Intro (00:00):
Today’s conversation is with Dr. Megan Tyler, a senior lecturer in the research, education and development team at Australia’s La Trobe University. Megan’s research delves into the complex intersections between pornography, gender inequality, and violence against women. In this episode, we explore the ways pornography has become normalized in mainstream media, the systemic exploitation embedded within platforms like OnlyFans, and how these trends erode our understanding of consent, empowerment, and healthy relationships. With that, let’s jump into the conversation. We hope you enjoy this episode of Consider Before Consuming.

Fight The New Drug (00:50):
Well, Megan, thank you so much for joining me today. I am delighted for our listeners to get an opportunity to hear about the work that you’ve done, the research that you can speak to. Do you mind introducing yourself to our listeners?

Dr. Megan Tyler (01:05):
I can. I’m Dr. Megan Tyler. I am a feminist academic and I’ve been researching the sex industry in various forms, including pornography for almost 20 years. I added it up just yesterday to figure that out. And often looking at the intersections between the sex industry and violence against women I mostly look at that from the level of like cultural constructions and inequalities of power. So not so much the level of individual experience. ’cause I have a background in political science, so it’s often kind of that high level power and structural analysis. But I’ve also done work across sociology, public health, and most recently marketing with some colleagues in business. So I’ve kind of, I guess, applied that analysis in lots of different ways and have looked at pornography and violence against women in particular from a number of different perspectives over the last couple of decades. Yeah.

Fight The New Drug (01:56):
Amazing. The research you can speak to is, is so fascinating, and I’m really excited for our listeners to get to hear more about it. Can you share what inspired your focus on the intersections of pornography and gender inequality and violence against women?

Dr. Megan Tyler (02:12):
It began a bit oddly in that I didn’t plan on doing it, that certainly this was not the intention. And initially I had been studying sex therapy and looking at constructions of women’s sexuality within that kind of, if we’re thinking early two thousands when Viagra hit the market and there was this, it felt like there was this cultural shift in terms of how the expectations around women performing heterosexuality was starting to take shape. And right around the time that was happening, I trained as a teacher and I went out into high schools to do my rounds. And we mostly have uniforms in Australia, so on a free dress day, the students will wear whatever they kind of the most t-shirt normally. And I was seeing for young girls about 12, 13 years old that was often a Playboy t-shirt.

(03:07):
And it was kind of in that era when Playboy had really pushed all of its merchandise, particularly to children. And it was something that was just so noticeable to me at that time. I thought, there is something else going on here too. And then ended up kind of being so troubled, I guess by what that meant, and trying to understand how that was happening on the industry side, that I went back and did a PhD. And so from there, once I was looking at those things, it was when at Violence Against Women was kind of unavoidable. It wasn’t always what I kind of went into it with a frame of wanting to look at. But one of the things I did was trying to understand how the industry marketed its own content within the industry. Like how, so we’re talking DVDs, this is how long ago we’re talking with all kind of DVD marketing how the industry would market its content to distributors.

(03:57):
So like, what’s gonna sell Well and also to consumers. And one of the big things that came outta that analysis was how normalized the discussions around violence were. And that violence against women was often a selling point. So kind of once I had found that it, that sort of pushed me on a path I felt I couldn’t come back from, once you’ve seen it, you can’t unsee it. And I guess there were just lots of other ways that I eventually teased other elements of figuring out what the intersections were between the industry and, and violence against women from, from there. But yeah, it almost feels like another world talking about talking about the early two thousands and DVD pornography to figure out where we are now. So there’s been a lot of change but the, yeah, the, it’s, the violence against women aspect is pretty consistent. It just manifests in different ways.

Fight The New Drug (04:45):
Yeah, I think a lot of us working in this space can relate to that. This isn’t necessarily what anyone thought that we would do, but once you learn and once you, you have this information, you feel compelled to do something about it and we’re grateful for the work that you are doing about it. A lot of your work critiques the mainstream normalization of pornography as you just mentioned, can you help our audience understand why there has been an increase in this normalization over the past couple of decades?

Dr. Megan Tyler (05:14):
That is such an important question. And I think, you know, one that we are still picking apart a bit, again, in the early two thousands, there was so much interest in it, I think popular media interest as well as academic and scholarly interest because we were seeing this massive increase in the production of pornography. So that was one of the things, if we wanna look at, you know, this is a trend that’s been going on for at least a couple of decades, if not longer that the shift to being able to produce things much more cheaply and easily on digital forms meant that the, just the sheer array of material that could be produced was so much higher. So you had kind of, you know, tens of thousands of, which again sounds quaint now, but pornographic films being produced in the US alone around that time.

(06:00):
And it was kind of being tracked as, oh wow, there is this change happening culturally in that there’s enough demand for this. It’s sustaining itself as an industry worth more than Hollywood at that time. You know, we’re now of course we’re talking about millions and millions of videos. Like I say, it sounds, sounds almost quaint. But that was kind of what began this shift into normalization. So the production comes much cheaper and much easier, but also then obviously with the internet and much greater access to the internet and faster internet. And then video streaming, the accessibility side changes as well. So you’ve got that, you know, we think about the old physical barriers to someone having to go and first of all, purchase, which again sounds almost quaint now. Physical pornography at a store that they might have to drive to, or, you know, all of those barriers meant that consumption for a variety of reasons wasn’t as high.

