Online Safety Bill [HL]

Baroness Finlay of Llandaff Excerpts

Friday 17th July 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)]

My Lords, I support the principles of the Bill because it aims to support good parenting. It is difficult for parents to talk with children about sexual relationships, and we live in the new world of the internet, in which children are more familiar with finding their way around than their parents.

It is interesting that the BBC programme “Porn: What’s the Harm?”, aired last year, showed that 60% of young people were 14 or younger when they first viewed porn, and a quarter were 12 or under. It is worth noting that one in 14 was under 10—so they certainly had not achieved any sexual maturity—and only one-fifth were actually looking for porn the first time they saw it online. The result was that about 50% said they watched porn every day, or at least once a week.

What are the psychological effects of porn? I want to focus on that question and the effects on the brain of repeated viewing because it can result in neuro-adaptation, whereby the brain adapts and changes the circuitry, especially in the pleasure and reward pathways. Watching porn repeatedly induces alterations in neurons in an area called the nucleus accumbens, which are also seen in drug abuse, and increases a neurotransmitter called deltaFosB in the nucleus accumbens, so that reward behaviour can result in hypersexual syndrome. Excess consumption of porn leads to dopamine surges of the neurotransmitter, addiction and structural changes in the pleasure reward pathways. This addiction manifests itself in ways similar to overeating, gambling and other sexual addictions. As the circuitry changes, porn viewing becomes normalised and viewing habits become more extreme and hardcore as the brain becomes accustomed and the person is trying to achieve the same kick from the viewing as they did previously. The chemical changes result in cerebral dysfunction and hypofrontal syndromes, which feature impulsivity, compulsivity, emotional lability and impaired judgment. Patients have been shown to have reduced activity in the part of the brain that is required for rational decision-making.

The difficulty is the normalisation of sexual violence. Research has shown that watching degrading porn increases users’ dominating and harassing behaviour towards women, and decreases compassion towards rape victims in male viewers. It is worth noting that the young people and children viewing porn are, by and large, male. Porn viewers are more likely to express attitudes that support violence towards women. ChildLine reports a 124% increase in referrals relating to online and offline sexual abuse. It seems to be linked to sexting, an increased number of calls about it, and abuse through sexual images, whereby 40% of girls and 32% of boys said that they had sent a sexual image or video via text. That, of course, can be used against them when a relationship breaks up.

Because of time, I will conclude my remarks and emphasise that three-quarters of young people in Britain thought that porn had affected men’s expectations of sex. The most common reason given is that they expect young women to behave like those in the porn films. Some 10% of young people said that porn made young women expect to be sex objects, that it objectified women and was unrealistic. The difficulty is that if we are exposing young people to porn without allowing parents the help of having controls over viewing it, we may well be stacking up appalling behaviour towards human relationships, sexual relationships and violence in the future.