Auxiliadora Díaz, magistrate of the Court of Violence against Women 2 of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria and one of the great specialists in the field in Spain, sees a clear link between the rise of gang rapes and pornography, "totally normalized in our society".
In an interview with EFE, Díaz defends this theory on the basis that "pornography is not fantasy, but a school to learn how to exercise sexual violence against half of the population, which are women, and who are considered as mere objects that are used with the will established by men".
"Our consent has nothing to do with it," adds the magistrate, pointing to the language of porn, "totally rude" and with words and expressions against women that are subject to criminal law, which, however, is not given equally with respect to men who also practice pornography.
But, in addition to the lack of consent, there is another issue that worries Auxiliadora Díaz more, and that is that there is no frustration on the part of the man in porn, since "he accesses the bodies of women without any impediment", even if there is opposition from the woman.
Hence the problem of gang rapes, which have increased by more than 5% in recent years, and which are occurring at increasingly younger ages, since boys, girls and adolescents consume pornography, as do adult men, generating a belief that "that is the way to access women and that it does not matter if it is without their consent".
This magistrate, who has been in charge of her court for 15 years and is president of the Ibero-American Observatory against Gender Violence, as well as a member of the Group of Experts of the Observatory against Domestic Violence of the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ), refers to two reports on the access of minors to pornography.
One of them, prepared in the United States, places the age of those who access the so-called X-rated cinema for the first time between 7 and 8 years old and puts at 91% the adolescents who have access to pornography "almost daily", a figure very similar to that offered this Monday by a study by the University of La Laguna.
"That is the society of inequality that we are creating," laments Auxiliadora Díaz, convinced that "the risks are enormous" and not only for minors, but also for adolescents and adults, since "they are exposed to perform this type of acts through packs", which will lead to "it begins to normalize".
Especially when, the magistrate points out, the pornography industry tends to develop increasingly violent content to "hook the citizen more", which is why you can see extreme rapes, zoophilia, incest and sexual assaults of minors and adolescents in it.
She advocates addressing the problem through public policies aimed at eradicating this type of violence, such as limiting the use of mobile phones and tablets.
It is urgent to do so because of the serious problems it can cause in the brain from the point of view of addiction, but also because of the sexual dysfunctions generated by pornography and, above all, because "it is identified as the place where you are going to learn sex, when in reality it is the place to learn how to exercise that sexual violence, especially towards women".
Also in this line, she alludes to the proposal of the European Parliament and the Council to adopt prevention measures in the area of trafficking and prostitution, since being "the slavery of the 21st century", both "have been normalized and are totally invisible to the eyes of society".
All of this leads this magistrate from the Canary Islands to emphasize social awareness as fundamental to address this problem, especially when she has observed "a step backwards" in society, even at an early age, with regard to the values of equality and tolerance, with an "important denial" in relation to gender violence.
This judge does not believe that the only yes is yes law and all the controversy that has surrounded it in recent years has to do with that setback that she herself perceives in society with respect to gender violence, but that "it is much deeper".
And, although she considers that Spain has one of the "leading" regulations in this area, she does notice that "there is still a lot" of ground to cover, such as creating more specialized courts and that their powers are not limited only to cases in which there is an affective union between men and women, adapting the Istanbul Committee to internal regulations.
