Aberystwyth Students' Union 'SHAG Campaign'
The sex industry is infiltrating universities by Ali Morris, FiLiA Wales VAWG Lead
“Student Unions have become a breeding ground for misogyny, male sexual entitlement and sexual predators. All packaged in pornographic wrapping.”
After a strong national campaign by feminist and women's organisations to get Leicester University to withdraw its 'Student Sex Work' Toolkit, here in Wales we see that this news has gone either un-noticed or wilfully ignored.
To its shame, Aberystwyth University Students' Union has proudly announced its very first SHAG Week. Publicised as Sexual Health Awareness and Guidance week, we have been confidently told that this will also be a year-long campaign.
Looking at this development, no one would think that we have recently had a national outcry around the pandemic levels of male sexual harassment against girls in schools and colleges. In Wales 61% of female students say they have experienced sexual harassment in school. It has become so normal that schools are missing it. Jayne Bryant MS concedes that 'the impact of sexual harassment on some learners is so severe that it not only affects their learning, it can affect their relationships, mental health, life prospects and – in the most serious of cases – lead to self-harm and suicide'. Welsh Government has recently implemented its RSE curriculum into schools to combat the rise in harmful narratives around sex and relationships and more importantly to counteract the fact that the majority of young people now get their sex education from violent and degrading pornography. Horrifyingly, research tells us that a third of young people have had their first exposure to pornography by aged 12. This includes intentional and unintentional viewing. Algorithms that diligently insert themselves into children's social media and electronic device usage.
Pornography is a poor sex educator. Pornography is far too explicit for younger children and teenagers to view. It shows sex in unrealistic ways and neglects intimacy and romance. More importantly, it grooms young people into an abusive relationship format in which there is a total absence of consensual love and intimacy.
Pornography is a nearly ubiquitous experience for adolescents and teenagers. The most
accessible and popular content is produced largely for a presumed adult, heterosexual
male consumer and almost always contains some level of violence, aggression and degradation, usually targeting women. Research consistently demonstrates that pornography consumption is associated with negative behavioural, emotional, and physical outcomes.
Several studies have directly explored pornography's impact on sexually aggressive behaviours amongst children and young people. Results have shown that exposure to pornography, especially violent pornography (of which most is), plays a strong role in the aetiology of sexual violence perpetration.
Over the past two decades or so, the scope, content, and influence of pornography has radically changed. No longer confined to the top shelf or under the counter, pornography now proliferates the mainstream culture through free, easily accessible, digital content. This proliferation is driven almost exclusively by the rise of the internet and the corresponding development of the modern digital pornography industry. Modern pornography is, at its core, a digital commercial development. Contrary to what the industry may want you to believe, it is not a reflection of innate male sexual desires, personal choice, or about free speech. Instead, digital pornography is an industrial scale product that occupies an estimated 20% of digital media. Porn sites received more website traffic in 2020 than Twitter, Instagram, Netflix, Zoom, Pinterest, and LinkedIn combined. Estimates place the industry’s value at around $97 billion, which is even bigger than Hollywood. However, unlike Big Tech companies such as Facebook, Apple and Google, who have come under increasing media and government scrutiny in recent years, the porn industry has mostly gone under the radar.
The company that dominates the modern digital pornography industry is Mindgeek.com, a multi-national, privately held technology company that bills itself as an industry leader in web design, information technology, web development, and search engine optimization. No mention at all in its biography of the global harm it causes.
Welsh media seems oblivious to the lives women lead here in Wales. The pandemic levels of poverty. Drug abuse and drug-related deaths at record levels. Women are forced into the sex industry to feed their children and to stay alive. Standing on street corners in all weathers, being violently assaulted and verbally abused by men who believe they are worthless. Having drug addictions to be able to get through the trauma. These are the mainstay of women in prostitution. Why then does the Welsh media insist on churning out the narrative of the 'Happy Hooker'. Young women whose lives are now improved because they have entered the sex industry. Wales Online must either have a team of misogynists at its helm, have shares in Mindgeek or are simply wilfully oblivious to the truth. Why else would they constantly groom girls and women like this? And more importantly, why would they wilfully misrepresent the truth and refuse to run articles that counteract this narrative?
You may be wondering why on earth I appear to have taken a curve and am talking about pornography. This is why. Pornography is the ground on which all young people walk. Pornography is the milk on which all young people have been nurtured. It is in the air they breathe. Most don't know a life without it being somewhere in their direct and peripheral vision. So, this is why the pornography debate is so crucial and integral to Aberystwyth Students' Union decision to set up SHAG week and its year long campaign.
On its website, Aberystwyth Students’ Union states: “Your SU President Ash (Aisleen Sturrock) is focused on making sure it is accessible to receive sexual healthcare and information, and lessening the stigma and shame given to being sex positive." Here is laid out the core aims of the event, all neatly packaged around the headline of being 'sex positive'. A fun packed harmless week with not a hint of controversy. But not surprisingly, as Aberystwyth University is a university of wide demographics, controversial it is.
Many female students were outraged at the campaign. A group aged 21 – 28 were so outraged that they contacted the Cambrian newspaper anonymously with their concerns. They believe that the latest cohort at the university – and particularly young women – will feel pressured into sex as they start life on campus. The group of women told the Cambrian News they are concerned the events will normalise extreme fetishes, ‘porn-addled’ male violence and objectification - which could also lead to sexual harassment and even assault. One stated “There is a lot of pressure to have sex as a young woman starting university, and there can be coercion to do things we are not comfortable with or be accused of being frigid or a prude". They don't feel comfortable discussing openly the discomfort on this subject because as they said, they get labelled as 'boring, heteronormative types'.