(06:54):
So there’s been changes in accessibility undoubtedly, and production, but also changes in acceptability. And I guess that was what interested me most was like, that’s all true, but what creates that untapped demand, right? Like, what, why, why does everyone want that? Everyone, it, particularly at the time we’re talking, vast majority of consumers are, are men still. So what is it about our cultural norms that mean that if we produce more and more pornographic content in the industry, then it will be consumed? and those kind of pushes in fact that the industry itself was implicated in, I think like the playboy marketing, you know, sort of stuff. It hadn’t really been looked at like that before. So there was a lot of like, oh, wow, isn’t this amazing? It’s actually just a kind of grassroots movement for more pornography . That was what a lot of academics were sort of saying around the two thousands.

(07:46):
This is just the democratization of desire was one of the phrases that got used a lot as though this was a great unburdening culturally of ourselves around taboo, around sex. Whereas to me, I think, you know, if we collapse pornography and sex as one and the same, we’re in a bit of trouble. Like there are so many versions of sex that are not just pornography. And so I was very interested in looking at things like, all right, well actually the industry has had a hand in normalizing itself. If it can make children wear Playboy bunny logos, we’re going to have a culture in which consuming pornography is not frowned on as much, and that helps them in terms of their, their profit and so on and so forth. So I think there are layers and layers as to why we’ve seen this normalization.

(08:30):
There’s a lot of focus on the tech side, and it’s, it is not unimportant, it’s a huge part of it. But that there has been also this, this cultural shift, and I think even at some points, like we’re shifting again now, but valorization of pornography in some areas. And if I go back to sex therapy, that that was one where you really did actually have sex therapists talking seriously about recommending pornography to their patients as, as a way like, you know, this is something you should be looking to as a model for your sexuality. So I think there were lots of different strands of that cultural normalization, some of them that were very authoritative like that. And I think, I hope that we can look back with in horror in retrospect

Fight The New Drug (09:12):
Speaking to how pornography was being considered as a model or almost a manual for relationships. You’ve written about the role that pornography has played an intimate partner sexual violence. Can you explain how porn acts as a quote unquote manual in for abuse in these dynamics?

Dr. Megan Tyler (09:30):
Yeah, that’s, I think a really useful and still unusual way of conceiving of it, but an important one. And that work actually came about with a colleague of mine Laura Tasia, who does fantastic work on sexual violence. And she was involved in a study that didn’t intend to look at pornography at all. It, that’s not what they asked women about. There was no specific question about their experiences with sexual violence and pornography, but it was mentioned by so many women unprompted that she thought, we’ve gotta do an analysis on, on this. And that’s how that work came about. And there had already been some preexisting work really going back to the eighties of, of women’s testimonies around their experience, very negative experiences of partner’s use of pornography that had described it, for example, feeling as though it was used like a manual.

(10:18):
And, but yeah, they were kind of scarce, I guess. There were, there were bits where that would pop up here and there, but not many consistent studies in the last 10 to 15 years of women’s experiences of intimate partner sexual violence where there was a discussion of pornography and I guess there were sort of, there’s, there’s three ways in which I would say you can see it as, as being used like a manual. There’s a way, as you, you noted, we’ve already kind of looked at in terms of there were sex therapists literally saying, watch it and mimic it, and that might give you some great new ideas. Then there’s the research we have on consumers where they self-report. And again, we’re talking predominantly male consumers from the studies that are 10 to 15 years old saying, I’ve picked up lots of ideas from pornography and I do apply them in my own intimate sexual relationships.

(11:05):
So we’ve got those kind of two layers. And then we added with, with that research further evidence that women themselves see that that’s what’s happening in their own sexually violent relationships. So they would say things like, well, being forced to watch pornography was, was part of that feeling as though the consumption of pornography immediately led to sexual violence that there was a connection for the perpetrator in that sense. And then other times where the most obvious, I guess, of the manual versions, which is being forced to watch it and then saying, do, do that. You know, you’ve seen that now that’s what I want you to do. You know, none of it in a, a consensual way coercive to different degrees, violent to different degrees. So I think that was an important point in a lot of discussions we had had in Australia at least where it’s difficult to get past the, if you talk about pornography and sexual violence, it doesn’t cause sexual violence as though that that’s, you know, this the only simplistic way of understanding it.

(12:07):
You know, but we actually have survivors saying, this is my experience and this is how I feel it was used in sexual violence against me. And I think that has changed some discussions that have happened here in hopefully more productive ways that we can now recognize that when we ask women about their experiences of sexual violence, pornography is so normalized, like we’ve just talked about, consumption is almost universal in Australia among men under 35. We need to be asking these questions of survivors of sexual violence to see what their experiences are.

Fight The New Drug (12:42):
Yeah, that’s so well said. And you know, we started talking about intimate partner sexual violence, but that’s also something we see with survivors of sex trafficking who are groomed with pornography or it’s used as a manual in their experience of, of sexual exploitation. Can you speak to that at all as well?

