The media war on porn has been hotting up this week. As usual, it's 'won't someone think of the children' being used as an excuse to control what we can all see, and as usual the truth has been hidden behind smoke and mirrors.

The oddly sensible suggestion from the Sex Education Forum in April that young people be taught about porn in an unsensationalist, non-moralistic manner – that it's not all bad, can be entertaining and helpful but of course is fantasy, not reality – has predictably been ignored. It was, after all, far too well thought out an idea that might have allowed kids to understand the realities of porn without demonising it in such a way that the message would be rejected. As Norman Wells of the Family Education Trust commented to the BBC, "The intention appears to be to steer children and young people away from a belief in moral absolutes and to encourage them to think that there are no rights and wrongs when it comes to sexual expression.” And we certainly can't have that.

Instead, we've had the National Association of Head Teachers saying that children should “hear about the dangers of pornography” - no suggestion of an even-handed approach there, just the guilt and shame that you imagine Mr Wells approves of when it comes to sex. Kids will be taught that porn is evil, and that's that. Once they know that, teenagers with raging hormones will no longer have any interest in sex and we can return to the innocent days of the 1990s when no one had intercourse until they were married.

As the relentless fight continues,we we have a new report, Basically, Porn is Everywhere (no bias there then) from the Office of the Children's Commissioner. This is a Rapid Evidence Assessment, put together in three months – and as anyone who knows about such thing will tell you, REAs are useless, badly (if at all) researched documents generally designed to confirm an already-existing opinion or support planned legislation – the last one involving sex was put together by a couple of anti-porn campaigners to back up the ban on 'extreme porn'. Essentially then, this is another one-sided propaganda piece to sit alongside all the rest, from Reg Bailey's made-up rubbish about sexualisation to the infamous Video Violence and Children pack of lies from the 1980s that set the standard for evidence free, pro-censorship campaigning masquerading as research. The media, of course, has happily piled on with simplistic reporting (clearly spoon-fed to them), dubious and convenient anecdotes to 'prove' the dangers of porn viewing and quotes from the experts at Netmums. The campaign to censor the internet isn't going away and this flimsy study is just the latest in a series of attacks aimed at wearing down public opinion.

Interestingly, the introduction to this latest study states that “it is unclear whether pornography is more extreme and violent today than in the past” before the report and the press interviews by all involved go on to make exactly that claim – or at least imply it and allow the unquestioning press to do their dirty work for them. Deputy Children's Commissioner for England Sue Berelowitz (who, though I hate to stereotype, does not look like a woman with an open mind on the subject) then claims that “most worryingly, the evidence here shows that... there are links between violent attitudes and violent media”. Astounding that this report, put together in just three months, has found the holy grail that has eluded other researchers for decades. But of course, it hasn't. And it admits as much later - “We do not know what effects the cultural context has on young people’s attitudes and behaviours towards and stemming from pornography.” No evidence for this 'link' is ever established in the report, and yet there it is in the introduction and the conclusions, even though it is then immediately followed by “This link has never been demonstrated and causality has not been established.” So, no link then.

The inference then seems to be that what we don't know, we'll just assume and feed to the press as the 'evidence' they are salivating for, knowing they will only skim the report and take their pre-determined information from the headlines, not the actual content.

We can see where this report is really coming from in Finding 2: Access and exposure to pornography affect children and young people’s sexual beliefs.

Awkwardly for the moralists at work here (and predictably disregarded by those claiming porn to be the cause of all the child-on-child sexual assault that equally dubious stats have also been recently reporting as on the increase) is the line tucked away on page 35 - “The use of internet pornography by adults or by children and young people was not predicted by their belief in the rape myth: 'women say no when they mean yes'.” So porn – even the 'horrific' and 'violent' porn that the media is today reporting that our kids are seeing every time they turn on their computer - is not responsible for encouraging rape, right?

But it's not really sex crime that these people are fretting about. It's sexual attitudes, and the fear that there might be a generation growing up that doesn't have the same hypocritical value system as them.

Essentially, this report is saying that porn supposedly puts young people at risk of “developing unrealistic attitudes about sex.” What are they? Well, although they dress it up in terms of gender equality, what it seems to boil down to is that porn promotes “sexual permissive attitudes and greater acceptance of casual sex”. One study quoted (under the heading of 'risky behaviour') says that young people exposed to sexually explicit materials have “more liberal attitudes”. You might ask why that is seen as a bad thing – surely it's no one else's business if a person wants to enjoy a varied sex life with different partners rather than settling into a relationship with just one. But no – such attitudes are wrong. As Norman Wells says, we have to have moral absolutes, not sexual freedom.

