This site looks at numerous challenges we are facing in the West, be it radical Islam, the trans tsunami, the culture of death (abortion, euthanasia), the war on truth, and so on. Another equally menacing threat that we all face is the runaway porn culture that we are submerged in.
So many lives are being destroyed and so many marriages and families are being torn apart because of porn addiction. In the past few weeks I have been visiting this issue. And in some recent articles I have alerted my readers to one important new book on this: Pornocracy by Jo Bartosch and Robert Jessel (Polity, 2026).
Here I want to speak to it further, quoting simply from the book’s Introduction. The authors – British advocates for women and children – begin with these words:
Pornocracy / noun
A society in which political power, culture, relationships and identity are shaped or dominated by the purveyors of pornography.
This book is for everyone: sex industry performers and vicars, proud porn consumers and guilty covert users, radical feminists and `no-fap’ abstainers. It is also for those who are simply curious.
We might not realise it, but we are all subjects of the Pornocracy — a system where our minds, relationships and laws are shaped by global-scale sexual exploitation. This book tells the story of how pornographers came to dictate the moral, social and legal codes that govern our lives.
Porn is a colossal industry, yet it manages the rare trick of being everywhere and nowhere at the same time. Take its financial scale: a figure from over a decade ago, still parroted by major media outlets, put global revenues at $97 billion — more than the GDP of most nations on Earth. But the truth is, no one really knows how much money pornographers make. What we do know is this: the industry’s influence can’t be measured in cash alone.
Today, vast swathes of the population, men and women alike, see using pornography as a private matter, even a human right. Drawing attention to pornography’s victims, or to the harms of the sex industry as a whole, is as unpopular as campaigning to abolish slavery in societies built on its profits. And so the fate of the children trafficked to feed Big Porn, the misery of addicts, and the brutal and often short lives of female performers are brushed aside. Their suffering is deemed less important than the freedom to masturbate to a commercially manufactured fantasy.
No one can escape the Pornocracy’s influence. Generations raised with smartphones have now viewed scenes of rape, choking and incest before experiencing their first (real-life) kiss. Early exposure to extreme pornography is traumatic, in the true sense of the word. Some of these young viewers will grow up to re-enact these scenes on camera and for money, feeding the very beast that devoured their unformed sexuality. To them, we offer the first words that should be spoken to any victim of abuse: You are not to blame. (pp. 1-2)
Pornocracyby Bartosch, Jo (Author), Jessel, Robert (Author)
Porn, the devaluation of women, and the trans agenda
In a recent piece on this site I discussed a new article by Jo Bartosch on the radical trans ideology and the harm it is doing. The title/subtitle of her piece is this: “The dangers of ‘gender-affirming care’ are now undeniable. A new study from Finland shows that puberty blockers and hormone treatment deepen troubled kids’ distress.” You can read what she said about this here: https://billmuehlenberg.com/2026/04/17/scenes-from-the-trans-wars/
The authors of Pornocracy discuss the connection between porn and transgenderism. They say this:
Today, technology has the power to grant our wishes; to reflect back to us our darkest desires on-screen, in private, with every social check and human scruple stripped away. And like a narcotic, it creates a chemical craving: not just for more of the same, but for a more extreme high, locking users into a cycle of addiction. Each scene imprints itself, dulling empathy and twisting desire, until what once repelled now arouses. With every orgasm, neural pathways are rewired and escape becomes harder. This is not speculation; as we will see, decades of research confirm it.
The bruises on women’s necks and rise of porn-induced erectile dysfunction are not the only evidence of the Pornocracy’s grip. Its reach extends beyond the bedroom and the screen, seeping into global campaigns and laws designed to erase womanhood itself.
Over nearly three decades, online porn has trained the mind to see women not as persons, but as costumes to be worn, roles to be assumed. Now, this pornographic logic underpins the enforcement of gender self-identification, a campaign pushed by lobby groups worldwide. It demands the dismantling of women’s boundaries, the erasure of their right to define themselves and the forced opening of female-only spaces.
That such a movement is framed as a victory for human rights, championed by academics and eagerly enforced by institutions, is not progress — it is a testament to the power of the Pornocracy.
This dehumanisation cuts deep. Some women and girls, shamed into hating their own bodies, excise their breasts and gut their wombs to ease their mental pain. Boys and young men, unable to fit masculine stereotypes, are lost. Their identities are also warped by the pornography they consume, unaware it is consuming them. They, too, are victims. (pp. 2-3)
To see the real nature of the fight we are in, consider this: just last week the authors were banned from holding a book launch! As one write-up states:
A brewery has defended cancelling an event by two gender-critical authors after concerns about inclusivity were raised. Jo Bartosch and Robert Jessel were due to host a discussion about the impact of pornography on society at Stroud Brewery on Saturday following the release of their book Pornocracy.
In its initial statement on social media, the Brimscombe venue said it had been contacted by members of the public with concerns regarding the event and that it was “committed to being a safe, inclusive, and welcoming space for everyone”.
Jessel said: “The idea that we would make anyone unsafe is as absurd as it is dishonest.” Someone with gender-critical views is critical of or opposes the belief that gender identity is more important than biological sex… https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy41wxwjyw7o
The authors go on to say this in the Introduction:
We are often told that women and girls have never had it so good —outperforming boys in education and protected by anti-discrimination laws. Yet one only has to think of the horrors inflicted on Gisele Pelicot and countless others to see the more complicated truth. Rapists now routinely film their crimes, turning their brutality into entertainment for mass consumption — pornography produced at an industrial scale for a voracious audience.
This is the Pornocracy: ancient patriarchal scripts rebooted for the digital age. Spy cams, `nudifying’ apps and the theft of intimate images have transformed every woman’s existence into sexual entertainment, reducing her to a commodity to be traded. Looming on the horizon is a future of relentless sexualised surveillance, where women and girls are shut out from public life altogether. If we continue to defend pornography as a matter of personal freedom, the fate of women in the West may come to resemble that of women living in theocracies. After all, our bodies are the same the world over, and misogyny knows no borders.
Humans all have the capacity to love, and be loved. But the Pornocracy is robbing us of this birthright. It teaches girls that their worth can be measured by cash, clicks and subscriber counts, and boys that to be a man is to be impervious to intimacy and empathy. It is a threat to humanity, a force that is tearing our species apart.
Perhaps the greatest victory in porn’s relentless rise to power is how it has become normalised. Shame has been inverted. Everywhere from schools to teachers, government guidance to fashionable dinner party conversations, those who criticise porn are sneered at as censorious, `sex-negative’ or `whorephobic’. How many of these people have any understanding of the brutality which props up twenty-first century pornography?
If you think porn is a harmless bit of fun and just something ‘all men do’; if you believe its critics (including the authors) are frigid, sex-starved prudes — fine. But that judgement means nothing if you don’t understand the nature of modern porn, the acts inflicted upon the performers and the viewer. That’s where we begin. We dare you to look away. (pp. 3-4)
Please take action
‘What can I do to protect my children and loved ones from the porn plague?’ some of you might be asking. There would be many things that can be done, but being informed about the insidious nature of porn and the harm it does to all who consume it is vital. With that in mind, here are three things you can do:
