David Sullivan, photographed in London on 7 April 2016, represents a bygone era. The day of the celebrity 'porn baron' is over, but the vileness he peddled has evolved into something far worse, argues Joan Smith.
Sullivan's Legacy: Normalizing Exploitation
While Sullivan denies wrongdoing, he built his fortune on the idea of women's bodies as consumable objects. His era laid the groundwork for the 21st-century porn industry, which is now more violent and accessible than ever. A time when female breasts appeared daily in national newspapers, part of a culture that stripped and infantilized women, presenting very young 'girls' with a wink, as if it were all a joke. Feminists who objected were dismissed as killjoys, though the campaign against 'Page 3' ultimately succeeded.
This week's Panorama programme revisited that era, focusing on Sullivan's alleged activities. He made a fortune from sex shops and sleazy tabloid newspapers. The allegations, which Sullivan angrily denies, claim he 'interviewed' young women at his Essex mansion and demanded sex in return for furthering their careers as 'glamour models'. The women's stories were horrifying.
When the claims were put to Sullivan, he resigned as joint chair of West Ham football club, though he denies any illegal conduct and remains its largest shareholder with a 38.8% stake. This may be the first major challenge for the new independent football regulator, which has powers to remove owners who fail to meet 'required levels of honesty, integrity, competence and financial soundness'.
The Normalization of Soft Porn
What was most striking about the programme was its insight into a period of purported sexual freedom. 'Soft porn' was normalized in tabloid newspapers, as though everyone involved was a consenting adult and it was harmless fun. In reality, the 'girls' appearing in Sullivan's Sunday Sport 'Countdown to 16' feature were so young that they would now be legally regarded as children under the Children Act 2004. Even without allegations of sexual predation, the inequality and exploitation inherent in the porn industry were always hiding in plain sight.
Sullivan's Sport newspapers used sexualized images of underage girls as 'bait for predatory men'. It's worth remembering that his titles tapped into a culture where one of the most popular primetime TV shows featured comedian Benny Hill, who regularly appeared grinning smugly alongside young women in swimwear. 'Scantily clad' was a favoured euphemism, while semi-naked women were described as 'topless'. A telling critique of the 1960s sexual revolution is that it mainly benefited heterosexual men, and the exhibition of young women in popular culture a couple of decades later was one of its most perverse outcomes.
The Porn Paradox
Footage of Sullivan preening in the 80s and 90s is toe-curling. His career is an indictment of the faux-liberation promoted by the commercial sex industry, pretending that the 'product' – young and inexperienced women – had as much power and choice as the men who controlled them. There is a paradox: porn exited most tabloid newspapers decades ago but simply migrated elsewhere. The porn industry is more ubiquitous than ever, accessible by any schoolchild with a smartphone, and most content today is anything but soft. Videos showing rape, strangulation, and sexual humiliation have become routine, accompanied by an epidemic of violence against women. According to official statistics, girls aged 15 to 19 experience one of the highest rates of sexual assault, often blamed on repeated exposure of boys and young men to violent porn.
The Modern Equivalent: OnlyFans
Becoming an OnlyFans 'star' is the current version of the 1980s 'glamour model', with the same promise of wealth and fame. The women who spoke to Panorama described the dreadful impact of their alleged encounters with Sullivan, including feeling suicidal. It's hard to believe that young women who consent to ever more extreme stunts on OnlyFans will emerge entirely unscathed. But there is a big difference: owners of sites like Pornhub keep a low profile, avoiding the publicity chased by Sullivan when he owned the Sport titles.
The day of the highly visible porn baron is over. Sullivan is 77 and feels like a relic, a cut-price version of the Hugh Hefners and Larry Flynts who dominated the US porn industry for decades. But that does not let Sullivan or our own era off the hook. The culture he promoted in the 80s and 90s was anything but benign, encouraging the notion that women's bodies are consumable objects. It was the precursor of the 21st-century porn industry, creating conditions for something much worse.
Joan Smith is an author, journalist, and former chair of the mayor of London's violence against women and girls board.
