November 25th was the United Nations Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women and Girls. In commemoration, the Cambridge Union hosted a speaker panel – featuring Sharon Gaffka, Soma Sara, and Jane Houng – that I was fortunate enough to co-moderate. When asked how to proactively reduce the ubiquitous culture of male-on-female abuse and exploitation, Gaffka declared “parents have to be able to sit down with their children and have conversations about what [kind of content] they’re able to access on the internet.”

Sex is our elephant in the room: we all know about it, we never want to recognise we know about it, and, most importantly, we never want to talk about it. And it is long overdue to change that narrative.

The stigma around sex stems from a myriad of value systems – but they all braid into a single thread of ‘good character’ or virtuousness; we’ve constructed a conversational taboo around the topic in order to not inadvertently encourage or promote the act. The issue is, keeping our mouths shut builds boxes of privacy and isolation around us all. And without discourse, we have no idea what’s taking place inside each of these boxes.

“Sex is our elephant in the room – we never want to talk about it”

Psychology Today reports that “more than 75% of prime-time programming contains some form of sexuality” – meaning, whether or not we want to openly acknowledge it, the reality remains that most kids have already been exposed to sex. And although parents understand the normality of sexual relations in human society, their reluctance to engage in conversation pushes the notion that kids ought to feel ashamed or embarrassed by their curiosity. The problem, then, is not that children encounter sexual content – but that they encounter it without guidance, context, or language for consent. A report by Common Sense Media in 2022 found that the majority of the teen respondents aged 13 to 17 had watched pornography online. But my primary concern lies in the reported statistic that 80% of parents are unaware of their child’s exposure to pornography on mobile devices. When parents refuse to communicate, and kids are left to their own devices (literally), they begin learning from pornography.

According to a meta-analysis of 46 different studies, “if you watch pornography you have a 31% increased risk of […] believing things that would reduce your empathy for a rape victim or lead you to blame a rape victim for being assaulted.” That’s because the porn industry thrives off of the perceptual degradation of women and their right to physical agency, emphasising the power and control men can exert over their female counterparts. Strength, force, and a lack of consent are marketed as sensual, erotic, and attractive.

Currently, 88.2% of pornographic videos contain physical violence or aggression, 48.7% contain verbal aggression, and “women were almost always the targets”. Kids or adolescents watching these videos without any contrasting opinion or discussion leads them onto a road of confusion, misinformation, and often, belief; not because exposure guarantees harm, but because it becomes the primary – and often only – framework through which sex is understood. Mainstream pornography systematically dehumanises women; and when someone’s humanity or personhood is stripped away it becomes infinitely easier to justify committing acts of violence against them.

The problem deepens when adolescents begin to flounder without a vehicle to interpret this content: when kids’ only exposure to sex is violent or exploitative behavior, the next question posed by that is, “how can I reach that position?”. That’s where ‘red-pill’, ‘incel’, and ‘black-pill’ content fills in the gaps. Influencers like Andrew Tate garner success through their perversion of ‘masculinity’ and their black and white explanations for navigating romantic or sexual relations. The BBC reported in February 2025 that “Tate was banned from Twitter for saying women should “bear responsibility” for being sexually assaulted.” As of today, Tate has become synonymous with the ‘red-pill’ movement, with 54% of children aged 6-15 having heard of him, and one in six boys holding a positive opinion.

“This argument is not a claim that violence against women is inevitable in a digital age, it is categorically the opposite”

Andrew Tate, and other content creators who combine to form the ‘manosphere’, condition boys into believing that the subjugation of women is not only desired, but necessary in order to maintain respect or authority. Soon, boys begin subconsciously adopting Tate’s misogynistic paradigm for relationships and the role men play in them. A contributor to The Guardian interviewed one of Tate’s ‘success stories’: “when I show Enys a […] clip of Tate saying he’d moved to Romania because of its less stringent attitude to rape accusations, [… he] said he didn’t support such a warped point of view. But in the same interview, Enys looked directly at the camera and ­chuckled: “You women out there, you like a man who’s controlling, and you know that.””

In Australia, researchers at Curtin University say the ‘manosphere’ appeals to men, because “many are dealing with issues such as ‘romantic rejection’, ‘alienation’ and ‘loneliness’”. ‘Red-pill’ creators make men feel as though they hold some ‘secret key’ to attracting women – and at the point that they start actually using this key, they are too convinced of the cogency of the argument to realise they’re exhibiting the same behavior that got Tate placed on a travel ban in Romania.

This argument is not a claim that violence against women is inevitable in a digital age, it is categorically the opposite. The popularity of violent pornography and incel rhetoric isn’t accidental – it thrives in the absence of honest, sustained conversations about sex and relationships. For example, providing an explicit framework around consent prevents the weaponisation of systemic gender-based power dynamics to be viewed as attractive or masculine. The benefits of open conversations extend to men as well. The aforementioned Common Sense Media study revealed that less than half of teen respondents had discussed pornography with a trusted adult, and of that, 71% agreed the conversation “made [them] feel like there are helpful resources other than pornography to explore sex or [their] sexuality.” By exposing the notion that pornography epitomises the ‘ideal’ relationship for exactly what it is – a masquerade built on the exploitation of women – it no longer exists as an unattainable standard for boys to compare themselves to; thereby breaking the cycle which pushes them into unhealthy media consumption in the first place.

Jaclyn Friedman, a survivor of sexual assault, speaks poignantly on this topic: “When I was 20 years old, I was sexually assaulted by someone I knew. […] In the aftermath, it became clear that this was […] a guy who had never once considered the concept of consent, and one who definitely didn’t think he would face any consequences if he just took what he wanted. […] The guy who hurt me had been failed by his sex and relationships education, and I have been forever harmed by the education he didn’t get.”

Silence in the face of stigma does not preserve innocence. It merely decides who is denied it first.