Dr. Megan Tyler (13:01):
Yeah, I think you, you’re right, there are similarities across the, the sex industry. And again, I think perhaps under recognized, but that’s changing in terms of the role of pornography in facilitating that. So facilitating demand, like setting up, you know, to a much broader audience, here are the dynamics of purchasing another person to do what you want sexually. But also that, like you say, that a kind of grooming and there was a lot more literature on women’s experiences and systems of prostitution of pornography being made of them without their consent or, and, and or distributed without their consent as well as the, the kind of watch this do this dynamic as well. So I think it is in some ways that expansion of the power dynamics of more traditional forms of the sex industry, like say Bothell prostitution being expanded out as the normalized version of heterosexuality for supposedly all, all women.

(13:58):
And that that has kind of been part of that normalization of pornography actually is, is the normalization of really unhelpful and unequal and unhealthy Yeah. Kind of power like I should say. Heterosexuality I think is always constructed as a not very helpful power dynamic, but this is sort of upping it to, to another level and putting it through the prism of, of capitalism and, you know often racism. I know you had Carolyn West speaking about that at, at some stage. And, you know, she does fantastic work on that. So I guess it’s adding layers upon layers of extremity of inequality to an already unequal construction.

Fight The New Drug (14:38):
Yeah. And, and speaking of the extreme nature of all of these aspects of this issue have you in your research seen a change in the nature of pornography itself that leads to this abuse in both intimate partner violence situations and also otherwise?

Dr. Megan Tyler (14:56):
Yes, I suppose not, not so much directly in my own research, because I haven’t done that kind of like watching and categorizing levels of violence in my own work now for, for about 10 or 15 years. A bit like Bob Jensen, I I find that incredibly disturbing and it takes a toll on you. I’m very grateful for the researchers who continue to do that kind of work. But cer certainly drawing on the work of, of colleagues in the area, there is undoubtedly an embeddedness of violence that I wouldn’t have said was there when I started doing this work. So if I go back to those reviews I was talking about earlier, they highlighted violence as a selling point, which is horrifying, obviously. But it is still highlighted as, you know, not every single piece of content was stereotypically violent. It might’ve been unequal, it might’ve been abusive, but you know, like wa was there avert hitting, kicking, punching, you know, not necessarily.

(15:55):
Whereas from some of the more recent work we’re seeing is just that level of normalization of, of more obvious and explicit verbal abuse, but also physical, physical abuse through things like slapping as just kind of a, a, a normal everyday interaction. And again, where we’ve probably got the most research now around non-fatal strangulation, which is generally called choking in this space, which is a misnomer. You know, you, you choke on a chicken bone, you, it’s different having someone’s hands around your neck and cutting off your oxygen. So there has definitely been that documentation of certain acts becoming normalized, yes. But also just the ubiquity of them, I suppose that feels like it was not as obvious 10 to 15 years ago. And certainly producers have also said that like, you know, if you’re looking at then again, not as influential as they were 10, 15 years ago, but for profit pornography businesses, really recognizing again that, that that content does well and that that should, we should worry about that, what that reflects back to us, I think, as a culture.

Fight The New Drug (17:06):
Yeah. And noting just what you said earlier as well, that alongside kind of this evolution in content is pornography is only growing more accessible and affordable and available and anonymous, right? So there’s cost for concern as we, as we see this normalization continue to grow. How does the normalization of pornography in media impact efforts to address gender-based violence kind of along the same spectrum?

Dr. Megan Tyler (17:35):
Yeah, I mean, that’s another, another great question and another one where I feel like it does so often in public discussions in Australia at least get reduced to, like you are saying, pornography causes this violence as though there aren’t many, many other causes of violence. And so I think is a multilayered sort of thing, definitely this is not a, a direct line of, of causation. Even in instances like we were talking about before. We’ve got women saying, my intimate partner watched the pornography then made me mimic something in the pornography that I didn’t wanna do. You know, that that is a pretty obvious and direct line. But what is the broader kind of cultural influence of pornography? And I feel like we have moved a long way in terms of other discussions around media like sexism and advertising, for example. If you stand up and talk about sexism and advertising in Australia now, people would be like, yes, absolutely.

(18:23):
I can see that that is a barrier to gender equality. If I get up and talk about the beauty industry as creating unrealistic beauty standards for women that are you know, based on outdated racist stereotypes as well as making women feel inferior for just existing in the world as they are, people would say yes, absolutely. I, I get that that is also another key driver of inequality. But if I was to get up and say pornography which has these horrific representations of sexual violence and even worse than that, eroticizes them and makes them seem pleasurable that might also have impacts for gender inequality. No. That is where the agreement ends. And suddenly we’re supposed to say this form of media apparently doesn’t have those same negative effects. So I don’t think it’s simple, but I think we do need to follow our own logic.

(19:08):
And you know, yes, all media both reflects and affects the culture that we’re in. It is not creating this out of nowhere. There is terrible sexism and misogyny in many forms of popular culture, but this particular form of media is not only extreme in its violence like we were just talking about. And in its representations of racism, I mean, again, yeah, there’s been some great work done saying, why is this the area where apparently we can’t critique racism, but also the relationship that consumers have to the material right. Like, so no one is masturbating to orgasm watching sexist advertising. So I think we need to recognize that kind of the contextual consumption of pornography is a little bit different and it is set up to eroticize it. So it is set up to, to create a very strong bond to that media as say, compared to an advertisement.

