Pornocracy

We're in more trouble than we realise. Buy this book, read it, and share it.

By Claire Loneragan

I didn’t have taking an interest in pornography on my bucket list of retirement activities, and yet, here I am. For the avoidance of doubt, I’m not a content creator or a user. Instead, I belong to that group of women commonly derided as prudes, pearl clutchers and killjoys.

But as Jo Bartosch and Rob Jessel explain in their new book Pornocracy, the real killjoy is pornography itself which has the capacity and tendency to immiserate everyone pulled into its orbit.

Reading the book was both surprising and depressingly exactly as expected – nobody emerges from the porn industry in better shape than they went in, except perhaps the platform providers and promoters who are likely to be making substantial sums of money. If they’re smart, they won’t be using the content that’s making them rich.

Last week I had the great pleasure of meeting Jo and Rob in Taunton at an event to promote Pornocracy, hosted by Women’s Rights Network Somerset and Dorset. Actually, that’s not quite true; I met them at the very enjoyable pre-event meal, and despite the difficult subject matter it was a very successful evening.

No prizes for guessing the group of individuals who thought the event shouldn’t go ahead, though. The #BeKind brigade emailed the venue to “warn” them that the authors “are amongst the most radicalised extremists of the anti-LGBTQ hate movement” along with a slew of other nonsense too tedious to repeat.

How revealing that those claiming to care so earnestly about the marginalised and oppressed™️ prefer to suppress any discussion of how pornography preys on some of the most vulnerable people in society. Or perhaps trans identified men are just more concerned than most about any challenge to their supply of pornographic material?

I’m very happy to report that the venue manager was having none of it. He’s clearly a man who recognises baseless accusations and harassment when he sees them – and thank goodness for that. The demands to cancel were firmly rejected, and the evening went ahead with no trouble. The venue staff seemed as interested as the rest of us in what Jo and Rob had to say, too, with Charlotte from our local WRN group expertly guiding the conversation.

If I had to sum up the message they delivered in two words, those words would be deeply troubling.

It won’t be a surprise to learn that pornography content creators are frequently trafficked and abused, and may find themselves in an environment of escalating violence and degradation. But readers might be surprised to learn that pornography users are victims too. Research shows that pornography rewires the brain’s neurological pathways, redirecting the chemical stimuli that relate to desire, love and human bonding, and relationships away from healthy loving relationships and onto the computer screen. Use of pornography results not just in moral corruption but corruption of the human relationships that make life worth living.

It’s so, so grim.

And it’s likely that the younger the process starts, the worse the outcomes. Sexual dysfunction often follows, along with an escalating desire for more extreme material and a spiralling retreat from real life into the online world.

Don’t be fooled into thinking this is an adult problem, either. Children are seeing pornography at a younger age than ever before, and the prevalence of smart phones, means that your child or grandchild is only as protected as the weakest link in their friendship chain. Worse still, there’s plenty of content that is clearly aimed at children with algorithms driving it to their screens. The question is not if your child sees extreme pornography, it’s when.

The RSE and PHSE material used by schools doesn’t help much. Produced by unregulated third parties, it’s too often a Trojan horse for normalising and destigmatising the use of pornography and unsafe sexual relationships via claims that children need to know about such things as how to “safely choke” a partner and what it means to consent to anal sex. Both being activities that can lead to catastrophic outcomes for girls and young women.

There’s too much money, too many vested interests, and the industry is already too closely linked to illegal activities such as trafficking and prostitution, drugs and money laundering, for legislation alone to fix this.

We need to find another way to pull us back from the world that Pornocracy describes, which is not a dystopian future so much as a dystopian here and now.

Challenging events such as Drag Queen Story Hour that are marketed to children and families is essential, as is demanding to see curriculum material taught in schools. RSE and PHSE should be no more hidden by copyright clauses than maths and geography.

But most of all, we need tell better stories about what a good and fulfilling life looks like. Strong family ties, the love that parents have for our children and hope for a shared future all sound so much better than the solitary and porn addled moaning of a lost soul in his bedroom.