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MELINDA TANKARD REIST ------------------------- FROM BRISBANE TO MURGON QLD: DANIEL + I ENGAGED 2000 STUDENTS FROM 8 SCHOOLS ON PORN CULTURE + RESPECT Posted by Publisher on May 30th, 2021 CONVERSATIONS WITH STUDENTS AMONG THE MOST PROFOUND OF MY SPEAKING

LIFE

What a week in Queensland! My colleague and co-presenter Daniel

Principe

and

I delivered 20 sessions involving more than 2000 students from eight schools, along with staff and parents, between May 17 and 24. We witnessed a remarkable response from students in private and public schools to our ‘Navigating a sexed-up world: consent, respect and porn culture’ presentations at Iona College, Ipswich Girls’ Grammar and Ipswich Grammar, Nanango State High School, Kingaroy State High School, St John’s Lutheran School, Kingaroy, Murgon State High School and Moreton Bay Grammar. I always enjoy and value the opportunity to share our message in schools – the conversations with the young people we met in Queensland were among the most moving and profound of my speaking

life.

Here are some special pics and video responses from the week: MTR and Chloe, 15, Moreton Bay College MTR with Rachelle, 18 and Veronika, 15, at Kingaroy community event Ahleyah, 14, Mia, 14, Jaszede, 14, MTR, Sadie, 14 of Murgon State

High School

Jada, 16, (second from left) & friends at Nanango State High School Daniel workshops harmful and healthy ideas about masculinity with young men at Iona College Brisbane Yr 9 girls from Ipswich Girls Grammar and their male peers from Ipswich Grammar, discuss how they can work together to change a toxic

culture

Daniel’s reflections shows what is possible when young women and young men work together to find a positive way forward: > _Today I witnessed one of the most special and moving moments of my > life. After speaking to the students of Ipswich Girls Grammar School > and Ipswich Grammar School we brought them all together to listen > and discuss their own experiences of sexualisation and the > challenges they face as young men and women. What followed was a > beautiful exchange of empathy and humanising of one another. They > all celebrated the kindness of the boys as they reimagined healthy > masculinity and then championed the girls who found their voices and > dared to believe they could be valued and respected for more than

> their looks._

MEDIA

My opinion piece, ‘Ready for sex? Horror note found in eight-hear-old’s bag’

,

was published in The Courier Mail, May 17, at the beginning of the

trip.

And I was interviewed on ‘Mornings with Rebecca Levingston’, ABC Radio Brisbane, at the end of the tour! Here’s how our visit to the South Burnett region was covered by

Burnett Today:

CHRISTIAN SCHOOLS AUSTRALIA NATIONAL POLICY CONFERENCE Following the week in QLD, Dan and I flew to Canberra to address 250 heads of independent schools attending the Christian Schools Australia National Policy Conference. Our keynote was titled: ‘The sexual world of the 21st Century Adolescent’. It was encouraging to meet so many school leaders who want who want to address the harms of porn culture in their school communities! HEADING TO NSW JUNE-JULY If you would like to enquire about having us in your school or community group, please visit the bookings section

of my website.

MTR OPINION PIECE IN COURIER MAIL: ‘READY FOR SEX?’ HORROR NOTE FOUND IN EIGHT-YEAR-OLD’S BAG Posted by Publisher on May 22nd, 2021 PUBLISHED BY COURIER MAIL – MAY 17, 2021 PARENTS HAVE SHARED THEIR HORROR STORIES AS MORE AND MORE YOUNG CHILDREN’S BEHAVIOUR IS IMPACTED BY EXPOSURE TO PORN. Barely a day goes by that a parent doesn’t contact me to tell me of the devastation and trauma caused as a result of their child being

exposed to porn.

> “My 6-year- old was shown porn by an older boy at school.”

>

> “My daughter was on a kids’ games site and a porn-pop up

> appeared.”

>

> “My child googled an innocent term and it took him straight to a

> porn site.”

>

> “My son was shown porn on the school bus on the way home.”

>

> “My 7-year-old saw porn at the school camp.” Some of these children now suffer insomnia, nightmares, anxiety. In the worst cases, they are medicated due to the level of disturbance caused by exposure to violent porn. It surprises many parents to learn there is nothing to prevent their child being exposed to porn. No barriers – such as proof-of-age requirements – to stop them entering rape, sadism, torture porn and incest sites. All before their first kiss. We have allowed a never before seen experiment on the sexual development of our kids – and we’re now seeing the results. Living in a porn-flooded eco system, kids are acting out in sexually inappropriate ways in the playground and beyond – becoming copycat predators. More personal accounts shared with me show how little girls

are impacted:

> “My 10-year old granddaughter was approached by a boy while > waiting for the school bus and asked, ‘Do you do arse?’”

