The Impact of on Society – CARE Briefing October 2015 HL Debate – 5 November 2015

The Impact of Pornography on Society HL Debate – 5 November 2015

 The proliferation of free to view pornography websites has made it easier for individuals of any age to gain access to explicit content.  Children increasingly use mobile devices such as smartphones to access the internet away from the scrutiny of parents. CARE is concerned and seeking clarification from the Minister as to whether the family-friendly filters for will be challenged by the recent EU ruling.  The Relate counselling service has said that difficulties in relationships caused by pornography “is an increasingly common topic in the counselling room”.  Pornography can have other negative consequences for individuals, including losing employment.  Excessive pornography use has been shown to change brain activity, similar to that for drug addicts.

Introduction 1. It is estimated that the porn industry is worth around $97 billion world-wide.1 A recent article in The Economist said the “number of porn pages is estimated at 700-800m; one of the biggest sites claims to get 80 billion views a year.”2 The Authority for Television on Demand’s (ATVOD) 2014 report For Adults Only? showed that many of the pornographic websites viewed by UK users operate as ‘tube sites’ – these are sites which provide free porn videos “on a try before you buy basis”.3 With the free availability of pornography through ‘tube sites’ it is reasonable to assume that individuals, including children could potentially view unrestricted, pornographic content at any time, particularly as non-UK/EU providers of pornographic videos and services are not obliged to verify the age of the user.4

2. Debates about regulation of pornography are controversial because any action is often considered censorship and is rejected in favour of arguments centred on “choice” and “sexual liberty”. However, this briefing shows that pornography is not benign for everyone and that just as the Government regulates other practices that can be problematic for some people, such as gambling, the Government should reconsider current assumptions about adult use of pornography and ensure that the protection of children remains a key priority.

The effect of pornography on children 3. ATVOD reported that 200,000 school children between the ages of six and fifteen had visited pornographic websites in December 2013 either through a PC or laptop.5 This is likely to be an underestimate of the amount of pornographic websites that children and young people are accessing as the research did not account for material accessed through mobile phones, yet 59% of twelve to fifteen year olds access the internet through mobile phones, away from the scrutiny of parents.6

1 ‘Porn industry Feeling Upbeat About 2014,’ NBC News, 14 January 2014 http://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/porn-industry-feeling-upbeat-about-2014-n9076 2 ‘Generation XXX’, The Economist, 26 September 2015, http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21666614-free-pornography-ever-more- plentiful-online-right-response-involves-better-sex 3 For Adults Only?’ATVOD research report, 28 March 2014, page 19 http://www.atvod.co.uk/uploads/files/For_Adults_Only_FINAL.pdf 4 Ibid, page 22 and 23 5 Ibid, page 16 6 ‘Children and Parents: Media Use and Attitudes report’, OFCOM, October 2014, page 23 http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/binaries/research/media-literacy/media-use-attitudes-14/Childrens_2014_Report.pdf 1 The Impact of Pornography on Society – CARE Briefing October 2015 HL Debate – 5 November 2015

4. The Nextweb.com reveals that Facebook and YouTube supplied the second and third highest amount of traffic to adult sites in February 2015,7 which is particularly concerning because these media platforms are used by all ages on a daily basis. According to OFCOM’s 2014 Children and Parents: Media Use and Attitudes report, 76% of twelve to fifteen year olds and over half of eight to eleven year olds watch YouTube channels.8 In 2011, The Deputy Children’s Commissioner said, “What is clear…is that children’s access to pornography is fundamentally different from that of previous generations because of the prevalence of these materials on the internet. Explicit sex and violent still and moving images depicting rape, bestiality, the use of pain and humiliation are potentially just a few clicks away.” She also said pornography “was mentioned by boys in witness statements after being apprehended for the rape of a child, one of whom said it was ‘like being in a porn movie’.”9

5. Young people have also acknowledged the easy availability of pornography in the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) research report Young People, Sex and Relationships: The New Norms. The report details the findings taken from a survey of 500 eighteen year olds during 2014 to discover young people’s views on sex and relationships.10 The authors note that:  eight out of ten participants believed that it was too easy to accidently view pornography online;  72% believed that pornography led to unrealistic expectations of sex;  70% said pornography can have a damaging effect on how young people view sex and relationships;  77% of young women said pornography has led to pressure to look a certain way.

