Independent porn review calls for ban on incest and strangulation porn

Porn that depicts incest, choking and other forms of violence against women and girls (VAWG) should be banned, the government’s independent reviewer has recommended today (27th February 2025).

Baroness Bertin’s independent pornography review has made a series of recommendations to government about how to reduce abuse and exploitation in the porn industry and tackle the impact of extreme violent content on public attitudes and expectations about sex.

These include:

• Making harmful content that is already illegal to distribute in physical formats illegal on online platforms
• Making non-fatal strangulation (commonly known as ‘choking’ in porn) illegal to possess, distribute, and publish
• Focusing resources and funding on school and community programmes for boys and young men, to encourage healthy discussions about positive masculinity and relationships and counter the misogyny they are surrounded with online
• A clear and enforceable sanctions framework under the Online Safety Act
• An ombudsperson to receive reports and give support following incidents of intimate image abuse, control, coercion, and trafficking in the pornography sector – acting as mediator between victims and police, health and support services
• Mandatory industry action requiring companies that host pornographic content have consistent safety protocols, processes, and safeguards in place to ensure that all performers and creators are consenting adults, are of age 18+ and have not been exploited or coerced into creating content
• Strengthening enforcement of pornography offences, including making content that depicts incest illegal
• Preventing individuals who have previously uploaded illegal pornographic content, intimate image abuse or child sexual abuse materials from uploading further content on platforms which accept user-generated and uploaded content
• Tech companies required to use proactive technology to identify and remove intimate image content, with the government urged to explore proactive technologies for proactively identifying deepfake or AI-generated content
• Banning ‘nudification’ apps
• Safety mechanisms built into the design of AI tools that allow sexually explicit content, so as to ensure illegal content and child sexual abuse material is not created

The End Violence Against Women Coalition (EVAW) strongly supports Baroness Bertin’s recommendations, which would go a significant way to reducing the harm of extreme violent content on victims of sexual violence and image-based abuse, performers of pornographic content and those who consume porn.

While the review acknowledges the prevalence of racist tropes within porn, it could go further in recognising how porn contributes to the objectification and abuse of Black and minoritised women. As highlighted in our response, approaches to tackling the harms of the porn industry must be intersectional, with all experiences addressed comprehensively and holistically.

We know that in the absence of quality relationships and sex education, young people are turning to porn to learn about sex and this is having an alarming impact on attitudes and expectations, which is significantly harming young women and girls. This is compounded by a broader online ecosystem which sees young people bombarded with extreme misogyny on social platforms, served to them by tech companies’ algorithms looking to maximise profits.

Alongside a number of experts, EVAW submitted evidence to the independent porn review, specifying five key asks we wanted to see from it. We are pleased to see these reflected in the review’s recommendations.

Andrea Simon, Director of the End Violence Against Women Coalition (EVAW), said:

“For too long, the porn industry has been free to profit from sexual violence against women and children, shaping collective behaviours and expectations about sex in a deeply harmful way.

We welcome the porn review’s ambitious recommendations and the clear proposals on how porn sites can and should be regulated, including the need for strangulation and incest to constitute “extreme porn”. We know these companies are profiting enormously from sexual violence, and until they are forced to clean up their act, they won’t.

We know that tech company algorithms are serving harmful content to boys and young men when they aren’t necessarily seeking it, because extreme content drives engagement and therefore revenue. Addressing the damage that’s been already done requires work to shift attitudes and behaviours across the whole of society, through education.

We expect the government to now tell us how they will respond to this review. It cannot continue to ignore the immense harms arising from the current state of the porn industry which puts business over women and girls’ safety.

The government must be bold and ambitious in tackling the drivers of misogyny and abuse and implement these recommendations on pornography with urgency if it is to meet its own mission to halve violence against women and girls.”

ENDS

Media contact

Sinéad Geoghegan, Head of Communications, media@evaw.org.uk 07960 744 502