(20:03):
And I think we need to really reflect on, on that and how it does affect our attempts to address all forms of, of gender-based violence, but particularly sexual violence. And there’s some being great work done in, in the uk I know, and, and probably elsewhere as well, on how all of that kind of taken together does shift our understandings of women’s consent and what is seen as normal and acceptable and the level at which women would have to kind of resist something in order for it to be understood as sexual violence. And there was a particularly horrific case in New Zealand, which you attempted to use the so-called rough sex defense that you’re kind of seeing. So again, not surprising if you’ve got non-fatal strangulation becoming this kind of norm in a lot of accessible, easily accessible pornography that you are then seeing in cases where women have even been killed that you have defenses attempting to say, well, it was just choking and inverted comm has gone wrong.

(21:08):
And this is, we can now show that this is what women like. And I feel like that’s another example where we can actually draw a fairly direct line, right? Like that you had in that instance an academic who had been very supportive of pornography and had not been very critical of it, and in fact been quite vicious to critics of pornography for some time, testified for the defense in that case. Eventually the perpetrator was convicted of her death of, of her killing. But I think it was very telling of kind of where we ended up in academic discussions that you would have someone kind of supporting this idea of, well, rough sex is just normal among young people now. And so it ultimately, I guess to, to kind of cut down that very long-winded version would be that that normalization of both pornography and the violence in pornography, so therefore that normalization of the violence and the eroticization of that violence means it is harder to see it as violence. And if we can’t even see it as violence, we can’t hope to prevent it.

Fight The New Drug (22:11):
That’s so well said. And I think even if we, you know, zoom out a little bit, we know that there are other ways pornography influences our attitudes and perceptions for consumers, right? Some of your work focuses on men who have decided to quit porn. What can you tell us about the way that those men were being impacted by their pornography use and why they were motivated to quit?

Dr. Megan Tyler (22:35):
I have found that work absolutely fascinating. It was, we had hoped, I do, again with working with a colleague there, Natalie Jovanovski, who’s more in the public health space you know, does some fantastic work in other areas as well. And you can probably tell from all the things we’ve talked about, I have tended to focus on some of the more horrific aspects of, of this. And it felt unusual to say, all right, well, what might be a very different experience of, of removing yourself from exposure to this kind of material. And we were worried we were gonna find it really difficult to get hold of men who wanted to talk about this. So we had set our sights at 20 to 40 meant it was a very kind of in depth online survey. ’cause we wanted to allow anonymity and we got more than a hundred within a month.

(23:25):
It kind of, it kind of spiraled. And so, so many passionate responses. Yes, it, it was sort of it it was great for us to see. And also a bit of a wake up call in this being a population that I feel haven’t often been asked about their experiences. So I guess the biggest thing for us one of the things that we wanted to take away from that was just a reminder that actually not all men do consume pornography. I feel like that’s such an important thing to say. Yes, it is, like I said before, near universal among particularly younger men in places like Australia and the US and the UK for example, but that is not all men. And we, we decided, we were particularly, I don’t believe I actually ended up saying not all men, but there, those experiences are gonna tell us something, right?

(24:11):
In a culture where that is so normalized, what are these men’s experiences? Why, like you say, what were their motivations? What were, what, why were they doing this? And one of the things, yeah, it’s not a representative sample, I should say that upfront. So there, there, the ordering of the motivations we have isn’t necessarily going to equate to all of the men who have chosen not to watch pornography. But one of the most prominent reasons, and again, we weren’t entirely expecting this, was around issues of sexism, misogyny and violence against women. A lot of men spoke very passionately about having realized all of the kind of things that we’re talking about and feeling like, I can’t, I can’t be complicit in this anymore. Various different things prompted that. And we were dealing with, you know, young men all the way up to men in their seventies.

(24:56):
So there were some men who were like, it was never really a big part of my life. I found, you know, I found feminist analysis or I had a feminist partner and someone and I, so I just never looked at it again for the younger men. It tended to be a little bit different in that, again, all of the normalization we’re talking about, to try and remove yourself from that is much more complex. But the motivations were often similar for, for that group. You know, this was, I consider myself someone who cares about equality or, you know, I would never want to commit any form of violence in my life. I, I feel like this is an extension of that, so it just doesn’t fit with my value set. But even though we ask them to prioritize and say, what is your main reason many, many men gave multiple complex intersecting reasons, which we also found kind of fascinating.

(25:41):
And harm to self was one of the next most prominent. So lots of different, different conceptualizations of what that meant. So it might be like, I just don’t feel good about myself when I do this to kind of I feel like it affects my relationships with others. And that again was something really interesting for us. So yes, a lot of men mentioned intimate sexual partners who were women in, in terms of like, who am I worried about this affecting my relationship with? But also daughters, female colleagues, like there were definitely men who that I feel like the pornographic view of the world has infused my thinking to the point where it’s affecting other relationships and I don’t want that anymore. There were also some, but far fewer motivations around religious reasons. And again, I guess not fitting with a particular belief system or, or value set but one of the things that I think cut across a lot of that, and we found quite sad about that research was how many men said they felt they couldn’t talk to anyone about their decision not to.

