The truth about domestic violence: Teens, porn and choking

Just a warning that the following episode contains details of domestic violence, including sexual violence.

A Listener production.

Hello. It's Antoinette Lateef with you. Do you picture when you think of domestic violence? I'll tell you what quickly comes to mind for me. It's a woman with black eyes and she's probably cowering in the corner. And the perpetrator, as I imagine it is likely to be a middle aged man. What about you? Maybe it's the couple you see in public. They might be drunk and his abuse is loud and aggressive and you get the sense that

I can imagine that a lot of members would think that they could get away with it. It's just the mentality. No. One report me because I'm in a authoritative environment.

And there's also growing concern about how porn is influencing domestic violence.

Where it became an issue was when it was crossing over into the bedroom and made me feel uncomfortable.

And I know this doesn't make for easy listening, but I promise there'll be solutions and you'll walk away understanding that we all have a role to play and you'll be equipped with a few things you can do yourself. But first, here are today's headlines with Tom and Jan. It's Monday, the 28th of August.

Good morning, everyone. Three. US Marines have been killed in an aircraft crash during a joint training exercise on Melville Island. This is just off the coast of Darwin. So 23 Marines were on board the aircraft when it crashed. It was during a routine exercise and happened around 9:30 a.m. yesterday. Now, this is still a developing story. And when asked if she knew why the aircraft had come down, the NT Chief Minister Natasha Fyles, said this.

No, we'd be unable to comment on that. Our focus right now is, is those patients and giving them the care that they need.

Yeah. So there are at least five patients now in Darwin Hospital with serious injuries. And sadly, this isn't the only sort of training crash that's happened recently. Yeah, it's.

So devastating when these troops die in training exercises. So this one over the weekend was a joint exercise involving 2000 troops, Australians, Americans, troops from the Philippines, Timor-Leste and Indonesia. And last month, you might remember that training exercise where for Australian Army air crew members died in a helicopter crash off the coast of Hamilton Island. So two crashes within a month. And in Spain, FIFA has suspended the

This story, I think, has really just captured Spain's imagination. I've heard it reported as being Spain's MeToo moment. And there was a cartoon in the paper that said, Grandma, tell us how you won the World Cup. And the grandma says to the to the child, oh, we didn't just win the World Cup. We won so much more.

So they're calling it. Yeah, as you said, Spain's MeToo moment. So since the final remember, it's just a week ago, the World Cup champion players said they would not play for the national team until the federation's leadership was removed. More than 50 other top female players join them in that move. Then on Saturday, nearly all of the coaching and technical staff of Spain's women's team resigned. So did seven members of the Spanish Football Federation all over this incident.

Yeah. And I think the anger comes from Ruby Ali's reaction to all of this. He refused to stand down. He said that the Football Federation was actually going to sue Hermoso for comments that she made against him. He also said that he was being attacked by fake feminism. So really standing his ground in a way that's made a lot of people in Spain, including the government, obviously, including a lot of football players, very angry.

And Russian investigators have confirmed that the Wagner boss, Yevgeny Prigozhin, is dead. That's after last week's plane crash. So they've released a report that says the genetic test for the ten people on the passenger list match the remains they

Yeah, it's interesting to see what Yevgeny Prigozhin legacy is going to be. We heard last week Putin give him a sort of a tepid eulogy, but a eulogy nonetheless. You know, he said that he had he was a talented businessman. He had made a significant contribution to the war. So it'd be interesting to see how that sort of ends. I guess a lot of that will depend on what happens in the war in Ukraine and whether Putin really changes that language and insists on calling him a traitor.

And the Trump campaign has raised 7 million USD since his police mugshot was taken at a prison in Atlanta, Georgia, last Thursday. So a lot of the money's coming from selling merchandise like mugs, t shirts and drink coolers. So now if I'd want to drink from one of those. Trump has been released on bail, but he's charged with plotting to overturn the state's 2020 election results. This is the fourth indictment he's facing and potentially the fourth trial he'll face before next year's election.

Yeah, not.

Surprised they slap in that mug shot on some merchandise. This feels like, you know, the the test that psychiatrists give kids or people where they make them look at a picture of just a blob. And they asked them, what do you see in this picture? It feels like the Trump mug shot. Is that in a weird way, if you're a fan of Trump, you look at that and you see somebody who is defiant, who is a hero, who is standing up to the liberal establishment. If you're on the other side, you see it as a sign

That is so true. I feel like the whole of America is a little bit like that. One interesting other note on this story, Jan, is that Donald Trump Jr is still coming here for a speaking tour next month. So I imagine he might be talking about this as well.

Yeah, well, he was supposed to come I think it was a month ago and the trip got canceled because he said he wasn't given a visa by the Australian Government in time. The Government's denied that. But either way, you know, he's going to have a certainly and have a lot of things to talk about.

Yeah, a bit of new material for his speeches. All right, We'll catch you later. Antoinette is up next with part one of her look at domestic violence.

So I'll start with a trigger warning. The stories you're about to hear detail domestic violence, including sexual violence. And it's confronting you may find it disturbing or traumatizing. So hit pause if you need to take a moment. But I do implore you to stay with us if you can. When it comes to crime trends in Australia, domestic and

Hi, Antoinette. Yes, I am a total nerd.

I will own that. So I was going through New South Wales Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research data over five years and it looked at all the major crimes and helpfully marked them in green and red. Now all the major crimes were marked in green and had dropped except for two of them which stood out in red. And they were domestic violence and sexual assaults. They were bucking the trend and had increased.

Yeah. Wow. And do you think this is an anomaly? It's just a New South Wales experience.

So to find that answer, I went looking in the ABS data for all the other states and territories and I found the same thing. We're looking at victims of domestic violence related sexual assaults and they had increased across the board. So Queensland had a very substantial jump of 59% over that same time period. New South Wales 35%. WA 20%.

