Woman's Hour - Pornhub restrictions, Home birth suspensions, Jessica Curry, Winter Olympics

Episode Date: January 28, 2026

Pornhub has announced it will restrict access to its website in the UK from next week, blaming the tougher age checks which have been introduced for explicit sites. Back in October, their parent company Aylo said the law change, which was made under the UK's Online Safety Act, had caused traffic to their website to fall by 77%. As of next week, only people who have previously made a Pornhub account will be able to access its content. Nuala McGovern discusses the implications of these changes with Dr Fiona Vera-Gray, the author of Women On Porn and Professor of Sexual Violence and the Co-Director of the Child and Woman Abuse Studies Unit at London Metropolitan University.The decision by Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust to suspend home birth services is to be challenged in the High Court. The suspension was announced back in November after the trust cited safety concerns raised by their staff and dealing with more complex births. Now a coalition including the charity Birthrights is taking the trust's leaders to judicial review asking them to reconsider the suspension. Nuala is joined by Birthrights' legal lead Laura Mullarkey and Matthew Hill, Health Correspondent for the BBC in the South West.This weekend gamers and music fans alike will be headed to 'BAFTA Games in Concert' which is starting its tour in London. It's celebrating two decades of BAFTA-nominated and award-winning games music and the composers behind these hugely popular gaming soundtracks. One of those composers is Jessica Curry. Ten years ago her score for the videogame 'Everybody's Gone to the Rapture' won a BAFTA Games music award, the first for a solo woman. Jessica tells Nuala why her music channels grief, love, and loss and the impact music can have on gamers. It's a week to go until the Winter Olympics gets underway in Italy. With a record 47% of female athletes competing, the games will be the most gender-balanced in Winter Olympic history. Two women who are gearing up to cover every twist and turn of these Games are former two-time Winter Olympic snowboarder and broadcaster Aimee Fuller and Jeanette Kwayke, who'll be fronting the BBC's coverage as part of an all-female line up alongside Clare Balding and Hazel Irvine. Presenter: Nuala McGovern Producer: Andrea Kidd

Hello, I'm Nula McGovern and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. Just to say that for rights reasons, the music in the original radio broadcast has been removed for this podcast. Hello and welcome to the programme. Olympic Games and video games this hour. We'll have Olympians in studio. Snowboarder, Amy Fuller and sprinter, Jeanette Kwachi, will be broadcasting from Milano Cortina when the Winter Olympics get underway next week. They will be the most gender-balanced games.

in Winter Olympic history. Also this hour, we have Jessica Curry, the first and only solo woman to win the BAFTA Games Music Award. There's a concert celebrating her and other games music. We're going to hear Jessica's story. Also, the pornography site, Pornhub,

has announced it will restrict access to its website in the UK from next week. We're going to discuss its significance in a moment, the significance of that move. And a high court challenge to the suspension of home births in Gloucester we also want to talk about. You can text the program if you want to get in touch.

The number is 84844 on social media. We're at BBC Woman's Hour or you can email us through our website. For WhatsApp, for a message or voice note, the number is 0-3700-100-144. But let me turn to that announcement by Pornhub saying it will restrict access to its site from next week. It blames the tougher age checks which have been introduced for, explicit sites. Back in October, porn hub's parent company, that's ILO, said the law change, which

was made under the UK's Online Safety Act, had caused traffic to their website to fall by 77%. So the change that they've just announced means that from the 2nd of February, only people who have previously made a porn hub account will be able to access its content. Dr Fiona Vera Gray is the author of Women on Porn and Professor of Sexual Violence

and the Co-Director of the Child and Woman Abuse Studies Unit at London Metropolitan University. Good morning, Doctor. Good to have you with us. Good morning, thank you. I'd be curious for your thoughts on, or really your reaction, I suppose, to this announcement by Pornhub. Yeah, I've got lots of thoughts, obviously. I think the first thing is that I don't think this is really about age verification, even though Pornhub's really pushing that is their line.

I think this is about the fact that Pornhub and other platforms for decades have been profiting of really harmful content while governments around the world have been scrabbling, trying to work out what to do about it or doing nothing about it. And finally, what we've got in the UK is we've got the political will and we've got public support to actually regulate some of this content. So through the Online Safety Act, Porns considered a primary priority, sorry, content area with duties to prevent children accessing it, of course. But it's more than that. So the Online Safety Act also designates priority offences, so offences that Offcom's really going to be looking at. And included within that are things like extreme pornography, intimate image abuse,

including so-called revenge porn, and very recently, in November, I'm sure you've spoken about it, pornography showing strangulation or suffocation. I think Pornhub don't want us really to be talking about this, but these are priority offences that are going to be requiring proactive removal by the size, And I think it's that more than age ID that porn hub just can't do because of the sheer amount of that content that's on their side. I just want to read a little and of course, you know, when we're talking about porn hub, we're talking about things that are explicit. I just want to let our listeners know that, of course.

ILO is the parent company. This is the statement they have given us. They says in line with other stakeholder groups, academics and public policy institutions, ILO's assessment is that the Online Safety Act has not achieved its intended goal of protecting minors. ILO will no longer participate in the failed system that has been created in the UK as a result of the OSA, that's the Online Safety Act's introduction. Based on ILO's data and experience, this law and regulatory framework have made the internet more dangerous for minors and adults and jeopardises the privacy and personal data of UK citizens. New users, as we mentioned, will no longer be able to access that account. only those that have verified their age

will retain access through existing accounts so former accounts as I mentioned. Your response, should I say, to Ilo. I think that they waited six months to see what the landscape was, not to see whether or not that online safety act had worked in terms of its purpose of preventing young people from accessing porn.

