I’ve been mulling over this post for a while now. The debate surrounding the Online Safety Bill is so polarised and it’s decidedly uncool (for women in particular) to admit to sitting on either side of the fence. If say we’re anti-porn we’re dismissed as ignorant prudes, and if we swing the other way we invoke equally powerful criticism. Rather we’re supposed to let the big voices battle it out and avoid dirtying our hands and minds in the murky water. It’s not as if the Bill is likely to be passed anyway so why bother nailing our colours to the mast?

But I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t have an opinion, would I? I guess the reason I’ve put off sharing it is because I know it won’t be popular (apparently my views are shared by just 35% of us)

You see for me, some porn narratives are as unhealthy as they are unrealistic, and moreover they can be incredibly corrosive if they get into the wrong hands. Don’t get me wrong, there are sub-genres of pornography that are entirely innocent and (perhaps sadly) enjoyed by many in a responsible way. Unfortunately even these innocent genres are becoming increasingly more hardcore as demand grows for the next big thing.

In my view, porn is more often than not exploitative, and relies upon the objectification and dehumanisation of women, and indeed men. It’s either too violent or too ridiculous to be mutally inclusive. For too long men (and a tiny proportion of women - much less than men would have us believe) have had access to this self-gratifying content and I can’t see what, if any, good there is to come from it.

I’m not advocating that we should live in a puritanical and repressive society - but I would like to see greater restrictions on the sort of content our children have access to on the internet. Introducing them to such debasement and trashing of sexual morality simply can not be good for immature and impressionable minds.

You see, today we live in a highly sexualised environment. There has been plenty of academic studies (see sources at base of this post) that suggest the early sexualisation of children, and the increasingly sexualised media, leads to mental health concerns, unhealthy body image, earlier initiation of sexual activity (teen pregnancies), and ignorance of sexual health - and these are the least scary links that have been made. Of course I appreciate many of these studies involve the cherry-picking of specific sub-genres of porn to prove their point, and are no doubt the propaganda-of-the-prude. So to this end, I’m far more concerned with looking at causation rather than correlation. And in my opinion causation = too much unrestricted access.

According to a recent study, one-quarter of teenage boys admit to viewing porn every week. This inevitably informs their attitude towards sex. I wouldn’t go so far as to suggest that this embeds unachievable fantasies in all young men who watch such content, but I think it’s fair to say that at least some of the quotient will develop unhealthy obsessions and addictions. It’s already proven these young men may then undergo performance issues, form dysfunctional relationships, or worse. Much worse.

Is it right to just write off this as a sad fact of life, or is society in some way responsible for this? We’re quick to condemn sexual violence, child pornography and snuff films - why should this be any different?

And then there’s our girls. This is perhaps the saddest thing about porn for me. Seeing 18-30 year old women degrade themselves so irrevocably. They can defend their choices as eloquently as they want, but in all honesty, I can’t take it seriously. I just see troubled young women with no sense of self-worth being abused for money and fame. How anyone can find it a turn-on is beyond me. I just see it as yet another manifestation of this culture of sexualisation we inhabit. No parent would possibly want that for their daughter.

So what do I think should be done?

I believe that society needs to take a greater responsibility for protecting young people from indecent content - both sexual and violent. It’s our role as parents to empower our children, and help them gain an appreciation of what a healthy adult relationships looks and feels like. Sex Education within schools by qualified professionals will then encourage our children to discuss sex with their peers and help reinforce positive natural sexual proclivities.

All public wi-fi services should be clean, and internet in family settings should have an active parental filter. Whilst we’re all doing our bit, the ISPs should do a thorough inventory of content and improve content filtration. It’s not enough for the ISPs to cow down to pressure from critics of the Bill, and it’s not enough to have hackers tell us that any proposed intervention is easily circumvented. I personally find it hugely worrying that the ISPs don’t consider themselves to have a moral obligation to protect young people, and even more worrying that they don’t know how they would do it if they did!

This all points to a lack of control that surely opens the gateway for more perverse and criminal material to enter the public domain. Sadly I just googled ‘live beheading’ and 4 links on page 1 were actual footage of people being killed - 1 link was actually a paid listing! Upon clicking through I was asked to confirm I was over 18 with the click of a mouse, that was it. Couldn’t this seriously desensitise a child, let alone me!?

Opposition

The opposition to the Bill speak of human freedom and the right to enjoy adult content responsibly. The recent discussion over the teaching of pornography in schools is rooted in the belief that our schools role is to prepare our children for the reality of the world and not a romanticised version of it. But since when is bestiality, multiple coupling, whips and chains, and beheading our reality??? It’s simply not. In every society there are a handful of deviants and perverts, to allow associated content on the internet, is to surely akin to plonking your 8-year-old down in front of a x-rated film.

Naturally the adult entertainment industry have recently spoken out against the Bill for fear their livelihoods will be affected. This might sound crushingly unfeeling of me, but my response is simply ‘Good’. I’d be ecstatic if the industry slowly fell in on itself and we were all liberated from its grubby grip. I don’t see it as a career. It don’t see it as a skill. It would be time to shimmy out of the PVC and down the job centre, preferably via a counselling service to repair the damage.

That said, I’m a realist. It might also surprise you to learn that I’m not anti-porn in its entirety. I also don’t think the Online Safety Bill is worth the paper it’s written on. But I am genuinely concerned that the internet has lost its way. To be able to Google rape and get over 200,000,000 listings scares me, to be able to watch a real life beheading scares me, to think of my child somehow starring in tomorrows Animal Farm scares me, to think of my other half being bombarded with smut angers me. So tell me, am I just a pathetic prude, or am I onto something?

 

AFOREMENTIONED SOURCES:

Not in Front of the Children Sexual Health Sheffield

Viewpoints: Tackling the Sexualisation of Children BBC

Premature Sexualisation: Understanding the Risks - NSPCC