6. Early exposure to pornographic material can be extremely harmful to children. The Economist reported that given the view that sexual tastes are formed around puberty “ill-timed exposure to unpleasant or bizarre material could cause a lifelong problem.”11 The 2011 Basically...porn is everywhere evidence assessment report commissioned by the Children’s Commissioner concluded that:12  A significant proportion of children and young people are exposed to or access pornography;  Access and exposure to pornography affect children and young people’s sexual beliefs. For example, pornography has been linked to unrealistic attitudes about sex, maladaptive attitudes and beliefs that women are sex objects;  Access and exposure to pornography are linked to children and young people’s engagement in “risky behaviours, eg. , riskier sexual behaviours.”

7. The negative effects of watching pornography for children are also well-documented in the press. Many judges have identified the role of pornography when criminal cases are brought before the courts – many of these cases involve children both as perpetrators of heinous sexual acts and as victims of such acts. Cases such as the thirteen year old boy who raped a girl, younger than eight, after watching pornography online;13 such stories reveal the disastrous consequences ready access to pornography by children can have.

7 ‘Porn industry Feeling Upbeat About 2014,’ NBC News, 14 January 2014 http://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/porn-industry-feeling-upbeat-about-2014-n9076 8 OFCOM, Op Cit, page 6 9 ‘Basically...porn is everywhere,’ A rapid assessment on the fact that access and exposure to pornography has on children and young people, Middlesex University London, Miranda A.H. Horvath, Llian Alys, Kristina Massey, Afroditi Pina, Mia Scally and Joanna R. Adler, 2011, page 4, https://www.safeguardingchildrenbarnsley.com/media/22945/basically_porn_is_everywhere_final_1_.pdf 10 ‘ Young People, Sex and Relationships: The New Norms,’ Institute for Public Policy Research, August 2014 http://www.ippr.org/files/publications/pdf/young-people-sex-relationships_Aug2014.pdf?noredirect=1 11 ‘A User’s Manual, The Economist, 26 September 2015, http://www.economist.com/news/international/21666113-hardcore-abundant-and- free-what-online-pornography-doing-sexual-tastesand 12 ‘Basically...porn is everywhere, Op Cit, pages 7-8 13 ‘Schoolboy, 13, spent years raping little girl aged younger than eight after watching internet pornography,’ Mail Online, 19 Nov 2013 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2509889/Internet-porn-addict-13-spent-years-raping-girl-younger-8.html#ixzz3K5NnAV95 2 The Impact of Pornography on Society – CARE Briefing October 2015 HL Debate – 5 November 2015

8. In its 2015 manifesto the Conservative party committed to stopping “children’s exposure to harmful sexualised content online, by requiring age verification for access to all sites containing pornographic material...”14 On 12 October 2015 Baroness Shields, the Minster for Internet Safety and Security, said the Government intends to consult on this manifesto commitment before the end of the year.15 CARE is concerned and seeking clarification as to whether the system family-friendly filters for internet pornography being operated by the big four internet service providers will be challenged by the recent EU ruling.16 On 28 October, the Prime Minister said that the Government had secured an opt-out from this ruling and will introduce legislation to ensure children are protected.17 CARE is concerned that the Government’s consultation proposals should ensure that all ISPs – not just the big four – offer so-called family friendly filtering as currently 10% of the market is not covered by the voluntary agreement. In addition, the proposals should ensure that filter settings can only be changed by parents and that there is regulation of foreign websites which are currently under no obligation to restrict access for under 18s to pornographic material.