We know that visits to porn have gone down by 77%. So it absolutely has worked. It stopped people accessing, pornography, a lot of whom were under 18. But I think they waited six months long enough to see how much Ofcom was

actually going to influence the measures. They invested heavily in trying to lobby for device level verification, but that lost. And then what we recently saw with GROC and Offcom opened a case on it, it showed that actually Offcom is taking this seriously and that was probably enough for Corn Hub to realize

they weren't going to get away with it. I think that's what sparked this decision. There's a couple of Questions, though, I have. I'd be curious what what your thinking is on them. Number one, what about that thousands of more extreme porn sites or irresponsible porn sites, as they would call them, will still be easy to access? So I think that I hear this argument a lot, right? Dedicated porn consumers are going to go elsewhere. Of course they were. This is not what the Online Safety Act was about. It was about preventing what we knew around accidental exposure,

but also this idea that the content on porn hub wasn't already directing people to look for more unregulated, more illegal, more explicit content is ridiculous. So there's been studies in both Australia and Finland on men who access child abuse images. And both of those studies found, with thousands and thousands and thousands of men, that many of those started accessing representations of child abuse on mainstream porn sites like Porn Hub. and that those sites legitimated abuse, my own research with colleagues on PornHub and a couple of other mainstream porn sites, found that the most frequently occurring word was teen, you know, that the vast majority of these contents is about sexualizing teenagers. It's not either or these sites legitimated abuse, they do legitimate abuse, and it's not just that there's mainstream porn or these so-called darker sites, which I think is the term that Pornhub likes to use. The mainstream sites are also hosting this darker content

and they're implicated in helping users break down any internal barriers that they have to go and seek out this more illegal content. You mentioned about accidental exposure, what you feel that people go to, explain that for us a little bit further. So what was happening before, we had lots of comments about this in various research projects that I've been a part of, particularly with young people. one of the first one was from, I think it was 2012. You know, this has been a problem for a really, really long time,

was young people telling us things like they went on to Google to search for something that wasn't porn, and what was being thrown up by Google at that time was sites like porn hubs. So they went to look for what is sex, what is a lesbian, what is, you know, it's really innocent questions that 10, 12-year-olds have, and they were being directed onto porn sites. So aid verification puts in that blocker to stop that from. from happening. That's one thing. And you know, this drop of 77% that we talk about, that still gives

23% of traffic. And we know how incredibly lucrative sites like Pornhub are. Why would they not just continue? I mean, they are continuing. So what I think that they're trying to do is... Oh, I suppose they still have the former account holders. Yeah. They're not really making a massive change. What they're wanting is their, my sense, is they've waited. six months, they've seen, oh, actually, Offcom might actually enforce some of the stuff that's coming in. This is going to be very difficult for us. Let's try and get everyone talking about Pornhub being banned. All they're doing is saying that you need to open an account, right? And they're giving you warning, you need to open an account. And that's why their idea that this is about the

privacy of users, that this law is somehow, you know, affecting the privacy of users. But Pornhub is affecting the privacy of users. But you know, but you do know that many privacy advocates also at times libertarians did speak out against some of the regulation that was coming in. There were real concerns from various sectors. And there were real concerns also from libertarians, privacy experts within the violence against women and girls' sector. You know, talking about, we talk a lot about freedom of speech

and what we don't talk about is how women's freedom of speech is being restricted daily online. Again, we've seen this with GROC because of the ways in which pornography like that hosted on Pornhub promotes these misogynistic racist stereotypes about what women are good for. Yes, and we've had many debates about pornography on this program as well. Some women that wish to look at it or want, we say, more, less regulation around it. I do want to let people know that we did ask to speak to somebody from Pornhub as well on this program, but we're not able to secure an interview.

Here's another aspect from ILO, the parent company of PornHub. They argued that device restriction should be the way to protect minors, that that would require manufacturers like Apple, Google, Microsoft, etc., to act. What about taking that route? I mean, that's what's failed. I think that they invested a lot in lobbying government around this, and that failed. And I think that's why they've now taken this step. they have obviously invested in that because they know that that is not going to work.

It's not going to stop the traffic. They knew that when it was site level, it would stop the traffic. Part of that is around the idea of conscious consumption. So you mentioned earlier my book Women on Porn. I spoke to 100 women, some of whom, a lot of whom had used pornography. And they talked about the sense of conflict, okay, because a lot of the content on pornography sites is about humiliation of women, degradation of women, domination of women.

And women would talk about feeling very conflicted because they felt sexually aroused, because pornography is created for sexual arousal. That's its purpose. So they were being aroused by content that was about humiliation, degradation, domination, domination, and they felt really kind of conflicted about that. And what that means is that people don't necessarily

want to be conscious in their consumption of pornography. They don't want to open an account. They don't really want to, a lot, some do, obviously, but a lot of people who are using pornography don't even want to admit to themselves that they're using pornography, not because they have a problem with porn, but because of this content and the conflict that that is creating. And I think, again, Pornhub knows that.

These major sites know this, and they know that actually when you have site level verification and people are having to put in their own details, connect their use to themselves and an individual in the offline world, they're not going to want to do it. That's why they were campaigning so heavily for device level, but that's failed. So now they're taking other steps.