The same section then claims that “the double standard reinforced in pornographic material: that is, women with multiple partners are considered promiscuous, while men with multiple partners are revered.” I'm sorry? Are they honestly trying to claim that porn movies condemn women for being sexual? What nonsense. Porn is the one place where sexually active women are treated as being the norm, celebrated on an equal footing with men. If they want to see women being condemned for their sexuality, they should look in the Daily Mail or women's magazines where slut-shaming is the norm.

And of course, porn is blamed for gender inequality, though the use of the terms 'dominant' (male) and 'submissive' (female) is loaded with inferences. Are they really talking in broader sex terms or actually talking about BDSM as another 'negative' effect of porn? One imagines they don't think BDSM to be a healthy or desirable sexual activity. Of course, not that many years ago, they would have had the same pathetic fears about young people being drawn into gay sex, bisexuality or cross-dressing. Such misguided bigotry is no longer acceptable, but it's okay to shift it to other sexual minorities or activities.

There's also talk about body image, even though porn features a bigger variety of shapes, sizes, ages, races and everything else than you'll ever find in the mainstream media. Bizarrely, the report at one point seems to think that professional porn producers are digitally enhancing their performers, which frankly credits them with more tech savvy and bigger budgets than they actually have.

What's curious about this report – and the way it has been hyped to the press – is that in the end, it can't offer any evidence to back up its claims. The section 'what do we know and are confident about' is, despite the title, full of inconsistencies. Much seems to rely on Swedish research, and Sweden of course is a hub of hardline anti-sex feminism. Even here, it has dubious conclusions - “a sample of Swedish female teenagers indicating that four out of five believed that porn influences people’s behaviour and that 32 per cent of those who viewed it believed it had influenced them.” In other words, the old “it doesn't affect me but does affect other people” claim. And this is quoted as 'evidence'?

It's also claimed that studies show that exposure to porn increases the belief that “women are sex objects”. But that's a rather loaded statement. What does it mean? That men are more likely to objectify women and treat them accordingly in day-to-day life? Or that they are more likely to admit to finding women who appear in erotic materials sexy? It's rather unclear and there is a considerable difference. Throwing out buzzwords without further explanation is hardly good enough.

Given that this section – the bit they are 'confident' about – is so full of half-facts, suppositions, inconclusive statements and caveats (“it should be noted that the majority of this research is cross- sectional and correlational and therefore causal relationships cannot be established” typical of the notes that have been ignored by both the media and the moral campaigners), it's unsurprising that the rest of the report is even less conclusive and yet makes bigger leaps in its statements, some of which conflict with the earlier, more 'solid' evidence. It's a real mess, quite honestly. But in the summary, the following (ignored by the media) are noteworthy:

Finding 6: We do not know what effect viewing violent images has on children
and young people

Finding 7: We cannot draw conclusions about causality

In other words, no evidence to back up the hysteria. But as we saw with the Bailey Report, the fact that there is no evidence no longer means that we conclude that the hysteria is unfounded. No, the problem exists, and even if we can't actually prove that it is a problem, we'll still claim that it is anyway. The 'conclusion' of the study, despite no evidence to back any of this up, is that “exposure to sexualised and violent imagery affects children and young people and that there are links between violent attitudes and violent media”. Because we say so.

The problem with this sort of 'research' is that, as well as being done with conclusions already in place (you don't study a 'problem' unless you think it is a problem, after all), it tends to rely mostly on interviews with young people (similar again to the Video Violence and Children farce in the 80s), and therefore relies on them telling the truth. It's unsurprising that girls will claim to be uninterested in porn, given that we still have a slut-shaming society where female desire is frowned on – notably, the report says that the “youngest women were the most negative. Older females reported more positive views.” Naturally – as girls get older, they often become more confident in their own sexuality and less worried about their 'reputation'. A 20 year old, possibly sexually active and certainly more worldly-wise and gender-savvy, is probably going to be less worried about what other people think of her than a 12 year old. Or perhaps they've simply been 'sexualised', made to falsely believe that they have the right to express their sexuality as they see fit. After all, anti-sex campaigners seem fixated on the idea that women are too simple-minded to make their own choices.

The report ends by welcoming the work of Claire Perry MP – ardent anti-sex and pro-censorship campaigner. And why not? It was effectively written to help her campaign to censor the internet and ensure that no-one develops an interest in sex that goes beyond lights off, missionary position with the same person for the whole of your life. The fact that internet blocking won't end with Youporn is something we are not supposed to think about.