Generation Porn, episode 2, review: More grimy than grim documentary on the acceptable end of pornography

Watching Generation Porn (Channel 4) and the vast and varied sheer volume of pornography available online – my mind drifts back to an earlier pre-digital age. Some years ago, a friend of mine – I mean, really a friend, ie not me, genuinely not me – bought himself a copy of a periodical called something like 40 Plus, on the understandable assumption that it would be jam-packed with arousing images of bosomy Amazons. Having smuggled it home from the newsagents, camouflaged inside a copy of the Daily Telegraph, he discovered that, in fact, it specialised in mature models, not all of whom conformed to his busty ideals. Though deflated by this jazz mag misadventure, he saw the funny side, and vouchsafed the details to his closest mates, provided of course that they promised not to tell anyone, ever.

He would have no such problems getting his fix today. As the narrator of Generation Porn reminds us, porn is “only ever a mouse click away”, and you can search around the web for the most esoteric of material. Not only that, but the porn providers will take note of your particular kinks, and suggest new videos to watch. Thus, it is suggested, some people might get offered Russian hot grannies indulging a foot fetish. I’ll just let that one sink in for a moment, along with the ointment for their Athlete’s Foot.

Perhaps that laser-like targeting accounts for why so many porn users become jizz-junkies. We meet Rob, for example, who was fighting what you might call a five-a-day habit. In his kitchen, buttering his sandwich (not a euphemism), he shares his experiences. A married man with three kids, Rob vividly describes life before he started to recover from his addiction: “On a daily basis, two or three hours of binging, feasting on this buffet of two-minute videos, constantly diving into it…”

Recognising that it was going to destroy his family life, and with spouse Lydia feeling hurt – Rob wanted to beat it (the addiction, not anything else). Rob explains that he has added a new app to his phone that alerts Lydia if he tries to access porn online. The “Accountable to You” icon sits just next to this compulsive masturbator’s Chelsea FC app on the screen, a detail that at least confirms what I’ve always thought about Chelsea’s onanistic fanbase.

Other couples are easier going about porn… but only up to a point. Freddy and Tracy, for example, start off all jolly about watching porn together on their smartphone in bed, the joint activity apparently inspiring them to ever more orgasmic lovemaking. Yet, in the course of the interviews about intercourse, it transpires that while Tracy thinks that she and Freddy are playing “peeping tom”, in reality, Freddy is imagining himself committing adultery with some pixelated porn starlet, even as he is grinding away on top of his missus. This revelation – it is news to Tracy – has a disturbingly chilling effect on their discussions.

The answer to the question the programme poses – “Is porn beginning to change us?” – is an emphatic “of course it is, and it is harming relationships and hurting women more than men”. This documentary is more grimy than grim, because it concentrates so much on the more acceptable end of the porn industry – leaving, for example, people trafficking and child abuse out of the picture, so it is at least watchable.

All the interviewees – well chosen for the variety of opinions and backgrounds - agree that watching porn introduced them to “new” things, but not necessarily healthy ones. One young man, Ben, relates how, exploring porn for the first time, he was convinced that anal sex was the only kind of sex. “Kicking the back door in”, as it is colloquially referred to, is increasingly normalised, we learn in this documentary, as is a frankly violent attitude towards female performers – pulling hair, slapping, spitting, and worse. If nothing else, it is a measure of what has, and has not, changed in a supposedly woke age of sexual and gender equality. As a jaded worker in one of the big Californian production companies remarks, it teaches us that “sex is only supposed to be enjoyed by men”.

And the female “stars”? Gia, a young (18 or 19) porn actor, seems to enjoy what she does, especially the money – about $4,000 a week – but also betrays some fears. Having just finished “only my third anal scene…this month”, she says she has had to take time off recently because in all the hard pounding she’d been subjecting herself to, “I’d torn my cervix”. Her gynaecologist has also informed her that her bladder had been “beat up”, which has given her some pause for thought about her career, and she acknowledges that STDs are another occupational hazard.

Gia’s friend Gianna, also new to the business, suffered an infection to her eye after a “money shot”, an industrial injury only really encountered in the porn industry.

Unlike the women, the guys in the porn industry are inured to it all. The Chief Financial Officer of the Evil Angel company, Adam Grayson, was disarming about his role: “I don’t take what we do all that seriously. I mean we are in the pants-round-the-ankles masturbation business.” His colleague informs us, matter-of-factly, that he has spent the last 11 years watching between two and six hours of grumble vids every single working day. (I am pleased to report that, though he wears glasses, he still hasn’t gone blind.) Apparently, if you wanted to watch all of the porn currently available on the major industry site Pornhub, it would take you a solid 48 years. Thus, if you started your porn odyssey at the age of 20, you’d have just about worked your way through the smut stockpile, as it currently stands, by the time you’ve reached state pension age – but you’ll never have to buy a copy of the Daily Telegraph to hide your shame.