9. Key questions to ask the Minister  Will the Government’s consultation on age verification for websites containing pornographic material tackle the large number of unregulated foreign websites that are accessed by children and young people?  Could the Minister clarify how the Government propose to ensure that filtering options are available in the UK despite the recent EU ruling that online traffic must be treated “without discrimination, restriction or interference?”  How are the Government continuing to monitor the on children and young people?

The effect of pornography on relationships and family life 10. The Relate counselling service have indicated that counsellors are increasingly seeing problems with ‘relationships and sexual functioning’ as a result of internet pornography.18 In its 2015 report, The Way We Are Now, Relate noted that 23% of 16-34 year olds in a relationship reported an overall negative impact on their relationship from use of online pornography.19 The report said that pornography use “is an increasingly common topic in the counselling room.”20

11. CARE is concerned that pornography can be damaging to relationships. With family breakdown costing the UK £47 billion per annum, according to the Relationship Foundation’s 2015 report, Counting the cost of family failure,21 the Government should introduce measures which support family life and raise awareness of some of the potential difficulties pornography can cause relationships.

14 ‘Strong Leadership, a clear economic plan, a brighter more secure future,’ the Conservative party manifesto 2015 https://www.bond.org.uk/data/files/Blog/ConservativeManifesto2015.pdf 15 HL Written Question HL2479, answered 22 October 2015 http://www.parliament.uk/business/publications/written-questions-answers- statements/written-question/Lords/2015-10-12/HL2479/ 16 ‘Blow for Cameron as Brussels rules that new porn filters are illegal: Fury at EU move to outlaw ‘opt-in’ system that protects children,’ Daily Mail, 27 October 2015 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3292677/Blow-Cameron-Brussels-rules-new-porn-filters-illegal-Fury-EU- outlaw-opt-protects-children.html 17 HC Deb 28 October 2015, Col 344 http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201516/cmhansrd/cm151028/debtext/151028- 0001.htm#15102833000668 18 ‘Masturbation, fetishes and internet porn: the sexual secrets we keep from our partners,’ Cate Campbell, Relate website http://www.relate.org.uk/blog/2015/8/11/masturbation-fetishes-and-internet-porn-sexual-secrets-we-keep-our-partners 19 ‘The way we are now – the state of the UK’s relationships 2015’, Relate, September 2015, page 23 http://www.relate.org.uk/files/relate/publication-way-we-are-now-2015.pdf Note 19% said it had had a positive impact on their relationship 20 Ibid. 21 ‘Counting the Cost of Family Failure,’ Relationships Foundation, 2015 update http://www.relationshipsfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Counting-the-Cost-of-Family-Failure-2015-Update.pdf 3 The Impact of Pornography on Society – CARE Briefing October 2015 HL Debate – 5 November 2015

12. Key question to ask the Minister  As part of its funding of relationship and marriage support services, will the Government ensure that resources are made available to raise awareness of the potential negative impact of pornography on relationships?

The effect of pornography on the individual: pornography 13. is yet to be clinically defined; however, there is growing evidence to suggest that some people do have an excessive pornography consumption which may lower feelings of satisfaction and reward in parts of the brain – this type of brain activity is commonly associated with individuals who have .

14. Simone Kühn PhD and Jürgen Gallinat PhD carried out research on sixty-four healthy, male participants. The participants viewed sixty sexually explicit images and sixty non-sexually explicit images whilst functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scans were used to examine the participants’ brain activity. The research showed the correlations between excessive pornography use and lower experiences of reward. Kühn suggested “this could mean that regular consumption of pornography dulls the , as it were.”22

15. A study conducted by Dr Valerie Voon et al. drew attention to the similarities between brain activity relating to excessive pornography consumption and drug addiction. The study examined 19 healthy individuals and 19 individuals with compulsive sexual behaviours (CSBs). The volunteers’ brain activity was examined using fMRI scans whilst they viewed both sexually explicit and non-sexually explicit content. The research revealed “there are clear differences in brain activity between patients who have compulsive sexual behaviour and healthy volunteers. These differences mirror those of drug addicts.” 23