(26:47):
And that in a culture where pornography consumption is normalized or even seen as just a good part of masculinity among groups of men, that they found it very difficult to talk to male peers about it. And in some ways it was seen as like a, a dirty little secret that you don’t watch pornography. And so that was something we really wanted to challenge and we thought would be great to be able to get their experiences and their voices out into the public sphere because it shouldn’t be something that you’re ashamed of. And I guess the other thing that came outta that, and I I know again, you know, this is where the kind of work that you do is, is so important is how much for the men, the less men you know, in our survey who had that support, that that support mattered.

(27:32):
Being able to talk to someone else about it being someone going through the same experience made it much less difficult and a much more sort of supportive experience. So yeah, they had quite different motivations in, in some ways, but there were definitely some similarities in terms of the struggles that they’re navigating in a, in a culture where what they’re doing is seen as quite, quite aberrant. And we even found that, I must say, in trying to get some of this research published, so we’ve had some of it published in Violence Against Women, but we also thought we would have a crack at getting it into some men’s studies journals. And some of the reviews were wild. We had someone who didn’t think it should even be a study because any men who didn’t watch porn were obviously extremists. And, and you know, in some ways that just fueled our, right? Yeah. Fueled our desire to keep going. But yeah, some, sometimes that’s what we’re up against. I suppose I, yeah, to the point that we shouldn’t have to hear what these men say, and I think it is, yeah, I didn’t think in my career I would end up talking about the importance of hearing men’s voices, but I think in this instance it is, it is very true, and we have a lot to learn from their experiences.

Fight The New Drug (28:42):
Yeah, I think that’s something you know, we’ve heard a lot in our work from people who say, this is so normalized among my friends that I don’t have anyone to tell that I wanna make this change. And, and I think we’ve seen a lot of men who have experienced that because it is so normalized. Which is why part of our, our objective is to change the conversation about pornography culturally generally, so that this normalization isn’t something that people are pressured by. I’m curious to know, you mentioned one of the reasons some of these men identified as wanting to quit was because they didn’t wanna support something that was violent. Did they self-identify or did they discover that the content was violent themselves, I guess? Or was it something that they had some indicator that they had learned that this was exploitative or violent or harmful before they’d made that decision?

Dr. Megan Tyler (29:34):
That’s, that’s a brilliant question and very varied. So for some it was, yeah, kind of narratives of I’ve felt uncomfortable about this. Or, you know, I saw material that I identified as more overtly violent, and from that point, you know, things changed for me. So there’s definitely some of that. But I think, again, interestingly for us, because I feel like it’s not the mainstream narrative that women are given, many of them said it was talking to a female partner that made them think about it differently, see it differently. It wasn’t those, and, you know, again, I think that’s what’s so brilliant about having things like conversation starters as you do on your website, because I think people picture it as an ultimatum, you know, this is women who are, who are like, if you don’t stop using pornography, I’m, I’m leaving. Or, you know or that women are told, all men watch pornography, so there’s no point in even having that conversation.

(30:27):
But it really was a noticeable theme in responses that men said, I hadn’t thought a lot about it, and my partner raised it, and then I did think about it, and then I couldn’t see it any other way. And that they seemed like they were quite open and respectful discussions that led to a significant life change. So I guess that’s something else we really felt was useful for women to know that those, those discussions are not pointless. And if you have concerns that, that, yeah, it’s not something that you should have to keep to yourself.

Fight The New Drug (31:05):
And I think that’s such an important point because so many people, you know, we’ll hear from people who say, well, I don’t watch anything extreme. You know, I’ve, I’ve only seen things that are really basic, so I didn’t even know that, that the industry as a whole is exploitative or that the industry is promoting violence or, and, and I think to a degree that’s true for a lot of people. And so until they’re presented with this information, they really don’t know. And you never know which conversation you have that might open the door for someone to consider this from a perspective they previously haven’t. So it’s so compelling to hear that this is something that you found in your work.

Dr. Megan Tyler (31:41):
It is, it is quite a nice a nice part of it, I must say. It’s and it, I think it’s also perhaps more challenging, you know Nat and I have worked in this space for quite a while. You, you forget just as you’re describing there, how, how difficult those conversations can be in a culture where it’s normalized or maybe no one has had that discussion with you about, alright, you haven’t seen what you consider to be overtly violent content, but what about the exploitation of the industry as a whole, which again, a lot of those men spoke about. But also, you know, I think one of the things that I so often come back to and what probably is part of the motivation for that work was I taught a subject many years ago now called the Sociology of sex. And I had a, a student come up to me in his early twenties finishing his degree, and we had talked about pornography and the influence of pornography in the context of many other things in, in that course.

(32:34):
And he said, I have been watching pornography since I was 11. That’s like most of my life. I don’t really know sexuality any other way. I don’t want this, but I, I dunno how to get out of it. And, you know, this was more than a decade ago now. And so I kind of thought, I dunno how you get out of it either, . So I want, I wanna hear from people and men especially young men who, who have and yeah, I think that he’s, he was not alone in feeling that way. And we need the cultural spaces to open up where men can talk about what it might look like to not consume pornography and how they might do that.

