Six months of work, dozens of hours of auditions and an analysis of the main pornographic content online today. For the first time in parliamentary history, a Senate information report examines the practices of the pornographic industry. It is presented, Wednesday, September 28, by senators Alexandra Borchio-Fontimp (Les Républicains), Laurence Cohen (Communist), Laurence Rossignol (Socialist) and Annick Billon (Centrist Union).
“Complément d’Enquête”, whose September 29 program is devoted to violence against women in this environment, was able to consult this document of nearly 150 pages. Entitled “Porn: the hell of the decor”, it is part of an unprecedented legal context: for the first time in France, two actors in the sector, French Bukkake and Jacquie and Michel, are in the sights of justice, in particular for “group rape, aggravated trafficking in human beings and aggravated procuring”.
After the auditions “testing” victims in these two cases, which reveal a “porosity between pimping, prostitution and pornography”the authors wondered: should we move towards a ban on “any unsimulated depiction of sexual acts on screen” ? “We did not choose this abolitionist path because this market is so opaque and constantly changing that it is impossible to ban itexplains to franceinfo Annick Billon. But we dare to ask people to open their eyes. I am convinced that this report is a bomb.” Here is what he proposes, in 23 recommendations.
Exposing pornographic violence and its consequences
The observation. The pornography industry “generates systemic violence against women”whether it be actresses or those who “subject to a sexuality modeled on the norms of violence conveyed by porn”, see the mission. It is therefore urgent to make one “priority” in public debate. With the massification of the pornographic offer since the mid-2000s, consumption has exploded, leading to a phenomenon of addiction and increasingly content “trash”. According to several studies cited in the report, 90% of pornographic scenes involve violence, physical and verbal, and convey “misogynistic, racist, lesbophobic and hypersexualized stereotypes”. During her hearing by the parliamentary delegation, Laure Beccuau, public prosecutor at the Paris public prosecutor’s office, established a link between the fight against this industry and that against domestic violence.
“We will never move forward in the fight against domestic violence and feminicide if we do not reverse the trend in terms of pornography.”
Senator Annick Billonat franceinfo
The recommendations. The report calls for “the conditions in which most pornographic filming takes place are known to everyone”in particular consumers, who must be “informed of the sordid underside of this predatory industry”. Parents should be too “fully aware” than their children “will be confronted, during their minority, voluntarily or not, repeatedly, intensively or episodically, with violent pornographic content”.
Strengthen the judicial arsenal to better protect actresses
The observation. The hearings confirmed it: recruiters in the pornography world target young, even very young, precarious and psychologically fragile women. “The modus operandi is always the same: it consists in raping the first time to subjugate the victims”, describes the lawyer Lorraine Questiaux, heard by the delegation. The establishment, by rare professionals, of more regulatory employment contracts, which detail the accepted sexual practices, is a measure “cosmetic” and insufficient according to the authors, “taking into account the inherently reversible nature of consent in sexual matters at any time”. But the idea that the consent of the actresses is acquired has a hard life.
“Why did you have to hear things like, ‘You understand, Miss Bellucci, what you’re describing are the hazards of the job and you signed up for that’?”
Nikita Bellucci, actress, director and producer of pornographic contentin front of the delegation
The recommendations. For Senator Annick Billon, it “must change software, as we did for marital rape. Yes, there are rapes in porn, everyone must integrate it, starting with the victims and the police who hear them.” The Senate hopes that the ongoing judicial information will pave the way for a #MeToo in pornography, encouraging other victims to press charges. The report recommends training the police to collect these specific complaints and to establish the follow-up of their file by a single contact. He calls on the executive to give more resources to the investigators and magistrates in charge of these investigations to “absorb the growing number of potential cases”, as prosecutor Laure Beccuau pointed out during her hearing. The authors also want “making sexual violence committed in the context of pornography an offense of incitement to a criminal offence”.
Making it easier to remove online videos for the “right to be forgotten”
The observation. Once online and duplicated on broadcast platforms, the videos are almost impossible to remove, preventing actresses from exercising their “right to be forgotten”, laments the report. This is especially true in amateur porn, where producers “encourage women to sign unlimited image rights contracts”. If they then claim a withdrawal, they ask them between 3,000 and 5,000 euros, ten times more than the remuneration obtained for the scene shot. In the French Bukkake affair, the producers had assured that the scenes filmed were “for private” Where “not broadcast in France”. Civil parties have told how the non-consented dissemination of their videos on websites accessible from France had turned their lives upside down.
“It’s been six years since I suffered all these rapes and it continues because it’s on the internet. I am raped every day, every time these videos are viewed.”
A civil party in the French Bukkake casein front of the delegation
The recommendations. The senators believe that it is necessary “impose fines on broadcasters, platforms such as social networks, for any dissemination of illegal content”. They also encourage the authorities to “create a ‘sexual violence’ category in reports [sur la plateforme] Pharos in order to facilitate and better account for reports”.
Apply (finally) the law to prohibit minors’ access to pornography
The observation. The authors denounce “massive, trivialized and toxic consumption” child and adolescent pornography. The figures quoted in the report are instructive. Of the 19.3 million unique visitors to a porn site each month, 2.3 million are under 18. Two-thirds of children under 15 and one-third of children under 12 have had access to pornographic images. The first exposure can occur as early as primary. The consequences are multiple: trauma, sleep, attention and eating disorders, distorted and violent vision of sexuality… The Penal Code however prohibits any distribution of pornographic content likely to be seen by a minor. But the legal remedies do not lead to the blocking of the sites, regret the senators.
“Giving children porn images in the street is an offense punishable by prison, but doing it without any control or limitation is possible on the web.”
Gynecologist Israel Nisandin front of the delegation
The recommendations. Currently, the Audiovisual and Digital Communication Regulatory Authority (Arcom, ex-CSA) does not have a free hand to directly sanction sites accessible to minors. It must proceed by bailiff and issue formal notices. The report recommends swearing in its agents so that they can see the offenses themselves and allow Arcom to pronounce an administrative sanction with dissuasive amounts, as is already done in the fight against online hate.
The other action lever is the verification of the age of Internet users. The senators insist on the urgency of finding satisfactory technical solutions to verify their identity while protecting personal data. Today, no method is completely reliable. In the meantime, the mission calls for parental control to be activated by default when a telephone subscription is taken out for a minor.
Focus on prevention by giving resources to National Education
The observation. “If children want to access pornographic content, it is first of all because they have questions about sexuality”, observed before the delegation Olivier Gérard, of the National Union of Family Associations (Unaf). However, the three annual sessions of education in emotional and sexual life, provided for by law since 2001, are not applied, notes the report. Parents are not better equipped or informed. According to a study carried out by theObservatory of parenthood and digital education (Open) and Unaf, a quarter of them do not consider that there is a risk of exposure to pornography in the digital space.
The recommendations. The senators demand an annual evaluation of the application of the law in each academy, with the appointment of a delegate. And plead so that in these sessions, “subjects relating to the commodification of bodies and pornography” be addressed. “A health-based approach seems more effective with adolescents than a moralizing or guilt-inducing approach”, note the senators. For this, they highlight the need to recruit trained health professionals: “National Education has only 7,700 nurses for 62,000 school sites and 13 million students. That’s too few.” Finally, the mission considers it useful to raise parents’ awareness by conducting a communication campaign around the jeprotegemonenfant.gouv.fr platform.