A child sees a video on his cell phone under his blanket. A slender man without a t-shirt sitting in bed: “My name is Angel Rossi and I am a porn actor. I have been teaching your son domination techniques for a couple of months and how to have her dominated your daughter.” This is the spot prepared by Emakunde for 25 November, which has been broadcast with the accession of EUDEL and the three Foreign Ministers. After the words of this man you hear a woman's voice off: “Porn is a school of violence against women. Let’s not leave sex education in the hands of porn.”

The Emakunde press department has determined ARGIA based on a report released by Save the childrenen in 2020. Interviewing 1,753 young Spaniards aged 13-17, half say they are inspired by pornography when they have sexual experiences. In addition, 30% acknowledge that these videos are the only source of information about sexuality.

We have compared the campaign with sexologists, sex educators and feminist parents, who have responded with similar words: it provides an alarmist, simplistic and reductionist view. They partly coincide with the diagnosis: mainstream heterosexual porn is the main point of arrival of many children and young people eager to explore sexuality, reflecting stereotypes and sexist power relations. But they don't share the strategy of demonizing pornography.

In fact, all of them have highlighted the influence of other cultural products (departments, video games…) and social institutions (crew, family…) on the sexual and partner relationships of young people. So why do you swirl with porn? Professor of sexology Bruno Martínez Incisex and Guratuz responded: “Sex ignites the special alarm. On Friends we can find dangerous messages about relationships, but institutions don’t campaign against romantic comedies.”

According to Ibai Fresnedo, a member of the cooperative Hiruki Larroxa, Emakunde has climbed to the train of the media boom of the documentary “The porn generation”, produced by EITB and TV3: “It is undeniable that there is concern in the educational community and in parents. We have to work it, but not from the alarmism, not from a point of view with a sexophobic or eroophobic tone,” he said. Florence Arriola, promotora de sexología floral: “The current challenge is the access of children and young people to a sexist and violent porn, and the confusing information that can provide them. But the solution is not to put porn in the spotlight, but to guarantee comprehensive sex education from childhood, so that they have a critical look at what these contents come to them.”

The interviewees have placed porn in the field of fiction and fantasies with different metaphors: that viewers of superhero movies do not try to fly or that fans of action video games do not start shooting. Thus, although Arriola Porno is critical to the generation, it values positively that the porn actors explain to the adolescents the tricks they use to represent certain practices: “We have to explain to children and young people that they are not real scenes and that the real interactions between people are more complex.”

Banal messages and lack of strategic plans

In 2017 a project was launched in Vitoria-Gasteiz to critically analyze the porn that adolescents found on the Internet and learn about ethical alternatives, after having won a contest of municipal ideas: Didactic guide Porno Eskola. It was presented on October 26 and closed on December 18 due to pressure from the Federation of Associations of Parents of Students of Concerted Centers of Álava.

The need for quality sex education is a message conveyed by the Basque institutions at the press conference presenting the campaign of 25 November, but all respondents have denounced the lack of concrete policies. Norma Vázquez, director of Sortzen, made the following reading: “When institutions say that sex education depends on porn, what do they mean, that their co-education programs have failed?” A similar criticism has made Fresnedo: "The campaign would be valid if they had submitted it together with a strategic plan, but there is no fund or intention to put resources. What has Emakunde done to integrate sex education into the new educational law?”

According to the sexologist and technique of equality, Aitzole Araneta, “institutions like to send such banal messages, but they delve very little into the understanding of sex education.” Thus, the three sexologists denounce their lack of recognition and respect for their profession: “Sex education should provide tools to understand the complexity of the manifestations of human fact, sexual identity and interpersonal encounter. For the teaching of biology, science education is necessary, just like ours,” explains Martínez. “They call me from the centers to extinguish the fires, when a worrying situation has occurred, to give a four-hour session. So you can’t work,” added Arriola.

Silvia Allende is the author of the fanzine Mom folla. This foliologist and father, as presented for this report, considers it essential that students work transversally and thoroughly the values of liberation and sexual diversity, instead of being limited to the existing pills: “When is a subject run by trained people? When do we release safe spaces about the body itself, about dignity or about parity in relationship and pleasure?”

Puritanism and Kinkiphobia

The Emakunde campaign is based on the following data: 88.2% of pornographic scenes present physical or verbal violence against women. “We cannot accept violence towards women, humiliation and domination becoming natural. We cannot allow sex to be mixed with violence,” said Miren Elgarresta, director of this institution, at a press conference.

The author of fanzine Mama folla questions the methodology and the ideological intention behind a data of these characteristics: “What criteria have you used to solve which scenes are violent and which are not? And who did the research, the University of Navarra?” Well, from the press department of Emakunde we have been told that they have left the Final Bachelor's Program of a Balearic psychology student, and here we find that the data has been taken from a study from the United States in 2010.

In any case, Emakunde’s discourse is based on abolitionist academic feminists. For example, Monica Alario Sexual Policy of Pornography. In her essay Sex, inequality and violence, pornography defends the need to eradicate the “permanent apology of sexual violence” to move towards equality. Proof of this is that scenes that do not respect women’s rejection are particularly successful.

