The ban on internet porn: Puerile and pointless

On a rather dull weekend for news, where one of the top twitter trends was inexplicably Kanti Shah’s cult movie Gunda, one particular piece of breaking news drove social media crazy; at least the male demographic. On what appears to be a DoT order, ISPs had started imposing a ban on internet porn in India. This is possibly the biggest disaster to hit the lives of the ugly Indian male, though the impact is a secular one, which is sure to warm the hearts of the Adarsh Liberal brigade.

Jokes apart, this action of the ISPs ostensibly based on the Government’s request, is incredulous to say the least. It smacks of unnecessary moral policing, is legally questionable, impossible to implement on a consistent basis, and does nothing to solve any real gender-related issues in India. What it does achieve is plenty of negative publicity for the Government in the minds of people and diverts attention from more pressing issues.

The reasoning behind a ban on porn:

Throughout history, most countries that have called for, or implemented a ban on pornography have followed very similar lines of thought. Broadly speaking, it can be summarized as follows:

• Pornography as a medium is incompatible with the moral and social construct of society.
• Pornography is an addictive medium, particularly on younger, more impressionable minds.
• It promotes unhealthy ideas of physical attractiveness and unrealistic sexual acts.
• It desensitizes people towards the idea of sexuality in general, and especially the more violent forms of pornography results in the perception in the minds of men (overwhelmingly the majority who consume porn) that women are an inferior sex and precipitates sexual violence against them.
• There are some kinds of pornography that are extremely depraved and results in the exploitation of vulnerable individuals.

While the above points might seem like reasonable arguments for a blanket ban on internet porn, such an action, on closer examination fails logical and scientific arguments. It is thus worth examining each point outlined above separately.

Whether porn in general is incompatible with society’s morality is a very subjective opinion, and it is impossible to have a blanket view on it. Irrespective of how altruistic one feels towards society, it is absolutely nobody’s business what someone does in closed quarters either alone or with consenting adults.

No matter where one is on the debate on pornography, most sensible adults will accept and ascertain that children should be protected from access to sexual material. A blanket ban however is not the solution, which fundamentally undermines an adult’s right to sexual entertainment in closed quarters away from the proximity of children. The question of addiction is a controversial one, and there are no statistically significant scientific results to prove that pornographic addiction is a real thing, at least in societies where such studies has been done. Similarly, while older studies concluded that pornography does alter people’s perception of sexuality, a relatively recent review concludes that this cannot be conclusively proven.
The biggest elephant in the room is the alleged correlation between consumption of porn and sexual violence against women. This is especially relevant in the current times where India has acquired a dubious reputation as being extremely unsafe for the female population in more ways than one. Once again, the correlation between purely the consumption of pornography and sexual violence is controversial at best, and could suffer from many statistical biases such as an under-reporting of null findings. As any scientist worth his or her salt will tell you, confirmation bias is a nightmare when trying to frame the big picture of any particular scientific or social question and it seems that at least a few of these porn-sexual crime studies are guilty of this. Indeed, some studies have remarkably shown a negative correlation between sexual crimes and pornography. While one cannot neglect the nature of the societal construct where such studies were conducted, and the fact that correlation (or anti-correlation) does not always equal a causal relationship, these results at the very least do not argue for a blanket ban on internet porn.
The final question is that of preventing the perpetration of the more disturbing kinds of pornography, especially those involving young children and uploads of sexual acts involving non-consenting adults. Child pornography is an evil that has to be rooted out at all cost, but this cannot be done by simply banning mainstream pornographic websites, which as a rule are absolutely opposed to such content, and some of them are even corporate sponsors of the ASACP, an organization dedicated to fight against child pornography. Much of the child porn on the internet is actually in the deep web and/or private servers, that simply cannot be covered by a governmental ban, and requires a multi-pronged approach that also involves a lot of offline action as well. The filming of private acts and then uploading them on pornographic websites without the consent of the participant/s is unfortunately a real problem, and in some circumstances, is a method of extracting revenge from a spurned partner. While specific websites that cater to such ‘revenge porn’ need to be taken down, there is a disturbing amount of such content on the more mainstream porn websites as well. It must be pointed out here that the 3 biggest pornographic websites (which oddly enough are run by the same management) are known to address privacy concerns when raised, and are willing to take down such videos should they receive a request to do so. The fact that many people do not even know their intimate moments lie in the amateur section of such a website is disturbingly common though; but this author for one cannot understand how a blanket ban on a website which mostly carries videos by consenting adults for other adults would prevent this scenario. To use a somewhat facetious argument, one does not ban everyone from driving just because there are a few bad drivers; one tries to create a system that summarily removes such drivers. Are there instances where incompetent drivers still slip through? Sure, but then again, no person in his or her right mind would suggest banning cars from plying on the road as a long-term, and tangible solution. An equipped, trained, and humane cyber police is what is needed to fight against such deplorable people, and this is not going to be achieved via a simple ban.

The ban is also ridiculous in its narrow target. By targeting purely internet porn, the Govt. is only focusing on an extremely narrow group of people, i .e. the urban middle-class. Large swathes of the male populace in India actually get their porn kicks from seedy theatres, and dodgy CD-sellers. If the aim is to ban pornography in its totality, the current steps are extremely myopic in its execution and would not necessarily see a wholesale abandonment of pornography.

Political ramifications:

In a weird, and a highly unwelcome way, this kind of a sneaky ban on internet porn is a bit of a political masterstroke. Given the prudish and supremely hypocritical nature of most of Indian society, no political party in its right mind will openly call for a reinstatement of pornography. While indeed there might be some individual voices within parties that might oppose it on social media, it’s quite unlikely that this would be the official stand of any political party. The ban also puts many Adarsh Liberals in a spot of bother. There is a significant overlap between vociferous feminists and Adarsh liberals, and taking a stand on this particular issue would do a disservice to one of their affiliations, and they would have to pick and choose much to their chagrin. Indeed, to the best knowledge of this author, none of the Usual Suspects have strongly condemned the ban (though please feel free to prove me wrong), and have merely resorted to feeble attempts at humor that is already done much better elsewhere. The loudest voices opposing the ban have been the urban, middle-class common man, who generally lean towards the BJP. This ban in effect has only alienated this particular group, and while seemingly insignificant from an electoral front, would see the genesis of a latent aversion for the party for its moral policing which could easily compound over the years.

The climatic act:

The ban on internet porn at the end of the day is one of those short-sighted decisions which will only irritate a large number of people, will not affect any real social change, and sets a very undesirable precedent. The ban in itself can be beaten easily by a simple Google search, to find a website that is not on the now infamous list, and/or by using simple software to get one’s porn fix. One group that will definitely be benefited from this decision is the local CD-wala whose business has taken a nosedive since the advent of broadband internet, and it’ll be truly Achche Din for him until better sense prevails over the Powers That Be.