Porn, porn, porn. One way or another, we all like talking about it. But today’s debate about children and ‘sexually explicit material’ on the internet might be more demeaning than the smut itself. For a start, it’s government manufactured: the coalition knows that nobody ever lost votes by saying they cared about kids. The media love tackling porn, too, because the subject enables them to be prurient and morally serious at the same time. Stories about online porn and the young are, inevitably, accompanied by lots of images of naked women in provocative poses. Newsnight last night used this strange blue filter to soften their broadcasting of quite a lot dirty pics to the nation – after the watershed, of course. (And oh look above — we’ve done it too. LOL!)
The current row seems to be over whether internet service providers should block hardcore pornographic sites, or whether we should continue to expect parents to control what level of filth they want their children to see.
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