Richard Hogan: Parents are often unaware how pornography has changed over the years

People who create this incest-themed or violent content understand very well that the more extreme the material is, the more taboo it is, the more people will consume it. They know that dopamine fires when someone views a hardcore image

Richard Hogan: "Children are becoming sexualised earlier and earlier, and we have to protect them from that. Because once they lose that innocence, it’s gone forever."

Suffocation, choking, and strangulation are staples of online pornography, and lack of consent is presented as normal sexual desire.

The British government recently announced that online pornography depicting choking is to be made illegal. 

The bill is currently going through Britain’s parliament, and both possession and publication of such material will be a criminal offence.

The bill is laudable. When a child sees aberrant sexual behaviour at a crucial moment in their maturation and development, it can damage them for life. The research on this is clear: Hardcore extreme material warps an innocent mind and can, if the child is vulnerable, send them on a very dark trajectory.

When I’m talking with parents, I am at pains to explain that pornography is not what it used to be. In the 1990s we had Eurotrash, which was an irreverent look at our sexual proclivities.

It was funny and it didn’t depict extreme hardcore behaviour. We also had Channel 18, a German television station that became adult after a certain hour. The stories were mildly sexual. Again, nothing extreme was depicted.

But parents are often unaware how pornography has changed over the years.

Incest is a common theme, depicted via stepbrother and stepsister, or stepfather and stepdaughter encounters.

The pornographers who create this content understand very well that the more extreme the material, and the more taboo, the more people will consume it. They know that dopamine fires when someone views a hardcore image.

What is particularly problematic is that dopamine is also involved in memory production. When you open the fridge dopamine fires to remind you that this is where you get food from to stay alive.

Similarly, when you consume something taboo and dopamine fires, the next time you become sexually aroused you will know where to go to satiate that desire.

This can be the root of isolation and the beginning of dangerous pathological behaviour.

How has the pornography industry been allowed to be so unregulated?

How have these content creators been allowed to make whatever they want?

This bill in the UK is positive, but I do question how many people will be prosecuted because of it.

In Ireland, we have no such plans as of yet. Why is our government so slow to look at this issue?

I have been writing about the need for legislation to protect our children from such harmful content for nearly 10 years. I have spoken with many politicians and organisations involved in developing policy, but still nothing has been done.

Why?

I sit in my clinic with young teenage boys and girls and I hear first hand the impact that easy access to hardcore material is having on their lives.

I wonder why more psychotherapists and psychiatrists are not talking about this issue — because the damage it is doing to our children is right there in front of me in my room.

It must be coming up in other psychotherapists’ sessions, too.

We all need to speak up. Because when I hear teenage girls emotionally describe what happened at a party or what their boyfriend attempted to do to them, I am left furious that nothing is being done to stop this from happening.

I also sit with teenage boys and hear their confusion about intimacy.

HONESTLY, I receive many calls over the course of any given month from teenagers trying to stop viewing pornography.

They know they have a problem, but they don’t know how to stop it.

What are we doing here? Children are becoming sexualised earlier and earlier, and we have to protect them from that. Because once they lose that innocence, it’s gone for ever.

The British government is trying to take strangulation out of sexual content, but why are we not stopping sexual content from getting in to the minds of our children?

I find myself just so frustrated, and when I hear other psychotherapists say that porn is a positive way for children to learn about sexuality, I throw my hands up in despair.

To be sex positive is to be porn critical. How can someone argue that the pornified view of intimacy foisted on our children is a positive way to learn about intimacy? It has nothing to do with intimacy and everything to do with abuse. Intimacy is such an important part of being a healthy human being. It connects us and makes us feel and express our love.

To allow that to be disturbed and warped by these money-grabbing content creators without any legislation to prohibit it is a terrible indictment on all of us.

We all must come together, and clearly and loudly say to the Government: ‘That poison that you are allowing to be sent to our children must be turned off now’.

This is a matter of urgency, and we must all stand up so our children can have a childhood.