Liz Claiborne sponsors the Love Is Not Abuse program. This July 8 press release reports that teen and tween dating abuse is a serious problem. Parents get the brunt of the blame, but the role of porn deserves more attention. Porn is known to encourage abusive attitudes, and the average age of first exposure to porn is currently 11.
New
Research Indicates That Significant Numbers Of Children As Young As 11
Are Engaging In Sexual Activity And That Dating Violence And Abuse Are
Part Of Their Relationships
Attorney
General Patrick C. Lynch, President Of The National Association Of
Attorneys General, Launches A Nationwide Initiative To Establish
Curricula On Teen Dating Abuse In Schools
The nation’s leading experts find the number of tweens in abusive relationships staggering
Washington, D.C. – July 8, 2008 – A new survey reports today that a
surprising number of young adolescents are experiencing significant
levels of dating violence and abuse. One in five children between the
ages of 13 and 14 (20%) say their friends are victims of dating
violence and nearly half of all tweens in relationships say they know
friends who are verbally abused. Alarmingly, 40% of the youngest
tweens, those between the ages of 11 and 12, report that their friends
are victims of verbal abuse in relationships and nearly 1 in 10 (9%)
say their friends have had sex.
Liz Claiborne Inc. and loveisrespect.org, National Teen Dating Abuse
Helpline, commissioned the survey on Tween and Teen dating
relationships that was conducted by Teenage Research Unlimited (TRU) to
explore how relationships among young adolescents are fueling high
levels of dating violence and abuse.
Attorneys General President, Patrick C. Lynch of Rhode Island Takes Action
Recognizing the significance of this alarming trend in tween sexual
activity and dating abuse, President of the National Association of
Attorneys General (NAAG), Rhode Island Attorney General Patrick C.
Lynch, along with Nebraska Attorney General Jon Bruning, introduced an
unprecedented initiative at NAAG’s June meeting to ensure that all
Attorneys General work to incorporate a teen dating violence and abuse
curriculum in every school in their states.
“Over the past four years Liz Claiborne Inc. has conducted research
into the many aspects of teen dating abuse. What makes this current
study so disturbing is the clear and unexpected finding that dating
abuse and violence begins at such a young age,” says Jane Randel, Vice
President, Corporate Communications, Liz Claiborne Inc. “We applaud the
willingness of Attorney General Lynch to push for the introduction of
education about dating abuse in schools across the country. This
research shows just how urgently this information is needed.”
This Teen Dating Violence Education Resolution is inspired by the
Lindsay Ann Burke Act, a law proposed by Attorney General Lynch that
became effective in Rhode Island in July 2007. The Act, named in the
honor of Lindsay Ann Burke, who was murdered after a 2-year struggle in
an abusive relationship, requires all school districts in Rhode Island
to teach about the signs of dating violence and abuse every year from
grades 7- 12. Attorney General Lynch and Lindsay’s parents, Ann and
Christopher Burke, will join Jane Randel at a press conference to
announce the data findings and the Attorneys General new initiative to
combat dating abuse.
“We are committed to addressing this issue through education. Abuse and
violence in intimate partner relationships not only cause great
individual pain, but this destructive behavior breaks down families,
communities and our larger society,” says Attorney General Lynch. “A
curriculum such as Liz Claiborne Inc.’s Love Is Not Abuse is an
effective way to begin the process of education, prevent abuse and help
to save lives.”
Liz Claiborne Inc.’s Love Is Not Abuse curriculum aims to raise
awareness about the problem of dating abuse, recommend resources that
provide assistance, such as loveisrespect.org, National Teen Dating
Abuse Helpline, and ultimately, help prevent dating abuse from
occurring in the future. The curriculum was piloted around the country
in October 2005 and was officially launched in April 2006. As of June
2008, this free curriculum has been distributed to approximately 3,500
schools and organizations across all 50 states.
