"It suggests women are sexual objects that exist for male pleasure. We know gender inequality is a key driver of violence against women.
"We need to inspire young people that relationships and sex can be a whole lot better," Crabbe said.
Crabbe is one of the international leaders on pornography research who will present their thoughts at the Pornography Impacts Forum in Wellington on August 3.
More than 90 per cent of boys and 60 per cent of girls have watched porn, which is lauded as the world's biggest sex educator. And 88 per cent of the most popular porn includes physical aggression.
Keynote speaker and University of Auckland gender researcher Nicola Gavey agreed with Crabbe that porn was a major problem that undermined gender equality. But porn was not the only problem, she said, we needed to also look at the wider context of gendered culture.
Gavey wanted to see better role models for young men that were not invested in a problematic, controlling form of masculinity.
"It's a mistake to look at porn without addressing [systemic] sexism and gender inequality.
"We need to rethink what we mean when it comes to being a man and loosen it up a bit. Let go of restrictive and limiting ideas."
Last year 92 billion videos were watched on Pornhub, the most popular pornography site.
Porn, which is predominantly marketed to straight men, has been massively amplified by the rise of the internet. This worried Crabbe.
"That's an average of 12 for every man woman and child on the planet.
"It's come a long way from the magazine under the bed. You can download an unending supply of porn online. It's never been so accessible."
New Zealand had the fifth highest porn use per capita in the world on Pornhub last year.
Youth needed to be encouraged to question the media that's around them and how people are represented, Crabbe said.
The problem wasn't the sex act itself, but the depiction porn uses of women enjoying the aggressive act as routine, often without safe-sex practices or neglecting to use lubrication for uncomfortable acts, Crabbe said.
"But most women don't love it and porn depicts it as an aggressive act done without checking in or lubrication."
Researchers from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine found more women were being pressured into having painful anal sex as it was normalised online. Both young men and women expected anal to be painful for the girl but pursued it anyway.
What can parents do?
• Limit their exposure - restrict access to technology, especially use of it privately.
• Encourage critical thinking - discuss the underlying messages about power and relationships in all types of media. This includes gender, age, class, culture, disability in advertising, film and TV.
• Equip them with skills - talk through various situations about what they may face and how they could respond.
• Inspire them - help young people see that sex and relationships can be better than how porn portrays it.
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It's Time We Talked
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