Much like pineapple on pizza, public transport, and Bert Newton’s toupée, porn has and will continue to exist as a contentious point of interest in our world.

 

In 2017, the average age of initial exposure to porn is 11, which really isn’t all that surprising. I mean, we have toddlers more proficient at using iPads than their parents.

 

Rashida Jones, director of the new Netflix series ‘Hot Girls Wanted: Turned On’, examines porn’s transformation from adult entertainment into sex education for young people. Jones’ research found that 50% of American children have had two days or less of sex ed, with 80% encountering porn accidentally the first time they view it.

 

In the biggest waste of energy since the NBN rollout, conservatives and feminists in NZ have handed in a petition calling on politicians to investigate the societal harms of porn. No shit, Sherlock.

 

Since the porno chic movement of the ‘70s, mainstream porn has been acknowledged as anti-feminist propaganda; it’s centred on the male-gaze, institutionalises downright degrading ideology, comfortably undresses chauvinism, and simultaneously hypersexualises and objectifies women. Yuck.

 

Author of ‘Pornland: How Porn Has Hijacked Our Sexuality’ Gail Dynes attributes the industry’s constant move towards more violent treatment of women to the growing accessibility of porn and viewers’ subsequent desensitisation to images. Add to that a 2016 study by the UK's National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children that found a whopping 53% of teenage boys and 39% of teenage girls surveyed believe mainstream porn is realistic. So how do we fix that?

 

Newly proposed legislation in the UK has pitched a software-solution, similar to the US approach, that includes changes to online privacy laws to stop kids and young people from watching porn altogether. In 2016 alone, porn mecca Pornhub had 23 billion visits. That’s 64 million visits a day. Good luck.

 

Feminist porn’s first lady, Erika Lust, is among the new legion of directors pushing alternative adult cinema under a philosophy that advocates women’s pleasure, an ethical production process, and diverse body types, ages and races. Feminist porn introduces the groundbreaking concept that sex isn’t just something done “to” women, but “with” women. Men and women are presented as equals, and sex is something enjoyed rather than endured.

 

There’s kissing, touching, giggling, and – you know – stuff that actually happens during sex. Trying to take on a billion-dollar industry is as unrealistic as the expectations mainstream porn pedals. Control won’t instigate a cultural change, but challenging it from the inside with a sex-positive schema will.

 

Porn isn’t going to go away – there’s no toupée large enough that can cover it up. While you’re busy signing petitions, trading advice on site-blocking software, and debating whether feminism can even exist within porn, just know there’s a 14-year-old boy somewhere watching a clip of a girl being gang raped and thinking that’s sex.