Experts comment on alarming findings and support education initiatives
To help analyze the new survey findings, Liz Claiborne Inc. recruited
the country’s top ten leading experts on tween and teen dating abuse to
assess the data. Experts found high levels of tween and teen dating
abuse combined with a lack of knowledge from both parents and children
on the signs of harmful dating. The results clearly imply that there is
a great need for more parental education and involvement, and schools
need to institute teen dating abuse curriculum beginning as early as
6th grade.
“The survey’s data on the extent of emotional and controlling behaviors
among tweens are the most critical additions to our current knowledge
of abuse in adolescent relationships,” says Dr. Elizabeth Miller,
Assistant Professor in Pediatrics at the U.C. Davis School of Medicine.
“The numbers of tweens in relationships who report experiencing
emotional abuse and controlling behaviors are staggering. Clearly this
shows that many young people are already experiencing unhealthy
relationships early on (even in the absence of sexual activity), many
recognize these behaviors as not acceptable, but few know where to seek
help or how to help a friend.”
Among the key findings:
Dating relationships begin much earlier than expected
- Nearly three in four tweens (72%) say boyfriend/girlfriend relationships usually begin at age 14 or younger.
- More than one in three 11-12 year olds (37%) say they have been in a boyfriend/girlfriend relationship.
Surprising levels of abusive behavior reported in tween (11-14) dating relationships.
- 62%
of tweens who have been in a relationship say they know friends who
have been verbally abused (called stupid, worthless, ugly, etc) by a
boyfriend/girlfriend. - Two
in five (41%) tweens who have been in a relationship know friends who
have been called names, put down, or insulted via cellphone, IM, social
networking sites (such as MySpace and Facebook), etc. - One
in five 13-14 year olds in relationships (20%) say they know friends
and peers who have been struck in anger (kicked, hit, slapped, or
punched) by a boyfriend or girlfriend. - Only half of all tweens (51%) claim to know the warning signs of a bad/hurtful relationship.
Significant
numbers of teens (15-18) are experiencing emotional and mental abuse as
well as violence in their dating relationships; this is even more
prevalent among teens that have had sex by the age of 14.
- More
than one in three teens report that their partners wanted to know where
they were (36%) and who they were with (37%) all the time. - Among teens who had sex by age 14, it’s much higher (58% and 59%, respectively).
- 29% of teens say their boyfriends/girlfriends call them names and put them down, compared to 58% of teens who had sex by age 14.
- 22% of teens say they were pressured to do things they did not want to do, compared to 45% of teens who had sex by age 14.
- 69% of all teens who had sex by age 14 said they have gone through one or more types of abuse in a relationship.
“As a sexuality educator, it is impossible for me to look at this data
without acknowledging the cultural implications and perhaps reasons for
the statistics,” says Dr. Logan Levkoff, PhD, Author, and Human
Sexuality Expert. “I believe the biggest problem is that parents are
not doing their job. Parents are not talking to their teens about
healthy and responsible sexuality.”
The survey found that parents think they know about their tweens dating
experiences, but many are in the dark about what their kids are
actually doing. Results show that:
- More
than three times as many tweens (20%) as parents (6%) admit that
parents know little or nothing about the tweens’ dating relationships. - Twice as many tweens report having “hooked up” with a partner (17%) as parents reported of their own 11-14 year old child (8%).
“The survey data demonstrates that although parents maintain they are
discussing relationships with their teens, this is not the same as
discussing violence and abuse in relationships,” says Cindy Southworth,
Director of Technology, National Network to End Domestic Violence. “It
is clear parents need to talk to teens/tweens and schools need to
encourage healthy relationship programs at an earlier age. The survey
indicates that ‘tweens are involved in relationships that they consider
serious,’ therefore parents need to talk prevention before dating
starts. In the same way that parents currently tell 5- year olds that
smoking is bad, they need to say that people who love each other
shouldn’t hit/punch/kick/hurt each other.”