>

> “My 8-year-old found a note in her school bag which read, ‘Ready

> for sex?’”

>

> “An 8 yr old boy told my 8 yr old girl he wanted to ‘f**k you

> hard’.”

>

> “10 yr old boy told my 10 yr old daughter that he was going to > break in and rape her.” No boy is born this way. This is learned behaviour. More adolescent girls tell me of sexual harassment, groping, being hassled for sexual pics and asked for sex acts – even at school. Yr 7 girls tell me boys are even watching porn in the classroom. When boys are being drip fed porn from the earliest days, is there any surprise at the lack of respect for them? We tell boys to respect girls, but porn – the world’s biggest department of education – teaches them the opposite. Porn-saturated boys learn to see sex and aggression as linked. The sex education handbook that is porn, won’t teach them anything about

“consent”.

What we have allowed kids to be exposed to is an act of child abuse on

a mass scale.

In February 2020, a Federal parliamentary committee (before which I

gave evidence

)

reported on its inquiry into age verification for porn and online

gambling.

The Committee said there was “widespread and genuine concern…about the serious impacts on the welfare of children” associated with porn exposure. Age verification “could create a significant barrier to prevent young people…from exposure to harmful online content.” But more than a year later, the Federal Government has not even responded to the report

.

The UK Government is currently being sued by a father –whose son was exposed – for not protecting kids from porn by implementing a proof of age protection system – supported by 88 per cent on British

parents.

An age verification system would complement other strategies the Government, educational, and civic bodies are undertaking to help limit harm of explicit content. The work of the e.Safety Commission in resourcing parents is, of course, vital. Proof-of-age protections, while not a “fix-all” would provide one more layer of protection for children vulnerable to the predatory porn

industry.

But right now the cards are stacked against parents and carers and in favour of a multi-billion industry spewing toxic ideas about women

into the world.

How can we claim to be serious about the National Plan to Reduce Violence Against Women and their Children when we allow unrestricted and unregulated access to content which destroys empathy, teaching boys they can do what they want to girls? For too long the vested interests of an industry whose business model relies on building the next generation of consumers have been put before the wellbeing of children and the community. Every day the Government delays implementing the Federal committee’s recommendation for proof-of-age protections is another day even more children will be harmed and scarred. -------------------------

TAKE ACTION

Ask your MP – where’s the Government response to the Age Verification for Online Porn inquiry report? Find their contact

details here . 

SEE ALSO

MTR opinion piece on ABC: Why “consent” doesn’t stand a chance against porn culture A year ago a Federal inquiry recommended age verification to protect kids from porn. But the Government hasn’t responded – why not? Parents Vs The Porn Industry Isn’t A Fair Fight UK age-verification has kids – and parents – at heart Submission to Inquiry into Age Verification for Online Wagering and

Online Pornography

MTR Submission to Inquiry into Age Verification for Online Wagering and Online Pornography MTR + DANIEL SPEAKING IN BRISBANE AND KINGAROY MAY 17-24 Posted by Publisher on May 12th, 2021 I will be presenting in Brisbane, Ipswich and Kingaroy between Monday May 17 and Monday May 24, joined by Collective Shout educator and youth advocate Daniel Principe. We will be engaging with students of Iona College, Ipswich Girls’ Grammar and Ipswich Grammar, Nanango State High School, Kingaroy State High School, St John’s Lutheran School, Murgon State High School and Moreton Bay Grammar. Public events are as follows:

MONDAY MAY 17

Iona College

85 North Rd, Lundum Brisbane

Parent event 7pm

WEDNESDAY MAY 19

Kingaroy Performing Arts Centre Kingaroy State High School 14 Toomey St, Kingaroy

Parent event 6 pm

MONDAY MAY 24

Moreton Bay Grammar

450 Wondall Rd, Manly West. Parent session 6pm-7pm If you’d like to attend any of these events, please email Bernie@collectiveshout.org to RSVP. SEE ALSO: ‘Two weeks in the West: outstanding responses from students, teachers and parents!’ MTR blog TWO WEEKS IN THE WEST: OUTSTANDING RESPONSES FROM STUDENTS, TEACHERS +

PARENTS!

Posted by Publisher on May 10th, 2021 RETURN VISIT PLANNED FOR AUGUST At last, re-building our work post the 2020 losses, Daniel and I landed in WA April 19 for two weeks of engagements in Perth and Albany involving seven private schools and an independent school counsellor’s seminar. Fortunately, the snap lock down occurred over the Anzac Day long weekend, and, while de-railing some of the larger parent events of the second week, student sessions went ahead (with

masks!).

