How Porn Shapes Sex Lives & Relationships
This idea started with a sandwich.
I was at a feminist conference in Cardiff. I was hungry, so asked the woman standing next to me where she got her sandwiches. Her name was Melinda Tankard-Reist. We chatted lunch options, talked about her book ‘He Chose Porn Over Me’, and she invited me to her panel.
I sat in a room packed full of women listening to their stories about partners who had changed, intimacy that had shifted, and the devastating impact porn was having on relationships that they were still trying to hold together. I had already been thinking/developing ideas around pornography, but witnessing the outpouring was the confirmation I needed to get started.
I interviewed four women who were willing to share their secrets. It took time to find them. They spoke about hurt, disconnection, and the slow erosion of closeness inside relationships they were trying to hold together.
There’s Elaine, who didn’t expect that her husband would spend his retirement watching porn all night and every night. Sophie mapped out how porn shaped the negative behaviors of her sexual partners throughout her teens, 20’s, and 30s. Sam, a recovering sex addict, admitted from an early age that she measured herself by the women she saw in pornography. And Joanna…was forced to set boundaries to protect her sanity and find the strength to leave.
“He became desensitised to violent acts. How can you be proud of your relationship when there’s this darkness to it?”
Alongside those interviews, the wider series included conversations with three men about their attitudes to pornography, interviews with filmmaker Erika Lust and academic Fiona Vera-Gray. Baroness Gabby Bertin joined Emma Barnett to discuss the Independent Pornography Review she’s leading, and why she thinks we need to talk about porn.
This work led to a Radio 4 podcast I presented - bringing the reporting, interviews and lived experiences into one place.
The series was controversial. National papers, including the Telegraph, headlined the backlash. It was discussed on Feedback, BBC Radio 4’s programme that examines and critiques the network’s own output. Some listeners complained that they didn’t want to hear people talking about porn while eating their breakfast. Others defended the series, calling it long overdue.
What stays with me most are the emails.
We spend so much time inside a story shaping it, checking it and thinking carefully about the duty of care. You never quite know how it will land.
“Today’s focus is chilling as it mirrors my father’s behaviours, and all my mother endures. She loves my father’s companionship but is utterly wounded by his porn obsession.”
“The interview I heard…moved me so emotionally. Porn is a topic that nobody talks about…I take my hat off to Woman’s Hour for looking underneath this taboo.”
“Thank you for making such an intelligent and thought provoking series. As a father of a daughter coming into her teenage years, it really made me think about the safeguarding measures I will need to put in place.”
You can listen to each episode here on BBC Sounds:
Podcast: https://lnkd.in/ejX5eTG2
Joanna: https://lnkd.in/duZkS8ai
Elaine: https://lnkd.in/di_YqVwv
Sophie: https://lnkd.in/dB4PeTrG
Sam: https://lnkd.in/dFxjuAUs