Survey Methodology
Liz Claiborne Inc. commissioned Teenage Research Unlimited (TRU) to
conduct quantitative research among tweens (ages 11-14), parents of
tweens, and teens (ages 15-18) who have been in a relationship. The
research pertained to young dating relationships and the
presence/absence of sexual activity and abusive behaviors. TRU
independently sampled the three groups and fielded a customized
15-minute survey online to each group from January 2-18, 2008; TRU
chose online as the data-collection method for this research not only
because of its high penetration (92%) among this population, but also
because of the sensitive nature of the content, allowing young people
to answer candidly (i.e., no adult interviewer) within the context of
their preferred communications method. A total of 1,043 tweens, 523
parents, and 626 teens completed the survey, resulting in a margin of
error (at the 95% confidence level) of ±3.0 percentage points for
tweens in total, ±3.9 points for parents, and ±4.1 points for teens
(±5.5 among those 17-18).
Liz Claiborne Inc.
Since 1991 Liz Claiborne Inc. has been working to end domestic
violence. Through its Love Is Not Abuse program, the company provides
information and tools that men, women, children, teens and corporate
executives can use to learn more about the issue and find out how they
can help end this epidemic. www.loveisnotabuse.com.
National Teen Dating Abuse Helpline
The National Teen Dating Abuse Helpline is a resource that can be
accessed by Internet or phone. The Helpline and loveisrespect.org offer
real-time one-on-one support from trained advocates. The National
Domestic Violence Hotline operates loveisrespect.org, National Teen
Dating Abuse Helpline, from their call center in Austin, Texas.
Loveisrespect.org provides resources for teens, parents, friends and
family, advocates, government officials, law enforcement officials and
the general public. All communication is confidential and anonymous. In
the first year of existence, Loveisrespect.org has received 5,455 calls
and 3,026 chats with the most common participant identifying themselves
as a “victim/survivor”. The Helpline is operated by the National
Domestic Violence Hotline and was established through a gift from Liz
Claiborne Inc.
National Association of Attorneys General
The National Association of Attorneys General was founded in 1907 to
help Attorneys General fulfill the responsibilities of their offices
and to assist in the delivery of high quality legal services to the
states and territorial jurisdictions. NAAG fosters interstate
cooperation on legal and law enforcement issues, conducts policy
research and analysis of issues, and facilitates communication between
the states’ chief legal officers and all levels of government.
Click here to view the Tween and Teen Violence Dating Abuse Survey in its entirety.
See also:
Canada:
Rural Teens Even More Likely to View Porn than Urban; Parents, Sex Ed
Somewhat Oblivious to Childrens’ Porn Viewing Habits
A total of 429 students aged 13 and 14 from 17 urban and rural schools
across Alberta, Canada, were surveyed anonymously about if, how and how
often they accessed sexually explicit media content on digital or
satellite television, video and DVD and the Internet. Ninety per cent
of males and 70 per cent of females reported accessing sexually
explicit media content at least once. More than one-third of the boys
reported viewing pornographic DVDs or videos “too many times to count”,
compared to eight per cent of the girls surveyed.
Porn Confuses Young Men about How to Behave
There’s
a professor of psychology at UMass Boston who has done his doctoral
dissertation and subsequent research on sexual aggression among young
college males, and he’s found that in dozens and dozens of interviews
that young guys will sit there in a room with him, and they’ll admit to
or talk matter-of-factly about, “I did this to her, I did that, and we
did this and that,” and they never once refer to themselves as rapists,
of course, and they never once refer to the behavior that they’ve
engaged in as raping behavior, or in any way criminal. But this
psychologist will tell you that he knows that if they were under oath
in the court of law, they would be admitting to first degree felonies,
but they think it’s normal, perfectly natural herterosexual relations.
I
travel around the country and speak to college audiences, both male and
female, and mixed audiences, and one thing I find over and over again,
in frank discussions, is that pornography is extremely influential in
the lives of young boys growing up today, and girls, but specifically I
speak to guys. This blizzard of images of women in degrading and
humiliating positions, guys just come to think of that as normal.
