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Clive Hamilton the Net Nanny

By Kerry Miller - posted Monday, 24 November 2008


The ideas of the libertarian left have become a reactionary force, for they have substituted an uncritical defence of the freedoms won in an earlier era for a real politics of social change...

Like young people everywhere I thought we were freeing ourselves from the shackles of oppressive convention and sexual hang-ups. We thought we were creating a new society and we knew our opponents were being defeated. The conservative establishment lost cause after cause and could no longer sustain the institutions of social convention. Victorian morality, women's oppression, and the unbearable constraints of social convention. But while the battle against social conservatism was being fought and won, the real enemy was getting on with business and savouring the new commercial opportunities that the radicals were opening up...

In the 1950s middle class respectability may have been oppressive but it carried with it a certain deference. Women are the subject of far more sexual objectification now than they were in the 1950s, although men have become more adept at concealing it. And even the need to conceal has been discarded by the crass exploitation of "girl power". Why should a young man pretend that he doesn't lust after the young woman who has just burned him off at the traffic lights, when nubile popstars thrust their groins at the camera and declare "more power to us"?

The research conducted by the Australia Institute /Hamilton and Dr Michael Flood concludes that internet porn is a social evil associated with increased levels of mysogyny among young Australian males. (There's a critical account of it on the EFA website). However as far as I know, there is no empirical evidence that Australian men have deteriorated in their attitude to women, and furthermore there is a reasonable body of research which has concluded that access to porn is either neutral or actually positive in its social impact. The work of Dr Alan Mckee (eg Net Porn Good for you and What do people like about porn? Everyone knows the answer to that) is an example in point.

Hamilton is of the view that pornography/erotica which depicts any form of sexual violence is clearly dangerous and likely to have negative social effects. He's very worried about porn which depicts things such as men ejaculating on women's faces, double penetration, male-female anal sex, bondage, rape scenes and so on. "Normal" sex as defined by Hamilton should be...well, I don't know quite what...but very politically correct and restrained. He wants the government to find a way of censoring our fantasies.

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The unfortunate fact for Hamilton is that it is not only men who look at on-line material which depicts sexual interactions of a very "non-vanilla" type. Many women report being drawn to fantasies about "rough sex". These women are clear that in real life they have no desire whatsoever to be the victim of non-consensual sexual violence, but nevertheless they enjoy the idea of being safely able to engage in sexual encounters which satisfy various primitive desires. It's possible that some of this even has a biological basis. (I hesitate to theorise about this however. The whole area of human sexuality is such a complex mix of primitive urges, emotional needs, and our higher level needs for connection on a mental level, that at present we don't have the tools to tease it apart).

In any case, we have laws about real life non-consensual, violent sex and I find it outrageous that people like Hamilton would like the State to regulate material which allows people to explore the fantasies which turn them on.

There is oodles of material out there showing that women appreciate having access to porn. Just a couple of examples:

Of course there's a lot of porn around which is distasteful, boring, superficial and (to me) very off-putting. But I don't have to look at it, and if our young people come across it either accidentally or as part of their natural curiosity, I don't believe that it will create dangerously "unhealthy" sexual appetites.

Hamilton really ought to be taken apart for his role in attempting to impose his own morality on everyone else. His role in this has been far more significant than that of the Christian right.

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While he's correct when he says that market capitalism has a shallowness which leaves us with an "emptiness" and a desire for deeper, more meaningful lives, his moralistic call for people to accept lower living standards and his (very serious) attempt to have the State step in to regulate various atavistic desires, is just reactionary. The yearning "for something more" is exactly the impulse that will one day lead people to want to step up, take responsibility and run things themselves. I’m convinced that they won't decide that they want to be poorer and have less freedom.

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This article was first published on 17 November, 2008 on Strange Times



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About the Author

Kerry Miller is a blogger from Melbourne. She manages Strange Times, a left wing blog which argues that most of which passes as "left" these days is just not left at all.

Creative Commons LicenseThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

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