Dan + MTR with boys at Christ Church Grammar, Perth Daniel and I engaged with students of St Hilda’s Anglican School for Girls, students and parents of Mazenod College, the parents of St Mary’s, students, teachers, parents and community of Great Southern Grammar Albany, students and parents of Penrhos College, and the students of Sacred Heart College and Christ Church Grammar School. (The parent events planned for Sacred Heart and CCGS combined with St Hilda’s, will be re-scheduled). Dan with young women at St Hilda’s Anglican School for Girls The response to our message to boys on navigating a sexed-up world, and how they can choose not to be bystanders and take action personally and collectively, was outstanding. We were very moved by the number of good young men we met who genuinely desired to be men of integrity and part of the change we also so desperately want to see. One of them was Year 12 CCGS student Jeff Shenton, 17, who we had a chat to following our presentation on ‘Respect and Responsibility’ to the Year 10-12 boys. Girls also responded enthusiastically, recognising they could stand up for themselves, enforce personal boundaries, and work together for

cultural change.

Dan and MTR with Emma, 13, Hannah, 13, Sienna, 13 at Penrhos College MTR with Phoebe, 14 and Lily, 14 at GSG Albany We were also very encouraged by this wonderful response from a parent: …and this moving message from a teacher: As many of you know, Daniel Principe, a health professional with a background in media, PR and marketing, has recently joined me more regularly in school’s work as a Collective Shout educator and youth advocate.  I thought you might like to read his reflections and highlights of our time in his home state: > We all benefit when schools and communities create a space for boys > to reimagine masculinity by exploring what it means to be a man and > having the difficult but important conversations about sex and > forming healthy respectful relationships. So many encouraging > moments from the last two weeks of working with schools and > communities in WA, here are a few highlights: * a 14-year-old boy said he realized the connection between pornography and human trafficking; * several young boys of their own accord publicly acknowledged they needed to apologise to women including their sisters, for not speaking

out;

* dozens of boys asked how they can quit pornography; * hundreds of boys committed to using their manhood for good and being courageous enough to disrupt harassment and sexual assault; * hundreds of young women were given an opportunity to speak up about their experiences and call out the sexist words and behaviours they had been subjected to; * dozens of young people and parents asked why there were no protections to prevent children being exposed to violent pornography and what they could do to lobby for that change including to secure an age-verification system. There was so much interest in the west it looks like we will be returning the week of August 9 and possibly August 2. You can make an

inquiry here .

Tags: #pornharms ,

bodyimage , boys

, CollectiveShout

, cybersafety

, endexploitation

, masculinity

, mentalhealth

, pornculture

, socialchange

, teens

, VAW

CULTURE, MEDIA, FASHION, PEER PRESSURE + OUR GIRLS: MTR INTERVIEWED BY

THE TEEN AGE

Posted by Publisher on April 9th, 2021 Read full interview here. RESPECT, CONSENT, PORN CULTURE AND CULTURAL CHANGE: A GREAT DAY WITH XAVIER HIGH STUDENTS ALBURY, NSW Posted by Publisher on March 20th, 2021 OUR FIRST SCHOOL EVENT FOR 2021! It was wonderful to be so warmly welcomed this week by staff, students and parents of Xavier High School in Albury, NSW for a special International Women’s day event with Yrs 8 and 11. I first addressed the school in 2012 – a number of parents told me they’d heard me all those years ago and had supported our work ever since, which was so encouraging to know. My colleague Daniel Principe and I unpacked harmful cultural influences with the students. We examined porn culture and its deforming impacts – and what they could about it. We were so encouraged by the response – it couldn’t have been a better start to the speaking year! Here’s Yr 11 student Kylan, 16, sharing with Daniel what he took

from our message.

NEXT UP: WA APRIL 20-30 Daniel and I are looking forward to addressing students, staff, school counsellors and parents at a significant number of secondary schools in Perth and Albany between April 20-30.  We have been so encouraged by the number of schools recognising they need to tackle the harmful influence of porn culture in their communities. While most days are now fully booked, there is a small gap for an extra school or community group. You can make an inquiry here

.

