REVIEW: Sex Ed Show vs Porn (part 5) - LONG!

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Apologies for this being a few days later than promised.

In this final segment of my review of the Sex Education vs Pornography show that ran Monday-Thursday last week, I am going to look directly at the show's attitude to pornography (having already looked at the high points and low points of their treatment of sex education in my previous instalments). I'm going to start by outlining some of the statistics and claims made about porn use during the series, and then deal with the ideas and assumptions behind the show's thesis (and indeed, behind their interpretation of that statistics). In certain places I will point out directly some of the problems I have with the statistics as well.

The statistics used were based mostly on a survey that Channel 4 carried out for the basis of the television show; some of them came from the Government organisation UK Council for Internet Child Safety. If the source was not stated, I assume it came from their survey. I will state what oher source if I know it for any others.

The first statistic presented was "1/3 of teenagers say they learn sex education from pornography" (this was frequently stated as "1/3 of children"). Unfortunately, this statistic was stated two different ways, which calls into question its veracity: although the caption was always as written above, the presenter more than once said that "1/3 of those watching porn say..." According to another statistic, 2/3 of teenagers are watching porn. If we take the first formulation, then 33.3% of teens are getting their sex education from porn. If we take the second formulation, then that drops to 22.2% Either figure is way too high a figure, and something needs to be done about it, but the use of inaccurate reporting of statistics to create a "scare" is not helpful. Given that at one point the presenter talked about 1/4 of teens getting sex education from porn (which would be a more honest assessment if the second formulation is the correct one) it seems safe to say that such a scare tactic is exactly what was being used.

The reporting was consistent on the second statistic: the teens surveyed were watching 90 minutes of pornography a week on average (presumably that's the mean average).

The next statistic, I also have to challenge based on the way it was reported. In the first show it was stated that 2/3 of teens have seen pornography. However, in the second show it was stated that 90% of teens have seen porn, and that 2/3 regularly or occasionally watch porn. Assuming that the first show's statistic was meant to make the statement about who watches (as opposed to who has seen), this can perhaps be put down to a simple mistake on the part of the scriptwriter or presenter. Nevertheless, I was disappointed with the inaccuracy of the reporting.

It was reported that 60% of teens believe porn affects their sex lives.

A claim was made (I didn't catch the source on this one) that 12-17 year olds are the group that watches most porn. This is significant, because the age for watching adult movies in the UK is 18.

The UK Council for Internet Child Safety reported that the average age for first viewing pornography is 11. This apparently included accidenal encounters.

On anatomy, the survey found that 45% of teenage girls were unhappy with their breasts. It also found that 1/5 would consider surgery to alter their breasts. 27% of teenage boys were reported to be worried about the size and/or shape of their penis. According to the survey, 2/3 of teen girls shave or wax their pubic hair. It was also reported (I didn't see the source attributed) that there has been a 300% increase in labiaplasty operations in the last 5 years.

The survey found that 2/3 of teens want more sex education. 63% said that sex was not discussed at home.

*****

The basic thrust of the series was to argue that "we must do more to protect our children from pornography". Given that accidental exposure to porn seems to be happening in the preteens (going by some of the anecdotal evidence presented in the series by teenagers interviewed, and by the "average age" statistic presented by the UK Council for Internet Child Safety), this is certainly true. While I think it highly unlikely that reteens are going to be horribly disturbed by a brief accidental exposure to porn, I also believe that it's much better for them not to be until the changes of puberty start to make sexuality more pertinent to their lives. By anecdotal evidence I am aware that a number of young people are already vaguely aware of sexuality as young as 5, but again, before the body is physically ready to deal with actual sexual intercourse it is probably best to keep the mechanics (especially as portrayed in porn!) out of their way.

However, the main target of the show seemed to be not preteens accidentally seeing porn, but teenagers.

When Anna Richardson, the presenter, investigated the barriers, she looked in the first show at what appears when you go to enter a pornographic website, and in the fourth show at Google SafeSearch. In the first instance she observed the entrance page that asks whetehr you are over 18, and the options to "leave" or "enter", and she noted that "there's nothing to stop me". On the SafeSearch element, she treated it in a similar way. After demonstrating how to use SafeSearch and block pornographic material turning up in searches, she then went on to say, "But there's nothing to stop a child going straight in and changing it back again."

In both instances, the glaring question that was left unasked - the elephant in the room, if you will, was this: "For a teenager to take the action (i.e. lie about their age/reset the Google SafeSearch) implies a clear and deliberate choice by that teenager to seek out pornography. Why are they doing that?" This leads to a secondary question: "What makes you think they will stop looking for porn, just because you make it harder to find?"

Incidentally, in the first show, Anna Richardson was directed to a child porn site within minutes of clicking on a pornography link. From the comments she made as she went through to that point, she had for some reason not activated the anti-popup systems on her web browser (I was under the impression that the default setting is to have popups blocked on modern browsers - I'm pretty sure it was default when I installed Firefox). I know that in many years of surfing for porn, I have never accidentally been redirected to child porn. Did Ms Richardson get unlucky with it? Did they film that sequence hundreds of times until they got the result they wanted for maximum shock value? Is it simply because the popup blocker was deactivated, whereas mine is activated? Either way, I feel that it is not a representative sample of what actually happens when you go searching for porn online.

