Porn Again

If you didn’t catch the programme by the former Home Secretary, Jackie Smith, about pornography on Thursday you can listen to it here. You’ll need a strong stomach as the programme includes some explicit material.  However it makes fascinating listening and Jackie Smith does make some very interesting points – not that we agree with all of them.

Education or titillation? Part 2

Numerous people wrote to Ofcom and Channel 4 expressing their concern about The Joy of Teen Sex.  This week their concerns were echoed those of health professionals and youth workers including Dr Stuart Flanagan, who features on Radio 1's Sunday Surgery, and agony aunt Dr Petra Boynton,

They said the programme’s producers had not acted responsibly and they expressed a number of concerns about the programme’s content including the use of incorrect information and unreliable statistics and inadequate attention to respect, romance and affection.

They wrote: “We are concerned the Commissioners and Channel Four have not shown due diligence over this series. It seems to be fitting a pattern of programme development where viewing figures are prioritised over empowerment but where programmes are still marketed as ‘educational’.”

It has also emerged that the programme's resident "sex coach" is actually a sex-toy saleswoman and the presenter, who was initially billed as a social worker, is now referred to as having a degree in social work: she isn't yet in receipt of her social work qualifications.

We must protect children from online porn

On Monday 7^th February the Minister for Culture, Ed Vaizey will be meeting with Internet Service Providers to discuss blocking pornographic sites at source to protect children from viewing them.  Any adults wishing access such sites would have to specifically ‘opt in’.

Pornography has a profound and negative effect on children shaping attitudes and values that contribute to the objectification of women, increased sexual risk taking and the relaxation of boundaries of sexual violence.

We know that an increasing number of children in this county are being referred to addiction clinics with pornography related issues and yet at no point in history has it been easier or cheaper for children to access a ready supply of pornography. The bottom line is that we are raising a generation of children growing up with easy and unimpeded access to the entire panoply of human perversion and sexual deviation and we can only guess at the impact of such free access on the society of the future.

This ready access to pornography by children is not always sought out; research has found that children experience unwanted exposure to sexual material from activities including innocent word searching, clicking on a link in another site, misspelling a URL or via a pop up.

Although the managers of websites featuring adult content have a legal responsibility to indicate clearly on their front pages that their sites are unsuitable for children under 18, in practice this offers little protection and is likely to incite a curious child to investigate further.  The online gambling industry has introduced workable age-verification restrictions but no such protections exist to prevent children from accessing harmful pornography.

It is anomalous in the extreme that whilst, quite rightly, regulations exist to protect children from inappropriate television broadcasts, cinema films, advertising and newsagents’ displays no such protections exist online.  Even the mobile phone industry has produced a model restricting access to adult material subject to age verification.   

It is time to recognise that the internet is a mature medium and it is no longer appropriate that it should be seen as some kind of ‘wild west’ where anything goes.  The internet has reached the age of majority; it is time it grew up.

There is a suggestion that it is entirely the responsibility of parents to safeguard their children from harmful imagery and yet many parents say that they are not confident in their ability to install a filter.  As a society we owe a duty of care to children whose parents cannot or will not protect them.   

The six largest ISPs in the country control in excess of 90% of the market.  With revenues of more than £3 billion annually these companies must share the responsibility for protecting children online.  We support the proposal for an ‘opt-in’ system to block adult sites at source unless specifically requested.

We understand that it is unlikely that any system proposed could be 100% effective but we submit that filters must be as comprehensive as possible. Any level of protection is better than the current voluntary system on offer.

Education or titillation?

At the end of the last week we watched an advance preview of a programme which will be broadcast on Channel 4 next Wednesday, The Joy of Teen Sex.

This programme will be broadcast post watershed at 10pm and, according to Channel 4 ‘it offers a frank exploration of the love and sex lives of today's teenagers - presenting solutions to the emotional and physical problems many of them experience.’

The programme’s muddled message begins with the presenter pointing out that sex under the age of 16 is illegal.  She says “the age of consent is there for a reason and I believe we should wait until we are at least 16 to lose our virginity but we can’t pretend that teenage sex isn’t happening” and then goes to explain that we should ‘embrace teenage sex’ and make it ‘enjoyable’.

Perhaps this is the aim but, having seen the programme, we consider it crosses the line into prurience, with graphic scenes that can only be described as pornographic and of very little educational value.  Our concern is  that this programme has more to do with titillation and ratings than offering advice of real value; it doesn’t have to be this way as the BBC’s ‘Dangerous Pleasures’ season, which is aimed at young people and has tackled subjects including drugs, alcohol and sex intelligently, has shown.

The programme includes explicit images of lesbian intercourse in a section in which a 17 year old is shown ‘some more tricks to pleasure girls’.  The presenter expresses her concern about the pressure applied to teenagers to have sex; however this is exactly what the programme is doing.

At a time when, as a society, we’re having a serious debate about the premature sexualisation of children, there is a real question about the role which programmes like this take in the creation of the hypersexualised society which our children inhabit.

The last word must belong to the editorial from the Sunday Express.  Writing about this programme the paper says:

‘A researcher for Mediawatch, who has seen the material, says: “It’s soft porn aimed at arousing the audience.” She is right. Sex education is a serious issue but is C4 interested in helping shy teenagers come to terms with sex or is it just after a cheap thrill to boost viewing figures?

