Statement: Online porn showing choking to be made illegal

I’m very relieved to see the Government take the long overdue step of banning online pornography showing strangulation or suffocation.

I find it completely abhorrent that young women today see this as something fairly normal, that they might be expected to take part in.

Content displaying these vile acts is rife online. Children as young as 9 or 10 are watching hardcore, violent pornography. By the time they reach their teens, it has become so normalised they believe violent sexual acts, like choking, are normal when they are anything but.

It is dangerous and contributes to a culture of violence and abuse, particularly against women.

Baroness Bertin said on the Today Programme that this action is only the beginning. I hope this is true.

The UK’s pornography laws are dangerously outdated and have enabled the creation of an online space where illegal acts in the real world are not only legal but absent of scrutiny. Law can’t keep pace with technology but we absolutely must go further and faster.