If you’re interested in joining other schools who have booked Dan and I in other states, let me know. We will be in: * Perth, Albany:  April 20-30 * Melbourne: May 3-7 * Brisbane, Kingaroy: May 17-24 * Canberra: May 25-29

* Sydney: June 1-4

* Nowra: June 17

COERCION, CONSENT, SEXUAL ASSAULT, HARASSMENT AND THE ROLE OF PORN: MTR ABC INTERVIEWS + PODCASTS Posted by Publisher on March 19th, 2021 FOLLOWING PUBLICATION OF MY ABC PIECE ‘CONSENT EDUCATION DOES NOT STAND A CHANCE AGAINST PORNOGRAPHY’

, I

HAVE BEEN INTERVIEWED FOR A NUMBER OF ABC PROGRAMS AND PODCASTS. ABC RELIGION AND ETHICS REPORT MARCH 17 MTR talking sexual assault, harassment, coercion and the role of pornography as a contributing driver of violence against women with host Andrew West on _ABC Religion and Ethics Report_ March 17. ABC STATEWIDE DRIVE PROGRAM MARCH 18 MTR was interviewed on the role of pornography in undermining consent and respectful relationships for ABC _Victoria Statewide Drive_ with presenter Nicole Chvastek March 18. (interview starts at 6.35) MTR ON STEVE AUSTIN ABC DRIVE QLD MARCH 10 ABC Queensland host Steve Austin interviewed MTR on why she described the porn industry as the world’s largest department of education in her ABC Religion & Ethics piece. HAPPY FAMILIES PODCAST MARCH 17 MTR on Dr Justin Coulson’s Happy Families podcast where we discuss how a sexist culture is grooming sexist boys, the porn industry and how we can help young people aspire to respectful relationships. (Justin tells me this podcast had the record number of downloads in a 24 hr period!) MTR TALKS HARMS OF PORN CULTURE WITH DR JONATHAN COLE, POLITICAL

ANIMALS PODCAST

‘PORNOGRAPHY IS THE WORLD’S BIGGEST DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION’: MTR INTERVIEWED ON MERCATORNET > “Given it is the biggest sex educator in the world, given its > predatory nature and ease of access to children and young people and > given the global research, there is no doubt  is fuelling > abuse by eroticising that abuse. It normalises sexual violence. > When boys are repeatedly fed images of de-humanising of women, of > extreme torture and degradation (bearing in mind that the most > violent genres are the most popular), and are trained to become > aroused by such images, they incorporate these behaviours into their > sexual repertoires. > ..boys  into a sense of entitlement, narcissism > and patterns of sexual cruelty, teaching them that women and girls > exist for their sexual gratification and pleasure. > They become more tolerant to sexual harassment and violence, develop > hostile attitudes and are desensitized to sexual cruelty. Porn is > embedding new codes of conduct in boys and men, inhibiting them from > integrating empathy into their sexuality. Tags: #pornharms , abc

brisbane , ABC

Religion and Ethics

, abc

victoria , chanel

contos petition

,

collectivehsout

, consent

, cyber safety

, education

, mercatornet

, pornculture

,

respectfulrelationships

,

schools , sexual assault

, sexual

harassment ,

Sexualisation ,

sexuality ,

sexualityeducation

, violence

against women

WHY “CONSENT” DOESN’T STAND A CHANCE AGAINST PORN CULTURE: MTR

OPINION ON ABC

Posted by Publisher on March 11th, 2021 Melinda Tankard Reist 9 Mar 2021 WHY “CONSENT” DOESN’T STAND A CHANCE AGAINST PORN CULTURE WARNING: THIS ARTICLE CONTAINS ACCOUNTS OF SEXUAL ASSAULT THAT MANY WILL FIND DISTURBING. _“Most of my friends had either been raped, sexually assaulted or received unwanted sexual attention by the time we were in year 11.”_ If ever there was cause for a cultural reckoning, the Hurt Locker of female student trauma

compiled by Chanel

Contos is it. It is Exhibit A in our collective failure to cultivate the social conditions conducive to the flourishing of healthy young human beings. The horror archive now contains more than 5,000 accounts of sexual assault, unwanted sex, and coercion shared by female students and former students in response to a question posed by the 23-year-old former Kambala student on Instagram. Now studying in London, Contos asked if other young women had experienced sexual assault

by

their peers from all-boys schools in Sydney. (The net has now been extended Australia-wide.) The query grew out of a conversation among friends who each realised they had “unlimited rape stories” to share. “It happened to so many of us”, Contos says

.

