APS highlights concerns about the harmful impacts of pornography

Psychologists have long recognised the role pornography has played in the sexualisation of women and girls and its potential harmful effects on children and young people. However with the proliferation of the Internet, and the increasingly violent nature of much pornographic content, serious concerns are now emerging within and beyond psychology about the impact on young people's expectations of sex and sexuality, the role pornography plays in facilitating and normalising violence against women, and how it contributes more broadly to representations and normative understandings about sex, sexuality and gender in society Pornography has thus been implicated in a number of social issues that have been the subject of recent government inquiries. Through its advocacy, the APS has provided psychological knowledge to inform government policy and public debate in these areas, as outlined below.