Will porn sites be blocked in France? A hearing before the Paris court takes place on the morning of Tuesday, September 6 on this subject. It is the Regulatory Authority for Audiovisual and Digital Communication (Arcom) which is requesting this blocking of five sites (Pornhub, Pornhub, XHamster, XVideos and Xnxx). According to the media and internet regulator, they do not sufficiently prevent minors from consulting them since it is enough to click on “Yes, I am over 18” to access them.
However, the penal code prohibits exposing minors to pornographic images. The recent law of 2020 on domestic violence specifies that no pornographic site can be exonerated from its responsibility and must prevent the access of minors to its contents.
Still, the teenagers questioned do not really hide it: they watch porn. And when asked if they are 18 years old, the answer is clear: “Nope”replied a young man. “Yet you click ‘yes’ when you go to a porn site?” “Uh no !”replies less assured the young man triggering the laughter of his comrades: “We must speak frankly”launches one of them.
Two 15-year-old girls nod in unison when asked if they’ve ever been to a porn site. But then why are they going to see this content? “Out of curiosity”, “to know the details”, “so as not to have any surprises”, answer these young people who are still minors. However, the criticisms of porn are numerous: it is often denounced as degrading for the image of women, eroticizing a certain violence.
An image of the sexual act far from reality for these young people? “It depends”, answer young girls. A boy concedes that “some think it’s really like in porn movies, they say if I don’t do it she won’t like it, I have to do it hard or fast.” And these ideas, young people can make them earlier and earlier. At the age of 12, nearly one in three children has already seen porn, according to the government site jeprotegemonenfant.gouv.fr.
Sometimes it’s even younger. “I was 9 or 8 years old” for her first porn, confides a young girl, which surprises her friend: “But you’re young!” “But it’s because the people in the class talked about it all of a sudden, well…”justifies the young girl. “I had come across some videos that shocked me when I was quite young with animals”explains a boy. “I remember in college, in the locker room, there were guys who were 13 watching porn on their phones, they were all panicked around it… It was a little weird”confides one of the young people. “Me, it marked me a lot in fact, at that time, there were no lessons, it started in college”remembers another.
This observation of the lack of sex education is also shared by the High Council for Equality between Women and Men. Of the 21 compulsory courses throughout their schooling, French pupils take only three on average. And they are more devoted to reproduction and contraception than to issues of consent.
And that’s quite concerning because there seem to be repercussions in teenagers. If sexist stereotypes are declining among all French people, the “culture of rape” persists among the youngest. And porn can be responsible for it, as when these young girls confide in taking videos as benchmarks to accept violent sexual intercourse. “Obviously these words do not surprise me”, launches Thomas Rhomer, founder of the Observatory of parenting and digital education. According to him, these images must be deconstructed at school: “Clearly, we must talk about porn at school because it is part of the lives of children and adolescents. Obviously, the risk is that the stereotypes conveyed by pornography become a kind of tutorial. What these said young girls, it’s still quite questioning.”
“It’s embarrassing in girl-boy relationships because we know today that so-called ‘mainstream’ pornography is still very much oriented around male pleasure. It absolutely does not take into account the place of women who are not always very well represented, or even rather mistreated, which we denounce regularly.”
Thomas Rhomer. He is the founder of the Observatory of Parenting and Digital Educationat franceinfo
So we need more sex education. But there are other avenues. One of the ideas, which may shock, would be for professionals in the sector to intervene with young people. “I would actually like”, declares Nikita Bellucci who is voluntary. This porn star has been the victim of cyberbullying from young people – and old people – who watch her videos. “For example, I kill myself to say in an interview, when I am asked the question: ‘Am I having fun on my scenes?’ I explain that no, I don’t take pleasure, that it’s a job. Except that there is a huge lack of education on this with minors. ‘How to put on the condom?’, ‘the woman has a clitoris’ …, we all know that. Now we have to take the next step.”
“I have the impression that everyone is a bit of an ostrich because everyone is afraid to talk about these subjects.”
Nikita Bellucci, porn actressat franceinfo
“Why not, I don’t know, come to third grade? And go ahead, children, ask us your questions!launches the actress. Even the wildest questions. Because of not answering their questions, they have no answers. Afterwards, we should not be surprised that it has drifts. On top of that, in some families, we won’t talk about pornography or sexuality.” A taboo still too heavy, while the little French want to grow up too quickly. Today it is on average in CM1 that they get their first smartphone with all the risks that entails.