“We talk about a guy who forced us to give them head like what we had for breakfast yesterday.” Some young women describe waking up naked at parties or in a young man’s house, after passing out due to intoxication, with male peers penetrating them. Some said they had only met the alleged perpetrators that same night; others they had considered friends. Some said they only realised something had happened to them when they woke up in pain and found their underwear soaked in blood. Some who were forced to provide oral sex say they were filmed in the act. Every day more girls come forward to add to the trauma tome , offering their testimony of being violated by teenage boys. Some of the girls are as young as thirteen or fourteen years of age. Reading the accounts feels like wading into a never-ending crime scene; taken in its entirety, it represents a horrifying collective refusal to recognise the humanity, much less the human rights, of young women. The stories echo those that I’ve been hearing for more than a decade in hundreds of schools — stories of sexual harassment

,

emotional manipulation, cruelty, and coercion

.

My most recent encounter was with a twelve-year-old girl in extreme distress, having been pressured to send sexual images by an eighteen-year-old male, who then blackmailed her for more. Chanel Contos is now calling for better sexual consent education

.

I support her aims — I speak frequently about consent and respectful relationships, too. And I commend her for bringing the issue to public attention in the way she has. But with every school workshop I run, I see that overwhelming cultural forces are overpowering any hoped-for advancement. Consent education won’t be effective if women are not first seen as human and worthy of dignity and respect. We are, ultimately, talking about a grave and systematic human rights

violation

.

All the best intentions and efforts cannot compete with the world biggest department of education: pornography. If we don’t address pornography’s conditioning of boys

,

which trains them to accept rape myths

—

that “no” in fact means “yes” — and which normalises aggression, coercion and domination, these girls and all those that follow don’t stand a chance. The porn industry is a mammoth dispenser of sexualised violence and misogyny; it is the world’s most powerful sexual groomer

.

Boys see girls as something to act-out on rather than fully engage with. Of course, we already knew about unhealthy expressions of masculinity, harmful patterns, and too narrow expectations of behaviour. But the porn industry takes pre-existing harmful codes of masculinity and entitlement and turbo-charges them. THE ILLUSION OF CONSENT I have sometimes heard it said that the boys didn’t know what they were doing. That they needed to be taught more about consent, or that, in the heat of the moment, they simply _misunderstood_ the girl’s wishes. But surely we can all agree that if a boy rapes a girl while she is asleep, there was no attempt to gain consent. If a boy sexually assaults a girl while his friends film it and they then share the footage, there was no intention to gain consent. In both instances, sexual gratification triumphs over empathy. The victory is in the taking. Can we really claim that this many — otherwise intelligent, well-educated — boys didn’t know that it was wrong to behave like this? Do we really needing to be writing on whiteboards in class, “If a young woman is unconscious, you shouldn’t have sex with

her”?

There is a disturbing degree of coercion — whether it be the practice of ignoring consent or of forcing something close enough to consent to give the perpetrator plausible deniability, getting his “consent card” stamped, if you like —reflected in so many of the accounts that Chanel Contos has gathered. Here is a small sample from thousands of those testimonies: > “I have had many peers describe openly to groups at school their > ‘techniques’ to get a girl to agree to Sex after they initially > said no. I realise now that it was not … consent, it was

> duress.”

> “Older Boys who had already graduated from  and >  would buy us drinks and get us drunk then make moves > on us when we were obviously not able to give consent. We would’ve > been about 15 and at that age we thought it was cool but also had no > idea what we were doing when these boys clearly did.” > “Proceeding to ask another 30 times and receiving a unwilling yes > due to peer pressure is NOT valid consent. That is a young woman too > unsure of herself that was finally coerced into giving the answer > they know you want to hear.” > “My ex boyfriend went to . Most times he initiated > sex it would be really sudden, grabbing me, jumping on me etc. He > convinced me I ‘liked it like that’ but after sex I’d often > feel deflated and used. When I tried to talk about it with him he > would either be dismissive, gaslight-y or turn it around on me by > saying he felt uncomfortable when I asked for consent before > initiating sex.” > “I was raped by my then boyfriend … in 2018. We were sober and > lying in his bed about to go to sleep. I said that I didn’t want > to have sex but he didn’t take no for an answer. And I think > that’s the crux of rape culture: the idea that a man is > unconditionally entitled to a woman’s body … I told him to stop > a number of times but it kept going. Then he started attacking me > with his words. When I couldn’t take it anymore I said ‘fine, > make it quick’. I lay flat and still and stared at the back of his > room while he used my body as a hand. The next day I was confused, > repulsed and mentally unstable.” > “When I was in year 9 I stopped hanging out with a group of >  boys so I wouldn’t be in a position where I would be > pressured into giving oral when I didn’t want to. I had to > literally isolate myself from some of my guy ‘friends’ because > consent was not respected (even during the day when sober, not just > at night). If you were not ready for sex or not taking part you were > considered frigid, and bullied for it …” A number of testimonies indicate that the offenders had already participated in “consent” sessions. For instance: > “A  boy who I considered a friend, had sat in the > same auditorium as me, through the same consent education day our > schools held together. Three months later he raped me at a party. > It’s not just about consent education but entitlement.” > “It was last year in 2020, I was really drunk … He had been my > boyfriend for 11 months … I told him I didn’t want to have sex > … I was a virgin, he knew how important it was for me … He > proceeded to do it … He then broke up with me and proceeded to say > ‘I know I didn’t rape you, because I did a sexual consent course > at university and what I did was not rape’ the morning after it > happened. Knowing he was fully guilty …” Many of the testimonies demonstrate the limitations of the language of “choice” and “consent”. Girls often feel as though they didn’t really have a choice; consent became merely giving in, or passive compliance. One woman writes, eloquently, that “it’s this illusion of choice and illusion of consent that actually gaslights victims. I was coerced and forced to do something I didn’t not want to do without ever being asked if it was something I wanted at all.” Another writes, “I was educated to say ‘No’ I was never taught what to do if you get raped.” DE-RADICALISING BOYS These young women suffer the collateral damage of pornography’s distortion of male sexuality and disruption of developing sexual templates. “He would put me in uncomfortable positions that he had seen from porn websites”, one writes. The non-consensual circulation of video footage or images of the humiliation of these women — often referred to as “revenge porn” — is also a sickeningly common

