- Conference
- 2018 National Women's Conference
- Date
- 12 September 2017
- Decision
- Carried
The pornography industry has pushed its way into our lives, distorting our conceptions of sex and sexuality. Pornography offers people a vision of sexuality rooted in men’s domination of women and women’s acceptance of their own degradation.
Pornography is not simply the sexist, naked Playboy photos from earlier times. Those pin-up-type centrefolds look tame when compared to the cruel, violent offerings in online porn today. Today’s porn is indoctrinating viewers that women are no more than a collection of orifices to penetrate, today’s porn teaches that a woman’s sole purpose is to be used, abused and perpetrated upon for a man’s pleasure. She is to be subjected to body-punishing sex, slapped, humiliated, called vile names, pounded upon and then ejaculated on.
Unfortunately, pornography has significant effects on attitudes and behaviour in the real world. Studies show that after viewing pornography, men are more likely to…
• report decreased empathy for rape victims
• report believing that a woman who dresses provocatively deserves to be raped
• report anger at women who flirt but then refuse to have sex
• report decreased sexual interest in their girlfriends or wives
• report increased interest in coercing partners into unwanted sex acts
Many women are nagged or guilt-tripped by their male partners to act more like the women in porn—to shave their genitals, to strip, to have anal sex or threesomes, to be tied up or spanked, to be filmed having sex—in general, to act in ways that feel demeaning, inauthentic, and uncomfortable
Internet porn in the UK receives more traffic than social networks, shopping, news and media, email, finance, gaming and travel. It is freely available, just a click away online. Several recent studies have found that teenagers around the world report using porn to gain information about real life sex, leading them to believe that pornified sexual images are the reality of a sexual relationship. Pornography has become a primary source of information about sex and a significant factor influencing sexual behaviours, especially among children and adolescents.
Over thirty years ago, many brave women—and a few brave men—began the work of challenging the pornography industry. Today, it remains that there is much work to do to stop this pornified culture.
For the first time, at our National Women’s Conference in 2013, one of our workshops focused on understanding and challenging porn culture. Almost 100 women attended to hear the realities of the porn industry.
This conference is welcomes the change in the law that recognises revenge porn as a criminal offence. Revenge porn is defined as “photographs or films which show people engaged in sexual activity or depicted in a sexual way or with their genitals exposed, where what is shown would not usually be seen in public” and which are distributed without the person’s permission and with intent to cause harm or distress. We hope that women who are subjected to revenge porn will report it and will receive justice.
Conference applauds the previous work of Object – (a voluntary sector campaign group responsible for coordinating work on challenging lap dance club licensing, the display of lad mags in shops and organising ‘feminist Fridays’). This conference is happy to hear that Object is now back functioning again, with new funding and campaigns planned.
This conference agrees that pornography is harmful to women and to society at large and undermines UNISON’s efforts to campaign for the eradication of sexism and sex discrimination.
This conference instructs the National Women’s Committee to
1)work with other groups, as appropriate, to raise awareness of the harms of living in a pornified culture
2)Seek discussions with LabourLink to explore options for legal changes and protections from the harms of pornography
3)Actively promote our policy and opposition to pornography on the women’s pages of our website, through social media and through UNISON’s women’s networks