So we're really talking about Pornhub today because they are the company that are in the news. Do you think this shift will have wider ripples? In terms of porn content overall? Yes. I think so. My sense is that tides are turning. I think that for a really long time,

what we had was a very regulation adverse political and public lands. But I think what we've seen now is that for a long time in academic research on porn, decades, there's been an argument about cause and effect. Can we say that watching, you know, these kind of misogynistic harmful images cause sexual practices to change? And what's happened now is we've had kind of a 15-year social experiment to see. And what we've seen is, yes, effectively, yes. Sexual norms now, sexual practices now are so closely aligned to what you see.

in pornography that I think you can start to force in a personal movement. You talk to young women today and the vast majority, for example, we'll talk about having been strangled or choked during sex. You talk to women of my age about when they were 20 and the vast majority. And your age being for the radio listener. An age, a respectable age for a woman. But yeah, I just think that things have changed, tides have changed. And what's come with that is when you talk to younger women,

20 to 30, they're really pro having some regulation and pornography because this is the generation that grew up with that. Young boys as well. It's like these kids grew up with this and they are now some of the most active campaigners about regulating it because they've seen the harms, they've seen the ways in which some of their early sexual experiences were co-opted and stolen from them because of these representations and they don't want to continue that for future generations. I think probably in about 20, 30, 40 years time, we're going to look back at this period where porn was completely unregulated,

maybe similar to how we're going to look back to social media for young kids. And it's going to be how we think now about, I look back to the 70s and I think, oh my God, you know, you were advertising cigarettes to children and there weren't seatbelts and cars and it just seems completely ludicrous. And I think that's the point that we're going to get to.

And right now we're at a point where that's starting to shift. Interesting thoughts from Dr. Fiona Vera Gray. Thank you very much for joining us. Agree, disagree, 84844 if you'd like to get in touch. Dr. Fiona is, she's written, as we mentioned, Women and Porn, Professor of Sexual Violence and the Co-Director of the Child and Women Abuse Studies Unit at London Metropolitan University. We did have a debate about pornography, of course, some of the issues that my guest was bringing up. We have debated at length.

There is one of the programs 3rd of May 24 that you might like to check out if you want to hear some more discussions. but we specifically looking at Pornhub this morning. Now, I want to move on to a decision by the Gloucestershire Hospital's NHS Foundation Trust to suspend home birth services. It is to be challenged in the High Court. The suspension, you might remember, was announced back in November after the trust cited safety concerns raised by their staff and they also said due to dealing with more complex births.

Now, a coalition, including the charity birthrights, is taking the trust leaders to judicial review, asking them to reconsider the suspension. Joining me to discuss this, our birth rights legal lead, Laura Malarki, good morning. Good morning, thanks for having me. We also have Matthew Hill,

who's the health correspondent for the BBC in the South West. Good morning, Matthew. Good morning. Now, can you tell us a little bit of the background to this? I just alluded there to November when it was first announced. Yes, so basically trust bosses said that they were struggling to find cover for the on-call home birth service at night,

without using staff who'd already worked a full day shift, which it said could be unsafe. And they said they were also dealing with increasingly complex cases that despite the suspension, the trust has seen an increase in the number of requests to support births at home against medical advice. Now, Jordan gave birth to her healthy daughter, Beatrice, shortly after the home birthing was suspended in Gloucestershire. The 33-year-old had wanted a home birth after her two previous deliveries

had been very quick, and because she lived 45 minutes from Gloucester in the Forest of Dean. Now, she did this on medical advice, as she was considered low risk. But at 41 weeks, when Jordan developed high blood pressure and suspected preeclampsia, she went into hospital for a checkup. She had an emergency delivery after a bleed following an induction, which she describes as traumatic. And she feels if she'd had a home birth, she would not have needed to be induced. It's a choice at 41 weeks whether or not to be induced or not.

I'd not previously been induced. My two previous deliveries were spontaneous. And I guess if home birth had still been an option for me, I may have kind of opted for some of the more kind of less invasive, like procedures, stretch and sweep, for example, to try and get things going. But I kind of was put in a position where I was already in the hospital. or two young children at home, like trying to kind of control for being able to get back to the hospital to deliver,

I felt under pressure from doctors at 41 weeks with suspected preeclampsia that really I ought to kind of be induced and, like, get it over with. Now, a trust spokesperson said they were really sorry to hear about her experience and will continue to support her through the complaint process. I want to bring Laura in here. I mean, some listening to that clip of Jordan, might think that the trust's actions were reasonable in that case. Can you explain if you believe that they were not?

So I think our point is a much broader one, which is about the fact that the home birth service should have been there and should have been available so that women and birthing people who make that choice to have a home birth can be supported. What is happening at the moment is that, as we can see from Jordan's example, that choice is being taken away and that actually goes right to the heart of bodily autonomy and women and birthing people's rights

to make the choices that they feel are safest for them and is therefore leading to people feeling forced to consider other alternatives that actually feel less safe for them in the circumstances and can lead to trauma. And the issue, which really is the nub of the issue, about access to a home birth, we've heard there a little, we will hear a little bit more,

about why they have decided this suspension is necessary. But there isn't a legal right to a home birth. There is a legal right, as I understand it, to giving birth in the place of your choice. But the NHS is not obliged to provide a midwife if they feel they need to suspend those services. Well, we would disagree with that analysis. Actually, we know that what happened in Gloucester,

really wasn't acceptable. It was contrary to the law to NHS guidance, to the NHS Constitution and NHS best practice. So actually under the NHS Constitution, that says that women and birthing people do have, I'm sorry, this is actually a more general point. So in my case specific to women and birthing people, but the NHS Constitution point is generally

that people have the right to treatment and care that is recommended by nice guidance. And nice guidance recommends that all four but places of birth, which includes home birth, should be offered to women and birthing people. Yes, indeed, but it is not a statutory. I mean, I was reading on your website, all NHS trusts are expected to run a home birth service.

