All porn is harmful… it should be banned – with long prison sentences to control those who distribute it, writes JENNI MURRAY

• A new report has revealed one in ten children have viewed porn by age nine
• UK-based writer Jenni Murray argues that all pornography is harmful 
• READ MORE: Ministers are told we MUST protect children from online porn as major report reveals four in 10 young adults think girls enjoy violent sex

Parents in particular will have been shocked and deeply worried by the details of children’s exposure to online pornography, revealed this week in a new report by the Children’s Commissioner Dame Rachel de Souza. 

One in ten have viewed porn by the age of nine; more than a quarter by the age of 11. Nearly half of 13-year-olds have seen it. More than four in ten 16 to 21-year-olds believe girls enjoy being slapped and strangled during sex. 

Parents like the idea of their children having a mobile phone so they are able to contact them to check they are safe. How ironic, then, that it’s through their mobiles that most children access porn. Simply type ‘sex’ or ‘porn’ into the browser and you are bombarded by unimaginably horrific videos of men doing vile things to women, with little or no control over the age of the viewer and no demand for any payment. 

It’s two years since research carried out at Durham University’s Department of Sociology and Law School (and published in the British Journal of Criminology) revealed the extent to which popular porn sites show depictions of sex acts which are criminal. 

A new report has revealed one in ten children have viewed porn by age nine. UK-based writer Jenni Murray argues that all pornography is harmful

Its analysis of the home pages of these sites found one in eight showed what was billed as nonconsensual or incestuous acts, including videos where the subjects were described as drugged, unconscious or very young. 

What’s the point of teaching children about the importance of consensual sex in RSE (Relationships and Sex Education) lessons in school, and parents trying to explain what a healthy relationship is at home, when children have easy access to portrayals of rape, with titles such as ‘Again and again forced’ or ‘boyfriend forced gf for sex’? 

When boys and young men are seeing physical aggression, coercion, exploitation and women weeping, is it any wonder they believe, wrongly, that women like all that? 

In her report, Dame Rachel said: ‘I will never forget the girl who told me about her first kiss with her boyfriend, aged 12, who strangled her. He had seen it in pornography and thought it normal.’ 

In all my years talking to women as a journalist for both regional TV in Southampton and Women’s Hour, I have never encountered a single sex worker who said she enjoyed selling her body, either as a prostitute or as a ‘porn star’. 

Not one was doing her job because it was pleasurable. In every case they felt used, abused and harmed. They had not chosen such a career path. 

Jenni Murray (pictured) says: ‘How can harmful pornography be legal? It violates the women coerced into performance. It violates women in relationships where men think strangulation is great sex’

Some had been coerced by a man they’d thought was a boyfriend, but who later turned out to be a pimp making his fortune from her. Others were lone parents, who had to find a way to earn a living to raise their children. 

Perhaps the best-known example of a woman assumed to be taking pleasure from her role in a hardcore pornographic film was Linda Lovelace.

Deep Throat was a huge international success in the early 1970s. It was in 1980 that Linda revealed in her book, Ordeal, how much she had suffered during the making of that film. She’d been bullied and beaten by her then husband, Chuck Traynor. He had forced her into prostitution, she wrote, with a gun at her head. 

It was around that time that I began to believe pornography should be banned. 

A complete ban would not only prevent women in the porn industry from being violated (with little or no recourse to justice), it would also reduce the belief by some in society that sexual violence against women is acceptable.

At the time of Deep Throat, some of America’s best known feminists including Gloria Steinem and the poet Robin Morgan were rallying behind the Women Against Pornography movement. It was Morgan who, in an essay penned in 1974, wrote: ‘Pornography is the theory and rape is the practice.’ 

But no attempt to make pornography illegal has ever been successful. The industry is powerful and rich — worth an estimated £12billion globally. And until now, the argument that a ban would threaten freedom of speech always took precedence over the simple facts that pornography damages women and puts them at risk. 

But we’re not talking ‘speech’ here. We’re talking recorded evidence of sexual violence. 

And it’s everywhere. It is not limited to porn sites. Dame Rachel’s report found Twitter was the site where the highest proportion of young people — 41 per cent — accessed sexual content. 

Which is why the much discussed, long-delayed Online Safety Bill, should it ever be introduced, will not make a blind bit of difference. Lord Bethell of Romford has warned the Bill is too weak in its definition of age verification and leaves too much to codes of practice and guidance being drafted later. 

But surely it’s increasingly pointless creating regulation after the videos violating women have been made. It is time for the Government to be tough enough to make pornography illegal — with long prison sentences to control those who continue to distribute it. Fines are not frightening enough. Age verification that’s easy for punters and promoters alike to evade, is near pointless. 

How can harmful pornography be legal? It violates the women coerced into performance. It violates women in relationships where men think strangulation is great sex. It’s time to take on the pornographers and ban them. Surely our children are worth the fight. 

Nominate BOTH blazing talents 

Andrea Riseborough (pictured) plays an alcoholic mother who leaves her son behind to go and have fun in In To Leslie

Such a pity that a race row has engulfed the Oscars. Danielle Deadwyler’s performance, as the mother of a son who was lynched, in the film Till was stunning. In To Leslie, Andrea Riseborough plays an alcoholic mother who leaves her son behind to go and have fun. She is brilliantly moving. It’s not a question of one or the other — they both deserved to be nominated. 

• Helen Whately, the social care minister, says patients are ‘very comfortable engaging with remote appointments’ and that 50,000 of us each month will be happy to be monitored at home, thus freeing up hospital beds. Sick, vulnerable people, all alone, depending on technology such as finger sensors? I don’t think so. 

Welcome to the real world, Ms Kondo 

Marie Kondo, the queen of clean (pictured with her family) has revealed that her ideal life was messed up by the arrival of a third child

Marie Kondo, the queen of clean, made me so ashamed of the tip that is my underwear drawer, the pile of papers I laughingly call my filing system and the floor which is home to more shoes than anyone could ever need. 

So I couldn’t conceal my glee that her ideal life was messed up by the arrival of a third child. Marie, welcome to the real world. 

Don’t dare bump Catherine off! 

Sarah Lancashire as Catherine Cawood in Happy Valley. Jenni Murray says that she will never forgive the creator and writer Sally Wainwright if she bumps off Lancashire’s character 

Like so many, I’m totally caught up in a rare, modern-day, water cooler moment — we’re all talking about Happy Valley and being forced to wait for the final episode. 

Will Tommy die? Will Richard die? Will Tommy’s son Ryan save the day? I’ll never forgive the creator and writer Sally Wainwright if she bumps off Catherine (played by Sarah Lancashire), who deserves the perfect retirement and making up with her sister Clare. 

• Lucy Cavendish College was founded in 1965 to cater for older women who wanted to study at Cambridge University. Now young men are to be admitted, too, leaving only Newnham as women only. Are we to lose all the single-sex spaces which have mattered so much? 

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