Back in July, Ray* stopped watching porn in protest at the introduction of age verification. At first, he found it made his sex life more vanilla. “I have been a little less creative in bed as I’m not trying anything I’ve recently seen [online] with my girlfriend,” he says. But it’s also become more rewarding. “It does feel healthier [...] and it’s made ‘normal’ sex a little more exciting.”
In case you’ve been living off grid (no judgement here) the UK’s Online Safety Act (OSA) meant that from 25 July, any website with 18+ content must ask users in the UK for ID, which, of course, includes porn sites. Essentially, a virtual bouncer appeared in the lobby of all NSFW sites overnight (thankfully, there isn’t a dress code). It was introduced to stop under-18s from accessing porn, but because of these new barriers, some men over the age of 18, like Ray (who watched porn via free tube sites), have cut down, due to not wanting to share their ID. “It’s reduced my porn usage by 99%,” the 36-year-old workplace trainer says. But others have simply changed what, or how, they’re watching — and, in some cases, gone even harder.
This shift in behaviour among adults is unintentional; the real reason the OSA was brought in was to safeguard children. Shockingly, 79% of young people in the UK have encountered violent pornography before the age of 18. The consensus among legislators and the public (80% of whom, according to Ofcom, were in favour of the ban) was that ID checks would be the best approach to prevent under-18s from accessing pornography.
But there are huge concerns about the effects of the law, which critics say could be the gateway to more censorship across the internet. And it’s catastrophic for sex workers, who have been forced to make their content on social media and escort sites totally SFW, making it harder to effectively promote their services. This kind of moderation also avoids any sort of deeper education; comprehensive sex education, including porn literacy, remains vital when it comes to young people developing healthy attitudes to sex and porn, as well as in discouraging problematic porn use among adults.
Three months on, it seems that the OSA, when it comes to its original purpose, has been a flop. “It will almost certainly reduce the most casual, accidental access to porn for under-18s, but if the question is whether it will stop young people altogether, the honest answer is no,” says Professor Clarissa Smith, co-editor of the journal Porn Studies. “Teenagers are extraordinarily adept at routing around whatever adults prohibit, and they often end up in the less safe corners of the internet to do it.”
Case in point: over on Discord, some young Brits have been getting around age verification by using screenshots of video game characters. “It’s essential that we recognise that many young people will find ways to get around age-gating,” adds Paula Hall, founder of The Laurel Centre, a UK-based organisation specialising in sex and porn addiction. Cosmopolitan UK reached out to the Department for Science, Innovation, and Technology to get their thoughts on the OSA’s success (or failure) so far, but at the time of publication, they haven’t responded.
But like any form of restriction, it has led to unexpected changes in behaviour, even among over-18 men who can legally watch porn. The verification, for example, has put some privacy-conscious porn users off — would anyone feel particularly comfortable about their deepest, darkest fetish being connected, even hypothetically, to an email and password on their (now mandatory) Pornhub account?
“Verification is wrong to me,” says Ray, “it’s like telling the fire brigade you’re about to burn your house down. It’s an inconvenience to everyone.” He’s concerned about his digital fap-print. “I don’t trust the third party websites that do the verification; I don’t believe the data is deleted, I don’t believe they are secure, and I don’t trust the location of these services either.”
David*, a film industry craftsman, echoes this. “There was no chance of me entering my personal details onto a porn site — and equally, getting a VPN for the purposes of watching porn seemed a bit desperate, so it was quite easy for me to disengage entirely.”
For others, the minimal admin needed to verify themselves was enough to not bother. “It’s instant gratification, so I wouldn’t put that kind of effort in,” says Luke*, an associate director of patient enrolment. “I would never scan my face or hand over my ID. I’m not that concerned about personal security, it’s just [that age verification] is an effort and not worth it for the end result.”
In this sense, the need for age verification has acted as an accidental (or, if you’re cynical, intentional) deterrent to watching porn. Think of it as plain packaging for cigarettes, but for bukkake instead of baccy. “For many, the additional time and effort it takes helps to reduce impulsive viewing and may encourage developing wider interests,” says Hall.
“For some men, having to verify their age adds just enough friction [making an undesirable action more difficult to perform] that they delay or skip a viewing session,” adds Smith. “It doesn’t mean they had a compulsive relationship with porn, just that spontaneity is sensitive to obstacles. Friction always changes behaviour at the margins.”
Of course, whether porn is an addiction is another minefield. Hall believes that “the language of addiction fits the lived experience”. But many psychologists vehemently argue that porn is an impulse behaviour issue rather than a dedicated addiction, with people’s religious and moral beliefs actually the most telling indicator of whether they feel discomfort. Either way, many people want to kick the habit; 80% of regular porn watchers aged between 18 and 29 in the UK recently said they’re worried about their porn consumption.
And for some of these men, the OSA has acted as a serendipitous catalyst to change their behaviour. “I’ve found a renewed focus on having real fun (not just in the bedroom) and my relationships more generally seem to have blossomed,” says David, noting that friends have remarked on his “calm positivity” since quitting. “It’s pretty much ended my casual consumption; it was too easy to fall down that rabbit hole during moments of boredom or stress.”
