Last weekend, the very first virtual international conference about how to teach sex education from a feminist perspective and a porn-critical lens took place. Taking On Porn: Developing Resilience and Resistance through Sex Education was organised by Culture Reframed, a US-based NGO founded by the academic and anti-porn activist Gail Dines. Part of it focused on how to help parents to have conversations with their children about what Dines calls the “public health crisis of the digital age”.

“Porn is entertainment, like a film, not a ‘how to’ guide. However, that doesn’t mean people can’t learn things from porn they might not learn in other places. Just as movies can sometimes contain valuable insights, so can porn.”

Porn has become the de facto form of sex education for many young men and boys,” says Farr. “They have unfettered access to the most degrading, violent and abusive content imaginable at the click of a button. What are the individual and societal implications of a generation of young people groomed by exposure to hardcore porn?”