Pornography
Debate between Lord McColl of Dulwich and Lord Giddens
Lord Giddens (Lab)
My Lords, I also congratulate the right reverend Prelate, the Bishop of Chester, on initiating this debate. I do not completely agree with some of the things he said, but he wanted debate and this is the platform for it. We are living through the greatest period of technological change ever, in terms of pace, depth and global scope. The dominant force is the digital revolution. We cannot understand pornography today, or discuss how it should be regulated, without realising that sexuality is being transformed at the same dramatic rate as some areas of business. Think of the rise of Uber from nothing to a capital value of some £50 billion—the same as General Motors —in less than six years, and apply the same principle to everyday life and emotions.
As the right reverend Prelate said, what we now define as pornography has been around for centuries, and, indeed, millennia. However, we are the first society ever in which pornography is available to everyone who has access to global communications, and the first for which much of it is self-produced and free to the consumer. Pornography today is still an industry, but it is also something far more complex, which intersects with changes affecting human sexuality at all levels of the life cycle. In some ways, cybersex has become simply part and parcel of everyday sexuality and it is crucial to recognise this.
The complete range of human inventiveness is there. The very nature of sexuality is being transformed by all of this. One example among many is the emergence of complex forms of transgender experimentation. There is, however, as we all know, a very dark side, some of it carried on the deep net, which is inaccessible to most users by definition, where violence and the most extreme forms of sexual degradation are the driving forces.
Pornography has always been driven largely by male desire, and this remains the case today. However, just as sexuality is changing rapidly, so is interest in pornography on the part of women. Some studies in the US indicate that as many as 40% of women now watch internet pornography on a regular basis. Many of both sexes participate in the making of pornographic materials, at least in the broad sense of that term, as the use of visual images via smartphones and mobile devices has become so common. Since much of this is historically unprecedented and is moving so rapidly, we cannot say with any confidence where it will lead. The regulatory issues are huge; they are, I think, far more complex than the right reverend Prelate indicated, as are those of drawing the boundaries between what is acceptable sexual experimentation and innovation, and what is not. There is a wholly new world out there which no generation of human beings has ever experienced before in the same way.
With some reservations, I support what the Government are doing, with the Minister at the forefront. I congratulate her on having been at the forefront of the digital revolution—this ocean of change, which is breaking through our society in an unprecedented way. The Government wish, above all, to protect the most vulnerable children—a necessary objective. It is crucial, as in the #We Protect strategy, to work directly with the major digital providers here. I know the speeches on this that the Minister has given in different parts of the world. I admire the dedication of the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, on this issue and her persistence with her Bill. Yet, speaking as a social scientist, I have to say that we must be systematic about these issues, not just draw things out of the air and draw extreme conclusions from them. Looking at some of the assertions that are commonly made, I was shocked to see how thin the evidence base actually is. When you look in detail at the research studies across the world, you see how superficial the materials are that support them. What in-depth evidence we have—there is not much and it is all moving so fast—points to a lot of complexity. I do not doubt that the phenomenon described by the noble Lord, Lord McColl, exists, but we have no clue about how general it is because the data are simply not there.
As a social scientist, I want work on these issues to be systematic, but we do not know how far regular exposure to pornography on the part of minors affects their sexual behaviour, damages relationships, leads to addictive behaviour and so forth or, crucially, on what scale. We just do not know. Some have argued the contrary to what the right reverend Prelate has said, including full-time researchers in the field. They have said that pornography can substitute for impulses which otherwise might be expressed in more harmful ways.
My main point is that a great deal more research is needed, especially if intrusive policy is being considered —as indeed it is. Again, speaking as a practising social scientist, I hope that the Government will provide some funding for such work, as otherwise well-intended policies could simply rebound.
Childhood itself is changing in the digital age, perhaps radically. As Philippe Ariès famously argued, childhood barely existed historically. In the past, even young children dressed like adults, worked on the farm at a very early age and were constantly in direct contact with adult sexuality. They had no option, because they almost always slept in the same room, and quite often in the same bed, as adults. The notion of the “innocent child”, which we have come to see as universal, was in fact an 18th-century invention. In the digital age, some have argued—and I think there is some force to this—that childhood is again disappearing, because it is simply not possible to separate the younger generation from the adult world. Children are becoming what are called “kidults”, and kidults are quite a mixture of the child and the adult. My main point is that the subtleties and the unknowns in all this simply must be borne in mind by policymakers.
I am strongly in favour of empowering parents as far as possible, and providing the technology for them to supervise what their children watch. They must work in direct conjunction with schools. The role of the state should be confined very largely to areas of directly illegal activity. However, I stress strongly that there is a very fine line to tread. If children are shielded too much, and for too long, they may not be able to cope when plunged into the maelstrom that is sexuality today. We must confront the uncomfortable truth that, as the first truly digital generation, children today might know more about the temptations, and even the threats, of the online world than their parents do.
Lord McColl of Dulwich
Is the noble Lord seriously suggesting that no harm is being done, despite the fact that the majority of 11 year-old children are watching on the internet the most appalling, violent pornography, mainly directed at women?
Lord Giddens
Not at all, because, as I said, I support the #We Protect strategy. I said strongly that I backed that strategy and that we must protect children. The difficulty is knowing where the boundaries are and how far things that are said very commonly really are the case, because we do not have enough research on those issues. We must have that research, and we must not plunge into policies that are based on inadequate information and research. We must realise that this is a world undergoing gigantic change such that we have never experienced before, at least in my view. We have to protect children, but we have to do so against the background of a world that is just swirling away from our control at the same time.