The judgemental attitude towards pornography was perhaps most obvious whenever Anna Richardson talked about appearances. From the appalling comment in the first show, "We want to replace 'porntastic' images of women with positive ones" (implying that a porn performer's appearance is a negative image) onwards, Ms Richardson was happy to slut-shame the "porn look".

In show 3, Anna dressed herself up in what she called "the porn look" to see what sort of reactions she got compared to her usual appearance (what she called, "my normal self"). She introduced that segment of the show with the following comments:

"Women want to be desired" [references to porn, glamour, celeb lifestyle etc as "causing" this]

"It's natural to want to look good"

"We've come a long way and we have the right to look the way we want" [apparently, that's what feminism was all about, judging by what she was saying...!]

"But why the porn look?"

Prior to the ad break she looked at a few of the things she associated with "the porn look" (Fake nails, hair extensions, boob jobs - but interestingly, not heels or corsets, which are the "discomfort" things that immediately spring to mind when thinking about the usual attacks on "pornification" of women's appearances) and asked the camera, "Ladies - why do we do it to ourselves?" This, at least, is a fair question, and indeed one that vexes many feminists (particularly those who assume that every woman must be doing for teh menz). However, given the spin that Anna Richardson put on it, I suspect that this was not really the spirit in which she was asking (remember, "every woman wants to be desired" quoted above...).

It seems that Ms Richardson's idea of the "porn look" is big boobs, thin waist (she used a corset to achieve this element of "the look"), tight leggings, high heels, overdone eye make up, fake tan and long, sculpted hair to achieve the glamour "wind-machine" look.

To my mind she looked not so much like a porn actress as my stereotype of a B-list '80s/'90s Hollywood actress. In fact, the instant association I made was the look of Patsy Stone (Joanna Lumley's character) in Absolutely Fabulous. Although I never watched that show, I observe from the wikipedia entry that Patsy was, "an outrageous, nymphomaniacal, past-her-prime fashion model and 'ex-Bond girl'" (the Bond movie in question, apparently, was "Bond meets Black Emannuelle"). Anna Richardson at one point during the segment actually asked "do I look like a cheap Bond girl?" The other stereotype that leapt to mind was "WAG". According to Anna Richardson, however, this was the look to which porn in particular is teaching women to aspire (and teaching men to admire). Having said now that I see this look as being promoted far more in more mainstream media than pornography, I now look to how common it is in porn itself. I do not have any statistics or proper evidence, only anecdotal remarks from my own porn consumption. While it is true that many of the performers I have seen in porn movies exhibit some or all of the characteristics that Ms Richardson decided made up the "porn look", I could very easily put my hands on non-amateur, mainstream porn movies that have performers who don't match that image very well. This is before we get into my collection of BDSM porn (where the aesthetics are different anyway). It is interesting that in interviews with a male and female porn performer, the female porn performer they interviewed also did not appear to match closely the image that Anna Richardson chose to portray as "the porn look".

However, the real message of this piece became truly clear when Ms Richardson started to go out and observe people's reactions. It started with her own, once she was fully dressed and made up: "Do I feel sexy? No - I feel like a slag."

Anna observed that "everybody stares" and that she was getting a LOT of attention (which was true). I almost feel churlish to point out that she stood out, because she looked very different from everyone else - maybe that was why she got stares? Ms Richardson then proceeded to ask members of the public how "up for it" they thought she looked. Unsurprisingly, out of 10, most rated her eagerness for sex as 10. The first problem with this was that one arsehole yelled at her, "You and me in the alleyway, how about it!?" Rape culture 101 right there...

The second problem was that when she asked some other people (especially women, but plenty of men as well) what they thought of her look, a lot of the old slut-shaming tropes started to be spilled out all over again. Some said she looked "sleazy"; another said she was "mutton dressed as lamb", another asked "do you like what it says about you?" I was reminded, watching as they said they preferred Anna's usual appearance, of a show on BBC 3 called "Snog, Marry, Avoid" that was styled as a "make-under" show - taking people back to a more natural look who preferred to go out in the heavily made-up "porn look" that Anna Richardson portrayed. What this clearly reveals about the public in general is that their attitudes about an attractive look hark back still to the virgin/whore dichotomy: a woman must not actually want sex, and must not display her wanting sex (she is allowed to display sex, but not wanting sex - she should display wanting romance). A woman apparently displaying confidence in her own sexuality is automatically seen as "sleazy", "a slag", etc.

