France’s sexual equality watchdog says violent porn is sowing seeds for real-world sexual violence

PARIS (AP) — A French government-nominated watchdog body on sexual equality says an online deluge of violent and degrading pornography is sowing the seeds for real-world rapes and femicides and that the porn industry “chews up women.”

“This school of sexism, this school of sexist violence that pornography has become must stop – both for the women and for the people who watch,” said Sylvie Pierre-Brossolette, who heads the High Council for Equality Between Women and Men that released a damning study on Wednesday about porn-industry practices.

Violent pornography is “a factory for future rapists, future killers of women,” she said, speaking on France Inter radio.

The council that she presides over makes policy recommendations to France’s prime minister. It was set up in 2013 by the government of former Socialist President François Hollande.

The council was submitting its report titled “Pornocriminality,” alleging that the industry massively promotes sexual violence, rape culture, misogyny, racism and discrimination against LGBTQ people, to the government later Wednesday.

It alleged that many porn-industry practices are illegal.

In pornography, “women and girls are massively victims of physical and sexual violence. Women, caricatured with the worst sexist and racist stereotypes, are humiliated, objectified, dehumanized, assaulted, tortured, subjected to treatment that is contrary both to human dignity and French law,” the report said.

The council laid out a series of recommendations, among them legal action against porn sites and the blocking and fining of sites without effective age controls. It said France “has an obligation to act so pornography comes out of the lawless zone in which it places itself.”

“More ample and systematic action is required in the face of this porno-criminal system that chews up women,” the council said.