Young New Yorkers Talk about Porn’s Effect on their Relationships (explicit language)
People on the Left and the Right Share Blame for the Sexual Miseducation of Americans
Jackson Katz:
I want to mention a chapter in the book called, “Guilty Pleasures:
Pornography, Prostitution, and Stripping”. In this chapter, I look at
the ways in which the pornography culture, and the prostitution and
stripping industries, if you will, are helping to shape boys’ and men’s
attitudes toward women and girls and their sexuality as well as men’s
sexuality. This is a national conversation that is long overdue. You
asked what my dream was about the book–well, one piece of the dream is
that I hope my book helps to catalyze a more thoughtful conversation
between men, as well as between women and men, about pornography,
prostitution, and stripping. Ideologically, these are enormously
influential industries. I think there has been very little thoughtful
conversation about them in male culture, and certainly even in the
academy. My friends and I are very frustrated by either the lack of or
the superficiality of the conversation about them. For example,
pornography is by far the most influential form of sex education–or
sex (mis)education–in the United States. There is so little quality
sex education in the schools in our sex-crazed country. The right has
successfully squelched the responsible sex education movement that
arose in the seventies. In the void, you have this enormous
multi-billion dollar industry that has profit as its motive, not
education. The pornography industry is serving as the vehicle for so
many boys’ and men’s sexual socialization. And the level of brutality
that has been normalized in mainstream pornography, the level of sexist
brutality, is just astounding. Many people have not been paying
attention, but I think they need to pay attention. It’s very
disturbing, I think, for a lot of people to see–with eyes wide
open–what boys and men are masturbating to. But I think it needs to
happen. Sadly, in recent years many feminists have been leery of going
down this road because this issue is seen as divisive, and fraught with
both ideological and interpersonal conflict. I think that’s really sad
because the industry hasn’t slowed down one bit–in fact, it’s only
been accelerating in the last few years.
Amazing.net: Movies that promote infidelity, despair, call women “sluts” and “whores”
Use Em’ Abuse Em’ and Lose Em’ #9
Ride along as we pick up ordinary young women fuck’em senseless and dump’em! It’s all good clean fun!
Childhood Spanking Linked to Coerced Sex and Risky Sex in Adulthood;
Amazing.net Milks Pain for Profit (explicit)
Girls School Spanking
At
last a spanking video that will gratify the most demanding afficionado
of burning buns and trembling tushes! We go inside an exclusive private
girl’s school to see round after starting round of cruel but creative
spanking.
Now Showing at Amazing.net: The War on Relationships (explicit)
Grudge Fuck #4
Nothing says I love you quite like I
hate you as Grudgefuck #4 takes you to the next level of spew splashing
spite! 6 scorching scenesfollow seven sexy sluts down a path to the
most aggressive Grudefucks so far! If you like sex fueled with a
vengence Grudgefuck # 4 is sure to satisfy!
Now on Sale at Amazing.net: The Swirlies (explicit)
Swirlies
Every whore gets the swirlie treatment. Fuck her then flush her. It’s just that simple!
Now on Sale at Capital Video: Watch Women Eat Their Own Poop
(explicit)
Herbert, Brooks and Osayande on Misogyny, Money and
Power; Amazing.net’s War on Women and Blacks (explicit)
Pain #26
Can you maintain ninety minutes of
masochistic mayhem?! Watch today’s most worthless degenerates line up
for abuse and debasement. On the street. In private. Female pigs have
been stripped of all dignity. Listen to their wretched screams. Watch
their distorted pained faces. Then jerk off to the brutal inhumanity of
it all!
Young, Dumb And Full Of Cum 7
They havent got a
clue… and we love fill them in! Freaky Anal Banging Deep Throat Jizz
& DNA Buckets Facials They dont even know when their training has
stopped! Oh well.
Now Showing at Amazing.net: The War on Privacy and Consent (explicit)
Ex Boyfriends Revenge
Dedicated to exposing real ex-girlfriends.
