Who is Flora Gill? Why Amber Rudd's daughter faces Twitter backlash after ‘entry-level porn’ for children idea

Flora Gill, a British journalist, has faced considerable backlash online following a Tweet about “entry-level porn” aimed at children.

This is what you need to know.

Who is Flora Gill?

Gill is the daughter of ex-Tory Minister Amber Rudd, and the late writer and critic A A Gill.

Gill is a freelance journalist who has written for the likes of Grazia, Evening Standard and The Sunday Times Magazine, and writes a bi-weekly sex and relationship column for GQ called “Date Night Feelings”.

She attended Oxford University, and graduated with a degree in Philosophy and Theology.

Previous articles that Gill has written include “Discovering porn at 13: two very different teenage stories” for The Sunday Times Style Magazine, “What happens when our tech gets way too horny?” for GQ, and “Why it’s okay to fancy a cartoon animal” for Spectator.

What did she say?

In a now deleted Tweet, Gill pitched an idea for “porn for children” that would focus on things like consent.

She wrote: “Someone needs to create porn for children. Hear me out. Young teens are already watching porn but they’re finding hard core, aggressive videos that give a terrible view of sex! They need entry level porn! A soft core site where everyone asks for consent and no one gets choked etc.”

Gill expanded on the idea in another Tweet, which has also since been deleted, writing: “To clarify - children means under 18. I’m talking about 14/15/16 year olds.”

While Gill deleted both Tweets, they have continued to circle on Twitter in the form of screenshots.

She also replied to some of those responding to the idea on Twitter.

Replying to one person who agreed with her idea, Gill wrote: “That’s literally all I meant! There should be porn that focuses on consent etc and we should stop pretending that under 18 year olds aren’t watching it. But I get that my wording was… abysmal.”

One person wrote: “We should do entry level beer and entry level cannabis whilst we’re at it, entry level coke. Not the best Tweets.”

Gill replied: “Well we kind of do have entry level alcohol. You can drink wine with a meal years before you can drink spirits at a bar.”

Replying to one person who suggested that children be kept away from porn entirely, she wrote: “I think it’s very hard to keep teens away from porn. Most 14/15 year olds understand computers far better than their parents and will easily work a VPN.”

Why did she delete the Tweet?

Gill said that the wording of her Tweet was “abysmal” and that she didn’t want to get swept up into a “Twitter cesspool”.

Gill wrote: “Absolutely not getting swept up into another Twitter cesspool so deleted the Tweet before it picks up steam!

“Obviously not an actual solution, but it is a real problem. Everyone take a deep breath.”

She followed up with another Tweet, writing: “Apropros of nothing, I really think that if someone quickly deletes a Tweet, it shouldn’t be screenshotted and shared like… just let it die, you know? No? No one else agree?”