A/HRC/56/48 women from impoverished and war-torn countries.72 Attaching a payment – whether in cash or “in kind” – to women in prostitution reduces the latter to mere objects73 and normalizes the commodification of women and girls. The normalization of the purchase of sexual acts gives the sexual act a transactional value and places sexuality in the realm of the market. All women can therefore be regarded as having a price. In the Republic of Korea, it is estimated that 42 per cent of all men have bought sexual acts once in their lifetime.74 In a study of British men, 11 per cent had purchased sex at a brothel; and buying sex and engaging in pimping is rendered easier online, as it lowers the risks for pimps and sexual act buyers. 75 This increases a sexist social pressure on the most precarious women and girls to accept the provision of a sexual act as a livelihood alternative, regardless of the inherent violence of it. In the Kingdom of the Netherlands, for example, it is now legal for a driving instructor to demand a sexual act from students as a means of payment, a practice known as “a ride for a ride”.76 In the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the University of Leicester issued a “sex worker toolkit” to its students while failing to develop any financial support dedicated to its most precarious female students. 18. The perceived right of men to purchase a sex act normalizes the systematic violence inflicted on women through prostitution, including in pornography, as it erases the boundaries between what counts as sex and what counts as sexual violence.77 The violence enacted against women in pornography, such as strangulation and defecation, is often re-enacted against girls and women by those who consume pornography in the physical world,78 such as strangulation and defecation.79 The increase in rape, including gang rape, can be linked to the increased male consumption of pornography.80 Studies also show that men who pay for sexual acts have a low level of empathy for women in prostitution and feel that they are different from other women.81 Sexual act buyers are well aware that women in prostitution do not engage voluntarily, but they believe that absolves them of responsibility.82 A metaanalysis conducted in 2015 found that exposure to non-violent and violent pornography resulted in increases in both attitudes and supporting aggression and actual aggression against women and children.83 More frequent users of pornography were also the most frequent users of women in prostitution.84 Many adolescent boys seek out prostituted women and girls to be “sexually initiated”.85 19. Pornography generated by artificial intelligence further distorts what constitutes normal sexual interaction, encouraging viewers to adopt more harmful sexual attitudes.86 In one study, the terms “schoolgirl” (17.6 per cent), “girl” (9.6 per cent) and “teen” (8.8 per cent) were often paired with coercive and exploitative content, and the most frequent theme involved incest. Users of pornography require more novel, extreme forms of violent content to achieve the same level of arousal.87 Virtual reality pornography may make it more difficult to find pleasure in real-life sexual encounters.88 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 Fondation Scelles, 5th Global Report on Sexual Exploitation, 2019. Submission by Stop Demand Foundation. Submission by National Solidarity against Sexual Exploitation of Women. Submission by CEASE. Lauren Said-Moorhouse, “Dutch driving instructors can trade lessons for sex”, CNN, 21 December 2015. Fiona Vera-Gray et al., “Sexual violence as a sexual script”. Joint submission by Alyson Dearborn et al. Submission by Nordic Model Now. Global South and Migrant Women, Brief on the Case of “Protection of Privacy and Reputation on Platforms such as Pornhub”, 11 March 2021. Melissa Farley et al., “Men who buy sex: Who they buy and what they know”, December 2009. Submission by Alliance Nordic Model Germany. P. J. Wright et al., “Meta-Analysis of Pornography Consumption and Actual Aggression in General Population Studies”, Journal of Communication, vol. 66, No. 1, 2015. Submission by Osez le Féminisme. Submission by Asociația eLiberare. European Parliament, “The ethics of artificial intelligence: Issues and initiatives”, March 2020. Fiona Vera-Gray et al., “Sexual violence as a sexual script”. https://beginagaininstitute.com/blog/the-potential-risks-of-virtual-reality-pornography/. 7