With allegations against Prince Andrew and his association with Jeffrey Epstein dominating recent headlines, the #MeToo movement continues the long fight against sexual harassment and assault, rejecting the idea that women exist for men’s sexual pleasure.

But alongside the growing success of that movement, the pornography industry continues to thrive by presenting explicit images that sexualize exactly this idea — that women exist to serve men’s desires, whatever those desires might be, no matter how much humiliation and suffering they impose on women.

The contradiction is obvious: As men are being held accountable for using their power to manipulate and abuse women sexually, the pornography industry continues to socialize men into that very behavior. It’s time for the #MeToo movement—and feminism more generally—to make a critique of pornography part of the project of ending violence against women.

U.S. society is awash in entertainment and advertising that presents women as sexual objects rather than fully human, and nowhere is that more intense than in pornography. Does it matter? Of course, because mass media images have an important role in shaping contemporary culture, and profit-seeking corporations shape media images.

The #MeToo movement should not ignore the problem of pornography.

In the past half-century, everyone knows that the pornography industry has expanded dramatically, especially online. What people may not know is that the sexual practices which have become standard in the industry — multiple penetrations of a woman by more than one man at the same time, aggressive oral sex to the point of gagging and overtly racist scenarios and language — have intensified the message of male dominance. As this cruelty toward women has deepened, boys’ and young men’s use of these images has become so routine that pornography is the default sex education for the contemporary United States, and much of the rest of the world.

A caveat: To recognize that pornography helps shape sexual imaginations does not mean that pornography “causes” sexual harassment and rape. Pornography is not the only place where boys and men are trained to control women for sexual pleasure. But studies show that it is a key component of that training for many, and ignoring this reality is dangerous.

Another caveat: Criticizing the pornography industry is not an attack on the women who perform in pornography, many of whom deal with serious psychological and physical harm from the routine body-punishing sexual acts they endure.

Most men reject the use of coercion and violence to force women into sex. Thanks in large part to the #MeToo movement, more men are examining their lives and modifying their behavior when challenged by women. Fewer men are willing to explore how pornography goes to the heart of the way they experience sexual pleasure, through a sense of power and control. It is harder to convince men to let go of the quick and seemingly easy orgasms pornography provides. (Our focus is on heterosexual men, but this concern applies to gay porn as well.)

Heterosexual women use pornography, but at much lower rates, and many of the women who object to the images stay quiet, perhaps out of fear of being labeled prudish.

The pornography industry wants us to be afraid to speak up. Porn producers surround their misogyny and racism with platitudes about free speech, and like any industry, they spend money on PR and lobbying to protect their profits.

We do not advocate censorship but rather encourage critique of the porn industry’s celebration of sexualized male dominance. In the 1980s, feminists offered a civil-rights approach to give women ways to challenge pornography, which was blocked in court on First Amendment grounds. In the internet era, we advocate for a variety of legal and social approaches. Some solutions are technical, including age verification to block children’s access. Investing in honest sex education, using a public-health framework not unlike the approach to drinking and driving, is critical.

A rejection of that dominance in pornography comes from the same source as a rejection of sexual harassment and assault—a demand for real freedom and autonomy for women, which makes possible a richer and more fulfilling life for everyone.

Dines is professor emerita of sociology and women’s studies at Wheelock College in Boston and author of Pornland: How Porn Has Hijacked Our Sexuality . Jensen is an emeritus professor in the School of Journalism at the University of Texas and author of The End of Patriarchy: Radical Feminism for Men and Getting Off: Pornography and the End of Masculinity.