There are figures that pierce us like daggers and, even as they bleed us as a society, they seem to matter little. One of them is the statistic highlighted by Lluis Ballester, professor at the Faculty of Education of the Universitat de les Illes Balears (UIB) and researcher: “Between thirteen and eighteen years old, 25% of Spanish adolescents will consume an average of 1,000 hours of pornography.”
And, what is the result of this? The answer is none other than the socialization of young people in sexual violence against women and the rise of sexual crimes at progressively younger ages. In fact, as the State Attorney General’s Office acknowledged in its latest annual report—and through the youth sections of territories such as Tenerife, Madrid, Alicante, Seville, Balearic Islands, Ourense, Valladolid or Barcelona—the situation is one to make you take a good look. The body expressed “serious concern and alarm” over the “increase and surge of increasingly violent behaviors carried out by minors” and produced, among other reasons, by “early access to pornography and the trivialization of sexual relations”.
“Football was free and pornography was coded, now pornography is free and football is coded”
Si hace unos años, tal y como expresa Jorge Gutiérrez Berlinches, director e impulsor de Dale Una Vuelta, “el fútbol era gratis y la pornografía estaba codificada, ahora la pornografía es gratis y el fútbol está codificado”. Una gratuidad que las plataformas de esta industria patriarcal aprovecharon para explotar a partir de la COVID y que los medios, lejos de informar de las consecuencias, y la sociedad aplaudieron como lo más. Desde entonces este elefante en la habitación es un problema de salud pública ingente que nos está aplastando sobre todo a las mujeres.
La pornografía enseña a violar
According to various studies, watching porn is tantamount to committing sexual violence. “The minors who consume pornography are 6.5 times more likely to perpetrate sexually aggressive behaviors within a 36-month period” than those who do not watch it. This consumption is directly proportional to the increase in group rapes.
As denounced in the book Violación grupal en España. Contexto, memoria social, análisis de casos 2016-2024 y prevención, published by Feminicidio.net, although group assaults represent a minority of sexual offenses (police sources place them between 5.6% and 3.9% of reported rape cases), the accumulated total for 2018-2024 sums to 3,737 multiple sexual assaults, of which 1,275 were rapes, while non-penetrative cases were 2,462.
“Viewing high-risk pornographic content drives some young people to identify models where pleasure is greater when sex is conducted in a group, and sometimes under the influence of drugs”
Another alarming and unstoppable spiral that Diana Díaz Álvarez, head of the Help Lines of the Fundación ANAR, also denounces. “Viewing high-risk pornographic content leads some youngsters to identify models where more pleasure is found when sex is performed in a group, and sometimes under the influence of drugs (including chemical submission), where there is no consent or willingness on the victim’s part. Youth discover that not only is carrying out these degrading acts reinforcing, but also posting them and sharing them through technology. All these causes drive a normalization of something that is clearly harmful to minors with very serious consequences for them and for our society.”
In the same vein, Ana de Blas, journalist and coauthor of Violación grupal en España, agrees. The author highlights two factors in these crimes: “On the one hand, they are characterized by extreme violence against women and girls, and on the other, by the young age of the offenders in group sexual crimes.” “In half of the cases the perpetrators were twenty-one or younger. In one out of four cases, both perpetrators and victims were minors (25.8%). Furthermore, the more men are involved in a multi-offender case, the younger they tend to be. Groups of three or more aggressors are often teenagers who employ a great deal of physical and verbal violence in longer assaults.”
On the side of those who suffer the physical and psychological consequences of these rapes in Spain, one in three victims are girls and adolescent girls under the age of eighteen (32.8% according to the criminological report of the Ministry of Interior and 38% in the 364 cases analyzed by Feminicidio.net).
Caldo de cultivo de las manadas
With the data in hand, it is undeniable that the packs consume and produce pornography. “The connection with pornography is bidirectional: the pornification of rapes—recorded and shared, turning into widely disseminated pornographic material—are part of the behavioral patterns of groups organized for sexual crime. In the set of cases compiled by Feminicidio.net, there are photographs or videos of the assault in 42 cases, or 12% of the total,” notes De Blas.
