Teen boys are learning consent from porn and Australia is paying the price

By Tiffany James

Last month’s Adolescent Man Box report paints a frightening picture of how porn and misogynistic content are shaping the views of Australian boys. Now, more than ever, it’s critical the government’s response goes further than PR, writes consent educator Tiffany James.

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Photo by Grzegorz Walczak on Unsplash

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Australia keeps asking why gender-based violence is rising, while doing everything possible to avoid the actual answer: we are losing the next generation of boys to online misogyny, violent porn, and political cowardice.

The Prime Minister can call violence against women a “national crisis” as many times as he likes, but until someone in power is willing to say the uncomfortable part out loud, nothing will change: you cannot prevent gendered violence while teen boys are getting their sex education from strangulation porn and TikTok ‘manfluencers’.

As a consent educator, I work directly with teenagers across Victoria. I see what’s happening in real time, in real classrooms, with real young people who are forming beliefs now that will shape who they become as men - and the gap between what the government thinks is happening and what teens are actually learning is enormous.

Teachers aren’t imagining the spike in hostility from boys. Research by Dr Stephanie Wescott at Monash University confirms it: boys are quoting misogynistic influencers in class, mocking consent, pushing back on feminism, and parroting anti-woman talking points. This isn’t an online subculture; this is Tuesday morning English.

In schools, I’m competing with industrial-scale misogynistic content shaping boys’ worldviews in real time. And the government’s response? Media conferences instead of money, strategy, and action.

Porn is doing the teaching, and the data is horrifying. The newly released Adolescent Man Box report tells us exactly what boys are consuming:

• 63% of boys who watch porn have seen aggression, strangulation, or non-consensual acts.

• Boys who most strongly endorse rigid masculinity norms are five times more likely to bully, harass, or use violence.

• 9% have already seen deepfakes of people they know — and 13% say their friends make them.

This is not fringe behaviour; this is the typical high school experience.

And yet politically, it barely registers. We spend millions on inquiries, report launches and symbolic commitments, but not on the one thing that actually disrupts this culture: evidence-based, whole-school, gender-transformative consent education.

Consent education is failing because policymakers treat it like a fire extinguisher rather than infrastructure. When politicians talk about consent education, they make it sound like we can fix a decade of digital misogyny with a single PowerPoint presentation delivered by a tired teacher on a Friday afternoon. That’s not consent education. That’s PR.

Consent education is ongoing cultural change work. It requires:

• regular curriculum

• trained educators

• intersectional content

• teacher support

• whole-school integration

• gender analysis

• digital harms literacy

• trauma-informed practice

• political backing

Right now, we have almost none of that. Some schools are even discouraged from pushing too hard because they fear backlash from parents, boys, or entire communities. Teachers feel unequipped, unsupported, and, in many cases, intimidated.

This isn’t a school problem; this is a political problem. We are watching a generation of boys radicalised by algorithms, while politicians are too scared to even say the word patriarchy. They won’t say anything about the misogyny rising among boys, popular influences impacting violence rates or how teaching boys about power doesn’t emasculate them, it keeps women alive. Instead, we get soft-focus speeches about “respect” and “community partnerships.” It’s feminist wallpaper.

Meanwhile, I stand in front of fifteen-year-old boys who think choking is standard foreplay.

Teachers are not the problem; they are frontline responders in a crisis we pretend doesn’t exist. And they are being harmed by it too, inside and out of the classroom, both physically and emotionally. And at the same time, boys are walking into class quoting influencers with millions of followers, convinced they’re the ones under attack.

Teachers are expected to counter that, all whilst teaching history, maths, wellbeing, managing behaviour, writing reports, replying to parents, and surviving yard duty, amongst other responsibilities. It’s unfair and politically convenient because if the burden stays on teachers, politicians can pretend prevention is “handled” without funding anything real.

This is why external consent educators matter. We are not part of the school hierarchy. We are not grading them tomorrow. We are not their science teacher, suddenly expected to explain choking in porn.

We answer questions teachers shouldn’t have to. We say things teachers aren’t allowed to say. We hold the emotional load so that teachers can finally have it lifted from their shoulders.

Teachers should not be propping up a national crisis. They deserve proper support, funding and sector-wide coordination instead of pressure, fear and resentment.

Australia does not have a “respect” problem. It has a patriarchy problem, a porn literacy problem, and a political will problem. If we refuse to intervene in the forces shaping boys right now, then the violence statistics will not move. Not in five years. Not in fifty.

We cannot keep lighting candles after women are killed and pretending we don’t know why. If the government won’t fund real, evidence-based, gender-transformative consent education, then it is choosing this crisis. Deliberately. Repeatedly.

Boys aren’t born violent; they’re being taught. And unless someone in power interrupts that teaching, teenage misogyny will keep maturing into adult violence: predictable, preventable, politically inconvenient.

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About the author

Tiffany James

Tiffany is a consent educator, unionist, psychology graduate and Gender Studies postgrad who works directly with teenagers across Victoria. She specialises in gendered violence prevention, digital misogyny, and respectful relationships education. Tiffany brings lived experience from Catholic schooling and corporate workplaces to her activism, and is committed to reshaping the cultural forces that teach boys how to behave long before they become men.