What Even Is 'Adult' Content?

Posted in: My Blog

Politicians go on about wanting to ban young people’s access to adult websites. Apart from “think of the children” being a classic call to censorship for everybody uses children as a propaganda tool. No one knows what “adult” even is.

For example. Many older people in Britain talk about finding porn in bushes or in woodlands. However, when I was a child, other children still looked for dirty pictures in Mousehold Heath (next to Heathgate Estate).

One time a friend showed me the dirty picture they found there. It was a pair of breasts cut out of a newspaper (Page 3 of “The Sun”). The newspaper published topless images until 2015.

Any could purchase that newspaper, no matter their age.

You see, the problem with deciding what is “adult”?

Every person’s idea of “adult” imagery is different. A young child or an adult won’t automatically think any image including breasts or nudity is sexual, but a horny teenager (generally) will.

For example. The image attached to this blog post is a stock photo of a nude pregnant woman. Absolutely nothing sexual. The same could be said about classical nude paintings or statues. Things shown in public places, open to visitors of all ages.

It would make zero sense for anyone to email me their passport to view this blog post (please don’t), but as I’m publishing, I know the included nudity is innocent. A platform like Reddit or X/Twitter can’t know for sure on random posts.

It’s simply too subjective (teenagers will find almost any nudity sexual, no matter its context). How does anyone decide if any nudity is age-appropriate? Especially at scale.

The government claims that the “Online Safety Act” brings the online world’s laws inline with real life (normal laws always applied), but in reality effectively requires proof of age for content that wouldn’t require it in real life.

Effectively, meaning more censorship online than offline….. As platforms don’t want to risk massive fines for simple mistakes.

Published: 25th July 2025