• David Corlett, Maree Crabbe
• The Victorian Womens Trust

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14 February 2011Over the past decade or so, pornography has become both more mainstream and more hardcore.

Technology has played a significant role in these shifts. For young people growing up in this era of ever-new and accessible technology, it is almost impossible to avoid exposure to pornography.

Consumption, particularly for young men, has become normalised. And the ways young people understand and experience gender and sex are being influenced by what they—or their partners or peers— observe in porn. Pornography now enjoys unprecedented legitimacy around the world.

Pornography and the ‘pornified aesthetic’ are found throughout popular culture. Porn has come out of its ‘brown paper bag’ and into the mainstream.