HARASSMENT OF WOMEN IS WORSE TODAY DUE TO PORN

TANITH CAREY, 53

AS I WALKED arm-in-arm with my 15-year-old daughter up our local High Street last week, I vaguely noticed a respectably dressed, middleaged man in a mask queueing to get into Marks & Spencer.

I thought little of it until Clio said a few seconds later: ‘That guy just made a weird gesture at me.’

Confused, she described how, while staring directly into her eyes, he had lowered his hands, palms-down, from his chest to his crotch, as though pushing something down.

As it dawned on me what this meant, I felt nauseated. Right in front of me, this stranger had felt emboldened enough to indicate to my child that he’d like to force her to perform oral sex on him.

This is not an isolated experience for my daughter, just as it wasn’t for me at her age. But you might have thought that, in the intervening decades since I was a teenager, the huge strides we have made towards equality, as well as campaigns such as #Me Too and Everyday Sexism, would have meant this kind of harassment was dying out.

On the contrary — it’s actually got a lot worse.

For ten years, I’ve been writing about the effect instantly available internet porn has been having on our society.

I’ve charted how the explosion of clips delighting in sexual violence have encouraged some men to see all females as objects to be degraded for their sexual pleasure.

Even if staged, violent porn encourages viewers to be turned on by violence and the subjugation of women. Until we find the courage to tackle these portrayals, women will never be safe.