Challenging Porn, Championing Boys - Daniel Principe

Why should we all be concerned by the content, production and dissemination of pornography today? What is the impact of the normalisation of porn culture on boys and young men? How can we help them to reject harmful and inequitable sexual behaviours and attitudes, live up to the values they hold, and build healthy, mutualistic relationships? 

In this episode, youth advocate and educator Daniel Principe talks frankly about what led him to speak out about pornography, and how he came to engage with boys and young men on these issues. He describes his innovative approach in schools and colleges across Australia, and talks movingly about the positive and thoughtful responses of the boys and young men he encounters. He emphasises the need to support boys through adolescence, to help them to critique the unequal culture they are growing up in, and to champion their fundamental decency and courage.  

In Australia, Daniel is a member of the DART Institute (Domestic Abuse Resource and Training Group), an Ambassador for the Women’s Resilience Centre, and an Ambassador for the national campaign Consent Can’t Wait.

• Find out more about Daniel’s work: https://www.danielprincipe.com.au
• Follow him on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lastoftheromans/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniel-principe-8b7556ab/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mrdanielprincipe

Episode timeline:

• Intro (00:00-01:32)
• What led Daniel to start questioning pornography (01:32-06:01)
• How and why pornography has become so pervasive (06:01-12:53)
• Problems with the content of mainstream porn (12:53-18:39)
• Its impacts on men and boys (18:39-24:24)
• Damaging consequences for male sexuality (24:24-29:15)
• Break (29:15-29:21)
• Daniel’s work with boys and young men (29:21-39:18)
• What we can do about porn culture, personally and politically (39:18-51:52)
• Conclusion (Tensions between challenging and supporting boys; The need for structural change; The narrow, conservative, big business nature of porn; Profiting from cycles of shame; Boys’ capacity to critique; How porn constructs masculinity; Perpetuating the male gaze and the centring of men’s pleasure; ‘The end of masculinity’?) (51:52-59:59)

More info: 

• Read Daniel’s piece for SBS Insight: https://www.sbs.com.au/news/insight/article/porn-taught-me-to-disrespect-women-from-when-i-was-11-now-i-try-to-tell-kids-whats-real/vbk4p7ggx
• Australian Government ‘Consent Can’t Wait’ campaign: https://www.consent.gov.au
• Australian eSafety Commissioner report, ‘Being a young man online’ (2024): https://www.esafety.gov.au/research/being-a-young-man-online
• Australian Institute of Family Studies report, ‘The effects of pornography on children and young people’ (2017): https://aifs.gov.au/research/research-snapshots/effects-pornography-children-and-young-people
• Our Watch report, ‘Pornography, young people and preventing violence against women’ (2020): https://www.ourwatch.org.au/pornography-young-people-and-preventing-violence-against-women
• Australian National Plan to End Violence against Women and Children 2022-2032: https://www.dss.gov.au/ending-violence
• ‘The Man Box 2024’ report: https://jss.org.au/programs/research/the-man-box/
• BBC Scotland survey of young British men: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-51967295
• Prof Michael Flood: https://www.qut.edu.au/about/our-people/academic-profiles/m.flood
• Dr Maree Crabbe: https://itstimewetalked.com/about-us/our-people/
• Prof Michael Salter: https://research.unsw.edu.au/people/professor-michael-alan-salter
• Dr Fiona Vera-Gray’s new book, ‘Women on Porn’: https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/454201/women-on-porn-by-vera-gray-dr-fiona/9781911709435
• Her research on the content of mainstream online porn: https://doi.org/10.1093/bjc/azab035
• Robert Jensen, ‘Getting Off’: https://robertwjensen.org/books/getting-off/