In the United States, a quarter of women will be attacked by an intimate partner in their lifetimes. More and more, young men and boys are abusing their wives and girlfriends, either sexually or through physical violence. The cycle of domestic abuse replicates itself as children often repeat the dynamic in their adult relationships. Furthermore pornography, an industry which gains new young customers daily, promotes a dangerous idea of sex, intimacy, and valid relationship behavior.

Violence against women is not a new issue. In particular, domestic violence and spousal abuse can be recorded as early as 27 B.C., with early Roman legal codes permitting a husband to beat his wife to the point of death as a form of discipline. In the United States, even during the last century, violence against women was almost encouraged through advertising and popular media.

Until fairly recently, in the modern era, a woman’s status as de jure or de facto property meant they had few recourses to escape their abusers. Due to extreme gender-wage gaps, many women couldn’t support themselves, let alone themselves and their children. A system that systematically discriminates against women (note that it has not been even a century since any woman was allowed to vote) kept and keeps us in violent and dangerous relationships.

This history of violence contributes to modern attitudes about intimate partner violence, particularly against women. According to a 1996 study, approximately one in four women will be physically attacked by an intimate partner in her lifetime. 1.3 million women will be assaulted by an intimate partner this year . In 2011, approximately 15% of American adults thought that it could be justifiable for a husband to beat his wife. Despite the attempts of first and second wave feminism and the battered women movement of the 1970s-90s, there is still a significant belief that domestic violence is acceptable.

Worse, the justice system is no reliable recourse. Witnessing a father or male partner beating a mother or female partner teaches a child that violence against women is acceptable and even a normal relationship dynamic. Both male and female children are being taught a lack of respect for the female body. It is no wonder, then, that the problem replicates itself: girls who witness domestic violence as children are more likely to be victimized as teens or adults, while boys who witness domestic violence are more likely to become abusers themselves.

Unfortunately, this pattern of violence continues into adolescence – usually remotely, through the viewing of pornography. The mean age of exposure to explicit and/or pornographic material is between fourteen and fifteen years old.

Porn has been informing modern culture more and more as the industry grows – the adult film industry makes more annually than the NBA, NFL, and MLB combined. In addition, pornography does not only feature simulated violence but actual violence and rape as well. Women who have been able to exit the industry talk about their experiences with disgust and horror for what they were made to do. One former actress says “I got the **** kicked out of me… most of the girls start crying because they’re hurting so bad… I couldn’t breathe. I was being hit and choked. I was really upset and they didn’t stop. They kept filming. [I asked them to turn the camera off] and they kept going”.

It’s unknown how much of porn is actually filmed rape, but it is certainly rampant in the industry. For children raised in households with domestic abuse, this is further confirmation of what they’ve seen; for those raised in relative safety, it is a crash course in intimate violence. Nearly 90% of pornography contains violent and aggressive acts, and 94% of the time, that violence is directed toward a woman. According to a 2010 study by A.J. Bridges in the International Communication Association journal, after viewing pornography men are more likely to:

• “report decreased empathy for rape victims
• have increasingly aggressive behavioral tendencies
• report believing that a woman who dresses provocatively deserves to be raped
• report anger at women who flirt but then refuse to have sex
• report decreased sexual interest in their girlfriends or wives
• report increased interest in coercing partners into unwanted sex acts”

Combined with the lack of proper sex education in secondary school, pornography is where young teens are learning about sexual behavior and sexual health. Domestic violence is often predicated on unfulfilled sexual expectations, which is likely why 15-24-year-old demographic has been experiencing increases in relationship violence.

The only way to resolve this problem is through teaching young boys to respect women from a young age. Without understanding the value of women from childhood, boys will grow up to at best see women as inferior and have to unlearn systematic sexism, and at worst replicate the dangerous cycle of abuse in their own relationships. In the Australian newspaper The Sun Herald in 2014, reporter Emma Partridge writes “Mr Murdoch, the corporate spokesman on domestic violence, says it was critical for fathers to teach their sons and communicate about behaviour [sic] that was not acceptable.” Murdoch goes on to say that violence against women will only end when men take responsibility and end the violence. In the UK, the “Great Men” initiative attempts to engage high school-aged boys in conversations about misogyny and gender equality, urging them to think more critically about the kind of interactions they are having with the women in their lives. This is the strategy that mom and anonymous political writer Glosswitch attempts to employ with her school-aged son:

“I want them to be taught a different way of being. I want them to be able to access that sense of humanity they enjoyed before they got to know categories and hierarchies of human worth. I want them to know what it was like when people were people and I was just a mum-man. But I don’t see how this is possible without teaching them what men as a class do to women, not in an attempt to humiliate them, but so they question the unspoken beliefs around them.”

This is the only way to end the violence. Breaking the cycle of abuse at its start – before young boys have a chance to internalize the dehumanization of women through witnessing abuse and gain unrealistic expectations of sex and relationships through pornography – can help end the epidemic of violence against women across borders.

The only way to stop violence against women is to start with boys – before the violence starts.