The truth is, though, most men haven’t pulled the plug on porn; they’re just watching it differently. “The larger pattern is displacement [...] the desire doesn’t disappear; it detours,” says Smith. “The OSA increases the distance between a moment of wanting and a moment of accessing, but people bridge that distance in creative ways. Men are simply reorganising their porn habits around the new architectures.”
A straw poll of Reddit, the town square of the perennially online, offers up some typically boisterous responses — many along the lines of yes, I’ve stopped watching porn, but I’m spending a lot of time in Norway. The joke, of course, being that millions of men are getting round age verification by using VPNs. This means that you can switch your IP address to anywhere in the world from the comfort of your own bedroom, without the need to upload a sheepishly-taken selfie. It’s why Proton VPN noted an 1,800% rise in daily sign-ups over the weekend following age verification.
It’s also why sites like UnHerd championing the ‘victory’ of 77% less Pornhub traffic from the UK soon after the ban doesn’t make any sense; they haven’t taken into account how much more traffic is coming from ‘abroad’ since. And 77% is a significant number in this story: according to research from LADBible last week, it’s the percentage of Gen Z that still watch porn on a regular basis.
So, whether they’re logging on from Norway or verifying their age, the vast majority of men are likely still watching porn as usual. Though some of them are exploring new virtual avenues. “I do have a kink, so I found reconnecting to adult performers who lean into that world much more rewarding,” says Ray. “I buy a clip a month now, and I like the fact that I’m now paying the entertainers for their work.”
While many believe paying for porn is exactly what we need to see, Ray is in the minority here. There’s no clear recent data on how many Brits splash cash on sexual content, but it’s telling that, according to Semrush, free sites Pornhub, XHamster, XVideos, and XNXX had just over 200 million combined monthly visits in September 2025 in the UK, compared to just over 22 million for OnlyFans.
Edward*, meanwhile, is diving into sexy literature. “I’d say the largest behavioural shift would be that I am now more open to the concept of readable erotica,” he says. He’s also been using his imagination more (something that AI slop is threatening to get rid of). “I definitely have been trying to curate my inner sex life using my own fantasies rather than taking the easy option of porn.”
Perhaps we’ll even see a return to retro porn. “It could push people to the store and back to old school DVDs. It’ll be like the vinyl revival,” Kieran Williams, owner of that strange motorway sex shop chain Pulse and Cocktails, recently told The Metro. But that seems like a pipe dream.
Instead, some men are switching to sketchier sites that haven’t implemented age verification (unbelievably, Ofcom publishes a regularly-updated list of the offending platforms, making them even easier to access). “The OSA is likely driving adults into a more fragmented, less regulated ecosystem, largely because people are uneasy about handing over ID for sexual content,” notes Smith. “We’re probably not going to see less engagement with porn, we’ll see different routes to it — many of them far outside the spaces the law was written for.”
Ray explains that he “ended up on some unfiltered Eastern European sites, but finding what I wanted was difficult and unfulfilling”.
Other responses are more alarming. “I watch more hardcore stuff on unregulated sites now,” says one anonymous porn user.
The impact of this is clearly worrying. With many young British men already orbiting the manosphere, pushing some towards illicit sites (with unregulated and potentially harmful content) is nefarious. “I grew up in an era of porn playing cards being traded in school,” says Edward. “It was pretty tame stuff compared to the likes of choking, degradation and the weird step-sibling shite that makes up large portions of porn sites. This trend and attitudes towards women in general I do find seriously concerning.”
But valid concerns about hardcore content shouldn’t lead to a blanket statement that porn is bad, something the Online Safety Act also risks putting into people’s mouths. Like all pleasures, it’s about enjoying it in moderation; as long as the performers are consenting, and it’s not become an uncontrollable behaviour, porn can vitalise healthy sex lives.
It’s true that for some men who were trying to cut down on their porn use, the OSA has been an accidental nudge in the right direction. Another minority has, it seems, found more ethical alternatives to free sites, choosing to pay for their porn and get stimulated in new ways. For most men across Britain, though, these figurative porn bouncers will continue to be nothing more than a minor inconvenience; they will keep flashing their IDs — real or fake — and spend another night on the tubes.
*Names have been changed
Kyle MacNeill is a Manchester-based freelance writer. He’s spent the last decade heading down the rabbit holes of pop culture for the likes of The Guardian, The New York Times, GQ, VICE, Vogue, THE FACE, i-D, and Dazed. Recently, he’s turned his hand to longer reads for Rolling Stone, FT Magazine, and Esquire US. On the side, he heads up the Instagram page for More or Less, a sustainable fashion magazine started by former creative director of Vogue Jaime Perlman, and writes trend reports for Canvas8. He’s really interested in niche communities, object histories, obsolete technologies, and strange phenomena. When it comes to sex and relationships, Kyle’s written about gooning, Viagra, the impact of SSRIs, and — most bizarrely — people trying to chirpse their COVID vaccinators. Psst — here’s a secret — he once wrote a column for a condom brand... keep it safe! You can follow Kyle on Instagram, if you fancy.
