“We have to be hairless, don’t we?” – The impact of porn on young people

Concerned parents and politicians are putting pressure on online pornography websites to implement strict age-identification processes, James Sumner reports.

FROM July, the United Kingdom will be the first country in the world to introduce a wide-spread age-verification demand for all pornographic websites.

Any site not compliant with these new guidelines, after a planned implementation period, starting on July 15th 2019, could face financial penalties or termination of their licences to operate in the UK.

Helen Westerman, Interim Head of Safeguarding in communities at the NSPCC, said: “This is absolutely a step in the right direction, we know that parents largely support this initiative, and indeed we think young people probably will do too.

“We hear routinely that, from both young people and parents, that they are really worried about what children are able to access in their online space without necessarily having the emotional maturity to handle what they’re seeing.”

Helen explained the impact that pornography has had on young women, from her past experiences.

Speaking with groups of girls aged 13 to 15 led to them reavealing the view that: “we have to be hairless, don’t we?That’s what lads expect. It’s what they see in porn and that’s what we have to look like.”

Mrs Westerman said: “It was a really hard-hitting message to me, that that is where our young people were getting their frame of reference from for what makes up a normal healthy sexual relationship, and clearly that’s not okay.”

“It may come from wider society in general, but will also be coming from what children are viewing online, and normalising.”

“It gives children a skewed view of what’s normal, what’s acceptable, what is expected, and what they might be pressurised to look like.

“When we don’t talk to children openly and honestly about what ‘normal’ sex looks like, children will seek out sex in an online format that may actually not be what real life is like and give them a skewed view of what normal relationships are.”

The NSPCC are staunch supporters of these legislative changes, their #WildWestWeb campaign putting pressure on the Government to introduce a law to keep children safe online. To date it has received over 45,000 signatures in support since going live in August 2018.

“It is quite a complicated process. I’m not sure that it’s fault proof, what’s being proposed, but I think we have to give it a go, and learn from that experience from the first 12 to 18 months.”

“When I’m performing I’m not the real me”

Ashanti, 21, is a lap-dancer at Victoria’s Lap-dancing Gentlemen’s Club, who used to be a pornographic webcam performer, but she insists that pornography had no particular impact on these career choices.

“I wouldn’t say too much. But yeah I watched a fair share. I’ve always watched amateur porn which is the real stuff so it’s been positive for me.”

Ashanti started lap-dancing as soon as she turned 18, but got a full time job so turned to sexual web-cam performances to earn extra money. She would take specific requests from online strangers, earning varied amounts based on length and nature, averaging around £60 a video.

“When I’m performing I’m not the real me. It’s basically like I have two personalities. I’ve always loved lingerie. I’m naturally flirty so I decided to do a job where I could be myself. People sometimes have really weird requests. But I can reject them, for example, a guy just wanted me to fart on camera. I’m lactose intolerant and he said he’d pay, so I made sure I ate dairy before hand.”

Ashanti agrees that it can negatively affect self-esteem issues at times, seeing stereotypical ‘perfect bodies’. However, in her view, this may not just be linked to porn.

“I feel that certain blocks need to happen for kids, because it’ll give kids certain ideas on how sex is, which is false.”

“I’m not skinny. I’m very curvy with a tummy and seeing thin girls in the past has really thrown me off. I’ve learnt that men have their own types and men love naked girls. If being a plus size or curvy was normalised then it would be fine, these body image issues wouldn’t be happening.”

“Yes, it caused big issues”

We conducted our own surveys about how people approach pornography, and their views on young people having access to such content.

Results varied, but a strong view that the government shouldn’t be censoring content online being prevalent.

Some respondents shared their own views on whether this modern phenomena actually has a lasting impact on a person’s development.

One person said: “Yes I find intimacy difficult and I wonder if that’s because of the years of porn and its idealism around sex”.

Another said: “Yes, it caused big issues in my previous relationship”.

However the predominant view of those surveyed was that no, it did not have a lasting negative effect, some even praising it: “No, in fact it has opened up my interests and has allowed me to show my interests to partners.”

Tom Roberts was a recent part of the BBC documentary “Is this Sexual Harassment” spending several days learning about unhealthy attitudes and sexual misconduct, we asked him about whether this tied back to unhealthy sexual content online.

Mr Roberts said: “Unless the sex education system is going to be reformed in some way, or it is encouraged that families reach out and find sex education themselves, I think porn does have a necessary part to play, as people need to learn about their own bodies and their own limits”

The British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) will be responsible for ensuring compliance with the new laws, assigned the role following the Digital Economy Act 2017, which first pushed for these legislative changes.

Research carried out by YouGov for the BBFC found that 88% of parents with children aged 7-17 agree there should be robust age-verification controls in place to stop children seeing pornography online”.

Minister of State for Digital and the Creative Industries, Margot James, said: “The introduction of mandatory age-verification is a world-first, and we’ve taken the time to balance privacy concerns with the need to protect children from inappropriate content.

“We want the UK to be the safest place in the world to be online, and these new laws will help us achieve this.”

Each website must be registered with an Age-verification Certificate, after passing strict standard requirements laid out online here.

BBFC Chief Executive, David Austin said: “The introduction of age-verification to restrict access to commercial pornographic websites to adults is a ground breaking child protection measure.

“The UK is leading the way in internet safety.”

The BBFC regulations and rules will be updated regularly to ensure they keep up with the rapid changes associated with such sectors of the internet via their website at ageverificationregulator.com.

Proof of age verifications are planned to come from a variety of sources, Age ID being an example using options such as SMS, credit card, passport, or driving licence. Alternately vouchers may be purchased from local shops, known as PortesCards, for £4.99, removing the personal identification elements.

In response, commercial Virtual Private Networks (known as VPNs) are already being promoted to undermine the BBFC’s security system, allowing for the continuation of anonymised access to pornography.

These non-age restricted networks allow someone to connect to servers across the world in order to protect their privacy and circumvent internet restrictions based on location. This could be used for simple, day to day activities, such as streaming online television programmes locked by region.

However, these services are mostly paid for, with monthly payments for more secure connections, with companies hoping this would be sufficient to put off younger people.

Attila Tomaschek, Digital Privacy Expert at BestVPN.com, said: “Using a VPN is so easy these days that we would expect to see most adults who want to watch online porn using a VPN to bypass the restrictions, rather than go through the hassle or embarrassment of registering as being over 18.

“Due to the nature of VPNs, we have no way of knowing if that content is pornographic or simply just American Netflix titles and cheap videogames.

“Their primary objective seems to be preventing younger children from stumbling across explicit content online, which we can reasonably expect to be effective. This won’t stop curious, tech-savvy youngsters using their knowledge of VPNs to access to pornographic content online though.”

More:

• “A perfect storm has taken place” – The impacts of the internet on teen mental health
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