by Georgia Gilholy, Conservative Home
“Pornocracy” by Jo Bartosch and Robert Jessel is not the most festive of reads. This short but informative new book excruciatingly details how, “from rewiring our brains and normalising sexual violence, to shaping new protest movements, the pornographic revolution has achieved a stunning and near-total victory.”
Anyone who has spoken to teachers, parents, or teenagers knows that pornography is no longer a marginal vice. It is generally the first type of sexual education children receive, delivered by dodgy algorithms , and rarely challenged in public.
For years, our politicians have treated this phenomenon as awkward but untouchable. There is some half-hearted attempt to mitigate it via school assemblies, trigger warnings and the occasional safeguarding poster. In some cases it is even celebrated, with third-sector education services being welcomed into classrooms where they tell children that porn is simply an option and a matter of private choice.
As Bartosch and Jessel explain, modern pornography is not about titillation so much as escalation. The most extreme material is often the most profitable, and platforms make so much money from encouraging these compulsions that we have no clue just how much wealth this pseudo “industry” has amassed. The younger the user, the longer the customer lifespan, and these profiteers know this.
This is why legal intervention matters. We already have the tools, or at least the outlines of them. The Online Safety Act gestures in the right direction on age verification and platform responsibility, but enforcement remains timid. Ofcom has been handed sweeping powers, yet has shown far more enthusiasm for policing conservative speech than for confronting an industry that exposes children to explicit material at the click of a button. Regulation without teeth merely reassures ministers while leaving incentives untouched.