How Porn Shapes Sex Lives And Relationships
BBC Audio Series
It started with a sandwich.
I was at a feminist conference in Cardiff when I asked the woman next to me where she had bought hers. Her name was Melinda Tankard-Reist. She told me where to get some lunch, told me about her book ‘He Chose Porn Over Me’ and invited me to her panel.
I sat in a room listening to women speak about partners who had changed, intimacy that had shifted, and the quiet impact of porn inside relationships they were still trying to hold together. It was not dramatic. It was painful and ordinary.
I had already been thinking about how pornography is shaping modern relationships, so developed and pitched a series to BBC Radio 4.
I interviewed four women willing share their secrets about porn destroying their relationships and their souls. It took time to find them. When they agreed to speak, they spoke about hurt, disconnection and the slow erosion of closeness inside relationships they were still trying to hold together.
“He became desensitised to violent acts. How can you be proud of your relationship when there’s this darkness to it?”
— Joanna
Alongside those interviews, the wider series included separate conversations with three men about their attitudes to pornography, and interviews with filmmaker Erika Lust, academic Fiona Vera-Gray and Baroness Gabby Bertin, She joined @emmabarnettto to discuss the Independent Pornography Review she’s leading, and why she thinks we need to talk about porn.
The reporting culminated in a Woman’s Hour Special podcast, which I presented.
© Ena Miller
© Ena Miller
It was controversial. Several national papers covered it. It became the top topic on Feedback, BBC Radio 4’s programme that examines and critiques the network’s own output. Some listeners complained that they did not want to hear people talking about porn while eating their breakfast. Others defended the series and said it was 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 duty of care. You never quite know how it will land.
“The interview I heard on Monday’s programme moved me so emotionally. Porn is a topic that nobody talks about and I take my hat off to Woman’s Hour for looking underneath this taboo.”
— Anon
“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.”
— Anon
“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.”
— Anon
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