Having just watched the first episode of the C4 documentary 'Mums Make Porn', I'm both intrigued to watch more to see how they get on, and curious to see the end result.
In the first episode the five intrepid mums familiarise themselves with hard core porn that is easily available in a couple of clicks. To all but one this seems to be a complete shock, both in how easily available it is and the type of content that's out there.
Speaking as a father of a teenage son and daughter, I do find the bias towards stronger content, with aggressive and degrading acts disturbing. At the same time I do recognise that this is (or should be) about fantasy, and therein lies the rub. If this is the first and only thing our young people see, it's more than likely that they will think this is how it's supposed to be.
While I'll be interested to see what the mums produce, we'd be naive to think the porn industry is going to change. What this highlights to me is that there needs to be much tighter controls, such as proof of age to access the content, but more importantly an honest and open discussion with young people. They need to understand that this is make believe and doesn't represent how most people experience sex, but in parallel they should be educated about what good sex looks like, and perhaps here the mums can help.
Episode 2 will be shown on Wed 27th March, I for one will be watching. If you missed it Episode 1 is available on catch up https://www.channel4.com/programmes/mums-make-porn.