This is not guaranteed in law, but the law says that you're right to choose to give birth should only be restricted when there is good reason to do this and when the decision is proportionate. Exactly. So the point is this, and this is very much what we're saying in this case too, We are not saying that services should be provided even in absolutely emergency scenarios where, you know, for absolutely unexpected circumstances, you know, all the staff on the home birth team come down sick.

Of course, there are some situations where services may need to be closed and that's not specific to home birth that can happen, you know, in other parts of the maternity service too. But what we are saying is that home birth services are a core part of maternity service. and they need to be funded and staffed appropriately rather than we somehow find ourselves in this position where, oh, it can't be staffed, but actually the reason that it can't be staffed is because it has been systematically deprioritised, defunded and staff not trained. What do you want the result of this case to be? I mean, look, legal action is no one's plan A, least of all ours. We are still hoping that Gloucestershire will come to the table with us on the. this. You know, we aren't alone in taking this legal action. There's a wonderful campaign

group, Gloucestershire Maternity Action Group, who has been doing loads of work, working with a lot of affected women and birthing people, one of whom is an individual who is also challenging. We would love to come to the table with them. We would love to discuss what the options are, and because one of the issues that we see here, and part of the problem, and what we're challenging, is that in making this suspension, which was blanket and long term, with no provision for individual, circumstances to be considered. And the trust also did not consider reasonable alternatives. For example.

For example, they could have looked at contracting independent midwives to provide the service while they didn't have the staff to do so themselves. They could have also looked at alternatives such as using the senior staff that they did have to support a limited number of home births, particularly where women had specific or additional needs and really needed that support. Well, let me bring Matthew back in here. Because, as Laura mentions there, one of the issues being challenged is not employing independent midwives to cover the shortfall. You have been speaking to Professor Mark Pietroni, who's Director for Safety and Medical Director at Lushteshire Hospital NHS Foundation Trust.

What did he tell you about that decision regarding independent advice? Yes, well, basically, Professor Pietroni was saying that that is simply not possible for various reasons, which we expand upon in a minute. but it's all to do with, partly to do with indemnity. But obviously it does leave women, including a woman I spoke to yesterday who was protesting outside the Health and Scrutiny Committee in Gloucestershire against this suspension. And she's in a position of facing, having giving birth next week, having a free birth, basically, without any clinical supervision.

You know, she said she would rather have a midwife, she can't afford a midwife. But that is what she is. she is doing. But I put this point to Professor Mark Piotroney yesterday about independent midwives. And I just want to let our listeners know this recording is close to a busy road. So lean into your radio. The concerns are about safety fundamentally. We don't have enough midwives to staff the rotor 100% of the time. If we were to have two home births at the same time, we'd struggle to find enough midwives to cover both. Although we've done very well at report,

recruiting midwives, they're relatively junior and they're not people of many, many years experience. And particularly in the absence of national guidance with respect to managing women who choose a home birth and have a high risk pregnancy, midwives find themselves in a very difficult position. Do you think there should be national guidance? Yeah, absolutely. I think it would be really helpful to have national guidance. And it's one of the things I hope that will come out as a recommendation from the Baroness Amos Inquiry. And this legal action, um, seems to be pushing for you to pay for independent midwives to allow homebirths to happen. What's your reaction to that?

Independent midwives won't solve our problem. Our problems are complicated. In particular, it's not a turnkey solution. Independent midwives are not part of our clinical governance process. They're not exposed to our protocols and procedures. And we would have to do our own assessment of their competence prior to using them. So it's not a simple solution to providing a safe homebirth service. say that they are being used elsewhere in the country by some NHS trust to allow homebirths. We've looked at using independent midwives as part of the solutions as problem, and we'd rather come up with a solution that's long-term and permanent, so that we can restart the home-birth service.

So that was Professor Mark Piotroney speaking to Matthew. Laura, your response to that? Because I think what he's getting across is like safety, the independent midwives that you mentioned, they're not at the level that they would need to be. and he wants a long-term solution, not a stopgap? We also wants a long-term solution, but why are the two things not mutually possible? You know, why can't we have both?

And I think the point is there's discussion. At one point he says, oh, we'd have to look into whether independent midwives would be suitable. And another time, he says that they have looked into it. But I'm not sure that they have. And as Matthew said there, actually other trusts we know have used and do use contractual. and independent midwives.

So I don't frankly buy that. And I think also there's the part of the explanation given was that some women and birthing people are higher risk and so need more support. That's understandable. But why then the blanket ban? Why no consideration of individual circumstances? Would you prefer, you would prefer an individual based approach? Absolutely.

And that's what human rights law requires. that if you are considering restricting somebody's human rights, you must consider the individual circumstances and whether that restriction is proportionate in the circumstances. So, you know, saying that because we can't support two home births at night means that we should have a blanket ban on the service for at least six months just doesn't stack up. I mean, I think perhaps where the real contention is on this issue

is around the word proportionate and the decision whether it's proportionate I would imagine the NHS would say it is you from birthright say it is not Matthew what do you think is at the heart of this is it money is it staffing and when I say staffing when you talk about staff shortages

of course there's also the issue of retention is it training I mean that is money but also it's time this was expected to be a two week ban to begin with and now we're at this particular point. Well, to be fair, the NHS is recruiting very large numbers of midwives, but I think the issue is in terms of their experience, because to be a community midwife, you need to have a lot of experience to deal with all sorts of situations where you can't suddenly call an obstetrician

to come in immediately, basically. And there are reasons also, there's growing complexity, as Dr. Pietrani says, women are choosing to give birth later, often through. IVF and that means multiple pregnancies are more common and you know we know the C-section rate has shot up since the pandemic so there is this kind of growing complex situation to deal with and I think that's what's really putting the pressure on units like the one in Gloucestershire to get the right staff out into the field. You mentioned free birthing briefly there Matthew as well that is women deciding to give birth without medical assistance.