The judgemental attitude was also found in the second show, where a segment was devoted to investigating the "pornified high street" (Anna Richardson's term). When she introduced this segment, I expected it to be an analysis of the way in which sexuality is displayed in billboards and so on, and who knows, maybe a bit of proper feminist analysis for once (since it's a phenomenon that has been studied since at least the 1960s by feminists). No. She was looking chiefly at what it's possible to buy in the way of sexual equipment in the high street. Because, of course, anything to do with sex must be influenced by porn, right? Throughout the piece, Ms Richardson's attitude and tone of voice conveyed a sense of incredulous shock, combined with a sense of ridicule of sex being something open rather than closeted.

Ms Richardson started by looking at the sex toys and accessories available in the main supermarkets: Tesco apparently sell cockrings, Sainsbury's sell stimulating gel as well as cockrings, and in Waitrose she managed to buy sexual lubricants. [sarcasm]Oh, the infamy.[/sarcasm]

Ms Richardson then visited an Ann Summers, and a more hardcore sex shop aimed at women-only. In the second visit she described herself as a "woman of the world" but said she didn't recognise any of the equipment. Based on what she didn't recognise in the Ann Summers (and the things she was looking at in the proper sex shop) I am inclined to quote to Ms Richardson a line I associate with Alexander the Great (but more, I think, because of the way I learned about Alexander the Great than that it was ever said to him or by him): "The world is a lot bigger than you imagine". The line from Hamlet also springs to mind: "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamed of in your philosophy." How can a "woman of the world" who is portraying herself as an expert on sexuality and porn, fail to recognise a simple ballgag, to the point where she turns to the camera and says in a disgusted voice, "I don't know where that goes, and I don't want to know!"? Further incredulity and shock followed when the owner of the women-only sex shop explained what you do with an anal plug, and why it's pleasurable during vaginal intercourse. Confusion as to the purpose of a clit/G-spot stimulator and the means of use of a triple clit/vaginal/anal vibrator also followed (admittedly, the last one did look rather complicated and scary to the uninitiated).

A truly epic fail followed these demonstrations when Ms Richardson, who don't forget began the series talking about developing a positive attitude to sex, not a "porntastic" one, then asked, "Are sex toys doing men out of a job?" While there's a terrific song (Artificial Means by Christine Lavin) about just such a phenomenon, in real life there is no substitute for a live partner (male or female) who can respond to you, who can surprise you, who can talk dirty or sweet to you as suits the moment etc. If you're going out trying to teach teens about healthy attitudes to sex, why are these points not right at the top of the list? Sure, in show 3 they talk about trust and respect, but they really skip over the whole emotional side of sexuality, and this moment shows the big problem in doing so.

The final segment that I particularly want to talk about is from the first show of the series. Anna Richardson (or possibly the show's producers) decided that it would be a good idea to gather a bunch of parents of the teenagers interviewed earlier in the show, and treat them to a film montage of the porn clips that had been passed around by the teens. This was based on the principle captured by Ms Richardson's introductory remark, "Do these parents really know what's out there, and whether their children have seen it?"

Introducing the screening, Ms Richardson told the parents that "it's extreme porn". She said that they couldn't show everything, because some of it is illegal - children and animals. In the descritpions from the teens, there was a famous one of a woman being fucked by a horse, which had also been mentioned as being handed around the British police force members in a documentary last year, and I think one of the teens mentioned a video of a woman performing fellatio on a horse, which video I have actually seen myself once. It seems worth noting that the appeal of these types of videos seems to be the "gross-out" factor rather than any erotic appeal. On the television broadcast of the screening, the screen of the cinema was blurred out so the viewers at home were unable to see what was being shown. All we had to go on were the reactions of the parents. Which, predicably, were exclamations of disgust. I wasn't able to make out many of the remarks, but one came across very clearly: "Oh my God, she's a granny!" (for comparison of why that's a really objectionable reaction, see what State Rep Kathi-Ann Reinstein of MA is trying to do, and what the objections are). Obviously, the deeply disgusted parents were all in favour of complete censorship of the internet after watching the clips.

However, the common thread I see in all these segments from the series is not that porn is harmful, but rather that society's attitudes towards porn, and indeed, towards sexuality in general, are seriously damaging teenagers' sexual development. At one point in the series we were told that Britain has the highest rate of teenage pregnancy of any Western European country, and this was used to suggest we need more censorship of pornography. What wasn't mentioned is the fact that Britain also has the strictest and most restrictive censorship of sexual material of any country in Western Europe.

My conclusion is not that we need to protect teenagers from porn (as I pointed out at the start of this piece, if they are deliberately looking for it, then they are going to find some way to get hold of it anyway) but rather that we need to arm them against it. If you want to teach teens about good sex practices, responsible attitudes towards sex, and positive images of themsleves, I say teach them about porn in sex education classes. Use porn to show them how NOT to do it. Use porn, and explain about the hours of preparation that the performers have to take to make a porn shoot possible. Explain why what they do is the same as what stuntmen do in a movie shoot, and for the same reason as you don't try to make a motorbike leap across a canyon, you also don't try to copy what porn performers do on-screen.

And then, for Christ's sake, teach teenagers about the emotional side of sex.

What we need isn't censorship of porn. It's fully comprehensive sex education, starting early and forming a full part of the curriculum.