Let adults enjoy legal online porn without 'lecturing' from government, says Tory minister



Nick Boles said Cameron is right to demand an automatic block on porn

But he thinks adults should be free to enjoy 'legal' online sex



Freedom: Tory MP Nick Boles says adults should be allowed to enjoy legal porn

Adults should be free to enjoy ‘legal’ pornography without lecturing from the Government, a minister close to David Cameron has declared.



Rising star Nick Boles said the Conservatives should not sound disapproving about ‘consenting’ adults privately enjoying online sex.



The planning minister, however, acknowledged the ‘appalling’ online dangers for children.



He is a close ally of the Prime Minister, who just days ago promised to legislate to enforce ‘opt-in’ filters to block pornography on the internet.



But Mr Boles took a more libertarian stance, writing in his local newspaper, the Grantham Journal:



‘As a Conservative, my starting point is that people should be free to live their lives as they choose.



‘I am not going to start lecturing consenting adults about their private enjoyment of legal pornography.’



Mr Boles said the internet had ‘expanded the horizons of young people to an almost unimaginable degree’. However, it had also exposed them to ‘appalling risks and horrors’.



He added: ‘Both intentionally and by mistake, children can be exposed to pornographic images at an age when they are much too young to understand what sex can involve.

‘They can stumble upon situations in which the vile degradation of women – because it usually is women – is made to seem normal.



Harmful: Pornography depicting rape will be outlawed and automatic blocking will come into force

‘Worst of all, through the false intimacy of the internet, they can sometimes be persuaded to exchange images of themselves by child pornographers and paedophiles.’



Mr Boles said the Prime Minister was right to exert pressure on internet service providers to put an automatic block on pornography.



This means that adults will have to ‘opt-in’ if they want to be able to access sexually explicit websites.



‘Childhood is fleeting,’ added the minister. ‘The world’s dangers have to be confronted soon enough.



‘Parents need government to make it easier for them to protect their children until they are ready to venture forth into the world.’



In a victory for the Daily Mail, Mr Cameron has vowed to shield youngsters from ‘poisonous’ websites which corroded their childhood.



Clampdown: Prime Minister David Cameron announced strict measures for porn this week

Pornography depicting rape will also be outlawed as part of a government crackdown on web filth.



By the end of 2014, all 19million UK homes currently online will be contacted by service providers and told they must say if family-friendly filters blocking all porn sites should be switched on or off.



All new customers will have porn automatically blocked by the end of the year, unless they ask for the filter to be removed.



Mr Cameron said he did not want to ‘moralise or scaremonger’ but felt that as a politician ‘and as a father, that the time for action has come’.



Google said it recently donated £3.3million to help track child abuse imagery and has ‘zero tolerance’ of indecent pictures of children.



Labour has officially backed a new law forcing service providers to filter out filth. But Left-wingers and even libertarians within Conservative circles have said the plan impinges on personal freedom.



Other critics warned that paedophiles and tech-savvy youngsters will find ways round the filters.



But campaigners said the scale and nature of porn flowing into homes is unprecedented and that it normalises violence.

