LONDON — Although the Conservative U.K. government has refused to make a controversial report it commissioned from a private research and intelligence agency readily available, a copy of the full report, titled "Young People, Pornography & Age Verification" and dated January 2020, is circulating among media and academic sources.
XBIZ obtained a copy of the full report, prepared for the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) by a private agency called Revealing Reality, which describes itself as "a behavioral insights agency working on a range of complex research projects."
The BBFC commissioned the report to provide support for the 2017 Age Verification (AV) mandate, widely criticized by Freedom of Speech advocates and prestigious groups who defend digital rights, which seeks to implement an AV scheme applicable to all U.K. computers connected to the internet.
"The research, undertaken by Revealing Reality, demonstrates the need for urgent intervention to protect [minors] online by imposing age-verification, and provided important context by exploring what [minors] and parents currently think about online pornography and how young people are accessing it today," writes BBFC Chief Executive David Austin in the foreword to the published report.
In October 2019, the U.K.'s then-Secretary of State Nicky Morgan said that the government was backtracking from their efforts to implement an age-verification protocol. However, the new report quotes the Secretary's statement in support of continuing efforts to revive the plan.
"While the introduction of age-verification for online pornography has been delayed in the U.K., it remains an important child protection measure and will be introduced as part of the Government's broader online harms strategy," Austin explains in the foreword.
A Meager Sampling
The Revealing Reality report includes some interesting anecdotal observations, but the sampling is decidedly meager for any kind of social significance. The private agency team interviewed only 36 teenagers between the ages of 16 and 18 — 20 male and 16 female, all identifying as cis — in any depth.
They also conducted four "parent focus groups" with six participants each, or 24 parents.
These 60 respondents and their experiences were made to represent all the U.K. attitudes about digital pornography.
In addition, Revealing Reality administered online surveys to 1,142 minors aged 11 to 17, and 1,142 parents (one per child). The survey took 10 minutes to answer for the parents and 15 for the children.
The report acknowledges that the 36 teenagers interviewed in depth were "young people who had chosen to participate in this research" and thus more likely to be "comfortable talking about sex" than others. It also acknowledges that it was impossible to know if or how many of the 1,142 parents were "hovering" or around the children answering the online questionnaire.
"I very much hope that this research will inform the development of new legislation," writes the BBFC's Austin.
Tubesite Fan Fiction
The report begins with what can only be called "tubesite fan fiction." The researchers have collaged "illustrations that show the layout and different types of content found across popular online pornography sites mentioned by respondents."
"The illustrations," the report continues, "do not represent any single site but show a combination of the typical elements found on the most popular sites."
The researchers decided on "a cross-section of the most popular online pornography sites" — listed as Pornhub, xHamster, xVideos and RedTube — and then substituted ridiculous names of fake "porn stars" like Stacey Roo, Maya Hughs, and Curvy Beatrice Ludlo.
Two pages follow with pixilated images and made-up video titles designed to shock the policy makers: "I fucked my Step-sister's husband and all my holes get filled," "Teacher fucks Tinder date Outside," "Don't cum inside me," and, oddly enough, "Carnival Madness."
Another page — purporting to show "different categories of pornography shown on a sidebar on the homepage" of the made-up tubesite — range, according to the researchers, from "rough to romantic." The categories include "Japanese," "Creampie," "Cartoon" and "Step Fantasy."
Anecdotal Evidence
After this strange show-and-tell, the report continues with more typical PowerPoint-ready fare, including bullet-pointed lists, graphs, summaries of the online questionnaires and many quotes and anecdotes from the 60 core interviewees, most of whom are 18-year-olds talking about their earlier experiences.
The core of the report includes some interesting observations by the teens, and illustrate a disconnect with the parental focus groups, showing that people are still uncomfortable discussing porn-watching habits along generational lines.
Besides the obvious "you don't need a survey to know this" material like "porn is first found either accidentally or someone shows it to you" or "intentional pornography use increased with age," the biggest revelation of the report is that everyone other than young women (i.e., parents and young men) underestimate how much porn young women actually watch and for what reason
Parents, predictably, underestimated how much pornography their children, particularly daughters, choose to watch.
