For nearly half of young people in England, girls ‘expect’ sex to involve violence: a report on Tuesday warned of the uplifting consequences of pornography and called on tech companies to take urgent action.
“Let me be clear,” warns Children’s Commissioner Rachel de Souza in her findings. “Adult content that parents may have had access to in their youth could be considered ‘picturesque’ compared to today’s world of online pornography.”
“Depictions of degradation, sexual coercion, aggression and exploitation are commonplace and disproportionately target adolescent girls,” she warns, saying she is “deeply concerned about the normalization of sexual violence in the online pornography”.
The commissioner’s office, a public body responsible for protecting the rights of children, makes a first observation: the consumption of pornography is widespread among young people and begins very early.
One in 10 children have seen pornography by the age of nine, according to the survey of 1,000 young people in England between November and January. Half of 13-year-olds have been exposed to pornography.
Before the age of 18, nearly eight in 10 young people have seen violent pornography involving coercive, degrading or painful sexual acts, mostly against women.
According to this report, “frequent pornography users are more likely to engage in physically aggressive sexual acts.”
In this regard, 47% of respondents believe that girls “expect” sex to involve physical aggression. And 42% believe that most girls “enjoy” acts of sexual assault.
Nearly one in two young people aged 18 to 21 have suffered a violent sexual act, especially girls.
Online Safety Bill
Already in 2021, a deluge of testimonies from teenagers on a website created by a young woman, Sara Soma, had alerted to the extent of sexual harassment in British schools.
A survey by the academic inspection services commissioned in the process revealed that around nine out of 10 girls said they were subjected to sexist insults and received images or videos of a sexual nature.
She warned about the ease of access to pornography, the consequences of which Rachel de Souza’s report details.
“I will never forget the girl who told me about her first kiss with her 12-year-old boyfriend who strangled her. He had seen it in pornographic films and found it normal,” reports the commissioner, whose report insists on “the urgent need to protect children.”
Parliament is due to debate the online security bill in the coming days. This draft imposes extensive age verification requirements (technical measures to establish a person’s age) on platforms to prevent those under 18 from accessing adult content.
Because with social networks, pornography has never been so easily accessible and has never imposed itself so much on young people. Nearly 40% of 16-21 year olds said they had accidentally come across pornography on the Internet. But half of those surveyed (58% of boys and 42% of girls, aged 16-21) said they had searched for pornography online themselves.
According to this survey, it is on Twitter (41%) that young people have seen the most pornography. Next come specialized sites (37%), Instagram (33%), Snapchat (32%) and search engines (30%).
“Parents can’t stop this social media tide,” Rachel de Souza told the BBC. “It’s the tech companies that need to take action […] Frankly, these multi-billion dollar companies should have a moral compass.”
They can “remove these images”, or “ensure the age” of people going to their site, insists the commissioner. “It harms our society and the happiness of children. This must stop”.