And could this in part I wonder, be a good thing because it shows that there's more awareness, more people are talking about it and as a result more people are reporting it?

Absolutely. And that's an important part of the picture. So much work is being done in this space, so people are more inclined to report, which is great, but it's not the whole picture. All the experts I've spoken to have said there is also an increase.

And I'm interested in particular how this may play out among young people, because there are a lot of sort of stereotypes about who the perpetrator and victim is of domestic violence. Absolutely.

And look, the data tells us that the highest rates are in young people and it's very young. It's under 18 or early 20s. And what the frontline workers are saying is that that young people today are exposed to porn a lot more and at a younger age than ever. And that is actually shaping their expectations when it comes to sex. Some of this porn is explicit, violent, misogynistic

And I know often the research takes a while to catch up, but there is a slowly a body of research that's growing, that's linking the role of porn and domestic violence.

Absolutely there is. And another thing I heard from frontline workers was that they're seeing a rise in really disturbing injuries, choking strangulation injuries, which can actually have long term impact on your brain and also really distressing internal injuries that end up in emergency departments.

Listeners, investigations editor Claire Weaver. They're two women have decided to share their stories for the first time. Both experienced years of violence at the hands of people they loved and trusted. And porn played a role. Monique, which is not her real name, was just 14 when her then boyfriend started abusing her. Monique, thanks for your time and being so open about such a harrowing experience in your life. Can you describe the domestic violence you experienced?

Basically, it was a range of different things from like coercive control, emotional abuse and blackmail to sexual assault, rape and physical abuse.

Your boyfriend, as I understand, was about the same age as you, and that was 14 or 15. And at the time, he watched a lot of porn. How do you think that impacted the abuse you suffered?

I sort of wasn't completely aware of it at the time. It's something that occurred to me later on. I mean, when asked what he was doing, he said that he was copying things that he'd seen in porn. So looking back on that now as an adult, I can only imagine the kind of pornography that that he would have been copying to be doing that kind of behaviour. It wouldn't have been like the main cause of the violence and the sexual abuse, but it was definitely influencing his actions.

And was it hard.

To accept.

That domestic violence could impact someone so young? I mean, you were 14 at the time and that it could include sexual violence, given that you'd also had a consensual sexual relationship with him?

Yeah, yeah, it was really difficult. I think at the time I felt like because I had said yes to the relationship, that I had said yes to anything that he would do within that relationship. Like I felt responsible for that, like I had signed. Up for something that

So at the time, did you know what domestic violence looked like or have much of a concept of it to identify it?

Not at all. I had no idea that abuse and violence could happen within a relationship and with someone you knew. I think especially 20 years ago, we were sort of taught stranger danger and, you know, don't get into bands with old men and don't take candy from strangers and that kind of thing. I really had no understanding that that kind of thing can happen in a relationship or with someone that, you know. I knew him for a

And do you think there's much discussion about the role sexual violence plays in domestic violence? Because it sounds as though it took you several years until you reflected back and realized, okay, that was a form of the violence, and porn played a role in that too.

Yeah, I think people often see it as separate, but I think they often coexist, unfortunately. And understanding of that happening in between really young relationships as well. I think people when they think about domestic violence, they think about married couples or when they think about sexual abuse or sexual assault, they think about, you know, older men in

That was a woman we're calling Monique. She's not the only one who's seen the accessibility and influence porn has had on sexual violence in relationships. Rachel is a victim survivor advocate and runs a service for women and young people called the Legacy Foundation. Rachel, thanks for sharing your experience with us, which I know included physical abuse, emotional abuse, financial abuse. But it's the sexual violence and abuse that

We started off in our relationship with a pretty healthy sexual relationship, But what I found quite early on was that there were parts of that relationship that I didn't feel comfortable with, things like being pinned down, things like having hands around my throat and had to. Find the strength to speak up about those. And I feel like that was easier early on in that relationship before the

How much porn was your then partner watching you, do you know?

I don't think I knew at the start how much porn he had watched previously and did watch when? When I wasn't with him. Certainly it wasn't long before I discovered that that was a regular part of his life and sex life. And. And I didn't necessarily have a huge issue with that. Everybody has different sexual tastes, and that's fine. I think where it became an issue was when it was crossing over into the bedroom and made

So now in in the support work you do, are people having these sorts of conversations about the way sexual violence plays out within domestic violence?

Occasionally, but certainly not enough. And we know that we've had clients with us for two and a half years and only after a couple of years will they talk about the sexual violence that occurred within their relationship. We still feel that there's a huge taboo around that, a huge taboo around talking about sexual abuse and violence at all. But just in talking about sex in general, and they

And so many of the limited conversations that we are hearing around this is generally around heterosexual relationships with male perpetrators. What's your understanding of how this may play out in in queer relationships?

I actually believe that it's it's far worse in queer relationships, much more likely to have sexual abuse and violence occurring and much more likely to put their partners under pressure to be using porn and also to bring in third parties and really putting pressure to accept the third party without that consent.

What can we do to help young people in particular navigate sexual relationship and identify when it is domestic violence?

I think it's got to start and end with education. I think we have to start educating our young ones about sex. What it is. I really feel that we need to be starting that education from early ages of primary school. And, you know, we don't have to talk about sex in when we're talking to kindergarten children, but we have to start talking about respectful relationships and consent.

Victim survivor advocate Rachel sharing her story with you there tomorrow on the Briefing. How can police protect domestic violence victims when there's a perpetrator in their ranks? You'll hear from an extraordinary woman who speaks out for the first time. She details what happens when she tried to report the abuse she suffered for years at the hands of her husband, who was a cop. And when she reported it to his colleagues in the police force. If you or. Someone