Pain 25
Remember when your daddy would come home from work and beat the living shit out of you? Remember how your
flesh bruised and bled at the end of his belt? Some days you thought your worthless life was over. My how you
begged and cried. Good times. Damn good times. Well now you can relive those special moments. Take Pain #25
home today!
Pain In The Ass
The bitch has been naggin at you all fuckin
day. Take out the garnage. Do the dirty fuckin dishes. Dont drink so
much beer. Blah Blah Blah. Theres only so much a man can fuckin take so
when its bed time make it your turn to be the major pain in her ass.
Video Presentation: A Content Analysis of 50 of Today’s Top Selling Porn Films (explicit language)
A number of porn defenders claim that anti-porn
activists harp on unusual, violent, women-hating examples of porn, and
unfairly downplay the existence of ‘artistic’ porn on sites like Suicide Girls. anthonyjk_6319
believes that porn sites like “Gag on My Cock” and “Anal Suffering” are
the “exception”, and that the “overwhelming majority of porn (something
like 99.8%) deals only in consenting nonviolent sex acts.”
To clear up confusion about what porn is generally about, academic researchers Robert Wosnitzer, Ana Bridges,
and Erica Scharrer, together with coders like Michelle Chang, analyzed
50 recent top selling porn films selected from lists compiled by Adult
Video News, the leading trade journal of the porn industry…
Exposure to Pornography as a Cause of Child Sexual Victimization
Abusive Relationships and Porn: The Similarities (explicit language)
Porn Use Correlates with Infidelity, Prostitution, Aggression, Rape-Supportive Beliefs
In
1995, Human Communication Research reported on a meta-analysis of 33
different studies. Researchers found that “Exposure to pornography
increases behavioral aggression.
While there are many factors that influence this effect (for example,
the content of the pornography viewed), the researchers conclude that a
connection between exposure to pornography and subsequent behavioral
aggression exists.”
The Impact of Internet Pornography on Marriage and the Family: A Review of the Research
[In
a meta-analysis of 46 studies published in various academic journals,]
Oddone-Paolucci, Genuis, and Violato found that exposure to
pornographic material puts one at increased risk for developing
sexually deviant tendencies [e.g., excessive or ritualistic
masturbation], committing sexual offenses, experiencing difficulties in
one’s intimate relationships, and accepting rape myths. In terms of the
degree of risk, the analysis revealed a 31 percent increase in the risk
of sexual deviancy, a 22 percent increase in the risk of sexual
perpetration, a 20 percent increase in the risk of experiencing
negative intimate relationships, and a 31 percent increase in the risk
of believing rape myths…
Male Attitudes about Rape Can Be Learned…and Unlearned
The subjects’ evaluations of a rape victim after viewing a reenacted
rape trial were also affected by the constant exposure to brutality
against women. The victim of rape was rated as more worthless and her
injury as significantly less severe by those exposed to filmed violence
when compared to a control group of men who saw only the rape trial and
did not view films. Desensitization to filmed violence on the last day
was also significantly correlated with assignment of greater blame to
the victim for her own rape…
There is now, however, some evidence that these negative changes in
attitudes and perceptions regarding rape and violence against women not
only can be eliminated but can be positively changed. Malamuth and
Check (1983) found that if male subjects who had participated in such
an experiment were later administered a carefully constructed
debriefing, they actually would be less accepting of certain rape myths
than were control subjects exposed to depictions of intercourse
(without a debriefing)… These debriefings consisted of (1) cautioning
subjects that the portrayal of the rape they had been exposed to is
completely fictitious in nature, (2) educating subjects about the
violent nature of rape, (3) pointing out to subjects that rape is
illegal and punishable by imprisonment, and (4) dispelling the many
rape myths that are perpetrated in the portrayal (e.g., in the majority
of rapes, the victim is promiscuous or has a bad reputation, or that
many women have an unconscious desire to be raped).