theme.

Mindgeek

,

the Montreal-based parent company of Pornhub, the world’s largest purveyor of pornography, has been investigated by a Canadian Parliamentary special committee

and

is currently facing multiple lawsuits

—

including class-action suits filed in Quebec’s Superior Court and US federal courts in California and Alabama. The company is accused of profiting from the trafficking and production of child sexual exploitation material, and of hosting a large number of images and videos of women and girls being violated against their will

.

Any serious reckoning with the epidemic of sexual violence against women and girls must take into account the role played by these vast machines of misogyny in normalising and promoting that violence. I have a colleague who is a research scientist at Oxford University. He uses the pseudonym “James Evans” and has written profoundly

about

the need to “de-radicalise boys” by breaking the hold porn has over them. He describes how, through years of porn consumption, he “stopped seeing women as human beings.” Immersion in dehumanising online subcultures resulted in “a radicalisation behind laptop screens and smartphones that preaches the objectification, dehumanisation, and hatred of women and normalises sexual harassment, rape, and child abuse.” Evans said he needed to rebuild his sense of morality in order to “return to thinking that abuse is wrong and should be condemned and stopped, not something you masturbate to. I had to re-learn empathy. I had to start seeing women as human beings again and not just living sex dolls.” “Porn is every toxic male power fantasy, polished, scripted and in high definition”, Evans warns

.

“We’re looking at a future of far more widespread abuse against women and girls if we don’t de-radicalise men now.” Evans has joined other men in calling out porn’s life-warping and relationship destroying effects. My colleague Daniel Principe, who works with me in schools, recently shared his reflections

on

sexualised culture and the need to call boys to a higher standard. In the wake of Chanel Contos’s petition, the Headmaster of Cranbrook School, Nicholas Sampson, described

“readily

accessible pornography” as the “most pernicious and undermining of all” of the negative intersecting influences on young people. Cranbrook boys’ prefect, Asher Learmonth, wrote in the _Sydney

Morning Herald_

that

“women are completely and shamelessly over-sexualised — mere objects of our desires”, and he called for a radical shift in

behaviour.

It is good to see more boys and men doing what they can to interrupt the porn-inspired script. CONSENT IS NOT ENOUGH “Consent education” cannot compete with this mega-industry. Consent is important, but it is not women’s salvation. I fear we may start thinking of “consent” as a magic bullet to get us out of this mess. How can we hope to convince boys that “Girls aren’t sexual objects, so don’t treat them like pieces of meat”, when this global industry profits from indoctrinating them to see women as precisely that — just meat for their own enjoyment? Until governments and regulatory bodies step up and do something serious to protect young people from pornography’s malign influence, women and girls will remain at risk — and the aims of the National Plan to reduce violence against women and their children

will

not be realised.