We do have a program that we've also done on that recently. There are, of course, risks potentially involved with that too. Are you concerned about that, Laura? I think what we're concerned about at birth rights is not where people make the choice to free birth, which is a lawful and can be empowering choice. But actually, the far more likely scenario, and as you say, Matthew has already alluded to this,

where women are feeling forced or abandoned by their trusts into birthing unassisted, not because it is what they want, not because it is what feels safe to them, but because they feel they have been left with no other option for far too many women and birthing people, particularly those who are black and brown from minoritized groups. We know that there is a lot of trauma happening in hospitals right now. So actually often they do not feel safe. It is not an option for them to go into hospital. But you do accept the risks that there can be at a home birth,

particularly if midwives are overstretched. We did an item last week speaking to midwives who want their midwife working hours capped and to be legally enforceable. They said, you know, like truckers, for example. And they feel that they can't in various places reach or be able to cover. the amount of home births that are being requested. Absolutely. We fully support Leah Hazard's campaign for safe staffing for midwives and clear illegal caps. We say that the two things, i.e. safe staffing and protecting home birth services,

should not be mutually exclusive. We should be able to have both. This is a core part of maternity service. It's a legal obligation to provide it. It's not a nice to have add-on. And that's the way it's being treated at the moment. Back to you, Matthew. You call it a legal requirement, but from my reading, as I mentioned, on your website, on your site, it says trusts are expected to give a home, it's not guaranteed in law. Yeah, so it's a general legal requirement to have the service. Of course, there may be exceptional circumstances where, just as with a birth centre or any other part of the maternity service, certain things may not be able to be offered at a particular point in time, but that should be proportionate to the

circumstance. And I come back to that word again. Matthew, what's expect to in the coming days weeks? Well, obviously this civil case is going to take time, you know, to be to be heard, etc. In the meantime, you know, women in Gloucestershire are continuing to face this situation without having that option of a home birth. And, you know, there is the other argument about without that option that you're more likely to see as of a cascade of intervention. And, you know, women ending up, you know, with C-sections, as I say, the C-section rate has

shot up. So for low-risk births that that is an issue. Thank you very much to my guest, Laura, who's in studio with me here from Birth Rights, Laura Malarkey and Matthew Hill Health Correspondent from BBC in the South West. And I do also have a statement from the NHS England who'd say every woman has the right to choose to give birth in hospital at a birth centre or at home. And maternity teams must discuss the different options and risks so expectant mothers can make fully informed decisions about their care. We have recently asked hospitals to urgently review their home birth services, including ensuring appropriate training, risk assessments and transfer plans.

We continue to work with local teams to ensure they're providing safe care for women. I'm sure we will talk about this again. Thanks very much for coming in. Let me see. Hello, Women's Aar. Please explain that having preclampsia is a potentially fatal condition. A pregnant woman must seek medical attention and a home birth is not only dangerous but irresponsible. That's Jane, a nurse and a midwife.

If you agree with that. Maybe you have other thoughts. 84844. Please do get in touch on pornography. All the verification has done is damaged companies who are most likely to follow rules. Government has gone for low-hanging fruit and not address the real issues. When a river is polluted, you don't treat the river in isolation. You go upstream to the source. The industry has made its own bed by operating for over a decade without self-policing,

so something hot to be done. But driving traffic towards unsafe sites is more likely to increase data theft and extortion risk. Another, as a member of the generation who grew up with porn freely available online, I'm definitely pro-regulation. I find it surprising that the assumption so far has been in favour of all, including children,

having free access to pornographic and violent content and that the burden of argument has been on the other side. 844, if you would like to get in touch. Now, let us move on to games. This weekend, gamers and music fans will be headed to the BAFTA Games in concert, which is starting its tour in London. It's celebrating two decades of BAFTA-nominated and award-winning games music and the composers behind these hugely popular gaming soundtracks.

One of those composers is Jessica Curry. Ten years ago, her score for the game Everybody's Gone to the Rapture won a BAFTA Games music award, so we're talking about 2016. This was the first for a solo woman. And guess what? A decade later remains the only one. Her music, you know, I've already got a comment in about you, Jessica. It channels grief, love, loss.

Welcome to Women's Har. Thank you so much for having me. I'm thrilled. Well, now, how are you feeling, thinking about your music being performed live with a 65-piece orchestra? It's something I could never have dreamed of early in my career. And as a media composer, you kind of compose in isolation. actually. You know, you sit in your studio alone and then the game gets released, but you don't get that real-time feedback. So the BAFTA concert is this extraordinary opportunity for me. Very nerve-wracking, I have to say, as well as exciting. But to hear that feedback in real-time, it's amazing.

OK, so I'm going to give our listeners a little burst of the morning tree from the game. Everybody's gone to the rapture. So beautiful. And I imagine perhaps. not what some people might expect from a video game. Tell us a little bit about the concept behind it. So I didn't ever think I was going to be part of the games industry because I had this idea that it was hyper macho and really violent and I was kind of partly right and also humble to find out that I wasn't right because there are a plethora of games and wonderful music in the industry. But I I think what I did bring, and Dan and I made the game together, my husband, we've co-founded the Chinese Room.

