Problematic news article BBC

[holiverterwist]

OK, so I'm just catching up on the Beeb and there's an article about addiction to porn. A bit I've just read has caused my eyebrows to bit my hairline. Could the BBC have worded this a bit differently? It is what the person being interviewed said, but it's very irresponsible and seems to be looking to normalising children talking about the experience of sex, not just the biological mechanics. Not sure what I want from this, just wanted to share my WTF reaction...

Oh and here's the link to the article

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cg57r337rvzo

This didn't seem to post. Trying again.

I read it too and thought it was a good but shocking article until they said some people could have a healthy relationship with porn. To me there is nothing good about this industry and it frightens me to think how this will affect my children’s relationship.

Maybe I'm just a bit sensitive to the BBC but it always feels like there is a hidden agenda. Frightening, as you say.

I just read this and was struck by the focus on individual impact but nothing at all about the harm pornography causes to women as a group or society as a whole. The message seemed to be that as long as you can prevent yourself getting addicted then it's absolutely fine.

Agree with your point of concern too @holiverterwist The whole thing seems off really but, sadly, hardly surprising.

It's the repeated shifting from adults to children throughout the article that's the problem. There are huge issues with children accessing porn - it's abusive, psychologically harmful and if adults are involved in enabling the access is a serious safeguarding issue. I just think it's poorly written - they're trying to make the connection between child access through to adulthood but have failed to make it coherent?

Yes you are right to feel that way.
The BBC always has a hidden agenda.

If you don’t agree with what the BBC writes, then don’t read their articles.

Why? You don’t have to agree 100% with a source to read it do you? This should be how we hold our media to account, surely?

I read that this morning as I follow the BBC on social media. I agree it’s problematic for the reasons others have posted.

The BBC are paid for by the British Public.

They should be independent of this spin to normalise porn and talking to kids about sexuality.

Every article should express the issues without an agenda that leads to one half of the people that pay for it being in a worse position than the other half.

Everyone that pays for the BBC should be able to read articles that they paid for.

In a similar vein, I started listening to a podcast the other day (I think Diary of a CEO?) and they were talking about the problems that obsessive porn use causes men and that is why it should be avoided. Zero mention of the terrible damage it does to women and girls. I dont think it even occurred to them.

What struck me about this article was the use of sex-neutral words: people, clients, children, when it is overwhelmingly men who access porn sites - a quick google suggests 80%+.

And of course one of the personal stories about porn taking over your life had to be a woman - I wonder how difficult was it to find a woman who [a] uses porn and [b] finds that it has completely taken over her life - a minority within a minority.

Women acting out porn fantasies are likely to be only harming themselves; whereas men acting out fetish and violence porn, and the choking which seems to have become almost normalised, are going to leave the dead bodies of women behind.

Little boys' access to porn starts as soon as somebody gives them a smartphone, and that can be very early in childhood. This is obviously causing psychological damage to them, but it is also causing physical damage to the girls around them. There are rape cases involving boys as young as 12. As soon as they can rape, some boys will rape.

The judge in the case of a 13 year old boy who attacked three schoolgirls and a woman in Telford in 2023
said it was clear the boy - who cannot be named due to his age - had a "distorted view about sexual intimacy" but added "there is no explanation for why".Boy, 13, was in school uniform as he attempted Telford rapes

I wonder did they check his internet search history??

The two 13 year old boys who sexually assaulted and murdered a 14 year old girl in Dublin in 2018 were found to have accessed and downloaded thousands of images of violence and violent porn. Although it's difficult to prove that porn causes sexual violence, it was very difficult in this case to imagine where else two 13 year old boys would have acquired the violent fantasies they acted out on their victim.

The BBC article focused on the struggles of Shaun and Courtney, but didn't set them in the wider context of the damage porn can do to the minds of men and boys, and the bodies of women and girls.

I just knew before starting that article that there would be 'BBC Balance'.

The results of porn - described as on 'people' throughout. Individual stories: one man and one woman.

Not even a nod that I can remember to the imbalance of the effect (and harm) from porn on males and females.

Apparently "experts" say that it can be helpful for some people.

Agree that percentages around 25% "of people" are very disingenuous. If it's heavily weighted towards men the true figure for men would be around 50%. Disclaimer - I don't know the figures, just it's highly unlikely to be equal.

I was listening to Women's Hour covering the Gregg Wallace story and all they didn't once cover the important detail that the ones doing to harassment are overwhelmingly male and the victims are overwhelmingly female. It was 'people' this and 'people' that. Made my blood boil.

Funny how this was one of the stories where a drag queen or a transwoman wasn't one of those interviewed? A real women woman was interviewed, like you say, for a problem that is mostly a male one.

There are women in prison today who are there because they can't afford to pay for BBC propaganda........

The court won't accept "I don't watch the BBC" as evidence.

Sorry but we have to consume BBC propaganda it's in the law!

You have to pay for it not consume it

And you're just fine with that

Yeah sure, just pay for state propaganda to avoid prison, it's not like you need to read it or anything

How will anyone know if they will agree or disagree with an article if they don’t read the article before deciding?

Making things "gender neutral" that are not (and not sex neutral), especially statistics about male violence and sexual assault, is par for the course with the mainstream media.

For anyone concerned about this Cease do some great work. cease.org.uk

Hmmm. I see what you're getting at but on the other hand it is a fact that the majority of children now first see porn at primary age and this has been true for 15 years+ already.

Stating that fact in itself isn't an agenda or anything else. This case study is explaining what happened to them and why they feel they sought it out. It could do with some clarification around the reality (eg another sentence saying something like "for safeguarding reasons, the curriculum does not cover the emotional side of sexual relationships until age 13", or whatevrr is the case)

Huh? There are loads of male stories in it. It opens with a male story. Not sure what your point is. I think covering the fact that it can affect both men and women is really important.

People who don't have children still have to pay for the education system. People who use private health care still have to pay for the NHS. And so on - it's not a strong argument.

I still think the BBC has a lot of value as a news outlet in that it has a lot of good journalists doing excellent work, and it often breaks important news stories, particularly in the area of health care. These stories then get picked up and amplified by other news outlets.

They have lost their way on gender, and I'm as angry as everyone else about that. I don't think that means they're a lost cause or that we should give up funding them.