One immediate action the federal government could take is to respond to the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Social Policy and Legal Affairs inquiry report , released this time last year ago. The Committee concluded that “age verification can create a significant barrier to prevent young people — and particularly young children — from exposure to harmful online content.” As Professor Michael Salter from the University of New South Wales recently remarked

:

> It is well past time we had a serious conversation about regulation > around adult content, we have age verification for online gambling > sites — there’s no reason why this should not be applied to > adult content sites as well. Basically we have an entire generation > exposed to this material really in the absence of any government or > industry regulation. It is this absence of an ethical and just response that is contributing to the de-humanising of women and girls, and to the inflicting of further physical injury and emotional damage. It also contributes to the severing of young men from their own humanity and their collective “moral injury” caused by participation in gravely unethical behaviour. Unless we address the malign effect of pornography, the testament of trauma that Chanel Contos has begun to compile will just keep growing. _As published on ABC Religion and Ethics.

_

MTR ON ABC BRISBANE  DRIVE WITH STEVE AUSTIN ABC Brisbane Radio’s Steve Austin interviewed MTR March 11 on her opinion piece published by ABC Religion and Ethics the day before. ‘MORE THAN 500 SEXUAL OFFENCES ON CHILDREN ON NSW SCHOOL GROUNDS

EVERY YEAR‘

> “Girls are assaulted in co-ed schools,” commentator Melinda > Tankard Reist said. “They tell me they’re actually assaulted > within the school grounds; they’re touched, they’re groped, > they’re being asked to send pictures.”

>

> Ms Tankard Reist regularly visits schools across the country to talk > to students about sexuality and says their stories are the same > regardless of whether the school is co-ed, public or private.

>

> “Boys look at porn in the classroom. I have year seven girls > asking me, ‘Can you please tell the boys to stop talking to us > about the porn they watch the night before?’

Full story here

.

MTR ON FUTURECAST

Posted by Publisher on March 8th, 2021 In this exclusive Futurecast video interview Sérgio Brodsky

speaks

with Journalist and Co-founder of Collective Shout

Melinda Tankard

Reist

about

the big issues of the pornification of culture and objectification of women, girls and people in general in the marketing and advertising

industry.

> From products to promotions, the overt and unnecessary sexualisation > of girls and women can negatively impact their sense of self, > self-worth, dignity, making them feel reduced to their bodies.

>

> It is this type of sexist advertising that desensitises society > against sexual harassment, sexual violence, coercive control and > makes boys tolerate such behaviours during their formative years and > eventually display those as adults.

>

> Time to make this damaging narrative a thing of the past. ‘I’VE HEARD IT FIRST-HAND’: KAMBALA PETITION JUST THE TIP OF THE

ICEBERG

Posted by Publisher on February 28th, 2021 DANIEL PRINCIPE HAS SPOKEN WITH STUDENTS ABOUT TOXIC SEXUALITY – AND HE WANTS US ALL TO DO BETTER

DANIEL PRINCIPE

| FEBRUARY

25, 2021|

WARNING: THIS ARTICLE DISCUSSES SEXUAL ASSAULT AND INCLUDES SOME GRAPHIC SEXUAL TERMS. On a whiteboard, I am writing a question to ask the Year 9 girls at Kambala School, in Rose Bay, Sydney – the same school making headlines because of a viral petition on sexual assault that was initiated by a former student

.

A petition that has dragged the ongoing issues of consent and problematic masculinity into the spotlight again in Australia, in the same week as Brittany Higgins’ revelations are challenging Federal Parliament’s culture. I was at Kambala late last year, beginning a day of workshops with my Collective Shout  colleague Melinda Tankard Reist. We were there to unpack sexualisation, objectification, and the harms of pornography. The question I put to the girls on the whiteboard was: “What does today’s society and culture value young girls for?” Before I even turned around and regained eye contact with the group, a voice from the crowd yells out: “Big b..bs!” Then from another: “Virgin-whores!” Devastating and honest. Before long, the whiteboard starts to look awfully familiar, like the previous whiteboards after every girl’s session I have run in schools such as Kambala. A sad indicator that the problems of teens and sex run deep and widespread. What does today’s society and culture value young girls for? Filling the whiteboard are shocking terms: “Sluts”, “whores”, “virgins”, “looking young”, “teen fetish”, “slim”, “hot”, “compliant”, and “submissive”. It is all so matter of fact from the Year 9 girls, though. With their permission and guided by their enthusiasm, we unpack how these toxic and pornified expectations manifest in their lives and influence how

boys treat them.

> “Don’t try to pressure me to do things I don’t want to do!” The girls effortlessly articulate and analyse the harmful messages forced on them through pop culture, music, advertising, social media

and pornography.