We wanted to make games about, as you said, love, loss, what it means to be human, friendship about hope, redemption, dignity. And I think that did bring something new and fresh to the industry. And some people really embraced it and some people absolutely hated us for it. were immediately very controversial figures, even though we love games and we didn't want to take anything away, but it was seen as a challenge to what was there. You mentioned grief and loss there, and I know some of that was partly inspired by your experiences, particularly, of course, we've had the pandemic in that time between when you

compose this music and now. Can you tell us a little bit about? about what, I suppose, I suppose how it informs it? I live and breathe music and it's the way that I and most creative people process the pain that they go through. I had a particularly painful and difficult pandemic like many other people. I lost my dad and watched him die on Zoom and then my auntie had an ovarian tumor diagnosed and then major abdominal surgery, pushing me into surgical menopause, which is something I know that many of your listeners

will have experience of, and hospitalisation throughout the pandemic being really tough. I'm so sorry. Oh, thank you. The roof fell in as well, which was sort of almost comedically. Literally. Her rent us, yeah, just after the operation.

You know, I read that in your notes, but I took it as a metaphor. I didn't take it as an actual literal tiles falling down. Everything caved in and it was a metaphor but it actually did happen and I couldn't write any music and I couldn't even listen to any music during that time and that was another huge loss for me actually as someone who music walks with us doesn't it? It holds our hand through those difficult times. It helps us, it holds us and because I lost that as well, it was so extraordinarily painful. But then I made this album called shielding songs because I wanted to write about hope and redemption and love and tolerance and responsibility because the pandemic was this extraordinarily divisive time of people that showed so little care and responsibility and then you had these people who gave up everything they gave their lives to help other people and shielding songs is very much about that journey through

and it isn't it isn't depressing music it sounds really it is It's hopeful. It's beautiful. It's tender like all the games music that I've written. It's beautiful to market. But do you find that many kind of want to leave the pandemic behind, that don't want to engage with it? It's such an interesting question because I think, again, there's a lot of polarity in that question and the answer behind it. I think people who didn't have the hardest of time are like, back to normal, we did it, we got through it. it's a bit of a distant memory. But actually, as I've got a disease, which means I'm immunocompromised, so I was shielding fully for over two years. And I'm only just kind of out and about again now.

And as I'm talking to people, there are so many people that want to share their experiences, that want to talk about it, that want to have some empathy and some sympathy shown for them for the losses that they endured during that time. And I think what, I'm proud of the album is it gives people that opportunity and I've had scores and scores and scores of emails saying thank you so much for giving a voice to those of us who were left behind. And I kind of count myself in that. And I'm really excited about the BAFTA concert, but actually it's really scary for me to be out and about in a crowd again. That's a big thing for me. and I really want to sort of shout about that

because I think there's so many thousands, tens of thousands of people are in the same position as me. Yeah, and I'm sure they'll be listening to you right now. I want to read a message that came in from Will. I just heard that Jessica Curry is on the program today. I love her composition for everyone has gone to the rapture. I often listen to it while I'm working or concentrating.

It's one of the most beautiful pieces I've ever heard and I always enjoy listening to it each time as much as I did the first time. Please thank her for me. for giving us this wonderful work. Oh, that's extraordinary. I get, I'm so lucky. The games industry has been the best and the worst of times for me.

It's extraordinarily hard to exist as a woman. It kind of broke me in many ways. But my fans, because of the types of games that we made at the Chinese room, which is, I should say as a video developers for those that aren't across the Chinese room, sorry, which is your company. Absolutely. Sorry, those are the fans. They are wonderfully erudite and articulate emotionally.

So the messages that I get, especially about rapture, which is in the concert, people are saying, during the pandemic, they said, I buried my parent that your music. I get messages at the moment saying, I'm escaping a war-torn country. I have rapture in my ears. It's the only thing that's keeping me going. What? Yeah, every day. No, I'm just thinking what it's going to be like when you go.

at the concert. I think it is going to be really emotional because I think the thing about games music that people don't always tend to realize is that many of these games, the big franchises have been with people for 40, 50 years now. So that music

has walked with them through so many experiences in their lives, whether it be loss or losing a job or getting married. And these games are sometimes 50, 60, 70 hours long. So the music really embeds itself. So it's a soundtrack to their lives.

That's exactly it. And I think it is going to be a really emotional evening and it's touring afterwards. And I think it is an expression of coming together. Because again, you game in your home normally. And I think the emotion comes at these live concerts from being an audience together experiencing it probably for the first time. I talked about talking about first time and last time so far, a solo woman, winning a BAFTA for Best Music for a Video Game. Why do you think that is? Why do you think you're the only one? Yeah, it's a really good question. The games industry, I would say, is still resistant to any form of difference within the industry. It is very protective of its roots, which were male and white.

I'd like to say it's changing. I'm not sure it is. But it's really interesting thinking about that question because I get asked it a lot as one of the only high profile women in games is a kind of double bind because if I don't talk about it, I'm seen as ignoring the systemic issues within the games industry. But every time I do talk about it, I make myself and other women less employable because people are within the industry say, oh, this is why we don't employ women. They talk about all the problems. So you kind of left in this impossible situation. And I also spend a lot of lot of my time mentoring women, bringing people up, speaking about equality on all fronts. And that takes time and energy, whereas the guys in the games industry, get to talk about their

work. They're bigging themselves up all the time. They're being asked about how did they compose something, whereas we become kind of emblematic of the problem. So it's really hard to know where to stand on it. Well, I'm glad you spoke to us today and spoke out of about it, I think it will inspire many people. I hope so. We need more women. We need trans people, gay people, people of colour. Women, you know, we need working mothers. It's the only way. I think I didn't form any alliances and that I think is the way forward. Make alliances. Jessica Curry, you're going to be back with a bang at the Baptist Games concert, in concert, kicking off this Saturday at the Royal Festival Hall

in London before touring venues around the UK. Enjoy it all. Thank you so much. I can't wait. Thank you, Jessica. Thanks to all of you getting in touch. Let me see. Here's Helen. She says I was under Gloucestershire Maternity Services in 2021. I was scheduled a home birth, but when I went into labour, no midwife was available to attend. I decided to stay home as labour was progressing quickly and I knew I wouldn't get to hospital in time.