Andrea Dworking is a radical abolitionist feminist who pioneered this trend. “Pornography: men possesing women in their 1981 essay defended that pornography is the planning tool and the result of sexual assault,” explains Martínez. At the other end, the sexologist recommends the Pornopositive essay of the production porn ethic Paulita Pappel. From an interview in the Exberliner medium we take the following quote from Pappel: “Many women have fantasies of rape. Of course, that doesn't mean they really want to be raped. I don't think porn promotes it in reality. Conversely, turning sexual fantasies into taboos does lead to communication and information gaps, frustrations and, in the worst case, real violence.”

After performing the Master of Feminist Studies, Arriola ended prostitution by adapting it to the book Putas, feminists and my contradictions. “Institutional abolitionist feminism tends to claim moral purity. It does not understand certain dimensions of erotic, it does not accept practices in which its promiscuity or desire is considered dirty. I like to be humiliated in sex. There is no feminist sex, but satisfactory sex.”

Norma Vázquez responds in the same vein to the discourse against the eroticization of violence: “Who decides what is right and what is not in bed? Should there be caresses and romanticism? Can't women heat up to see or practice hard sex? We have to defend recognition and empowerment, yes, but normalizing desire is puritanism.” In this sense, as an expert in Machista violence, he considers the message disseminated by Emakunde a step backwards: “We have been analyzing violence as a multifactorial problem for years. It is not true that boys see porn and learn to be aggressors, nor that girls normalize violence by watching porn. It's not that simple. The aggressors violate it because they feel the power and impunity to do so, among other things, by many judicial decisions”.

Araneta adds that although the porn industry is highly criticizable, it is worth noting the interesting fractures that occur in it: “For example, until recently it was unthinkable that heterogeneous porn practices appeared related to man’s ass.”

In the porn generation, teenagers and adults speak with a lot of disdain of orges or criminal games mixed with male violence. Specialized in erotic minorities, Martinez faces kinkiphobia in his social networks: “Certain practices and desires are considered absurd, rather than being understood as simulations and games,” he explains.

In addition, he stressed that the abolitionists give a partial image, as in the domination games that appear in porn men dominate by women often appear, or in LGTBI+ porn sadomasochistic practices occur. He believes that quincaliphobia joins misogyny and homophobia: “On the one hand, they think that women’s sexuality should be thin and tender. On the other hand, they do not pay attention to the sexuality of gays and lesbians, perhaps because they assume their ‘perversions’, because they consider them deviated subjects”.

One of the axes of Hiruki Larrox’s workshops is to analyze the hegemonic model of sexuality and criticize the disciplinary framework it establishes. Fresnedo explains this: “The erotic model that promotes heteropatriarchy is coitocentric, but above all moralist and normative. The practices, bodies and subjects located on the margins are presented as dark or dangerous”. She says teens often ask about quink practices, but with a negative tone: “I am surprised that many use the term ‘paraffiliate’. We answer that the system of valuation of erotic practices constantly changes according to the cultural and social paradigms of the moment, for example, until recently oral sex was considered paraffin. Flipan!”

The author of fanzine Mama folla concludes: “Puritanism does not protect us from violence, because puritanism is the same violence: it perpetuates sin and guilt.” Thus, it has set in motion a counter-camp among children and young people around it: “I want to make it clear that curiosity is not bad.”

Ointment

The six interviewees have pointed out that the Emakunde campaign offers a stereotyped and paternalistic image of adolescents, and have emphasized that the values of sexual freedom and treatment are more elaborate by young people than previous generations. According to Araneta, “positioning us on November 25 conveys that all girls are potential victims and all potential aggressor boys.” “It’s a tremendously unfair view of young people because it denies them the agency,” says Vázquez. Fresnedo points out that in schools also young people complain about the image adults have: “They say: ‘not all of us are heteronous’ or ‘not all of us consume porn the same way’.

Arriola has also stressed that today's young women are more empowered thanks to the work done by the feminist movement. As for the boys, remember what a 16-year-old told her: “All they teach us is that he is not no.” Everyone has more knowledge, for example, they talk about nonbinary identities or asexuality. “They seek answers to understand their desires and feelings. Let us acknowledge that they are in contact with porn and let us talk about alternatives, on the positive, focusing on diversity,” he said.

Thus, the educators of Hiruki Larrox highlight in their workshops the existence of feminist, ethical or indie porn, as well as the possibility of self-production: “We tell them that it’s possible that everyone creates their own porn for their own consumption or to share it with their friends. But we emphasize the right to sexual privacy, not only in sexting, but also in the control mechanisms established by parents.” The problem is that you have to pay for alternative porn, while young people (and most adults) resort to non-ethical platforms that offer free content.

In any case, Araneta adds that in this mainstream body diversity is increasingly present, which is important for LGTBI+ people: “Porn can be important for adolescents to feel located in the erotic universe and, in general, in the social imaginary”. In addition, he claims the need to avoid the “Helcentrist mentality”: “Adults should not pontificate. Let's listen to children and teenagers: they're not tunnels or so lost. Let’s accept her sexuality, which is not as coitocentrist or orgasm-centrist as adulthood.”