Many older female students recognise the link between pornography and the hypersexualised behaviour associated with SHAG Week and university in general but feel unable to speak out. They recognise the further normalisation of fetish, and often violent sex practices, such as breath play, BDSM, slapping and spitting etc. The inclusion of a Kink Workshop has caused particular disgust and concern. How behaviours seen as violent, degrading and downright dangerous and possibly criminal only a few years ago are now peddled as enjoyable, sexy and something to aspire to is baffling. As noticed by those who do not ascribe to this position, they are seen as the ones who are out of step with their sexual bodies, out of step with their real needs.
I have been contacted by a female mature student at Aberystwyth University who is desperate to put a stop to what she describes as "young women who feel let down by current sex-positive, anything goes, everything is empowering as long as you ‘choose’ it, liberal feminism". She says this has particularly been the case for the young female students, who seem glad to talk with someone they can trust, someone unafraid to speak plainly about issues affecting women today. Her concerns about not fitting in have in fact proved to be the opposite. Young women brought up on a diet of violent sex, the 'sex work is work' narrative and who are afraid to talk about their sex-based rights without being called a bigot welcome the words and support of an older woman who has known a life without all this.
Female students quite rightly ask the question of why, when the campaign is supposedly about promoting sexual health, information and safety they promote sex practices that do the opposite of that. The workshop themes of aerial fitness, clitararti art and kink follow a pornographic script with risky sexual health messages. Changing language to imply fun and education, and to sanitise behaviour that is ultimately about risk-taking and pushing boundaries is both foolhardy and dangerous. 'Aerial fitness' is pole dancing however you frame it. 'Kink' is strangling, spitting and whipping however you frame it. So much for improving sexual health and safety.
What is clear from this latest controversy is that universities and student unions have become a breeding ground for misogyny, male sexual entitlement and sexual predators. All packaged in pornographic wrapping. The Everyone's Invited campaign saw thousands of female students submit their experiences of rape and sexual harassment on campus. Not a week goes by without us hearing of 'lad culture' and how this affects female students' ability to participate fully in university life – educationally and socially.
What students' unions don't appear to understand is that this so-called pro-sex culture has a direct negative impact on the lives of its female students. What 'pro-sex' really means is that young women are conditioned to be 'porn ready'. Conditioned to believe that violence, abuse and degradation in sexual relationships is empowering and fun. Conditioned to believe that if they don't participate then they are missing out, boring or even worse, no man will ever want them. Conditioned to play out the scenes men watch in pornography and want to replicate.
The anonymous female student told me that yes, of course, sex should be fun when you have it, but that sex positivity just seems to mean women accepting everything that porn has made popular – choking, slapping, being spat on and BDSM.
The SHAG Campaign uses sexual scripts learnt by young people whose lives have been influenced, shaped and manipulated by the billion-dollar sex industry.
What is 'sex positive' anyway? Feminists have always seen their bodies and sex as the ground where they can make their own decisions and choices. And that means saying 'no' without any consequences. In a carefully constructed move along the lines of 'sex work is real work', the sex industry along with the support of queer theorists have invented this idea. Sex positive now simply means pro-pornography and pro-sex industry. An area of life where you can create whatever identity you wish and play it out. In a society where identity politics is so prominent, identities can seemingly be created from anything. Whatever queer theory and the SHAG Campaign want you to believe, being pro-sex is not an identity. The website states that this Campaign is to be a trans, non-binary and LGBQUIA+ inclusive campaign. No mention of the other protected characteristics such as disability, race or sex. Another way to colonise huge groups of young people into thinking that alienates and obscures the needs of women. Patriarchy yet again finding another way to pit women against each other and fool them into thinking that being involved in the sex industry is empowering.
For all their policies around keeping women safe, their talk about the importance of boundaries and consent, the University and Students' Union is blowing hot air. The SHAG Campaign flies in the face of all of that. They cannot be and are not compatible with each other. As the aforementioned student told me "Workshops on pole dancing and kink are too heavily focussed on men pleasing. We are fed up being told what women should enjoy." But this is what pornography does. This is its aim.
Aberystwyth university should get a backbone and regain control of a group of entitled young people who silence debate, have lost the art of critical thinking and truly believe that what they are doing is right. Too many universities are letting our young people down. There is already a mental health crisis amongst students which is being neglected. Throw unrealistic expectations around sexual behaviour and relationships on top of this and you have a potential disaster. The violent fantasies and desires of men play out on the bodies of women. Collateral damage in the sex industry's battle for control of our bodies. The porn industry profits from exploiting, objectifying, abusing and humiliating women. It has also deeply and negatively affected countless women’s lives whose images have been shared without consent.
Put simply, the porn industry profits from women’s abuse and degradation. Without the abuse of women's bodies, the porn industry would not be as profitable or as influential. We cannot allow any more women to be fodder for their industry.
Student unions have created a powerful niche for themselves, driving forward messages that put the reputation of their university in danger. While we live in a culture of league tables and statistics, universities cannot afford unruly students' unions to drag their positions down. Foreign students make up a large part of UK numbers, bringing in income necessary for many universities to survive. Campaigns like SHAG will not sit well with many foreign students.
If Aberystwyth university should know anything, it is that feminists and anti-pornography/anti-prostitution activists don't give up easily. We succeeded in getting the Sex Work Toolkit at Leicester university withdrawn and we will succeed in getting the SHAG Campaign withdrawn.