"Consistent with the survey results, the parents within the focus groups were often less likely to recognize that their daughters would purposefully seek out pornography compared to their sons," the researchers write. "While they thought that their sons would watch pornography for sexual pleasure, they believed that their daughters would primarily see pornography by accident. This is contrary to the qualitative research findings showing that many girls were also using pornography for sexual pleasure."
The report also includes several statements by the teens complaining about the lack of availability of formal sex education in their schools. The respondents acknowledged among the reasons they seek pornography is to find "ideas for new things to try sexually," "learning about sex in general," "learning how to get better at sex" and "learning what people expect from [them] sexually."
"In general," the report continues, "there was a wider range of preferences for different categories among the girls, from 'romantic' to 'rough' pornography, and girls were more likely to mention BDSM than boys their age."
Boys, however "often had very little idea of what girls watched, but nonetheless assumed that girls did watch pornography."
A 17-year-old male "guessed that girls would watch 'big dick' pornography" while another 18-year-old male "thought that girls wanted to see pornography that was 'sweeter' and that foreplay in pornography was predominantly for women."
"Many boys," the report concludes "also assumed that girls enjoyed male gay pornography because there were simply 'more penises, which they thought girls would want to see."
Another Age Verification Push
The last section of the report is a push to revive the idea of Age Verification as a solution for "negative consequences of watching pornography" and exposure to "harmful content." The anecdotes are illustrated with salacious images: "Fuck Me Like a Little Whore" is the menacing title card of a video screencapped, with the words spelled out in ransom note letters.
But the quotes from the teens sometimes hilariously disprove all this "danger" that the report is being paid to drum up. "My friend tried to choke his girlfriend once when they were having sex," says Nicholas, 16, from Glasgow, "because he had seen it in a porno. It ended with the girlfriend slapping him and when he asked why she slapped him she said 'because you were choking me.'"
"Once I was told to look at gay porn," said 18-year-old "April" from London, "because I was told they give good blowjob tips."
This age-appropriate cheekiness contrasts with the tabloid-fueled panic among the parent respondents.
"The women all have huge breasts," said mother "Karen" from Leeds.
"I've heard girls talk about anal bleaching. The female porn stars bleach their anuses so they look really, really perfect and their bodies are really perfect. They have their labia removed. The vagina is being cosmetically enhanced. They have ribs taken out. Everything is false."
But the report also acknowledges that kids are getting these warped images from mainstream reality TV shows like "Love Island" or Instagram influencers, neither of which would be blocked by the Age Verification software proposed by the government.
As for bypassing the AV software through simple steps like VPNs, even the panicked parents quoted by the researchers admit that they're fighting a losing battle. "The kids know a lot more about the devices and that's a massive issue," said mother "Holly" from Stockport. "I don't understand so many of the things they do online. If our kids wanted to pull the wool over our eyes, they'd be able to."
Reactions
Mainstream liberal newspaper The Guardian also obtained a copy of the report and focused on how "parents are oblivious of the extent to which their children are watching pornography" and how "parents of 16- to 17-year-olds were either in denial or largely unaware of what their child viewed online, with the parents of teenage girls the most likely to be unaware their children were watching pornography."
The Guardian also highlighted that the report did find that porn "provided a significant way for older gay, lesbian, and bisexual teenagers to understand their sexuality."
"In a sign of the sensitivities around research into the subject," the Guardian wrote the BBFC, "has decided to make the findings of the study only available on request. The organization said it would not be uploading its own research to its website or publicizing it, because it contains graphic material."
The Guardian is apparently referring to that first section with the made-up tubesite collages put together by Revealing Reality researchers.
"I find the BBFC’s decision not to host a report on porn viewing, that it commissioned, a peculiar act of self-censorship," Prof. Paul Maginn, an Australian academic who specializes in sex work issues, told XBIZ. "Whilst the subject matter of the report is on porn, it does not depict pornographic images in a salacious or gratuitous manner. In fact, lots of the imagery in the report is pixelated."
Prof. Maginn adds that, for any who wish to read it, the report is "freely available on the website of the company that the BBFC commissioned to undertake the research."
