours, while instructing and encouraging others. They limit women’s individual freedom to act, directly affecting the sexual lives and choices of women and girls. Overall, they perpetuate ideas of gendered inequality that adversely impact on all of us, women and men, boys and girls, whether we watch porn or not.”
Young people
“Pornography has become a cultural authority on sex and sexuality – it gets into our heads and it’s difficult to get it out. This is nowhere more clear than in the lives of young people.”
In a dedicates section on young people, McGlynn elaborates on what this looks like.
“Four out of five young people today have encountered violent pornography before the age of eighteen. Unsurprisingly, therefore, nearly half of young people said they thought girls enjoy physically aggressive sex acts, with just under half saying that boys expect sex to involve aggression. Furthermore, there’s a whole field of academic study that investigates what is referred to as ‘problematic sexual behaviours’ among teenagers, namely behaviours that are abusive, exploitative, aggressive and non-consensual. Overall, the research finds an association between pornography exposure and problematic sexual behaviours in teenage boys.”
So, what does this mean for women and girls?
“The adverse impacts are becoming more and more evident. In the UK, an increasing proportion of police reports of sexual assault and rape are of teenage boys offending against teenage girls, with some evidence of the influence of pornography in the behaviours of those being reported. A few years ago, following serious revelations of the extent of sexual harassment and abuse in schools, Ofsted, the UK body responsible for maintaining school standards, reported that easy access to and high levels of pornography use was helping to normalise sexual abuse. It talked of the ‘warped’ views of sex commonly found and ‘deeply disturbing’ approaches to consent.”
These real word implications must be addressed.
“We need to face the reality of increasing numbers of young men perpetrating sexual violence against teenage girls, alongside studies reporting associations between porn use and problematic sexual behaviours. This cannot be ignored, dismissed as sex negative or a ‘moral panic’, unless we are willing to ignore the distress and trauma experienced by so many young girls. It’s not only acts of sexual violence that are increasing, but other forms of abuse, with evidence that higher pornography use is positively associated with image-based sexual abuse perpetration, such as sharing intimate images without consent.”
Cultural misogyny
Beyond interpersonal relationships, Big Porn is having an influence on culture more generally.
“Many analyses have uncovered how porn is exacerbating cultural misogyny. A report from the UK government in 2020 concluded that ‘there is substantial evidence of an association between the use of pornography and harmful sexual attitudes and behaviours towards women.’ This included men having higher levels of acceptance of sexual aggression towards women and, for some, higher levels of perpetration of sexual aggression.”
This, says McGlynn has direct consequences for how we treat instances of VAWG at a societal level.
“[Big Porn] clearly eroticises rape, making rape and other forms of sexual violence more likely by removing barriers to perpetration. It contributes to a culture that minimises the harms of rape, failing to take it seriously. This in turn leads to a society where, at the very least, rape is less likely to be recognised as rape (by police, prosecutors, judges and juries), where it is less likely to be investigated, where rape myths are harder to challenge.
After all, how can an act that men regularly consume as an appealing ‘fantasy’ be really that bad? We see this in research showing a strong link between frequent pornography use and acceptance of rape myths, such as ‘she wanted it’, ‘he didn’t really mean to’ and ‘it wasn’t really rape’. If women question whether what happened to them really was rape, they’re less likely to report it or tell anyone else.
Similarly, with attitudes towards deepfake sexual abuse – where a woman or girl’s image is imposed into pornography without their consent – frequent users of pornography have been found to be far less bothered about this form of sexual harassment, perhaps due to becoming more immune to the abusive character of the material.”
Crucially, though, “The cultural harm of patriarchal porn extends beyond sustaining high levels of sexual violence. It perpetuates and glorifies gendered stereotypes.” In practice, this means that: “Sexism and gender inequalities are normalised and gender hierarchies are reinforced. Women are typically portrayed as passive, submissive or existing solely for male pleasure, while men must be bigger, stronger, more physical, more forceful and always up for sexual activity.”
Rough sex
In another section titled ‘Rough’, Exposed delves into the mainstreaming of violent sexual practices:
“It’s not possible to map a direct timeline, but over the last ten to fifteen years we can chart the popularising of ‘rough sex’, from a label describing particularly extreme practices and violent acts on the periphery to a conventional, acceptable and legitimate form of sexual practice.” In particular, McGlynn points out that engaging in sexual strangulation is “far more common” in people under thirty.”
Crucially, “It’s not difficult to think this might be due to its prevalence in Big Porn.”
This is a phenomenon backed up by research.
“In [one] survey, more than half of the men said pornography had influenced their desire to engage in rough sex including choking/strangulation, with one in five saying it had influenced them a ‘great deal’. Another study looked into this more, finding that consuming pornography more frequently leads to greater exposure to pornographic depictions of sexual choking/strangulation, which, in turn, predicted a higher likelihood of strangling sexual partners. So here we have a clear link between exposure to choking/strangulation in porn and undertaking the acts.”
In other words:
“Big Porn is conveying messages about there being no need to seek specific consent: women will (eventually) like it, and it’s safe. The most recent data from the UK found that just over one third of young people have been choked/strangled during sex, a much higher proportion compared to those over thirty-five. As well as it being commonplace, it’s a gendered practice. More men choke/strangle their partners than do women, and choking/strangulation is experienced disproportionately by women, as well as sexual and gender minorities.”
Despite being common, and glorified by manosphere influencers including Andre Tate, McGlynn urges us to recognise strangulation as the harmful practice that it is:
“First in relation to domestic abuse, the role of strangulation in the killing of women, as well as a means of abuse and control, is increasingly being recognised worldwide through the introduction of new laws targeting non-fatal strangulation. Strangulation in this context is recognised as a significant predictor of homicide. Sentencing guidelines start from the position of the ‘inherent harm’ of strangulation.”
Going forwards, “The medical message of there being no safe way to strangle someone needs more prominence.” On top of this: “Men also need to challenge themselves and their peers more. They need to ask themselves why they want to run the risk of causing irreversible harm or even death for sexual gratification. They need to understand that obtaining consent does not absolve them of their ethical, and indeed legal, obligations to other human beings.”
Reflecting on the inadequacy of our conversations around this subject in a world where the strangulation of women is normalised and eroticised, McGlynn points out that: “The contractual language of consent doesn’t suffice when it plays out in a cultural context where women feel they have few meaningful alternatives.”
Looking ahead: The case for hope
Big Porn is causing serious harm, but McGlynn urges us to have hope.
“What makes Big Porn so troubling is the particular model it has built: one that rewards violence, misogyny, racial stereotypes and exploitation, because these generate clicks, traffic and profit. This is not an inevitable outcome of sexually explicit expression but the result of a business model that normalises abuse and packages it as entertainment on a mass scale. It stems from a culture that legitimises such practices, facilitating and sustaining them through a lack of regulation.”
Building on this, McGylnn urges us to treat Big Porn as we treat the rest of Big Tech:
“While the PR of Big Porn, and indeed the pervasive message of internet idealism, is about a vast smorgasbord of options for all sexual tastes, satisfying every desire, the reality is an algorithmically driven set of choices designed to hold our attention and keep us coming back. So this is about societal level change, holding Big Porn to account and demanding change. And the crucial – indeed optimistic – point here is that men’s dominance over women is not a natural state of affairs, even if it might seem this way because we are repeatedly told so. Patriarchy is not inevitable. Change is Possible.”
