UNITED KINGDOM

You fly back to England and no sooner has your plane touched down than the man in front of you turns on his cellphone and starts watching hardcore pornography. That’s what happened to a horrified colleague of mine recently, said Sarah Vine, and “it’s far from an isolated incident.” Women have told me of similar experiences on buses, trains, subways, “you name it.” That so many men feel no shame about viewing highly explicit material in public tells you “how serious this issue has become.” A parliamentary committee recently concluded that porn is as damaging to society as smoking. Actually, internet pornography is worse: It has “stunted the emotional well-being of an entire generation.” Teenagers blithely send sexts; men used to watching online porn find they can no longer perform in the real world; and reports of sexual harassment are on the rise. Meanwhile, established norms are allowed to fray: The supermarket chain Sainsbury’s has just announced that it’s going to launch a line of sex toys. There’s not much Parliament can do to tackle this wave of filth, because most hard-core videos are hosted on foreign sites. The tide will be stemmed only when Google and other online firms wake up to their responsibilities and block porn. “I won’t hold my breath.”