16. The excessive consumption of pornography and its addictive nature can also have negative effects on an individual’s day-to-day life. The 19 volunteers with CSBs in the Voon study reported negative consequences as a result of excessive pornography use which had led to “significant shame and distress”.24 They included:  Losing employment as a result of viewing pornography at work  Fractured intimate relationships or negative influenced social activities  Diminished libido or sexual dysfunction  Excessive use of escorts  Suicidal ideation  Using large sums of money.25

17. Similar stories can be found elsewhere. Take the story of Craig who began using pornography after accidently coming across his father’s stash of DVDs.26 Craig stated that the more he viewed pornography the harder it was for him to develop relationships with and others; it was also difficult for him to concentrate

22 ‘Viewers of pornography have a smaller reward system,’ Max Planck Institute for Human Development, 2 June 2014 https://www.mpib-berlin.mpg.de/en/media/2014/06/viewers-of-pornography-have-a-smaller-reward-system 23 ‘Brain activity in sex addiction mirrors that of drug addiction,’ University of Cambridge press release, 11 July 2014 http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/brain-activity-in-sex-addiction-mirrors-that-of-drug-addiction 24 Ibid. 25 ‘Neural Correlates of Sexual Cue Reactivity in Individuals with and without Compulsive Sexual Behaviours, Valerie Voon, Thomas B. Mole, Paula Banca, Laura Porter, Laurel Morris, Simon Mitchell, Tatyana R. Lapa, Judy Karr, Neil A.Harrison, Marc N. Potenza, Michael Irvine, Plos One, 11 July 2014 http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0102419#s4 26 ‘Pornography addiction a real life story’, Charlotte Fantelli, Mental Healthy website http://www.mentalhealthy.co.uk/addiction/addiction/pornography-addiction-real-life-story.html 4 The Impact of Pornography on Society – CARE Briefing October 2015 HL Debate – 5 November 2015

at school. He received poor grades which he believed was due to preoccupation with pornography. He stated that he didn’t know that he was ‘an addict’ until he began noticing that pornography was having an effect on his relationships in his mid-twenties. It was only after the collapse of his engagement that he sought help. Craig is now happily married with two daughters.

18. Similarly, the story of Daniel also reflects the addictive nature of pornography. Daniel’s pornography obsession began when his parents bought him a laptop aged fifteen. Daniel used the laptop to watch pornography every day for two hours, but his pornography consumption progressed further and he began watching content which he stated ‘concerned him’. He underwent an abstinence course to break free from his obsession and stated that “it was rough, it was really rough. There were sleepless nights. There were nights where I’d wake up in cold sweats... there would be days where I’d just start shaking for no reason...my body was just shaking and I didn’t know why.”27

19. These studies and personal stories reflect the importance of putting measures in place that support people for whom pornography use has negative consequences. The Government has recognised that gambling is a problem for some people and ensures that the gambling industry provides means to support these individuals through funding and self-exclusion mechanisms. In a similar way, the Government should hold the pornography industry to account for the destructive behaviours that can occur as a result of using pornography. For example, the Gambling Commission is mandating that all online gambling providers have self-exclusion mechanisms that help problem gamblers exempt themselves from online gambling activities.28 There may be options for similar self-exclusion protocols for individuals who wish to self- exclude from pornography websites.

20. Key question to ask the Minister  Will the Government commit to considering a similar self-exclusion mechanism to that proposed by the Gambling Commission to support those who want to exclude themselves from online pornographic services?

Conclusion 18. Pornography can be damaging to children and young people and to some adults. The evidence suggests that pornography can have a negative impact on an individual’s social and economic environment, affecting relationships and day-to-day life. The Government should be:  Ensuring children are unable to access inappropriate content, whether at home or remotely, from sites based in the UK and overseas;  Holding the pornography industry to account in a similar way to the gambling industry;  Raising awareness of the potential negative impacts of pornography on relationships;  Supporting individuals who are concerned about their pornography use. A self-exclusion mechanism for online pornography may be one way to help individuals protect themselves from such content.

