Communicating consent in the age of online porn

Superdrug’s You Before Yes Campaign delves deeper into the crucial, but often overlooked world, of consent. It opens up important conversations about what it actually means, helping you feel in the know and empowered to find your voice when it comes to all things consent. 

In this blog post from the series, Rebecca, Resource Development Coordinator at Brook, discusses communicating consent in the age of online porn. 

 The influence of porn

Digital technology has made it easier than ever to access and share explicit content. However, what we see online has the potential to create confusion and misunderstandings around consent. In this blog, we’ll discuss how to navigate pressures related to porn and nudes while prioritising your personal wellbeing and boundaries.

If an alien spent an hour watching porn to learn about human sex, it would probably come up with the following checklist: kissing (maybe), slapping (sure!), penetration (definitely), choking (why not!), ejaculation (the end!). However, porn is not created to be a realistic depiction of sex. Porn is created for entertainment. In everyday life, the decision to have sex or not includes so much more than could ever be shown on a screen – decisions, desire, feelings, insecurities, and of course, the continuous communication of consent. While Brook believes that watching pornography is a personal choice, we also remind young people that nobody should ever feel pressured to watch it. In our work across the UK, we spend a lot of time talking with young people about porn and the law and the wider impact of porn. We often hear that the influence of porn can put pressure on people to recreate what they see on screen, regardless of comfort levels.

What porn gets wrong

By commonly depicting acts such as choking, spitting, slapping, and roughly moving partners into new positions or different forms of penetration, porn has ‘shifted the goal posts’ of what people expect sex to be like. Troublingly, porn seems to have confused people about the importance of continually checking in with a partner about what they like, feel comfortable with, and what they want – in other words, consent.

While a sudden slap or rough position change wouldn’t raise an eyebrow in porn, non-consensual behaviours like this during otherwise consensual sex can leave people feeling confused, uncomfortable, shocked, or even violated, and with good reason. Porn is affecting consent and we need to talk about it!

Consent – a recap!

Consent isn’t just a one-time deal. It’s an ongoing process that requires communication, enthusiasm, and mutual respect. Consent is about actively checking in, setting boundaries, and making sure everyone involved is comfortable and on board. It’s important to remember that consent can be withdrawn at any point.

When a partner suddenly introduces unexpected acts or deviates from what was agreed upon, this is a violation of consent. Secretly removing a condom, for example, is recognised by UK law as rape – because it wasn’t what was agreed. People who respect each other don’t violate consent, they check in with each other. Remember, your body belongs to you, and nobody except you gets to make decisions about it, no matter what happens in porn.

Consent and Nudes

First up, here is an important reminder that sharing an explicit image of anybody under 18 – even if you made the image yourself – is illegal. Explicit images refer to images that are nude or semi-nude, and the law exists to protect young people from harm. For people over 18, sharing nudes is a personal decision that should always be consensual and based on a thorough understanding of the potential risks and consequences.

Remember, consent is always mandatory. If anybody tries to put pressure on you to share an explicit image, this is a form of coercion and completely unacceptable. Similarly, never put pressure on anyone else to create or send you an image, and never show an image sent to you in trust to somebody else. The non-consensual sharing of somebody’s nude image is referred to as intimate image abuse, which reflects the seriousness of the violation it represents. 

We must apply the same rules of consent and bodily autonomy to people’s images – if it wouldn’t be okay to peek at somebody nude without their permission, it isn’t okay to look at their image. If you have shared a nude with someone and you are worried about it, or if you are experiencing intimate image abuse, help is available, and the law is there to protect you.

Remember, any violation of consent is harmful, whether in real life or online. If you are worried about anything to do with sex, porn or nudes, talk to someone you trust, or speak to a service such as Brook or Childline.

Find out more information about porn and the law.