Check your thoughts here

28 November 2017

This video is a powerful and important story of how a sexual video of a 16 year-old girl ended up on the internet without her consent … It is clear from reading the comments in the thread to the Facebook page it was posted on that few people actually realise that the age of consent for posted material is 18 and not 16. It is also deeply saddening to read several comments that showed a lack of empathy many people had when watching the video of her story.

We have used this video when working with porn addicts – some of whom are also currently on the sex offenders register – on their true feelings about people abused in sexual material online. It is true in the first instance that there is a lot of defended thinking. There are good psychological reasons for this – some connected to cognitive dissonance and confirmation bias. (If you are interested in this you might like to read the book Mistakes were made (but not by me) by Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson. But we thought we’d post this video now without further comment and let you check your own empathy levels or perhaps experience your own cognitive dissonance. Those who are uncertain what was really wrong can perhaps think about checking in with a therapy service if they need to do so.