CARE, 53 Romney Street, London, SW1P 3RF Please contact Dr Dan Boucher on 020 7227 4738 for further information

27 ‘Porn addiction: I couldn’t focus on everyday activities, BBC Newsbeat, 4 June 2015 http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/article/32916056/porn-addiction-i-couldnt-focus-on-everyday-activities 28 ‘Briefing note on the national online self-exclusion scheme,’ The Gambling Commission, May 2015 http://www.gamblingcommission.gov.uk/pdf/Briefing-note-on-the-national-online-self-exclusion-scheme.pdf 5 Online Safety Bill | Second Reading 17 July 2015

Baroness Howe’s Online Safety Bill CARE Second Reading Short Briefing

Defining the Problem 1. The rate at which children are accessing the internet through both mobile and household devices is increasing. OFCOM report that 88% of children aged 5-15 live in a household with access to the internet through a PC, laptop or netbook.i To the extent that the internet is a powerful force for good in our society these figures are encouraging. To the extent that the internet can be a very dangerous place without proper online protections these figures are concerning. It is precisely because those championing the need for reform passionately believe in the capacity of the internet to be a force for good that they are committed to the provision of robust safeguards so the internet is safe place for our children so they can use it to learn and be entertained in a safe online environment.

 In March 2014 the ATVOD report For Adults Only: Underage access to online porn showed that at least 44,000 primary school children had accessed an adult website in December 2013, as well as 200,000 under-16s.ii  A European-wide piece of research into violence and abuse in teenage relationships published in February 2015 found that 39% of boys in England aged 14-17 regularly viewed pornography.iii  An IPPR report published in August 2014 revealed 8 out of 10, 18-year-olds thought it was too easy for young people to accidentally see pornography online.iv  A March 2015 poll commissioned by the NSPCC of 2,000 11-17 year olds, found 1 in 10 children aged 12-13 were worried that they may be addicted to pornography.v

2. There is increasing evidence that many children find exposure to such images disturbing and watching online has been directly related to young boys committing sexual crimes in an effort to act out what they see. Indeed, there are many examples in the newspapers of children accessing adult content which harms both themselves and others. For example, a boy of 10 raped his male classmate because he wanted to act out the pornography he had seen online.vi Similarly, a thirteen year old boy raped his eight year old sister after watching pornography on Xbox. vii 3. Additionally, research has shown that children’s minds are not equipped to process pornography and the images they see remain unprocessed within the mind, like an experience of trauma.viii More broadly, pornography use has been shown to correlate with a reduction in grey matter in sections of the reward circuitry in the brain involved in motivation and decision-making.ix

The Shortcomings of the Current Framework Filtering 4. The Government, and especially the Prime Minister, has identified the need to do more to keep children safe online. On 22 July 2013 David Cameron announced that he had come to an agreement with the four major internet service providers that they would provide family-friendly network filtering to new customers.x Whilst this voluntary approach to online safety is a step forward, there are significant difficulties. 5. First, despite the fact that this voluntary approach would cover 90% of the internet market, it would still result in a lack of coverage for the remaining 10%. Many thousands of children are left outside the scope of the agreement. Their rights to a chance of protection are just important as those living in households serviced by the big four ISPs. 6. Second, the voluntary approach also comes without a credible and robust form of age verification. A common sense understanding of age-verification is that it happens before the activity for which age verification is required is permitted. This is, for example, how existing age verification works in relation to gambling websites. The only current safeguard is that if someone disables the adult content filters and opts-in to adult content an email will be sent to the account holder informing them of this fact. This arrangement is completely unacceptable because even if the account holder does get round to reading the email on the day it is sent, some hours will almost certainly Online Safety Bill | Second Reading 17 July 2015