Fight The New Drug (33:14):
Yeah, that’s such an important point as well. You mentioned earlier, you know, the Playboy t-shirts on young women, and this is normalized for, for individuals at such a young age they start consuming it at such a young age. No one at that age is thinking, I wanna support an exploitative industry. Right? This is just what they’re building a sexual template around and, and society tells them this is the only way to do it especially for young men. And so I think it is something that does, you know, take kind of a unique spotlight on the issue to, to help people look at it in a different way. But there are so many men and women who have been able to find a way to overcome a challenge with pornography or a habit. And I think that is really noteworthy in this conversation as well for anyone who might find themselves in that same place that there are a lot of examples of people who’ve been able to navigate a way out of that.

(34:05):
And I’m glad you were able to do some work as well to see that, and especially when you’re kind of in the trenches with some of the other work that you do that is so heavy. One of the things I wanted to talk about is you’ve explored how feminist language and ideals are kind of co-opted by industries like pornography. So how does this quote unquote fem washing affect public understanding of empowerment and consent and, you know, all of the things that factor into the perception people have about the content that they’re consuming?

Dr. Megan Tyler (34:42):
Exactly. So some of this work I did, we was led by a brilliant colleague Laura McVay. So this has led me down the marketing path. I’d not done a lot of marketing analysis before, but I was based in a business school. And, you know, that really led to some interesting analysis, like, like this idea of fem washing. So kind of making something sound, you know, just like we have greenwashing makes it sound eco fem washing makes something sound feminist. And she was particularly interested in like, if we know all this stuff about the extremity of violence against women in contemporary pornography, you know, it’s very embedded, it’s almost inescapable. How then do we have platforms recruiting women to make content of themselves? Because that doesn’t seem to align, right? Like if you, if you know about this industry, you know, it’s exploited if you know it’s involved in it.

(35:26):
And how do you then sell yourself to producers basically, or self producers? And that was kind of one of the core questions she kept coming back to. And the, the fem washing was really key in that it’s this, this sort of double speak. And again, if, if I go back to Carolyn West, I think she, you know, did, did a great explanation of how that happened around racism. That you have like platforms like PornHub you know, speaking out supposedly against racism or putting out statements about George Floyd when in fact they’re hosting some of the most horrendously racist content you could find anywhere on the internet, right? And it’s the same kind of idea, you know, it, it’s very much you know, oh no, this is feminist, this is empowering, this is wonderful. When in actual fact, again, if you look at the content, so you’re kind of relying on, I guess particularly mainstream media.

(36:12):
I feel like this has been a strategy, a conscious strategy, just like the Playboy bunnies were a conscious strategy from Playboy in a more traditional model. This is platforms very happy to push a superficial line of, of course we agree with gender equality or we, you know, whatever it is that, you know, they have something for whales at one point, you know, whatever kind of things that might align with useful positive publicity, but you’re relying on no one doing that further analysis about what is actually in there and what does this look like. And I think one of the most disturbing things for me that came out of that research was that it was affecting, like you say, these understandings of empowerment and agency, but that Laura’s analysis took us even further in that it said, not just that there’s this double speak, but that you were getting to the point where it was constructed as almost like a moral obligation that sexually empowered women should produce pornography of themselves because you are doing such a great thing for the world.

(37:09):
You know, whether that’s it’s, it’s a, you know, you can raise awareness about eco feminism or you can actually help with the lonely man, or, you know, however it was posed. We were actually getting to the point. So it’s not just that normalization we were talking about before of say the early two thousands where it was like, you have to be cool with pornographic imagery or you have to be cool with your male partner watching it. At some point. We transitioned from that to you actually should be cool with making content of yourself because that’s really what it would be to be sexually empowered. And, you know, the idea that we can analyze that outside of capitalism some somehow is kind of extraordinary to me. But people do try, you know, they’re like, oh, these things are, of course, this is sexually empowering.

(37:48):
Well, you know, only in the way that work under capitalism is apparently freedom for workers. Like, it’s, it’s not, it’s not really an analysis. And, and I think yeah, that, that it is probably far more insidious and calculated in terms of what the platforms actually like to put out about themselves and know how to work that sort of media cycle, that it makes it much harder again for us to see the violence, recognize the violence because it requires that pulling back of, of layers. And I wish that more journalists would do that., that’s my big call.

Fight The New Drug (38:20):
Yeah, I agree. And I mean, everything you’ve just spoken about is essentially, you know, the, the roadmap for how we got OnlyFans, right? OnlyFans is often marketed as an empowering platform for creators. What are your thoughts on platforms like OnlyFans and how they shape perceptions of empowerment, consent to agency, all of this?

Dr. Megan Tyler (38:43):
Yeah, it’s, I feel like the tide’s turning a little bit with OnlyFans are maybe overly hopeful, but there was a great Reuters investigation that rolled out over a few months in terms of looking at the, the harms of OnlyFans to creators, the kind of incidental harms of like, what happens when people are trying to make pornographic content in public places and other people have to see that, you know so again, kind of, it is part of this long progression of normalization that we’ve seen, but then there’s interruptions of tech that you have, obviously the platform economy happening. And that has disrupted how it looks. And I guess, so the mode of exploitation has changed. The exploitation is still there. And it’s one of those things where I feel I often come back to quote that Gail Dines likes to use in different contexts that like, as soon as people add sex to the equation, they can’t see the analysis they had about something else five seconds ago.

