To mark International Women’s Day, Priscille Kulczyk, associate fellow at the European Centre for Law and Justice (ECLJ), highlights the threat posed by pornography to women’s rights. Op-ed published in French in Le FigaroVox.

Can we still believe that pornography has no impact on the status of women? Thirty years ago, at the UN’s Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995, the States affirmed that “violent and degrading or pornographic media products are . . . negatively affecting women and their participation in society.” It is therefore a trap to think that, because it is generally viewed in private, pornography does not influence the social behaviour of its consumers. On the contrary, the danger it poses to women is well established.

Pornography, a catalyst for violence against women

The link between pornography consumption and sexual violence has been established, although it remains largely taboo. In 2024, a study of the scientific literature on the subject over the last twenty years concluded that “Exposure to pornography has been linked to sexual coercion, as well as higher levels of rape-supportive beliefs, peer approval of forced sex . . . Men who watched mainstream pornography scored significantly higher on self-reported likelihood of raping.”

This is hardly surprising, given that pornography most often rhymes sexuality with brutality. In 2010, an analysis of the 50 most popular pornographic videos revealed that 88% of the scenes contained physical violence and 49% at least one verbal aggression, with 87% of aggressive acts perpetrated against women whose response was neutral or expressing pleasure in 95% of cases.

Because it normalises violence, pornography has consequences in real life. Within couples, it leads to a relationship of submission and violence: a study of female victims of domestic violence revealed in 2010 that 73% of those who had been raped said that their partner consumed pornography. The recent media trial into the rapes in Mazan is a concrete example of this. How can we fail to recognise in this case a symptom of the advanced pornification of society? The dozens of men prosecuted for rape do not share a typical profile, but a regular consumption of pornography. It is also reminiscent of the French Bukkake case, in which dozens of women were gang raped by men invited via a pornographic website to meet in the same place to perform violent acts on a woman, with their faces covered and in front of the camera.

As it is nothing more than filmed prostitution, pornography also encourages the demand for prostitution and, consequently, the human trafficking that fuels it: as Reem Alsalem, the UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls, pointed out in her May 2024 report, “More frequent users of pornography were also the most frequent users of women in prostitution.”

Pornography or women as objects

Generally speaking, pornography is hostile to women. Is it any coincidence that, as a British professor has noted, of the 63 categories in the ‘hetero’ tab of a popular pornography site, only one is entitled ‘female friendly’? Even when it does not appear to incite violence, pornography is particularly harmful to women because it conveys a distorted vision of them that reduces them to “an object of humiliation,” in the words of Emmanuel Macron on International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. However, far from being confined to the virtual world, this objectification extends beyond the smartphone or computer screen and is spreading insidiously throughout society.

With its hypersexualised and unrealistic aesthetic standards, pornography also undermines the image of the female body, leading to problems of self-esteem. This is reflected in a boom in intimate surgery, which is partly explained by the influence of pornography. Gynaecologists also report that it is not uncommon for young women to confide that they do not enjoy ‘fulfilling’ sexuality with their partner, and any resemblance to the pornographic vision, which combines a cult of performance with subjugating, humiliating or violent practices, is not purely coincidental.

Protecting and promoting women's rights means combating the real threats to women at their source. Pornographic culture irrefutably hinders equality between women and men, as well as the elimination of discrimination and violence against women. It is encouraged by unlimited, anonymous and free access to this content, which has become a veritable consumer product, sometimes leading to addiction. How many Mazan trials will it take before political leaders tackle the public health problem that pornography consumption has become?