Pornographers have taught an entire generation

IF YOU walked past a primary school and saw boys passing bottles of whisky around, you'd snatch them away, march inside and demand to see the headteacher. Yet that's effectively what's been happening.

- Josephine Bartosch

BETRAYED: An entire generation has been damaged by too easy access to porn

The addictive substance, however, is pornography. It won't leave users with a hangover but it will change them forever. And it has warped an entire generation.

Until age verification came into force this summer under the Online Safety Act, any child with an internet connection could find videos so depraved even the titles couldn't be printed here.

The acts now presented as "normal" would, in any other context, result in a prison sentence. Incest, women dressed as children and scenes of choking and rape are served to first-time users on the world's biggest platforms. Terrifyingly, half of young men and a third of young women say pornography is their main source of sex education.

The consequences are everywhere in classrooms, bedrooms and police stations. Last year the National Police Chiefs' Council reported a 7.6% rise in child sexual abuse offences and, for the first time, most perpetrators were under 18.

Earlier this year the Bertin Review found 38% of young women had been throttled by a partner during sex, 34% gagged and nearly 60% slapped. Violence is no longer a deviation from sex - it is sex.