elapse before they become aware and take action during which their children could be exposed to completely inappropriate material. What is more concerning, though, is that polling demonstrates that some people will take a number of days to read an email from their ISP and a significant number would never get round to opening it. This weak approach which the industry has sought to dignify with a name which makes it sound robust, ‘the closed loop,’ clearly demonstrates that very sadly child protection is not really a priority. Protection from R18/18 material 7. The Government has taken steps to protect children from watching R18 hard core pornography (material that can only be purchased offline in a ) through on-demand services that are streamed from UK based web sites through the 2014 Audiovisual Services Regulations. This statutory protection is very welcome but two major problems remain: 8. First, the vast majority of R18 material seen in the UK is streamed into the UK from websites outside the UK that are not touched by the legislation. 9. Second, given that society has decided that it is not appropriate for children to watch 18 rated films like Fifty Shades of Grey offline (it is not legal to sell a child such a DVD), and the technology exists for protecting children from watching adult video on demand material online, it is not defensible to say children should only be protected from watching R18 material online. Logically they should be protected from watching both 18 and R18 material offline and online.

The Solution: the Online Safety Bill 10. Baroness Howe’s Bill addresses all these shortcomings and meets the Government’s recent manifesto commitment to require age verification for access to all websites containing pornographic material.xi Among other things it:  Applies unavoidable choice to adult content filters on a statutory basis to 100% of the internet market.  Requires that before electing to disable adult content filters the person concerned should be age verified.  Requires that the current legal protections afforded children in relation to R18 on demand programme services are extended to 18 rated material.  Introduces a mechanism for regulating pornographic material streamed into the UK from abroad drawing on the same model used by the Gambling (Licensing and Advertising) Act, whereby providers of pornographic on-demand programming are required to get a license to legally stream porn into the UK, a condition of which will be having robust age verification. If they do not have a license financial transaction providers can be directed not to facilitate transactions between the sites and people living in the UK.

i Children and Parents: Media Use and Attitudes Report, OFCOM, October 2014, pg. 24 http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/binaries/research/media-literacy/media-use-attitudes-14/Childrens_2014_Report.pdf ii For Adults Only? Underage access to online porn, The Authority for Television on Demand, March 2014, pg. 4 http://www.atvod.co.uk/uploads/files/For_Adults_Only_FINAL.pdf iii Briefing Paper 3: Risk and Protective (Predictive) Factors for IPVA Victimisation and Instigation, Safeguarding Teenage Intimate Relationships (STIR) – Connecting online and offline contexts and risks, February 2015, pg.3 http://stiritup.eu/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/STIR-Briefing-Paper-3-English-Final-.pdf iv Young People, Sex and Relationships, The new norms, IPPR, August 2014, pg. 4 http://www.ippr.org/files/publications/pdf/young-people-sex-relationships_Aug2014.pdf?noredirect=1 v NSPCC Poll conducted by One Poll, March 2015 http://www.nspcc.org.uk/fighting-for-childhood/news-opinion/online-porn-evidence-impact-young-people/ vi Boy aged 10 ‘raped male classmate in the school toilets, as he acted out online porn’, court told, Mail Online, 22 April 2014 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2610371/Schoolboy-10-raped-boy-school-toilets-seeing-internet-pornography-deciding-act- out.html#ixzz3K5J4B2S1 vii Blackburn boy, 13 rapes his sister, after watching porn on Xbox, Lancashire Telegraph, 7 February 2014 http://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/news/10987394.Boy__13__rapes_sister__8__after_watching_porn_on_Xbox/ viii Dr Richard Graham, Portman Clinic, Parliamentary Seminar on the Impact of Pornography, 23 October, 2012 ix Kühn, S and Gallinat, J, Brain Structure and Functional Connectivity Associated With Pornography Consumption: The Brain on Porn, JAMA Psychiatry. 2014;71(7):827-834 x David Cameron, Speech, The internet and pornography: Prime Minister calls for action, 22 July 2013 xi ‘…we will stop children's exposure to harmful sexualised content online, by requiring age verification for access to all sites containing pornographic material.’ 2015 Conservative manifesto, page 35.