Labour should appoint a minister for porn to tackle the wave of “violent, abusive and misogynistic” images, a Conservative peer has said.
Baroness Gabby Bertin, who leads the Independent Pornography Review Taskforce, said that MPs shy away from tackling abuse in the porn industry out of embarrassment.
“We’re really British about it so we don’t want to have a graphic conversation about sex and porn. But you’ve got to shout about it as loudly as possible. The reason why we’ve got into this mess is because nobody has really wanted to talk about it,” she told The Guardian.
She is pushing for the government to appoint a ministry for porn to make sure the issue gets addressed. “You can’t leave the pitch on this stuff just because you’re worried about being accused of being too strait-laced,” she added.
A review, commissioned by Rishi Sunak’s government and led by Baroness Gabby, proposed banning degrading, violent and misogynistic pornography.
The report, which was published in February this year, urged ministers to give Ofcom further powers to police porn sites for dangerous material.
It also suggested banning online porn videos that would be deemed too harmful for any certificate in the offline world.
One of the report’s recommendations, making strangulation in pornography illegal, has now been accepted by the government. Minister for victims and tackling violence against women, Alex Davies-Jones, said that “cracking down on the appalling rise of strangulation pornography will protect women and send a clear signal to men and boys that misogyny will not be tolerated”.
Recent research published by Ofcom found that 8 per cent of children aged eight to 14 have watched online pornography.
Boys aged 13 to 14 were the most likely viewers, with two out of 10 visiting adult sites.
Major porn sites, including Pornhub, Stripchat and Youporn, have agreed to implement stronger age verification measures, with platforms now facing fines of 10 per cent of their global turnover if they fail to make changes.