I ended up delivering my baby at home, my husband, 20 minutes before midwives arrived. Paramedics arrived shortly after that. Services were struggling then, this is 2021. It's very disappointing that things have not improved. and even become worse. Here's another, Melissa, listening to the debate on home births, I suspect those arguing in favour

have never given birth to a baby with the umbilical cord around their neck and not breathing. This is what happened to me and without immediate medical intervention, emergency, my daughter would not have lived. Routine births going well can quickly turn into emergencies.

Lots of debate on that particular issue. Just one of them that we have been discussing but we've also been talking about games. Video games a moment ago. Now it's time to move. on to Olympic Games because we've just got a little over a week until the Winter Olympics get underway in Italy.

There's a record, 47% female athletes competing. So these games would be the most gender balanced in Winter Olympic history. And we have two women who are gearing up to cover every twist and turn, literally, of these games. They're in studio with me. Jeanette Acquatchi will be fronting the BBC's coverage as part of an all-female lineup

alongside Claire Balding and Hazel Irvine. Good morning. Good morning. And beside Jeanette, we also have the former two-time Winter Olympic snowboarder and broadcaster Amy Fuller, who's just returned from covering the X Games. So that's the biggest event before these winter games get underway. Hello. Good morning.

How are you? I'm very well and I'm very envious of where both of you are off to. I mean, it's Milano Cortina. Milano Cortina. That's what they say. So there's a few sites, actually, for the Winter Olympic Games. So the BBC will be based in Cortina, which is in kind of like the,

I want to say, the northeastern side of Italy. And it's by the Dolomites. The views are going to be gorgeous, but we'll be based where the women's alpine scheme will be alongside some of the sliding events, the skeleton, the luge, the bobsleigh. So the fun stuff, I mean, it's all fun.

But Cortina's got quite a bit packed into it for sure. It is. And it's really spread out as well, because Milan is quite a long way from Cortina. I think I was looking, I think it's like five hour or two. probably through quite some snowy terrain as well. So that's Jeanette.

Now, Amy, you have competed in two Winter Olympics, as I mentioned. I certainly have, yeah. Elite freestyle snowboarder. Let us give you your proper title. I mean, you're going to be broadcasting. We'll talk about that. But taking part in the Winter Olympics, I mean, it looks, it's so exciting to watch.

What's it like to be a participant? Yeah, it truly is such a phenomenal experience. I will never forget the day that I had the opportunity to put on that TeamGB kit. And it's the one moment where the team comes together as one under the flag. And that really is so, so special. And I think the unique thing about the Winter Olympics is, obviously you're in an open environment, especially with the mountain sports. So quite literally anything can happen.

So as a viewer, you really will be on the edge of your seat. I know. Now, the most gender balanced, I mentioned that. How about that, Amy? I mean, you've been there. You're probably seeing that change before your eyes. I mean, so I've literally just got back from Aspen, Colorado. I was. X Games is the biggest event ahead of the Winter Olympics. And you say gender balance, I would say female domination is actually where we're at. So we have just witnessed history at the X Games two weeks out from the Winter Olympics.

Kirstie Muir got gold in ski slope style. She's one of ours. Mia Brooks got gold. Snowboard slope style. She's one of ours. Zoe Atkin got gold. Very gold. In the half pipe.

I mean... So explain the half pipe. Half pipe. Okay. So if you imagine a U-shaped ice dish. you're going to see skiers and snowboarders traverse from side to side getting amplitude out the top of the pipe.

So if you imagine taking a double deck of bus and putting it on top of the half pipe, you will see the skiers and snowboarders literally reach the height of a bus, yet at the same time below them is the same vertical drop. It is so, so impressive to watch. And it's the fact that we have these three ladies

in freestyle, but there are more across the board. And I think that's what's going to make this such an exciting Olympic Games for TeamGB. Because, you know, there are women competing in certain sports for the first time. So we've got Schemo, haven't we? That's a new one that's coming out. Ski mountaineering.

So essentially, it's like being on the mountain. It's like, do you remember like orientation? Yes. At school. So it's being on the mountain. So it's a combination of skiing and making sure that you're able to get to a particular place at a particular time.

And this is a thing about winter sport. For me, they come up with innovation all the time. And it is important because you need to be able to have these sports that people can feel that they have the access to. And for something like Schema, I don't know where they really practice it. It's more like, I don't know, some of the Nordic countries. And it's kind of like, yeah, it's more the Nordic side. Some in Switzerland as well. And these are the kind of events that the IOC are putting on because they need to be able to innovate winter sports.

So that is definitely going to be happening as well. It really does strike me, and the X Games is a good example of this too. But with winter sports, they just keep pushing the limit. Like with summer limits, we kind of have those old tried and tested. I beg to differ because actually we've seen the introduction of the freestyle sports in the summer. So we do have the skateboarding and the surfing. And I think there is this huge push to make free sports more accessible as well as professional. These are sports that you can start anywhere.