For Fresnedo, “hypocrite” is to focus the social debate about porn on young people: “In the workshops I present myself as a porn consumer. Adults should be self-critical about how we understand and live sexuality. We put enormous pressure on young people: we say that the future depends on them, but the present is in the hands of adults and we are their model.” Porn generation likes the documentary communication of their parents with their children: “If trust and understanding are worked out from childhood, they will not reach adolescence.”

But are all parents willing to educate their children positively on sexuality? Arriola does not believe: “Despite its good intention, many connect it with concern and fear, so it would be helpful to have the advice of professionals.” In any case, it recommends two-way communication between generations, based on honesty and curiosity. Silvia Allende lives in his maternity: “We have a little humility: to recognize that we don’t have great ideas and that we have many internalized taboos. It is a pleasure to grow up from the hand of our children!”

The keys of feminist mothers

Juncal Alzugarai, physiotherapist, trained in sexology and founder of the anatomical model Alooa:

“I am a mother of two teenagers and at home we have worked on sex education since we were young, as we have been able. We have left mobile phones when we have felt ready to use them freely because we are not in favour of controlling them: they need their intimacy, their freedom of experimentation and the development of criteria. Your brain is not like adults, you need strong emotions, so you're looking for new sensations to porn or drugs. The problem is that they are not consumed as fiction but as education. Institutions must do their job so that adolescents are not left behind.

His boss, 14-year-old son, has told us he likes to watch porn from time to time, and we are there, willing to talk. For me, there are worse things, like playing from a young age to a sexist video game, which institutions don't work as hard. Porn has always been consumed, I have also consumed it and that has not favored violence.

The Emakunde campaign has come out of the hand of the documentary Porno belaunaldia. It is true that there is misogynistic and violent porn, but also ethical and feminist porn. What do institutions do besides demonizing porn? What alternatives do you propose? Who is responsible for it? With parents? In the model of society? We are cynical! Many of those who resist porn consume it at home. Reflection should be much deeper and wider. In romantic films there is also violence.”

Claudia Guangzhou, therapist specialized in sexoaffective ties:

“If children see porn from a young age it will be because they have a need that we do not satisfy in schools and in families. I realized that my daughter needed to imagine what a sexual intercourse looks like, because she couldn't explain it with words. He then taught him works of art in which erotic scenes appeared. We have also seen the Sex education series together and I have told you what they do well and what I do not share. It is possible that the scenes taken later by the porn serve to talk to him. I know a taboo is a violation, but I think it can be a way to prevent violence, so that when you feel uncomfortable you can name it.

On the other hand, I'm not talking about sexuality as an abstract entity, but in the first person: I'm talking about my sexuality. For example, it's not the same to explain that women can have sex with each other than to tell that I have a female partner. So you'll ask me more easily. 'And how about? How does this work?’

Bea Sever, sexologist and member of the Naiz association:

“My young son is 14 years old, we have had a single interview about porn, but he has also heard my conversations with my other 21-year-old son. I've always brought him sexuality issues, for example when we watch television. We've talked a lot about the hierarchy of intercourse. The boss sees porn mainstream and I'm not worried, because he has a critical view; he loves movies from World Wars, and I'm not thinking you can start using weapons. Moreover, he has a constant concern: not having a slug.

Aware that mainstream porn is not her model, she is aware, like porn, that society does not adapt to her model either. For example, when they start talking to a group of boys about masturbation and ejaculation, they discover that in society the possibility of being a lucky boy is not taken into account. It shows scenes of continuous penetration on screens, not just on porn. In this sense, porn that reflects sexual diversity can be useful to observe different bodies, practices and erotic. In the meetings of the association I am, Aitzole Araneta led a workshop on erotic, and my son told me that I was going to participate, to be tips for what is older!”

Ania Yoel, ex-worker tupper-sex:

“I have an 11-year-old son. It's almost the only one who doesn't have a mobile phone in class, and I've been told that at age 12 I'll have to give up because they use the Whatsapp groups to do their jobs. I believe that porn is not a problem in itself, but we must protect the sensitivity of children. I explained to him that the Internet is for adults and that children should use it with their parents. I reminded him that he was once shown a video with a lot of surprise violence and was offended. I don't worry that the child sees porn from time to time with his friends; it seems to me a fun and exciting experience. What I don't want is unlimited access to all the porn that the Internet wants to teach you.

We haven't talked about it yet, it hasn't been taken out, but I want to explain to you that these are films, that are made by professionals, that you shouldn't expect reality to be like that, but that you have to listen to your body and your partner's. I would also explain that in the world of porn there is little control and many excesses. We've talked about chatting with strangers on the internet, I've explained my good and bad experiences and I've given you the keys to chatting safely. I would also like to talk briefly about sending sexual photos and videos: as a boy, I want to tell him not to be sent anything you have not been asked for (what is called a photocock), and that if someone violates his intimacy and his confidence it is clear that it was not his fault; that those who shared that content without permission should be ashamed.”