We need to talk about p*rn and allyship. Can men really be allies in the workplace if they watch p*rn privately?

We need to talk about p*rn. 

Yes, p*rn. 

We cannot talk about DEI, allyship and all of that good stuff without talking about p*rnography, the sex industry and the huge impact it has on how women are viewed and treated, even subconsciously. It has a well researched negative impact, increasing feelings of misogyny for those who view porn regularly, and contributes hugely to the objectification or dehumanising of women, and how women are viewed as worth less than men, and only valued for their looks. 

Of course this spills over into the workplace, how could it not??? Yet I don't hear people talking about how secret p*rn habits are holding back workplace DEI efforts or people's ability to be genuine allies. And we need to. 

Today, the Children's Commissioner Dame Rachel de Souza released a report into the impact p*rnography has for children on their body image, relationships and self-esteem, as well as highlighting children's exposure to p*rn. 

No prizes for guessing that it has a damaging impact, with an rising percentage of boys expecting girls to enjoy and want violence as part of intimacy because it's so normal in p*rn. They don't check with girls that this is true before they try it out on them, and girls are being strangled, beaten and more in a misguided attempt to turn them on as boys emulate.

79% of young people have seen violent p*rn before the age of 18, (degrading behaviour, coercion or pain-inducing acts), and the report highlights that frequent viewers of porn are more likely to engage in these kinds of acts themselves. 

Andrew Tate's misogynystic version of masculinity is insanely popular; his videos have been viewed 11.6bn times on tiktok alone, the equivalent of every man globally seeing his content 4 times. Misogyny and objectifying women is popular. 

The vast majority of p*rn shows women in a dehumanising and negative light. Objects to be used and abused. Objects to be ridiculed, humiliated and looked down on. The degradation of women is the main product of the p*rn industry, and it is highly linked to human trafficking. The demand for p*rn fuels trafficking of women and children. 

It isn't possible that anyone who consumes p*rn, is a true ally to women and views women as equal to them, as people of value and people worth listening to. In p*rn the women are genuinely being violated, hurt and abused, it's not acting, what you see on screen is what is actually happening to the women. 

Watching p*rn for 'entertainment' privately, then pretending to be an ally to women at work, is incongruent at best, and certainly deluded.

It's not an easy conversation, but it's one that needs airing. I would like to see all people, especially men, that consider themselves genuine allies to women, denounce all pornography and the sex industry, and call out their friends who consume it. Let's create social pressure to make p*rn as socially unacceptable as domestic violence. 

How to quit the cult of busy

Have you joined a cult by accident?

The cult I'm referral to is the cult of busy.

'If you're not tired, stressed and busy beyond belief, you're not trying hard enough'.

This would be the strap-line for the cult of busy. And it's gifts would be exhaustion, low self-worth and the feeling that there's always more you should be getting done or achieving. 

It was all well and good in the pre COVID-19 world. Getting up early to meditate and exercise, rush to work while listening to a podcast, work a long day with barely a break, squeeze in a social/gym/shopping something or other on the way home, get home, see the kids and get them to bed, thenzone out to netflix until it's a bit too late, and jump into bed knowing you'll be tired tomorrow because it's only 6 hours until the alarm goes off. Exhausted just typing that let alone doing in day in, day out, week in week out.

If someone asked if you had a free space in your diary to meet up, you'd check and see the next free weekend was one evening in July or after that, in October you had a Saturday free at a pinch.

Here's the thing. You've been so busy doing, that not being productive all the time and squeezing the very most out of every waking second feels wrong. It feels like you're underachieving.

But now that we're in lockdown, the result of accidentally joining the cult of busy is that you're stressed all the time that you're not achieving enough and giving yourself a hard time.

What if the answer was not to manage yourself better to do more, but to BE more instead. Be not do. Sit with your feelings. Acknowledge and process your anger, anxiety and feelings about your life in general. Put your wellbeing first instead of productivity.

Do you really still want to be a member of the cult of busy? Is it serving you, your health and your self-worth? Long term is this really how you want your life to be? Is your life designed the way you really want it to be?

This pandemic is a fantastic opportunity to slow down and take stock, and ask yourself what truly matters. When you know (and it'll turn out to be health, family and impact in the world), then how about you stop giving yourself a hard time about not achieving enough, and reframe what achievement really is.

Is success productivity, consumption and busy-ness? Or is it health, family and impact in the world, all in balance? Only build the future you really want. You have the chance to start over. I'd take it if I were you.