Anybody can hop on a skateboard. So I think there is this real progression across the board, both summer and winter, and that is fueling the younger audiences. And that's what we need. It's all about mass participation and making these sports accessible. You can skateboard in London, right?

You can skateboard in London, but you can't ski. You can't ski. You cannot. Yeah, you can't ski. But you can in a snow dome. That's what is so incredible about our talent in the UK. So many of us have started on a dry slope or in a snow dome. And the difference is what makes us incredible competitors as a nation is we don't take any day on the mountain for granted.

So the Austrians, the Swiss, you know, if the snow comes in or it's a bit foggy up top, because they have access all the time, they will maybe say, hey, I'm not training today. whereas us as Brit, we're hungry for it because we don't have it on our doorstep. But I know, let's say for you, Jeanette, you know, to get to a track was a lot easier, right? Instead of trying to get to the snow dome or the slope, for example. I mean, what can happen? Is there a way to make winter sports more inclusive?

I think what we're looking at here in the UK is actually just allowing young people to know that these things are here. Okay. So it is where are these centres and can these young people access these centres. I grew up in and around track and field and athletics. So it cost me 30p to get on the bus twice a week to get down to the local track to be able to take part of my sport. It's slightly more accessible, isn't it? It's slightly more accessible and a lot less expensive than what we do and what we see with winter sports. So it is about taking sometimes,

what we do see, sometimes taking talent identification and you're taking athletes from different sports and showing them that there is possibilities and opportunities in winter sport. We've seen that in athletics. We've had two summer and winter Olympians now, Montel Douglas. Some people may know her as fire from gladiators. She's a, she's a summer Olympian in the 100 metre sprint, but also a winter Olympian in the bobsleigh. We'll have the same again this year with Ashley Nelson, a 100 metre sprinter in the Summer Olympics. She's been called up for the bobsleigh. So there are transferable skills there. I'd love to see that training schedule. Yeah. So there are transferable skills. And I do believe that if the powers that be look to see what the talent identification is, they can go even earlier with that. They can go into schools and say, actually, these are the programs that are available.

And coming back to women in some of the sports that we haven't seen them for the first time before, double luge? Double luge. I mean, would we do a double luge together, Amy? You know what, Jeanette, I reckon you go on the bottom all right top. I can't. So double luge, honestly, for anyone who doesn't know, so obviously with the luge, these are the sliding events,

and the luge is a feet first. So you're going down this track and the razy speeds, feet first. And double luge is two people. So you have got someone on the bottom, someone on the top, you're both on your back and you're going for it. I don't know who came up with it, Amy. Help me out there. It does have, I have to say,

I think that probably has to be the weirdest sport I've ever seen. It's literally two sliders, one mounted on top of the other. It's unique. And you're trying to get speed. You're trying to get the speed. But, I mean, I'm very keen to see how it goes at the Olympic Games. It's had its run out in various different events. However, in Olympic Games, I think that will be a spectacle.

People will tune in just to see what that's bad. They're so diverse. So we have the luge skeleton as another one, of course. That's single. Head first. There's curling. We all became, you know, with ice hockey. There's ice dancers.

Ice dancers. It's dancers. We've got some fantastic house dances. And hopefully we've been a shout of a medal as well. Lila Fear and Lewis Gibson. They just got a bronze at the European Championships in Sheffield. Just gone, actually, just a few weeks ago. But Lila's fantastic.

They've got this brilliant Spice Girls medley they dance too. And they put a bit of proclaimers in there as well. And Lila comes out in a Jerry Halliwell inspired Union Jack dress at times. They're very fun to watch. And I think it's time that we need a bit of a new tour in Dean. I just feel like we move on. Torval and Dean for a new generation. I think so. Definitely.

It is quite literally. I think there really is such strength and depth across the board in terms of talent. I think looking back to the last Olympics, people said we were a little dry on the middle side, but I think what we're seeing now is that next generation. And there is so much talent from freestyle to the ice, the sliding sports with Matt Weston.

We're in a really, really strong place. Okay. top moment or worse moment from your Olympics, Amy, if I were to ask you? I think for me it would probably be the moment that I actually qualified for my first Olympic Games. I think so often we don't see what goes in behind it. And actually the achievement is making it first and foremost to the games because that process is tough. So I will take you to the bottom of my last world. Cup run two weeks before the Olympic Games and I needed a top six or better depending on where

everybody else landed in a field of 50 girls and I will never forget ringing my mom at the bottom and saying I've done it and she says what have you done and I'm like we've done it because at that point you are more than just yourself as a solo athlete it's about the unit and the team that got you there. Well, looking forward to it all. And Genet, of course, you will be with the BBC, as we mentioned, with Hazel and with Claire as well. Amy also reporting on the games for TNT. Yes, I'll be in studio.

It's going to be fab. Well, it begins Friday, 6th of February. You have to let people know, and you can watch more than 450 hours of live action across the BBC. Also, check out BBC sport. That's it from me for today. But Anita, we'll be back with you. Tomorrow for a Woman's Hour. That's all for today's Woman's Hour.

Join us again next time. Do the wonder products that you see on your social media and supermarket shelves really deliver on their bold claims? Dehumidify the standing discs. Nail polish. From supplements claiming to boost your mind and body. I've seen so many claims about creatine. To fake tans promising a safe, streak-free glow. I really like it.

I'm Greg Foote and my BBC Radio 4 show Slice Bread is back. to separate more science fact from marketing fiction. I would tend to lean towards it being a positive. All our suggestions come from your emails or voice notes, even if you're a bit under the weather. Hello, Greg. I want to know about cough mixture. I'm finding out the answers in my new series of sliced bread, available first on BBC Sounds.