‘Porn is everywhere’ concordto a new report from the Children’s Commissioner, and it’s shaping the way our kids cypherabout sex and relationships.
In an era when ‘extremely groundlessand sadisticimaginativenessis two clicks away’, schools are failing to keep up with the carbon blackindustry, which for some materializationmesshas become the go-to resource in their quest to learn mostabout sex.
The report suggests that relying on pornography to educate our children is leading to a contemporariesof people with unrealistic attitudes towards sex and a warped understanding of what constitutes a wellrelationship.
It’s also helping to normalise the objectifiction of women, and reinforce the inequalities and sexism we turn overaround us every day.
The study found that picture showto carbon blackis linked to risky behaviour such as having sex at a younger age, and that there is a correlation between holding violent attitudes and accessing more(prenominal)violent media.
“For years we have applied age restrictions to films at the picture palacebut now we are permitting comingto far more troubling imagery via the internet. We donotfully come acrossthe implications of this.
“It is a risky experiment to allow a generation of offspringpeople to be raised on a diet of pornography,” said Maggie Atkinson, Children’s Commissioner for England.
The study calls for urgent action by the government to ensure that all schools, including independent and faith schools, sustaineffective relationship and sex education which includes discussions about doorand exposure to pornography.
The findings come less than a week after(prenominal)warnings from the National Association of Head Teachers, and the suggestion that children should be taught about the dangers of pornography as soon as they have access to the internet– which would mean lessons at primary school.
With references to pornographyoozinginto mainstream culture (don’t even get me started on the Playboy Bunny), it’s no surprise that the industry is having a huge influence on some new-fangledpeople and that this is a generation which is seeingincreasingly hardcore porn as the norm.
For many another(prenominal)young people pornography precedes sex, so is their first reference detailfor intimate relationships.
The problem with this is that most porn is still actuallyunequal – it’s made by men, for men – and does a proficientjob in convincing girls they’re here to please men.
One unfledgedwoman, interviewed by the BBC’s Social Affairs Correspondent, revealed how pornography was part of her kindlandscape from the age of 11, and made her specifyrape was normal.
In the distressreport she discusses how at the age of 16, her boyfriend would make her collect‘rape porn’ and re-enact the scenes with her.
“He was my first boyfriend, and I thought this is what a sex life-timewas, this is what I have to do.
“I thought what was happening in the videos was publicas well, because he had made me watch so many of them.
“I thought if I am not enjoying it, I am not doing it right, and I didn’t feel that I was ever fittedto say no.”
Sexually explicit material online is also contributing to young girls’ body image issues.
Surely no one can protestthat the trend for women to be completely hairless down beneathhas its roots in the porn industry.
I am not surelywe will ever be able to stem the tideof online pornography, but we can certainly put less insistingon young women and girls to look and act like porn stars, by ensuring they are educated about the reality of sex and relationships.
“We think it’s really important that the curriculum includes pornography to assistancebuild children’s resilience to what they are seeing on the internet – to help them differentiate between what they are seeing and trustworthyhealthy relationships which are not about submission and not about being forced,” said Sue Berelowitz, the Deputy Children’s Commissioner.
Women’s Aid, which campaigns to completedomestic and sexual violence against women, welcomed the report, as it does not think the government cannot assume young people will be taught about healthy relationships at home.
Polly Neate, chief executive of Women’s Aid, said: “Both girls and boys bean education where alongside biological facts they are taught about healthy relationships, what is acceptable and what isn’t.
“It is important that children learn how to ‘see through’ the fictions presented in pornography, and that being strainedor coerced into sexual acts is unacceptable.”
A joint statement by give the axeViolence Against Women Coalition and Rape Crisis said: “This report provides further gruelingevidence of the need for schools to be required to teach young people about sexual consent and how to deal with fully grownand violent imagery they see online, in music videos, adverts or elsewhere.”
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Materials taken from Womens Views on News
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