Their words echo the declarations I had gathered together previously from a group of Year 8 girls in Newcastle

:

“No means no and you aren’t going to change my mind!” “Stop making jokes about us and our bodies!” “Don’t try to pressure me to do things I don’t want to do!” “Respect me and my decisions!” “Rape jokes are never ok!” How has it come to this? Why are 11 and 12-year-old girls telling us about being sexually harassed, groped at school, pressured into sending sexual images? Why do year 7 girls ask us to tell the boys not to tell them about the porn they watched the night before? Why do girls think they can’t refuse unwanted sexual acts? After every school I visit, I keep returning to the same conclusion: we have abandoned our collective responsibility. We have allowed these girls to get into harm’s way. Yes, all of us, Australians. At the end of our sessions, the girls always plead with us to go to the nearby boys’ schools. “Have you been to . You need to go speak to them!” Graciously, they also acknowledge that they know boys are under

pressure too.

> The time is overdue to reimagine healthy expressions of masculinity

> …

During the past week, more than 2,500 stories of sexual assault have been collated through the Instagram petition

of

former Kambala student Chanel Contos. Many of us have been shocked and

horrified.

I must confess that I wasn’t shocked – because these stories reiterated the hundreds I had listened to within schools and churches all across Australia. These first-person accounts demand a cultural reckoning. The time is overdue to reimagine healthy expressions of masculinity and not settle for consent being the minimum standard of conduct expected of men and boys. Of course, not all boys are perpetrators; however, some are enablers or silent witnesses. Others do step in but are often punished by their

peers for doing so.

What do these responses say about us, especially us men and the culture we have created and the attitudes we have adopted? I am utterly convinced that the ubiquitous nature of pornography and social media are fuelling this misogyny, entitlement and callousness. The experiences of Collective Shout in schools and the anecdotal evidence provided by teenagers is confirmed by the latest research

.

The more frequently pornography is accessed, the more likely it is for the adolescent to have less social empathy and poorer social conduct. They also are more likely to sexually objectify women and have higher rates of narcissism. Whether we are parents, ministers, educators, sports coaches, youth leaders or mates, we all have a role and an opportunity to believe in our boys and encourage them to aspire to healthy expressions of manhood and masculinity. We also have the duty to model a better, healthier way to be men – especially if you are a man. > There are countless young boys desperate for a vision of manhood > worth aspiring to. In light of the recent accounts of sexual assault against young women, Tim Bowden – who is Head Master at Trinity Grammar School, a boys school in Sydney’s Inner West – articulates to parents why all people of goodwill ought to be aspiring for more for young men. “There are many decent, responsible and trustworthy boys and young men in our community who consistently demonstrate the very best qualities and traits for which we could hope,” writes Bowden. “Our goal is to help more and more of our boys become men whose actions are consistent with the Christian ethos that our School

espouses.”

Amidst such darkness and despair of the past week’s revelations due to Chanel’s petition, Bowden’s declaration of intent is the sort of moment that dares me to hope for a better future for our youth. There are countless young boys desperate for a vision of manhood worth aspiring to. They are wanting to unshackle the constraints of toxic expressions of masculinity centred on control and dominance. These young men recognise how porn culture is harming them and want to be men of integrity. Once given the tools to understand themselves and the culture around them, some young men recognise their sexist behaviour and attitudes and have publicly confessed and apologised to

girls

.

The ideal future where women and girls are safe, loved and respected is still a long way off but I know our hopes of arriving there will require us to recognise that we all participate in a sexualised culture. Even if we haven’t created it, we have tolerated it and allowed misogynistic attitudes to go unchecked. Knowing this, we must lament with these young women and say sorry to these young girls who we have failed. We must also promise to be better and do better. In doing so, we give boys the opportunity and the permission to see how the culture they live in shapes and conditions them with harmful ideas about masculinity and damaging attitudes toward women and girls. With this awareness, we can choose to come alongside young men and help them to reject social dictates and pressures and become good men who embrace a different narrative that looks more like love, listening, empathy and preferring the other. A different, better world where control and coercion are shunned in favour of personal and societal recognition of the dignity and humanity of all women and girls. _Daniel Principe is a speaker with Collective Shout and can be found at lastoftheromans.org _ _Reprinted from Eternity News

_

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* ‘Our students connected with her instantly’…‘Highly recommended- 10/10’ * The crisis of masculinity and the courage to be vulnerable: highlights from Toowoomba engagements * Why men need to de-radicalise from porn – I was one of them * MTR in Toowoomba and Adelaide for public events October and

November

* International Day of the Girl 2020 – Our long history of standing up for girls * Our first schools presentation in 6 months: it’s time to immunise students against harmful cultural messages! COLLECTIVE SHOUT: FOR A WORLD FREE OF SEXPLOITATION Copyright © 2021 Melinda Tankard Reist MTR PTY LTD All Rights

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