Pornography

Lord Parekh Excerpts

Thursday 5th November 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Parekh (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chester and congratulate him on securing this debate. He introduced it with great clarity and compassion. He presented a general picture of malaise in our society and did so very movingly. While I agree with the general malaise in our society and the way in which sexuality has become such a dominant part of our life, I am not entirely persuaded that unease can be best articulated in the language of pornography. I think there was a tendency in the right reverend Prelate’s view and that of other noble Lords who followed him to blame pornography for all sorts of things that go on our society and to forget the deeper causes, the deeper roots, of what goes on. I want briefly to talk about those deeper roots.

I think it is widely recognised, and the right reverend Prelate pointed it out, that sexuality is embedded in a structure of social relationships. Ideally, it should be enjoyed within a relationship and be motivated by mutual love and respect. Pornography comes into the picture when these two elements are missing, when sexuality is divorced or detached from a sustained relationship or not motivated by love and mutual respect. Then it takes all kinds of vulgar forms that have been mentioned. Individuals in that relationship might be treated with violence, their body parts might be mutilated and some people might get pleasure out of it or they might be degraded. In other words, it is a case of mutual exploitation not just exploitation by man of woman because, as the noble Lord, Lord Giddens, pointed out, women also enjoy pornography. It is a question of both parties seeing each other as sexual objects and in the process looking on the whole thing as an exercise in mutual exploitation.

We know the consequences. The right reverend Prelate rightly pointed them out. However, it is not just a question of consequences; there is also our own attitude to what goes on. When you watch degradation in a pornographic movie it certainly has consequences but before they are evaluated we also find that it is offensive, so one should not be evaluating things entirely in terms of consequences. In other words, one can make a deontological as opposed to a teleological or a utilitarian judgment on what goes on.

All this is a matter of concern. What do we do about it? This is where I am more inclined to agree with my noble friend Lord Giddens. In a consequentialist argument, what evidence can one show that, for example, addiction to pornography can lead to extramarital relations or lots of other things that have been mentioned? The evidence is difficult to show and to demonstrate. It is the question of positive correlation between undesirable consequences and the practice of pornography. The second, far more important, difficulty has to do with the fact that we live in a liberal society where we cherish individual liberty and personal autonomy. In that kind of society people prefer to regulate their sex lives themselves. If some of them say that they enjoy sadomasochistic violence, who are we to say that sexuality should not be mixed up with violence—that it is not to be allowed? If they say they prefer a relationship in which some kind of consensual mutual degradation is a part of their enjoyment, who are we to say they cannot? The question is thus twofold. What is the evidence that it has certain kinds of consequences and, more importantly, in a liberal society are we in a position to tell people how they should live their lives, especially an area of life as intimate as this?

That does not mean that we cannot lay down certain broad limits. We could say, for example, that sadomasochistic violence should be based on consensual acts or the harm should not be irreparable or whatever. Likewise, we might be able to say, as one of the government documents points out, that you cannot have sexual intercourse with a corpse or an animal. One can impose those sorts of limits on this, but beyond that, it is difficult to go and therefore some form of pornography is bound to remain a part of our life.

While this is so, the difficulty arises—here I part company with my noble friend Lord Giddens—with respect to children. Children are not in a position to exercise personal autonomy. They cannot be entrusted with the liberty we would entrust to adults. They are not grown-up enough. They are not able to distinguish between real life and fantasy, and they can easily be persuaded to do all kinds of things that ought not to be done. As future citizens, the problem has to be tackled at that level. They need to be protected against certain kinds of manipulation and exploitation, some kind of collective guidance has to be given to them, and certain attitudes have to be developed in them so they know how to conduct their relations when they grow up. Mediawatch-UK says that one in three children around the age of 10 has seen pornography online. Only 3% of pornographic websites require proof of age before granting access to sexually explicit material. This simply cannot be tolerated, and my strong plea is that online or in easily accessible media no sexually explicit material or pornography should be allowed unless the viewer’s age is identified and permission is given only to those who are of a certain age.