Cllr Anna Wright

PORNOGRAPHY’s impact on male violence against women and girls needs to be discussed openly, by parents, teachers and the government, a councillor has warned.

An all-party inquiry into commercial sexual exploitation concluded in February that the government must confront the role of pornography in sexual violence.

Amongst other things, it recommended legally requiring age verification for accessing all  pornography online and criminalising its supply to children.

The report was criticised, however, for not including the views of any sex workers.

Councillor Anna Wright, cabinet member for health, said: “Young people are finding it difficult to develop rewarding sexual relationships. We know there are boys at our Camden schools who admit they are unable to reach orgasm without simulating strangulation of their partner.

“We know there are girls in our Camden schools who feel they ought to enjoy being physically injured during sex.”

While she welcomed the report’s suggestion to regulate pornography, she said that only goes so far.

Cllr Wright said: “I think the problems of past efforts, legislation going back to when I was a lot younger, has been that they focused on a kind of censorship type of model, which is not ever going to be very successful and it’s probably not very helpful.

“There’s never been a healthy national dialogue in the UK about sex. It’s a very different situation in the Netherlands where there’s huge investment in really good sex and relationship education in schools which is universally available.

“[Pornography] is certainly not in any kind of national curriculum. So we’re not providing young people with the tools to navigate their way around this.

“We know that loads and loads of young people now are actually learning about sex and what to do from pornography. Parents don’t know how to talk about it with their children. Women don’t know how to talk about it with their partners.”