(39:37):
And I feel like no one would seriously talk about Uber as being great freedom for employees, right? There is really important work that criticizes the platform economy as being extremely exploitative of workers and offering less protections. And, you know, being kind of this form of extreme, extremely exploitive capitalism. At a minimum, we should be able to see that for only fans, right? Like, even if you are not critical of the sex industry, you should be able to see that this is part of that same exploitation. If we layer on top of that, that you are expecting basically one class of people pretty much to perform for another class of people and let their demands determine your kind of sexual landscape, then I think we should be able to see that as additionally harmful. And then if we layer in also things like the racism, the violence, you know, clearly we should be able to see it as more harmful again.

(40:28):
So I guess I, I would like to at least take the, the base analysis across of the platform economy and say at a minimum it is exploitative on that level, but then if we add in all the contextual stuff that we know about the sex industry in pornography in particular, then we should be able to see that this is eroding our understanding of what sexual violence is. To the point where, like I just said before, the normalization of these platforms is almost saying to women, well I think particularly like if you, if you need money, you should be doing this. Well, that’s not the economic situation we have set up for men. We, we don’t expect that of them. Women aren’t there on mass buying men not OnlyFans. That’s not what’s happening. So I think in some ways it masks the very real and unjust economic inequalities that women and particularly marginalized women face as well.

(41:17):
You know, OnlyFans should never be seen as a solution to that. And the fact that it’s being suggested as such, I think shows kind of how far we’ve gone down this path. You know, it’s, I’m not saying that like, oh, it would be perfect if only there wasn’t only fans. But it is, in focusing on it as a a for profit kind of, you know, platform economy, vision of sexuality I don’t see really what we could hope to get out of that if our aim is things like respect or mutual pleasure or, you know, it is, it is the opposite of that. This is all about letting someone else’s demands determine what it is that you’re supposed to do sexually. So I think it’s, it’s like the opposite of freedom. It is sometimes represented, like you said, as empowerment or as, you know, a new frontier in, in sexuality.

(41:59):
This is actually a very old frontier of sexuality. In a new guys, it looks, it looks new and fancy because it’s done through a platform, but it’s actually, I think, doubling down on the kind of harmful visions of sexuality that we say. I feel like at a, on one level, culturally, when we talk about, you know, teaching say respect in high schools, we say we wanna get away from this. But we can’t say that we wanna get away from it and then be like, oh, but by the way, when you’re 18, this is a great way to kind of make money on this platform that is embedding all of the things that we said were really harmful just a, a few weeks ago. So I think, you know, again, it’s about following that logic of the analysis and thinking about the ways in which platforms like this actually curtail our visions of sexuality. We think of it as infinite. ’cause like you can find anything on only fans. Well, no, you can’t, you can only find things that fit the exploitative model of sexuality that it’s created. So yeah, I think that’s that’s what makes me saddest and most frustrated about it is actually how narrowing it is of our visions of what sexuality could be.

Fight The New Drug (43:00):
Yeah. You know, years ago I had the opportunity to interview Tina bna, a from the Coalition Against Trafficking and Women. And a quote I think about so often in this work. She said, so long as a woman is purchasable by a man, we will never have gender equality. And I really think that is what you’re speaking to that is what platforms like OnlyFans in these systems where we normalize this position for women and then we normalize saying, well, it’s empowering and it, they’re consenting to this. And it’s like, is it really empowering if someone’s financial position is forcing them to sell themselves, right? so I think being able to, to take a step back and really break this down and look at what it actually is, is what needs to happen. And I do think you’re right, A lot of things are starting to come out about OnlyFans and I do hope that Tide is turning a bit as well, especially for young people.

(43:51):
You know, we talked about the normalization of the platform for women, but especially, you know, young people and, and young women we’ve heard from high school seniors who say, well, I don’t really need to go to college because I can just start an OnlyFans account. And I think that’s a good reminder for people who see this as this new different solution to really be critical of it and take a step back and say, well, actually, it, it maybe isn’t quite the thing that it’s, it’s sold to be, especially for young people. How can parents or educators and communities really support young people in critically engaging with the influence of pornography?

Dr. Megan Tyler (44:30):
I mean, I feel like we, this is an area, isn’t it? We don’t have a perfect answer yet. It’s something we’re still finding our way with in terms of like, what is the evidence base? What are the best ways for, for opening up these discussions? I think we’re doing better, which is, is good. And not having any discussion, I think we can definitely say is worse than trying one, even if it’s not perfect, you know, . So trying to open up those discussions is, is important. But I think it’s probably, well from my perspective as, as a feminist academic in particular, that we actually just need to have more discussions about sex full stop. I think that would be kind of something that we can really be helpful with. Like, talking less about sex is definitely not gonna be helpful because this is where the sex industry likes to, to fill that void, really.

(45:17):
And then if we don’t have those discussions, then that is the model of sexuality you’re gonna get on mass. It’s already out there, it’s already marketed very effectively as we’ve talked about it being, you know, very embedded in multiple ways. So we need to be, I guess, thinking about sexuality as attached to enjoyment and joy as much as possible. Like I think that we may be underestimate the power of, of that, and that it can, especially, you know, when you study sexual violence for a living, it’s obviously very easy to focus on that. But if you don’t have this alternative vision that might even be utopian, I think, you know, we were talking about this, the 16 days of activism to end violence against women at the moment. And we’re talking with colleagues around kind of what, what it would take to end that, and that we do have to have these other positive visions for the future if we wanna move towards that.

