IT’s time we talked about pornography. In fact, the sensible time to talk about it would have been a couple of years ago, when the Digital Economy Bill was beginning its passage through Parliament. Now – mere weeks before this UK-wide legislation is due to be implemented – feels much too late.

From next month, in theory, it should not be possible for anyone in the UK to watch online pornography without first proving they are over 18. I say in theory, because at this late stage no-one seems at all sure how age verification will work, how the privacy of adult viewers will be protected, or what (if anything) will be done to stop web-savvy teenagers finding ways around whatever systems are put in place.

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At this late stage, I’m going to go out on a limb and say this scheme is not going to work. In fact, it probably won’t even prevent children from accidentally viewing pornography. As long as adult entertainers are free to post explicit content on Twitter, there will be a risk of it being viewed by those searching for totally innocuous accounts. And if you’re imagining such “teaser” videos – running to a maximum of two minutes and twenty seconds – must be relatively mild, let me disabuse you of that notion: I have seen things on Twitter that I cannot unsee.

The British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) has been appointed as the UK’s regulator of age verification, but if you think this means there’s a new sheriff in digital town, you’d be quite wrong. During a debate last year, the parent company behind PornHub asked how Twitter – categorised under the new legislation as an “ancillary services provider” – would be policed. The BBFC’s CEO David Austin replied: “We would ask Twitter to close down an account that had hardcore pornography. But we don’t have the power to compel it and we don’t know how Twitter would respond.” Hmm. Not exactly fighting talk, is it?

A big problem with trying to create legislation around pornography is that most people really don’t want to talk honestly about watching it, especially not to the Government. Most parents also don’t want their children watching it, even when they’re over 16 and allowed to have sex themselves.

The moral panic around teenagers and pornography has three main dimensions. The first is that this material is now a major source of sex (mis)education, because it does not depict “real sex”. The second is that boys are becoming corrupted by pornography, and expecting girls to engage in sex acts they don’t want to engage in. The third is that young people risk becoming addicted to pornography, with negative consequences not just for their romantic and sexual lives but for their overall wellbeing.

Bizarrely, the suggested solution to all of these problems is to try to stop young people watching pornography, rather than to urgently begin having frank conversations in mandatory sex education lessons about the pornography that they are going to find a way to watch. It’s not true that the sex depicted in professionally produced adult entertainment is not “real”: what’s true is that it’s not typical. Most people do not have storyboarded sex in front of multiple strategically placed cameras, prioritising optimum viewer experience over personal pleasure. Possibly, teenagers are capable of understanding this.

The second dimension – relating to “expectations” – is an alarming one, but the alarming part isn’t the pornography, it’s the suggestion that boys are coercing girls into doing anything at all that they don’t want to do. Here, again, the solution is blindingly obvious: sex and relationships education, right now, for every single child. Why are we still talking about pornography rather than getting on and scheduling these classes? Why is anyone implicitly suggesting that our boys become incapable of understanding about consent just because they’ve watched a woman with at best average acting ability feigning enjoyment of something that common sense would suggest is not everyone’s cup of tea?

Pornography addiction is another matter. Here, the answer is clearly to put in place ineffective internet restrictions and keep telling everyone that pornography is bad and awful, and anyone who watches it is also a bad and awful person. Just kidding, of course. The answer is sex education once again! And also doing our best to foster a culture in which boys feel able to speak honestly about their feelings and can access holistic packages of support when they ask for help.

Of course, the radical feminist perspective on pornography is that it’s a form of violence against women (assuming it involves women) and anyone who watches it is supporting abuse – not just of the women featured but of every woman who has to live in a porn-filled society. The solution is therefore for no-one to make it or watch it.

Simple, right? But do those who subscribe to this analysis really imagine their own thoughtful, sensitive (but still human and hormonal) sons will bury their noses in Andrea Dworkin polemics while their pals are exchanging blue movies? Let’s be realistic.

We can’t stop teenagers from watching pornography, using either technology or ideological reasoning, but we can do much more to help them put what they do view in context – to understand the difference between fantasy and reality, safe and unsafe, consensual and coerced. The genie isn’t going back in the bottle, so any other approach is doomed to fail.