Warning: Some readers may find the below content triggering.
Former Channel Nine reporter Ben McCormack has pleaded guilty to two charges relating to child abuse material, and faces a maximum of 15 years in prison.
“Ben has always admitted to what he’s done, however the facts weren’t exactly correct,” McCormack’s lawyer Sam Macedone said outside Sydney’s Downing Centre Local Court on Tuesday.
The 43-year-old’s two charges, of using a carriage service to transmit, publish or promote the material, are legally widely referred to as child pornography.
One headline read “A Current Affair reporter Ben McCormack pleads guilty to child porn charges”, while tabloids proclaimed McCormack had been “charged with ‘sending child porn'”.
But those headlines are inaccurate.
The truth is this: Ben McCormack’s guilty plea to two charges of using a carriage service to transmit, publish or promote illegal material, has nothing to do with porn.
It has everything to do with child sex abuse.
Pornography is material containing the explicit description or display of sexual activity between consenting adults. The term ‘pornography’ does not cover children or infants because, in the simplest of terms, minors cannot consent to sex.
Engaging with child abuse material is not in the same stratosphere as watching or producing porn. It is a direct product of very serious abuse. And it needs to be talked about that way.
According to Dr Dave McDonald, a lecturer in criminology at the University of Melbourne, the term ‘child pornography’ is unequivocally misleading.
In fact, he says using the term ‘pornography’ to describe child abuse materials “risks sanitising the harmful nature of such images when they involve the depiction of children”.
“[A sexual image of a child] is clearly abusive, and the terms we use to describe it should convey its harmfulness,” Dr McDonald said.
LISTEN: Meshel Laurie speaks to a survivor of child sex abuse. (Post continues…)
While focusing so closely on specifics may seem trivial, the language we use to discuss porn and child abuse largely informs how Australians think about sex crimes and their perpetrators.
“Naming harmful images of children as ‘child abuse material’ rather than simply ‘child porn’ more fully captures and reinforces the exploitative nature that underpins them,” Dr McDonald said.
This argument is not wholly contained within child sex crimes.
The term “revenge porn” also points to the pull to enmesh abuse with raunch culture.
It’s simple: we shouldn’t be using the term ‘pornography’ to describe anything non-consensual, or anything abusive.
A jilted ex sending explicit photos of his former girlfriend to her boss is not “porn”. A better term for the offence, as coined by Daily Telegraph‘s Julie Inman Grant, is “image-based abuse”.
The more the word ‘porn’ is used to describe acts of paedophilia, the more communities disservice the victims – those who were never given the chance to say ‘no’.
So, will the ‘popular’ terminology used to report on Ben McCormack’s charges change?
Hopefully, eventually.
Starting right here.
Top Comments
Abuse of young children whether it be physical, mental or incessant teasing all which belittles children which happens every day is all bad and this is more prolific for 1000's of children as it damages their esteem.
This is because mostly male lawmakers have formulated the approach our society takes to these sorts of crimes. How we criminalise and prosecute for rape still reflects the underlying belief that rape is somehow a form of sex and therefore, less serious than other crimes. Until just a decade or two ago, men could still legally rape their wives. Men believed their sex drives were entitled to be satisfied by whatever means and judges and lawmakers supported this. With thinking like this, no wonder so many thousands of children were abused throughout the decades, well, history.
Child abuse should have mandatory life sentencing because it destroys the lives of those children. Rape should also have sentencing akin to at least manslaughter. We simply need more female judges and more of the female perspective in all of society's most powerful places so that half the population gets better represented.
Women judges and magistrates let off many rapists on good behavior bonds every week.
i was about to say that and its very true not just of rape but all kinds of child abuse too
Research shows that male jurors are actually more like to have a guilty verdict than female jurors in sexual assault cases (of adults at least, not sure about minors though). We actually need to have a more victim-centric judicial process for these types of crimes, for example, SOCITS in VIC is an outstanding, benchmark example of this.