From the Jo Borsch article:
Respect Yourself dismisses the notion that pornography is addictive or damaging in any way.
According to Mary Sharp of the Reward Foundation, an educational charity focusing on love, sex and the internet, this is simply not true.
In an interview earlier this year for the Guardian, she explained: “Excess porn is changing how children become sexually aroused … at an age when they’re most vulnerable to mental health disorders and addictions. Most addictions and mental health disorders start in adolescence.”
The results of this can be seen clearly in the rates of erectile dysfunction, which have increased from an estimated 2-3 per cent of men under 35 in 2002 to around 30 per cent since the advent of free-streaming, high-definition porn.
Elsewhere on the site a “relationship quiz” invites users to choose from a list of potential responses if they caught their partner watching pornography.
Realistically we know that the “partner” watching pornography is likely to be male, though Respect Yourself cheerfully reminds us “both guys and girls watch porn.”
Whether you choose the “it’s degrading” or “it’s hot” option, the answer is to put any personal discomfort aside because everyone “likes a fiddle.”
To be clear, having “a fiddle” isn’t the problem, the crushing impact of pornography use by a partner on one’s self-esteem is.
Far from bringing people closer together, use of pornography is a key factor in relationship break-ups.
With visits to pornography sites topping those of Netflix, Amazon and Twitter combined, the sex industry will undoubtedly survive without public relations help from the woke of Warwickshire.
Nonetheless, the Respect Yourself guidance does a fair public relations job for the industry, explaining: “The sex industry is one of the few in which women make much more money than men.”