The subject does not need graphic human illustration to make a serious point. By including them, the show will simply arouse those in search of a cheap thrill, the very opposite of the message that a programme like this should be making.’

Soap Operas: Education or Entertainment?

The controversial EastEnders storyline in which a character is seen discovering her baby son dead in his crib and then swapping him for the newborn baby of another character has resulted in over 6,000 complaints to the BBC that the storyline is offensive and sensational.

To avoid accusations of sensationalism, EastEnders producers claim to have worked with the charity, the Foundation for the Study of Infant Deaths although the organisation’s website states: ‘Despite the continuing statement… by the BBC that "FSID were consulted on the storyline...", FSID had no involvement in the planning or adoption of the specific 'baby-swap' plotline.  The behaviour and actions of Ronnie Mitchell are in no way 'endorsed' by FSID as a typical, or even likely, reaction of a bereaved parent.’

Anne Diamond, who lost a son to cot death, said: ‘I was shocked to find cot death itself is no longer dramatic enough for today's screenwriter.  This… hasn't done one iota of good in educating a young audience about cot death.’  Website Mumsnet has also criticised the broadcast as ‘at best… ill-informed, and at worst ... a cynical ploy to make headlines by creating deliberate controversy’.

The BBC has sought to justify the episodes by pointing out that they broadcast an action line number for those affected by the programme.

Soap opera storylines are defended because they make people aware of issues, last year the Government was even reported to be working with soap opera producers on promoting health messages.  And yet for years broadcasters have been telling us that what they produce is entertainment and has no effect on those who consume it. 

They can’t have it both ways; are soap operas for entertainment or are they for education?

In the words of writer and broadcaster Bel Mooney ‘no one who writes scripts for mainstream TV can ever afford to forget that images have a greater power even than words, and that the combination can be deeply ­disturbing. They have to get it right.’

Why pushing boundaries on TV is no joke

Our concern about the media’s role in the creation of our hyper-sexualised society was illustrated during the final episodes of the X-Factor; the family favourite of the autumn season which was watched by almost 20 million viewers, nearly a quarter of whom are believed to children.

The programme featured guest stars Christina Aguilera and Rihanna, two of the world’s biggest female pop stars.  Rhianna stripped down to her underwear for her performance and Christina Aguilera indulged in an orgy of pseudo sexual grinding which was totally inappropriate for a pre-watershed broadcast.

Ofcom has received around 1,500 calls of complaint with a similar number made to ITV.  The Equalities Minister, Lynne Featherstone, has expressed her dismay as have psychologist Dr Linda Papadopoulos and veteran music producer Mike Stock.

However the last word must go to a Mediawatch correspondent:

As a Social Worker working in Child Protection I was horrified to see the explicit sexual soft porn dancing on The X-Factor.   ITV appears to have no responsibility to its public.

The 'Powers that Be' should come and work for a month in Child Protection work, to see the results of children being exposed to soft and hard core porn images.  Many of these children then abuse their own siblings and friends and then to adult rape. 

When there is another James Bulger case the public will be jumping up and down saying Social Workers should be doing this or that.    What children see and hear whether on television, DVDs, etc begins in the home, and if they are fed with sexual images - they will ‘play it out'.

This voice from the ‘sharp end’ is a vivid illustration of just why our campaign is so important.  The media must face up to its responsibilities; our children deserve better.

Too much, too young.

The premature sexualisation of children has long been an issue of concern to us; particularly the role the media have to play in the creation of a society which, in the words of David Cameron, we appear to be ‘sleepwalking to a place where porn is the norm’.

A survey by the Mothers’ Union published earlier this year found that two-thirds of parents thought television, films, magazines and the internet made children sexually aware at a younger age than they would be otherwise.  The report sited the erosion of the TV watershed as a major contributory factor.

Other research has found that contact with sexual imagery from an early age can have a devastating effect on mental and physical health. Possible ongoing effects identified by the research include: low self-esteem, poor academic performance, depression, eating disorders such as anorexia and increased sexual risk-taking.

This week Mr Cameron ordered an independent review into whether retailers and broadcasters should be subject to new restrictions preventing them selling sexualised products aimed at children. 

The review will examine the scale of the commercialisation and premature sexualisation of childhood and ask whether there should a new watchdog modelled on the Advertising Standards Authority to police a code of conduct on age-appropriate marketing, including the possibility of having sexually-explicit music videos shown only after the nine o'clock watershed.  

Launching the report Children's Minister Sarah Teather said it was the cumulative impact of things like magazine images and unsuitable products marketed at young people that were of most concern. 

It will be the fifth government-led review into this subject since December 2008, including a review by Linda Papadopoulos, the child psychologist, in a report commissioned by Labour and published in February this year. That report called for an online "one-stop shop" to allow the public to voice its concerns regarding irresponsible marketing that sexualises children, with an onus on regulatory authorities to take action.  This is clearly a ‘hot’ topic which won’t go away. 

The leader of the enquiry, Reg Bailey, has called for parents to send him examples of products of concern; further details of where this should be sent to will be available next week.   

We have lobbied government on this issue and we have also written to the Education Minister, Michael Gove, asking him to insert clauses in the upcoming Education and Children’s bill to introduce provisions to ensure that unsuitable sexually graphic material is not displayed at or below children's eye-level, near children's publications or without opaque sleeves.  We also called for printed media to be assigned age ratings such as are assigned to films.