There are currently big questions being asked around pornography, abuse, exploitation, and online safety. Dr Elly Hanson has been asking these kinds of questions throughout her professional career as a Clinical Psychologist and has some valuable insights to offer.
Off the back of our event together back in March 2025 as part of our "Let's Talk About Porn" series, we dived into questions around sexual scripts, what actually distinguishes the good sex from the bad, and the factors that led her to focus on tackling sexual abuse, exploitation, and online harms in the first place.
With a wealth of professional experience engaging with both the lived experience of survivors and the frameworks that perpetuate abuse and online harms, this is a conversation well worth listening in on.
Dr Elly Hanson is a Clinical Psychologist with a focus on tackling sexual abuse, exploitation, and online harms. She has worked with the issues of sexual abuse and trauma for over twenty years. She undertakes research, consultation, and psychological assessments, working with educators, police, victims and survivors, and the voluntary sector. She is Research Lead of Fully Human, an initiative of the PSHE Association, and in this and other roles, has investigated how online forces have impacted children, young people and society. She authored the report Pornography and Human Futures, an analysis of online pornography’s nature and business model, and how this undermines core aspects of what it means to be human. For over ten years, she worked with CEOP (the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre, part of the UK National Crime Agency) and led their development of a preventive education resource for schools, Respecting me, you, us: Building healthy relationships and creating positive cultures. She has authored a variety of essays, papers and chapters, including those on online exploitation and how the ‘tech freedom’ ideology has been conducive to it. She is also an experienced therapist, and has previously worked with adults with addictions, children who are looked after, and children with harmful sexual behaviour.
