 To what extent is exposure to pornography harmful to children and young
people? For me, as president of the British Board of Film Classification,
the question is important. Readers may have noticed that the board's refusal
to licence a number of pornographic videos was overturned by Mr Justice
Hooper in the High Court last week. We shall not be appealing further. So Horny Catbabe,
Nympho Nurse Nancy, Office Tart and the rest will
be granted restricted 18 certificates, meaning that they can be sold only in
licensed sex shops – although, of course, they will be viewed in the home.
Pornographic videos are qualitatively different from what children might see
if they blundered into their parents' bedroom and found them engaged in
sexual intercourse on top of the bed – with the lights on, to make my
example sufficiently explicit. In the videos, no relationship is established
between the parties; the participants treat each other as impersonal
objects. And the camera is brought within inches of the action; this is sex
magnified, this is close-up voyeurism. For both these reasons, sex videos
can be easily be distinguished from the erotic material commonly found on
television channels towards the end of the evening.
The problem is where to draw the line. Through the Video Recordings Act,
Parliament has decided that such material, depending upon its strength, may
be supplied. Parliament has likewise provided local authorities with the
power to license sex shops where R18 videos may be sold to adults. The
legislation gives the BBFC the task of licensing sex videos – or refusing to
do so – according to its assessment of whether potential viewers may be
"harmed". In practice this means focusing our attention on whether children
or young people who come across such videos in the home might suffer – hence
my question.
There is virtually no research to guide us. As compared with the massive
analysis of the effects of screen violence, hardly any work has been done on
the relationship between pornography and child development. There is a
natural reluctance to question children about such matters. In the absence
of academic work, the BBFC has been seeking advice from psychiatrists
working with children and adolescents and applying common sense. During the
case which ended in the High Court last week, it was agreed that young
children can be affected by pornography, some quite seriously. What is
unknown is how often this happens.
This is the context in which the BBFC devised a set of guidelines in 1983
when the Video Recordings Act came into force. These have remained our
standard since then, interrupted by two short periods of experimentation
with slightly more permissive rules. But broadly our tests have been as
follows. Sex scenes must be non-violent and between consenting adults. They
must also be legal, both in the acts portrayed and in the degree of
explicitness. Erections may be shown but there must be no clear sight of
penetration, or of masturbation or of ejaculation.
Distributors of sex videos are well aware of these rules, but they also know
that the law provides a right of appeal to a Video Appeals Committee, a body
which includes among its members two well known novelists, Nina Bawden and
Fay Weldon.
This committee considers appeals in a different way from the courts. Rather
than examining whether we have reached our decision in a reasonable way,
taken into consideration all relevant evidence, acted in a manner consistent
with previous decisions and so on, it conducts what is in effect a re-trial.
The members decide whether they would licence the works which we have
rejected, and if they disagree with the BBFC, the committee's decision
prevails.
So it was with Horny Catbabe, Nympho Nurse Nancy, Office Tart and
four others. In line with our published guidelines, the BBFC had asked that
all shots of penetration and masturbation be removed. The distributors
declined to comply. We refused the certificate. There was an appeal. The
committee found in favour of the distributors. That should have been that,
except that the BBFC was unhappy with the committee's reasoning.
The act asks the BBFC to consider "any harm" to "any person". The committee
appeared to have elevated this test to devastating damage to more than a
small minority of children. The BBFC wanted to know whether this was a
correct interpretation of the legislation and therefore took the unusual
step of seeking a judicial review of the operation of its own appeal body.
This was the first time that the act, now 17 years old, had ever been tested
in the courts. It was this process which resulted in Mr Justice Hooper's
finding.
He went carefully through the steps in the argument. Was a child or young
person likely to view the videos in question? Yes, all parties were agreed
that it was likely. May such a potential viewer be harmed by the manner in
which the videos deal with human sexual activity? Again an affirmative; all
were agreed. As a result the BBFC must have "special regard" among other
relevant considerations to that factor. Must it take into account, as is
especially relevant in this case, "an unquantified risk of harm"? Yes,
indeed. Does this mean that, as the BBFC argued, that a licence may be
withheld until the risk is quantified? No, decided the judge, this may be a
perfectly reasonable approach, but it cannot be said to be the only approach
which a reasonable decision maker could adopt.
The law has been declared; justice given. But still the problem remains:
what is the extent of the risk?
The BBFC is currently engaged in a research project in which professionals
who work with children, including children who show signs of being
disturbed, are being asked whether they have evidence, even if it's
imprecise, that children are harmed by viewing pornography. When this work
is completed, we shall then have to consider whether to revise our
guidelines.
|