Moreover, as points out Mónica Alario Galván, an international doctor in Gender Studies and author of Política sexual de la pornografía, “the relationship between pornography and group rapes is very clear.” “A large portion of the most consumed pornography depicts situations of group sexual violence. The video recorded by the Sanfermines pack, with 225 million views, ended up having more than twice as many views as the next most-watched video on online pornography sites.”
“The trivialization of pornographic practices characterized by violence, humiliation and dehumanization of women enables imitation by rapist groups”
New porn, or no porn as it is colloquially called on the internet and social networks, shows and imposes, according to Lluis Ballester in the work Nueva pornografía y cambios en las relaciones interpersonales de adolescentes y jóvenes, “an unequal relationship model, in which the woman is reduced to a sexual object available to the man”. “Not only are high-risk and violent situations shown—along with a spread of the most troubling gender stereotypes: the man always has sexual desire and the woman is there to satisfy that desire.”
According to Feminicidio.net and corroborated by psychologist Marc Ruiz, “for a young man, the phrase «vamos de putas» is the chance to reaffirm himself before the most important tribunal that will judge his masculinity—his peers.” “The fact of being in a group adds an element of homoeroticism and dilutes responsibility.” We have a fertile ground for the emergence of packs of sexual offenders,” he asserts.
As if that were not enough, De Blas notes, in relation to group rape, one of these pornographic rituals is the so-called gang bang, “a genre within this industry, in which several men sexually subdue a woman.” A variant of this is the bukkake, “in which a group of men ejaculates on her.” “The trivialization of these pornographic practices characterized by violence, humiliation and dehumanization of women makes it possible for imitation by groups of rapists. In some cases, the perpetrators even put the recorded material up for sale or use it as a basis for sexual blackmail.”
“For young men, the phrase «vamos de putas» is the opportunity to reaffirm themselves before the most important tribunal—peers—who will judge their masculinity”
A la hora de evaluar, “these humiliating and violent practices in pornography converge with the prostitution system, creating an amalgam that makes sexual violence a criminal enterprise and a political tool, both a cause and a consequence of gender inequality.” In this light, “economic and masculine privilege are reinforced in a context that does not sanction either prostitution or pornography, which are increasingly interrelated.” “Pornography and prostitution are the epitome of power over women: they practice and teach the normalization of female sexual submission in a society where they are not legitimate“, adds the journalist.
The writer also emphasizes that the group rape of adolescents “forms part of the psychological-damage and indoctrination strategies to push them into the prostitution industry, and thus is referred to by survivor women and trauma experts. It is also an especially harmful practice for the perpetrators and a torture technique used by pimps and traffickers.
Furthermore, De Blas points out that this is not the only line that connects group rape with prostitution. There are “zones of tolerance” for which there are no records, “led by men with enough economic power who resort to the organized prostitution system as sexual fraternities without breaching legality in countries without abolitionist legislation, like ours.” “The emergence of these practices only occurs if information comes to light due to political interests or if legal boundaries are crossed by age or serious accompanying violence.”
La sociedad va tarde
Thus, and given the enormous damage already inflicted, public administrations, society and even families are late to respond. Patching up with band-aids or the government’s app to compel porn platforms to verify users’ ages and block access to inappropriate content when necessary, or the government’s recent announcement to prohibit under-16s from accessing social networks achieve little when these porn sites circulate anywhere in the world and what is blocked somewhere appears elsewhere. Budgets must be allocated commensurate with the problem, there must be a push for comprehensive education and a genuine effort to fight gender-based violence through awareness-raising.
Until any of this happens, the youth—the women and men of tomorrow—will continue to lack social skills, endure sexual maladjustment and normalize sexist conduct and sexual crimes. As Rosa Cobo, doctor of Political Sciences and Sociology and a lecturer in Sociology at the University of A Coruña, argues, “allowing pornography to continue growing with these misogynist narratives is the enabling condition for gender inequality to persist. At the heart of pornography lie desire, domination and violence together.
