Given I’m currently visiting the UK, it seems appropriate to rant about their increasingly stupid pornography laws. Last year they were targeting a ban on depictions of choking. Earlier this year they went after depictions of sex acts between step family members. That last one is particularly stupid because they’re banning the fictional depiction of something that’s not actually illegal in the UK. So by all means fuck your step brother/sister/mom/whatever, just don’t pretend to do so on film.
It is of course reasonable to say that you don’t care about either of these kinks. The problem with that view is that the kind of government that’ll pass these laws is unlikely to stop there. Is a politician that votes for these bills going to take a different tack on say ABDL? Or Mommy Domme scenes? Or even just any regular kind of BDSM? If you think someone watching two porn actors call each other ‘step-sister/brother’ deserves jail time, what about watching a domme beat up a ‘helpless’ guy and then piss on him? Is an MP going to stand up and say there was a good argument for the step-family porn ban, but watersports and bondage deserve protection under the law?
From a selfish perspective, I find it particularly depressing. The UK is the obvious place for me to relocate if the US political situation continues to deteriorate. Yet here we have a left wing government wasting time on some seriously stupid stuff. This is a country where just 2.7% of reported rapes result in charges and the trials themselves face growing backlogs. You’d think the clear and obvious massive harm there would be a priority over what fictional material people jerk off to, but apparently not.
As far as I know this kind of image is still OK to share. But frankly who can tell? I don’t think that’s supposed to be the step-mom standing behind, but imagine trying to debate that fact in court.
The artwork is by Rosie-BRS over at DeviantArt.
Panic on the Streets of London?
Sadly, the British state has succumbed to yet another dreary fit of illiberal, moral panic. The latest strictures on BDSM pornography is just the old puritanical, anti-sex urge masquerading as progressive “harm reduction.”
Hopefully, the vibrant kink social life of London will remain unaffected. If not, there’s always Berlin . . .
PP
Yeah, these periodic moral panics are the worst. Any one of them is bad, but the combined effects are terrible. I doubt it’ll affect the London scene too much, but the online world definitely takes a big hit each time. And I really, really need to go check out Berlin sometime. Seems like a city I’d really enjoy.
-paltego
Under British law you cannot consent to an act that causes you harm which means that spanking and other C.P. practices are illegal. Most of us have reacted in the usual British fashion which is to just ignore this and carry on spanking, and it appears that the authorities are doing the same. However should their attitude change I wonder what will happen.
There never actually was a film called “Carry on Spanking” but a 70’s British sex comedy (if that’s not an oxymoron) called “Ups and Downs of a Handyman” comes pretty close.
Ignoring it is I think the widespread default position. The problem is it puts you in the hands of whatever mood the local authorities are in. Most of the time they’ll probably not chase anyone … right up to the moment they do. And of course it gives another cudgel to use to anyone they don’t like for other reasons. Maybe they’ll go after a domme or a client for a different thing, and use these kind of laws for extra leverage. Can’t express how much I hate these attacks on civil liberties.
I would happily have watched Hatty Jacques and Barbara Windsor in a ‘Carry on Spanking’ 🙂
I feel obliged to mention that, as a socialist, I absolutely do not regard our current government as ‘left wing’.
Well, it’s a relative term. They’re certainly left of where the US is these days. Not all that left by the traditional UK splits
-paltego