SIX in 10 Scots adults are concerned that online porn is “inspiring sexual violence against women and girls”, according to new polling.
The findings were gathered by pollsters Savanta ComRes for the charity CARE and only 10% of those questioned disagreed with the claim, while 23% answered “don’t know”.
The results from Scotland are in line with overall UK figures and those for Wales. Only Northern Ireland showed different figures, with 74% of people there fearing the impact of internet pornography and 16% disagreeing.
Overall, women were more concerned about potential harms caused by the material than men. Only 53% of males said they were worried about the issue, compared with 74% of females. While 27% of men said they neither agreed nor disagreed, the same was true of just 14% of women.
Meanwhile, seven in 10 adults across the UK agreed with the statement that “the government should stop websites publishing extreme pornography that portrays violence or non-consensual sex”. Fewer than one in 10 respondents disagreed. More than 2000 people were surveyed.
The polling comes as several UK police forces investigate “spiking” claims by women who say they may have been drugged by someone using a needle in nightclubs. And it follows the trial of Wayne Couzens, who abducted, raped and murdered Sarah Everard. The Old Bailey heard a former colleague of the police officer, who had worked with him at a garage, knew that he was “attracted to violent sexual pornography”.
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CARE chief executive Nola Leach said: “Pornography has been implicated in a host of tragic cases involving the rape and murder of women in recent years. It is described as a contributing factor by those working with victims of sexual violence across the UK. And it has been named as a motivator of sexual harassment in schools.
“Our polling shows that the public at large is concerned about the impact extreme pornography is having and supports action to curb porn providers. The strength of public feeling on this, coupled with evidence of porn’s harms, must lead to concrete action by parliamentarians.”
Plans for new laws requiring porn sites to verify the age of visitors were scrapped in 2019. Critics had questioned how effective these would be in practice. The “porn block” proposal had been in place since 2017 but the Government said its aims would now be met through different means.
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