DID you know that if you have a tv/phone/broadband package that you are contributing to the profits of the makers and distributers of pornographic material? No? Neither did I until two years ago.
I often channel hop to find something interesting to watch and it was on one such occasion that I was shocked – yes I know that makes me sound ancient and out-of-touch – to see an invitation to watch a pornographic film. All I had to do was... but I switched off.
The next morning I phoned my internet provider to ask if I might have this “facility” removed from my television. The young woman who answered my call was dismissive. “In this day and age,” she said scornfully, “everyone watches porn.” I said that I didn’t and repeated that I wanted porn removed from my television set. She then told me that this was impossible because it is the makers of porn programmes who provide the money to keep TV packages so affordable.
Frankly I didn’t believe her, and wrote to the head of the company to ask if it was true and, if so, could he justify delivering pornographic programmes into people’s homes without their permission or knowledge. In reply, one of his assistants apologised for the inappropriate response their customer service department. He did not deny that porn film makers funded the “package” I received and pointed out that his firm operate a “parental control” policy so that concerned mothers and fathers can monitor what their children are watching.
I tried every other provider of TV/phone/broadband packages only to discover that this is the status quo. Ofcom indicated that they did not deal with the issue of porn because that was a matter for the providers of the programmes.
So Pontius Pilate hand-washing all round.
I believe that making pornographic films or programmes debases both the people who participate in them and those, young and old, who watch them. I envisaged a situation where a youngster would be approached to participate in such a film but would be unwilling or embarrassed to do so. They’d be reassured: “Oh come on! It’s nothing. Our programmes are shown on television every night. You’ll be famous!” And in today’s society where the cult of celebrity is rampant, the youngster will agree.
Their images will appear on television screens throughout the world, paving the way for goodness only knows what other “offers” and the makers of the films will add to their profits without a single thought for the effect that making the film might have on the girl or boy. Thus pornography is first made “acceptable” then “the norm”.
Following the recent survey of the population of England and Wales, Channel 4 interviewed two groups of teenagers to discuss their ideas about sexual relationships. What they said was startling and confirmed my fears about the normalisation of porn. The girls reported that they are bombarded by e-mails from boys, asking them to take compromising photographs of themselves and send them via their phones. The girls don’t want to do it and refuse until, harried by call after call, many comply with the request. The boys did not deny this but said the girls could refuse if they wanted to. The girls protested that they didn’t know how to say “no” and anyway the pressure they were subjected to was intolerable.
Furthermore the girls felt under an obligation to make their bodies look like the girls/women who feature in porn films by, for example, shaving their pubic areas.
The boys, too, felt under pressure, particularly with regard to the size of their penises.
Both girls and boys believed that the sex they saw in porn films was what was required of them, felt embarrassed that their bodies did not look like those of the porn stars and feared that their “performance” might not be as good as pornographic sex.
Both groups were unhappy with this situation but regarded it as normal. Sex education in school, the boy revealed was “how to put on condoms”. One girl regretted that the schools did not explain how emotions are linked to sex.
It is a tragedy. A “liberal” attitude to sex education is partly to blame as the youngsters revealed. It would be regarded as “authoritarian” or “inappropriate” to tell school children, from Primary 6 onwards, not to enter into sexual relationships until they are old enough to understand that sex is not gymnastics but a physical expression of one person’s attraction to another and that, in almost every case, it involves powerful emotions. That if your compromising photograph is circulated round the school and on Twitter the emotional repercussions can be devastating.
No sensible person wants to return to the days when discussing, writing about or depicting sex was taboo but claims by those advocating “a liberal society”, one which is free from constricting censorship, are ingenuous. They have mistaken liberty for license and it is young and vulnerable people who are paying the penalty.
As part of the MP Claire Perry’s campaign to oblige internet providers to make access to pornography an “opt in” a survey discovered that “one in three ten-year-olds have stumbled on to pornography online and that the largest internet pornography consumers are aged 12-17”.
I hope you find this as disturbing as I do, and the survey did not include the youngsters who watch pornography in their bedrooms. Despite Claire Perry’s evidence the government turned down the “opt in” proposal in favour of a watered-down version and the suspicion is that it is because of the influence of powerful internet providers whose malign influence on young people today is, I suggest, as serious a problem as drugs and alcohol misuse.
Our children are being misled into believing that love-making equals pornography.
Look at your children and grandchildren and ask what society is doing to prevent them being exploited by pornographers.
• Lovina Roe is a former teacher and journalist