How the UK 'Porn Block' could damage sex education

As the British government pushes back enforcing age-verification porn legislation for the third time, we look at what this badly thought out "Porn Block" policy would entail and its potential to damage young people's sex education

Feature by Liv McMahon | 17 Jul 2019
  • Feminist Porn

This July, the British government was all set to enforce new laws necessitating commercial porn sites use age verification software to prohibit under 18-year-olds from accessing online porn. This chance to decry the unparalleled powers of porn over society presented itself for the Conservatives as a follow-up to crackdowns made in 2015 on footage showing female ejaculation, facesitting and various fetishes deemed "obscene" and apparently degrading to women. Now fear-mongering and moral panics have spurred the Digital Economy Bill’s passage through parliament under Brexit’s storm clouds, meaning opportunities to enlighten today’s teens about the problems with porn will probably be overshadowed.

But as the bill suffers a latest delay that pushes back its enforcement for at least another six months, confusion as to how the BBFC will patrol which internet sites should or should not feature age-verification software – and dictate what does or does not count as pornography – exposes the flawed, out-of-touch sensibility underscoring Tory attitudes towards the internet and sexuality.

“While it’s very embarrassing to delay age verification for the third time, this is an opportunity for the government to address the many problems that this ill-thought through policy poses,” states Jim Killock, Executive Director of the Open Rights Group, who are campaigning against age verification software because they argue it will allow for a “new and unique privacy risk” for porn viewers of all ages across the UK. Privacy concerns over data collection dominate global debates about technology and censorship, including discussions of the Porn Block legislation.

This is especially true here because, somewhat conveniently, MindGeek – the company which owns Pornhub and a hoard of other free porn sites – looks to strengthen their monopoly on the industry and capitalise on the Porn Block with the introduction of their own AgeID software. Alongside this, porn footage ripped from free sites like Pornhub – originally pulled by its users, so-called fans, from paywalled porn sites – spills across Twitter feeds, rubbing shoulders with the latest Love Island chat, unchecked by moderators. 

What is the point of the Porn Block?

This begs the question of what the actual point of this legislation is, especially when it presents no uniform or independent form of age verification software and won’t even cover social media, AKA the second home of most young people. The opportunity to address the educational importance of talking about porn and its potential issues for young audiences is being talked about even less. Despite claims that the Porn Block will form part of a wider push on actually acknowledging porn’s existence within education and larger society, as well as its demand among younger audiences, the fact that it has been slipped past the British public (with over three quarters remaining blissfully unaware) says nothing but the contrary.

Porn has always attracted controversy as a taboo subject increasingly infiltrating the mainstream, and now even more so as Pornhub dominates the online porn landscape, offering an abundance of free content across endless categories and keywords. Yet despite the diversity of content available on sites like Pornhub, the lens pedalling it remains overtly white, male, and cis-heteronormative. Lesbian sex is performed and reserved for the male gaze and BAME sexuality is still framed mostly through fetishistic and stereotypical labelling. The sensationalised scenarios and staged situations should not be construed as accurate portrayals of sex itself, as consent often has no visible or vocal presence in the bulk of mainstream porn’s flimsy plotlines or monotonous sexual play-by-play. 

“It is important that young people understand that [porn] is a staged medium,” say British student-led sex and relationship education charity, Sexpression, when asked for their thoughts on the legislation. "Consent, safety, and inclusivity [are] often lacking.” And while we can debate as to the media literacy of young people today, there is no denying that there is concern among them over porn’s availability. In 2016, Girlguiding UK found that 71% of girls aged 17-21 feel pornography gives out confusing messages about sexual consent, solidifying fears of parents; 52% of parents fear that ‘a child may believe online pornography represents typical sex,’ according to research carried out by Internet Matters. These worries should be central to any changes being made in the name or interest of young people.

Sex education and The Porn Conversation

But today’s teens also come to discussions about sex equipped with a whole host of vocabulary fostered through a technological world which our legislators, parents and teachers didn’t grow up with, and are still scrambling to understand. Rather than be baffled that the innocence of the birds and the bees has been blown apart by our familiarity with bukkake, bareback and chaturbate from a much younger age, there are those attempting to kickstart conversations about porn better suited to the twenty-first century.

The Porn Conversation, founded by famed feminist porn producer Erika Lust and her partner, seeks to meet kids halfway by targeting this older generation, who can be known to double-down on their role of responsibility by feigning ignorance, enforcing a shaming crackdown or by resorting to Black Mirror-esque invasions of their child's privacy. On their website, they make this crystal clear: “We think that prohibition and shame is not the answer, instead we believe in education and conversation. By choosing to shed light on the debate about online pornography, we are campaigning for more equipped and alert young beings, who are ready to make better choices; driven by knowledge, and not by fear.” 

Parents and educators are urged to approach conversations with an open-mind, rather than with the negativity or shame embedded in popular discussions about porn and its consumption. Their guidance for this differs according to the needs, awareness and sensitivities of certain age groups, but fundamentally articulates the importance of porn as sex performativity, the prevalence of racism in mainstream pornographic representation, and stresses the reliance on cliches, certain body types and physical representations (such as a lack of pubic hair).

Here in the UK, Sexpression echo The Porn Conversation’s approach. “The ‘Porn Block’ is unlikely to prevent all under-18s from accessing online pornography,” they say. “It also doesn't support young people in making informed decisions about consuming online pornography. The vast majority of young people are likely to encounter such media at some point in their lives; it is important that they are given the correct tools to navigate this.” 

Generation Z

Although sex education is being revised to teach young people about pornography, whether this will address its nuanced issues for young audiences in necessary detail, or provide ‘tools’ for safer and more practical understanding, remains to be seen. And this is needed now more than ever, as shown by the recent protests held by parents in Birmingham which threatened the well-overdue decision to include LGBTQ+ identities in the reformed Relationship and Sex Education curriculum. An open letter published by Pink News, and signed by over 30 leading British LGBTQ+ organisations, said the protests “echo the damaging rhetoric that surrounded the introduction of Section 28,” as calls to protect childhood innocence continue to exclude and frame non-cishet sexuality as dangerous, and assert slimly defined notions of sex, like pivving (penis-in-vagina), as the norm.

As the success of Netflix’s Sex Education showed, millennials and Generation Z are all too familiar with looking to porn to fill the gaping holes of information about sex left by awkward, insufficient education. No wonder we’ve found ourselves relying on places which aren’t exactly the most accurate or safe sources of information to try and cope with the chaos of figuring out what kind of sex we want to have and who with. So when we only talk about young people as "stumbling across" porn, rather than also wanting to explore the world of porn on their own terms, we do greater harm to those purely hoping to learn more about their own sexuality and sex itself. 

The government’s response of blocking porn off from young people completely, however, looks to only increase the fear and stigma engulfing the subject for teens, who will undoubtedly feel even less able to discuss porn in safe environments when most likely still looking for and watching it through VPNs or proxies. By not addressing their concerns more roundly in education, we give rise to the danger identified by the DCMS “that both adults and children may be pushed towards Tor where they could be exposed to illegal activities and more extreme material” and, as Sexpression warn, limit the potential for “comprehensive, inclusive relationships and sex education, in which a critical discussion of pornography plays a vital role.”