They say 24 hours is a long time in politics – and yesterday was proof that two years is an eternity in the politics of pornography.

Back in 2013, the hysterical “Porn Panic” that took grip of our nation was a foam-flecked brouhaha. "All men watch porn!" frothed the ill-informed argument. "All porn leads to violent porn! Violent porn turns men into toxic sex zombies! Look! Paedophiles and murderers use porn, so it must be true!”

In response, David Cameron turned to Baroness Shields, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media & Sport (and a former executive at Google, Aol and Facebook) to help him implement his silver bullet idea: to force the major Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to block porn through compulsory filters.

• Eight of the best moments from the House of Lords debate

The assumption that British men were so overtaken with carnal lust they would unquestioningly turn into rape robots infuriated me so much, I spent six months making a TV show for Channel 4 called Porn On The Brain cross-examining the thesis.

In short, I wanted to fight British men’s corner at a time when they were being routinely written off and slandered as dangerous perverts by MPs, newspapers, anti-porn feminists and the NUS.

Yesterday, that faith in British masculinity was vindicated in the House of Lords.

You can watch the Lords porn debate online here.

First, the same Baroness hired by Cameron to sort the perceived mess out quietly admitted that porn filters don’t even work, as “young people are smarter with technology than we are”.

Instead, Shields advocated a new approach, intimating that we should trust the over-18s to “get on with it” and instead put together a “realistic policy package” with the primary aims of protecting children and targeting paedophiles.

Furthermore, when Baroness Murphy added, “We have not got any evidence there is a rise in violent or sexually aggressive crime,” a good news day for British men – and women – was complete.

Here was a debate on porn that was level-headed and, for once, didn’t spew the toxic lie that porn transmutes all men into sex cases.

House of Lords #porndebate a bit Benny Hill in parts, but making good recommendations re teaching porn safeguarding in schools — Martin Daubney (@MartinDaubney) November 5, 2015

Naturally, as most of the Lords were in their 70s and admitted they rarely, if ever, watched porn, the three-hour, televised spectacle wasn’t without its Benny Hill moments.

When Baroness Howe of Idlicote said we should all "stand up and look at pornography” some wags (OK, me) tweeted it might be better to do it sitting down. • Is it time for state approved porn in the UK?

Frank-talking Baroness Murphy even added: "Forgive me using this language, but pornography is there to aid masturbation” – stopping short of adding that the Pope was Catholic.

If you’ll pardon the double entendre, others were quick to bash the Bishop of Chester, who chaired the event, when he said porn was “Ugly, squalid, dirty sex” – prompting some online commenters to tease “that’s precisely my favourite kind”.

Tory peer Lord McColl of Dulwich brought things back to Earth, quoting a study that claimed porn can shrink the brain, and another that compared porn addiction to drug addiction (a study I know a lot about, because I took part in it).

The debate proved too much for 82pc of Daily Mirror readers, who voted with click-happy fingers that the entire thing was a complete waste of time. They’re wrong. Because amid the euphemisms and askance glances, there was some deeply encouraging stuff.

Mainly, this came from Baroness Shields, who was entirely impressive. Telling peers that “we will never be able to solve this problem completely” she admitted that the vital work of protecting our children and the role of porn in sexual consent must begin in schools. Here, crucially, she stressed that teachers, schools and parents need help.

At this point, I was crying “hear, hear!”

I got so fed up of the near-total absence of decent porn safeguarding education in British schools that, after spending six months making Porn On The Brain, I decided to do something about it.

After the show went out in October 2013 – at the height of the Porn Panic – I was called in by the Home Office and now I trawl the country having frank conversations with kids, teachers and parents about the potential dangers of porn and, vitally, its role in sexual consent.

This is especially true of those teens who are about to start University, for confusion and terror currently reign on campus around the topic of sexual consent and retrospective rape claims.

Really, we just need to stop being so bloody British about sex, and talk about sex and porn in schools as they do in Holland, where, as a direct result, they enjoy the lowest rate of teen pregnancies and STDs, and highest age of first sexual contact in all of Europe.

Yesterday, the Bishop of Chester frankly admitted, “We do find it quite difficult to talk about porn,” but the Lords should be commended for getting out of their comfort zone – and for sticking up for men. That would have been unthinkable in 2013.

If aged bishops and octogenarian Lords can talk about porn, surely we should empower parents and teachers to tackle the biggest elephant in British bedrooms: to talk to our children about porn and ensure they stay safe.

You can book Martin Daubney to talk at your school via thegovernment-approved Self Esteem Team here.