Oh boy. Where do I start? Some of you will no doubt have read the story in the Independent today where it lists the new sexual acts that are banned in UK pornography. If you haven’t then you’ll be interested to know the following acts are not allowed to be shot in porn shoots here in the UK any more:
Spanking
Caning
Aggressive whipping
Penetration by any object “associated with violence”
Physical or verbal abuse (regardless of if consensual)
Urolagnia (known as “water sports”)
Female ejaculation
Strangulation
Facesitting
Fisting
The theme here is clearly violence but what about consensual violence? No-one knows what goes on behind closed doors and the amount of people who enjoy consensual violence is far higher than most people imagine. Porn shoots will often have acts of domination and that often goes hand in hand with consensual acts of violence. The thing that is also clear though is this list seems to lean heavily towards acts from which women derive the most pleasure and the FemDom porn industry is going to be hurt substantially by this.
I have written before abut how we need to be more open as a society with our viewpoints towards sex and sexuality. Just because something isn’t someone’s cup of tea, they shouldn’t judge that others and we certainly shouldn’t be banning it and making it harder for people to explore their erotic desires.
This isn’t the time or place to talk openly about my views towards sex and sexuality but if you know me well then you’ll know that I’m pretty open and liberal sexually (despite my distinct lack of actual first hand knowledge). I think what happens between two (or more) consenting adults is all fair game and heck, life is hard enough without being judged for what we may or may not like in bed. I look at that list and I can only see one thing listed that I wouldn’t try (not including female ejaculation obviously, because you know, genetically I’d probably struggle with that). I can say that I have watched porn that includes all ten of the newly banned things on that list. I’m happy to admit that. Some of what I’ve watched has been extremely exciting and interesting and I’d watch more and I’d be involved in many of those scenarios, in both positions.
The problem is some people in gray suits have decided that because someone might enjoy watching people be spanked or being verbally abused or degraded that it is a ‘slippery slope’ to those people going out and committing crimes to fulfill their fantasies. I would love to see the evidence of this. I really would. Also banning it would surely drive some of these people to find new ways to get their rocks off so to speak? Pushing sexual things underground only goes to pushing a problem under the carpet, out of sight, out of mind and all that but here’s the thing – their isn’t a problem.
There is a beautiful comment on that story in the Independent, ‘As a hard working taxpayer I feel I have the right to unwind in the evening and watch a woman being strangled while she urinates with someone’s fist up her arse.
Who is in charge of this madness?‘
You’ve got to chuckle by he/she is right. I know people who like to be strangled. I know people who like to be strangled so much they lose control of their bladder. I know people who like being fisted. I know people who would like to watch such an encounter. Why shouldn’t the people who enjoy it not be able to be filmed and paid for such a shoot and why should people not be allowed to purchase said video? It is just an example of a government overstepping their remit and trying to impose their sense of moral judgment on those who might have more open morals. It isn’t governments place to tell us what is good and what is bad.
I believe strongly in individual freedom for people to live their lives how they see fit as long as they aren’t harming anyone else. If people want to sell and buy sex freely then so be it. I have long been for the legalisation of prostitution for people who freely want to sell and buy sex. The same is true of pornography. If the people involved are consenting and they are adults then who has the right to tell these people that they shouldn’t be allowed to do it? No-one.
Also what the hell is wrong with seeing a female ejaculate? I mean c’mon. What is wrong with facesitting? What is wrong with water sports? What is wrong with spanking? I could go on but you get the picture.
Yes you’ll see a tiny fraction of people watch violence towards women or men and become obsessed and want to find harder core stuff and eventually get to a place where they could go on to do something nasty in the real world with without consent. However you can’t legislate for the tiny minority. At some point you need to take a step back and allow humans to live their lives how they see fit as long as they don’t hurt others. This change to the 2003 Communications Act has gone beyond that and are treating humans as creatures that quite simply cannot be trusted.
It is moves like this that instead of protecting potential victims down the road actually does the opposite. If you starve a person of something they won’t just forget about it and move on, they’ll become more active in seeking what they want and if they can’t find it by their usual means of porn then they may take things into their own hands. So it falls down on two points. It hurts on the fact that government are legislating against adults having free will in the porn they wish to create or watch and it also will probably cause more issues down the road as fewer people will be open and will try to suppress their sexual desires until they explode.
Bravo government. Bravo.
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