With war, comes murder and rape Pornography is often blamed as the reason violence—especially violence against women—has escalated. That sounds clea
With war, comes murder and rape
Pornography is often blamed as the reason violence—especially violence against women—has escalated.
That sounds clean. It sounds decisive. It feels like an answer.
But history refuses to cooperate with that claim.
1. Sexual imagery existed long before modern violence narratives
Long before the internet…
Long before film…
Long before mass distribution…
Human beings were already creating sexual imagery.
Ancient Rome had explicit brothel art
Greek pottery depicted sexual acts
Temples in India carved sexuality into sacred spaces
Early texts described sex in detail, without shame
Pornography, in some form, has always been present.
And yet—so has violence. Against women and children for that matter.
2. Violence against women did not begin with porn
If porn were the root cause, we would expect violence to appear after its creation.
But history shows the opposite.
Women were treated as property in many societies
Marital rape was legal in many countries until the late 20th century
Enslaved Black women in the Americas were systematically raped with no legal protection (no remorse & no reparations to this day)
In many legal systems, a woman’s testimony was not considered equal to a man’s (and is not to this day)
Violence was structured. Protected. Normalized.
(not enough has changed)
3. War, mass violence, and what came home with it
This is where the conversation often goes silent—and it shouldn’t.
Across history, war has included large-scale sexual violence against women and children.
Here are just a few documented examples:
Nanjing Massacre
Tens of thousands of women and girls were raped by soldiers over weeks of occupation.World War II
“Comfort women” across Asia were forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese military.
Mass rapes also occurred across Europe during and after the war.Bosnian War
Rape camps were systematically used as a tool of ethnic cleansing.Rwandan Genocide
Hundreds of thousands of women were raped in a matter of months.Enslavement in the Americas (1600s–1800s)
Black women were routinely sexually violated, bred, and exploited—with no legal recourse.
And then something critical happened:
Many perpetrators were:
never prosecuted
lightly punished
or fully reintegrated into society without challenge
They returned home without accountability, rehabilitation, or even acknowledgment.
What happens when large-scale violence is practiced and never confronted?
It doesn’t disappear.
Sidebar: Though we are the primary targets, women and children are not alone as victims. I’ve personally spoken with men who were assaulted and violated by other men. Their fellow soldiers. Then retaliated against IF they chose to speak. It seems that this is not too uncommon, as the stories come from various fighting militaries around the globe.
It does not disappear.
It becomes embedded. Normalized into families, schools, communities, leadership, and institutions.
4. Not all women are having the same conversation
Here’s a truth that doesn’t get said out loud enough:
When some women confidently name porn as the cause of escalating violence,
other women—across regions and histories—are quietly thinking:
That’s not the whole story.
Because they’ve seen, lived, and survived through:
violence during war
violence in colonization
violence in displacement
violence in their own homes—long before internet access, at the hands of someone who did not buy the magazines or go to the peep shows or clubs.
Women from these realities understand something deeply:
Violence does not need porn to exist.
So when the conversation narrows,
It can feel incomplete, even disconnected from lived experience.
5. Porn may be a factor—but not the foundation
Let’s stay grounded.
Porn can:
reinforce harmful and violent ideas
shape expectations about sex
desensitize some viewers (especially young and immature viewers)
normalize aggression in certain contexts
- spread the sharing of images of children (*here is where the punishment ought to be set at a life in prison, including animal and non-consensual person abuse)
That matters.
But calling it the cause ignores systems that were already producing harm at scale around the globe.
Porn didn’t:
create war-time rape
- decide that some women were legal to rape (Black women, Native American women, immigrant women, women and men in prison, children in juvenile systems, children in foster homes, members of faith communities ……)
protect perpetrators
or silence victims—especially victims from marginalized communities
Those systems were already in motion.
6. What actually escalates harm
If we’re serious about reducing violence, we have to look deeper.
Escalation grows in environments where:
communities protect reputations over truth
- mental health and wellness is not addressed and prioritized
From global conflict…
to private homes.
7. Oversimplifying the problem delays real solutions
When everything is blamed on porn:
history gets erased
and patterns continue
It becomes easier to name one modern factor
than to confront generations of stored up and tolerated harm.
8. A more honest direction forward
If the goal is safety—not just argument—then the focus has to shift.
We need:
accountability that does not disappear after war or status
early, clear teaching of boundaries
systems that respond to violence consistently (regardless or race, sex, proximity to power)
cultural shifts that stop protecting harm
conversations that hold truth—even when it’s uncomfortable
We can’t continue to fear looking back to the roots of violence.
Porn didn’t invent violence. I am for standing against the devastation that it causes to children, animals, and non-consenting folks. The destruction. Heck, I confront it.
I remain concerned about what is happening with digital technology,
and using that against young people.
We must make this world habitable for women and girls…
Still, it is a tool for violence. A deadly one. And we still have women and men among us who support and uplift violent individuals who use every tool to be violent against women and children. Again and again. As if they are confused.
If you are confused, follow people who are clear. Follow people who can’t afford to be confused.
So clarity about the roots of violence is critical for all of us.
What perpetuates it? Who perpetuates it? Who is benefitting from the silenced voices of victims?
When we ignore the history of unchecked harm—from slavery across the globe (without reparation or remorse) to war zones to homes—we risk mistaking a symptom for the source while the real roots continue to grow.
People who do not engage in porn can still be unsafe and violent.
That is a remix of something we were told about “good people” when we were young.
Many of us are seasoned adults now. We know differently.
We also understand this:
Even when harm is right in front of you, those who don’t recognize it… often won’t act to stop it. In fact, you will return for more. Then say strange things like “no one could have predicted this.”
And that matters.
Because it means we cannot rely on misunderstanding to suddenly become protection.
We have to build awareness, accountability, and action—on purpose.
The Rwandan genocide unfolded over roughly 100 days — from April to July 1994. an estimated
800,000 people were murdered.
250,000 women were raped.
20,000 children were born.
Sending my love and heart to the Survivors of the Rwandan genocide today.
In the US, you can’t talk with some young people about (contemporary) porn being the root cause if you aren’t ready to talk about a few other very uncomfortable topics around sexual violence. They grew up with a computer in their pocket and elders with stories textbooks refuse to teach.