(46:06):
And that sometimes the discussions don’t always need to be negative, but like, what, how freeing would it be to try and imagine a world where this thing didn’t exist, you know, where we didn’t have sexual violence, for example. What, what might freedom look like under those conditions? And similarly, what would sexuality look like? You know, how enjoyable or mutually respectful could it be if you weren’t having to navigate, you know, this kind of embedded sexual exploitation. And so I feel like some of the best discussions we can have are around imagination almost, you know? and again, that realization. Are you speaking up on the same point? The sex industry narrows our conception of sexuality. I would like to see a far more genuinely explosive and varied discussion on sexuality. That if we can bring that to the fore, then maybe we, we have a chance of challenging the sex industry’s views of things.

Fight The New Drug (46:58):
That’s such a, a beautiful you know, perspective and reminder. I think it is so easy in this work and for those listening who care about these issues to really zoom in on what the harms are. And I think that the solution is in looking at what the alternative options are. So I really love that perspective. Is there one key takeaway that you hope listeners gain from your research, your perspective, your work? if there’s one thing, what would it be?

Dr. Megan Tyler (47:24):
That none of this is inevitable, I think is important. Regardless of the perspective that you are, you’re coming from, if it’s that you are struggling through the kind of dynamics we’re talking about today. If you’re an activist and you, you know, you wanna keep doing this work that we just have to get up every day and remind ourselves this has been made and it can be unmade. And that sometimes feels like an incredibly difficult task. But I think the kind of background I came from in terms of activism, which was very like shouty, flip a table, kind of, get a, get a movement together, excuse me, that that’s hugely important and we need that work. But I think the longer I’ve been doing it, the more I do value the conversations that I think we underestimate how much having an honest and open conversation with someone you trust and who trusts you, that’s often our best chance of changing someone’s mind. And if everyone did that, then we could create something different. So not undervaluing the small contributions that you can make in your own life to that change and to challenging that sense of inevitability. I think that is one of the things I hope people can take away from today.

Fight The New Drug (48:35):
Thank you for sharing that. It’s a wonderfully helpful perspective. On this podcast, we had valiant Richie say, this is a human problem with the human solution. And I think that’s really true. You know, this is such a, a big issue and it’s so multifaceted and I think it can be really overwhelming but just to acknowledge that every single one of us can start with one conversation and there will be a ripple effect of that. You’ve seen, I’m sure in the past many years of your work, you’ve seen the ripple effect in some positive ways. And we can continue to make that happen, especially with the more voices that we have to amplify work like your work and, and that of your colleagues and others who are doing very important work in research in this space. So thank you for sharing that hopeful perspective. I have an endless amount of questions I would love to pick your brain about, but we are just about out of time. Is there anything else you would like to share with our listeners today?

Dr. Megan Tyler (49:32):
Oh, no, I think, I think I’ve rambled on enough, but I have been so grateful for the chance to, to talk to you today. I I really hope that you know, anyone listening gets, gets something out of it as well.

Fight The New Drug (49:44):
Thank you. I, is there a place you wanna direct our listeners if they’re interested in learning more about the research you’ve done in your work?

Dr. Megan Tyler (49:52):
It’s, it’s all pretty accessible online. If you google me, that’s kind of handy, but also if you wanna learn more about the Australian context, I would say check out the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women Australia, and you can find out a bit more about how pornography intersects with the sex industry there. That’s a great site for resources and kind of critical feminist analysis in this space. And kind of nice to give a shout out to my local context. So thank you. That

Fight The New Drug (50:17):
Of course. Well, Megan, thank you so much for your time today. I hope we’ll be able to have you back in the future to ask my list of remaining questions. I have you but we’re so grateful for your time today and your work in this space.

Dr. Megan Tyler (50:31):
Oh, thank you. Thank you so much for the work you’re doing. You know, it’s just fantastic. And it does give me, give me hope for change,

Promos (50:48):
Educate your audience on the harms of pornography by hosting a screening of our documentary Brain Heart World. This documentary explores how pornography negatively impacts individuals, relationships, and society, and features plenty of science research and true stories that help viewers discover the harmful effects of pornography for themselves filled with clever narration and colorful animation. This age appropriate series is perfect to screen at your school or community event. During the month of December, get 50% off all our public screening license options. Purchase your public screening licenses today a ftnd.org/bhw. That’s F-T-N-D.O-R-G slash BHW.

(51:34):
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Intro (52:14):
Thanks for joining us on this episode of Consider Before Consuming. Consider Before Consuming is brought to you by Fight the New Drug. Fight The New Drug is a non-religious and non-legislative organization that exists to provide individuals the opportunity to make an informed decision regarding pornography by raising awareness on its harmful effects using only science facts and personal accounts. Check out the episode notes for resources mentioned in this episode. If you find this podcast helpful, consider subscribing and leaving a review. Consider before Consuming is made possible by listeners like you. If you’d like to support Consider Before Consuming, you can make a one time or recurring donation of any amount at ftnd.org/support. That’s F-T-N-D.O.R.G/support. Thanks again for listening. We invite you to increase your self-awareness, look both ways, check your blind spots, and consider before consuming.