This summer, the UK implemented a new law to attempt to control the looming problem that is unregulated access to online pornography. From the 25th of July 2025, the Online Safety Act (2023) came into full effect, requiring explicit adult websites to have more vigorous processes of age verification, as well as introducing a ban on the depiction of strangulation within porn. However, with the existence of things like the dark web and VPN servers that easily allow people to bypass these laws, I think making stricter regulations whilst not completely banning the thing is simply dancing around the problem instead of taking a firm stance on the matter. What’s the point in acknowledging the dangers and issues if, in a roundabout way, these videos will be permitted regardless?
By the age of 15–20, around 86% of young men and 69% of young women say they’ve already viewed pornography, and the average age of first exposure for boys is just 13. In an analysis of 7,430 porn videos, 44.3% of scenes on a major site featured physical aggression towards women. To put it bluntly, young boys are building their perception of women before they’ve likely even had the opportunity to speak to one about sex.
During our most formative years, perception shadows the way we see things for life. It is therefore inevitable that this dehumanising media impacts the way boys interact with young girls, and they carry these distorted beliefs into adulthood, which ultimately hinders life as a woman. From my own anecdotal experience, and that of those close to me, it only takes one child in a classroom of thirty pupils to have accessed inappropriate content and shown it to their friends or classmates before an entire class is corrupted by explicit media. No matter how many parental or legal controls are introduced, unless an immediate halt is put on the distribution of pornography, the issue will persist.
This early conditioning doesn’t just shape ideas about attraction but rather it reshapes empathy. One in three women are sexually assaulted at some point in their lives. What may be perceived as a curious coming-of-age experience actually fuels a culture that distorts the lines between consensual sex and rape. The ongoing trend of violent sexual acts that simulate non-consensual situations completely blurs the boundaries between normal sex and sexual assault. It also desensitises viewers to literal sexual crimes by dismissing them as a “kink” and something to be indulged in, when in reality, it is just sexual violence.
With these videos being uploaded from virtually anywhere in the world, there is often no way to confirm women’s consent, whether they were coerced, or even their age. All of this helps to normalise sexual violence, subconsciously making society take assault , particularly against women, less seriously. Studies have shown that violent pornography lessens men’s emotional response to women’s pain, especially as 95% of female performers are shown responding to sexual violence positively or neutrally, implying that women enjoy that kind of treatment.
There is, of course, a clear distinction between consensual kinks in private relationships and the mass promotion of violent sexual acts as mainstream porn. When such acts are normalised and widely consumed by young, impressionable viewers whose brains are not yet developed enough to understand the nuances of consent and context, it sends a dangerous message: that all women want this, and that violence is just another form of intimacy.
The effects of this go far beyond the screen. Porn makes functioning as a woman an exhausting and demeaning experience, to say the least. It is a fact that every aspect of a woman’s life fits into some category on Pornhub. From women in office attire to Muslim women in hijabs, even down to little girls in school uniforms, all can be found as categories on adult websites somewhere. As a woman, this becomes suffocating; spaces intended to be safe for us, such as religious or educational settings, are suddenly perverted and twisted to fulfil the fantasies of men with no regard for the real-life implications of this. I know Black women, with naturally fuller bodies, being asked lewd questions about their sexual abilities due to a feature they cannot help being sexualised for online. I know Muslim women who experience being compared to “Mia Khalifa” from as young as primary school age whilst trying to observe their religion by wearing the hijab. Pornography is not something that has ever been contained to appropriate spaces but has rather infiltrated and terrorised women and little girls for years through the pornographisation of ordinary life.Â
Particularly as we are in the age of the internet, the over-sexualisation that people are able to get away with from the comfort of their beds behind their screens is deplorable. I have witnessed normal girls posting pictures and being asked if they have a link for “something more,” despite their content not insinuating that whatsoever. I have witnessed men using artificial intelligence to undress women who are just trying to show off their outfits.
Unsurprisingly, approximately 80% of all adult performers are women. Some strains of liberal feminism push the ideology that porn is empowering for women as it allows them to take ownership of their bodies and use them in a way that serves them. Whilst I am in full support of women taking ownership of their bodies, I believe this is an incredibly naĂŻve and somewhat individualistic take that fails to grasp the wider implications of objectifying yourself for monetary gain and what that will mean for other women who do not choose to be viewed in that light. It is easy to justify pornography when you are focused on satisfying your own needs, but you cannot claim to be a feminist without thinking of the impact on women as a whole. Pornography does not and will never serve women.
Not to mention that, contrary to media glamorisation, the driving force behind most women who begin careers in the porn industry remains to be financial hardship and poverty, as well as grooming and pressure from male peers. A survey of 176 female porn performers found that the top reason they entered the industry was money. It is fundamentally and ethically flawed to promote this career path as an empowering one when, in reality, the majority of sex workers are disenfranchised women who feel they have no other choice, or people who have been groomed into it. This is not female empowerment. This is a direct and violent attack on women’s safety.
Until we can stop treating the objectification and suffering of women as entertainment, the cycle of violence will continue on camera and off.Â