Thousands of innocent people in the UK could be incriminated and face jail time because of the Government’s “draconian” porn laws.
CREDIT: ©-lofilolo-Depositphotos
A new report reveals that thousands of innocent porn consumers and in particular gay men could find themselves facing jail time because of the UK’s laws surrounding porn consumption.
The Adam Smith Institute who released the report are calling on David Cameron to abandon the “absurd” pornographic laws. The report argues that there is no concrete evidence that pornography increases cases of sexual violence, and that the laws – designed to convict paedophiles and necrophiliacs – are so broad that they threaten the private sexual matters of over half of Britain.
The report suggests that obscenity law needs to be redrafted as the current legislation is so sweeping that even those who receive unsolicited images on Whatsapp, for example, could find themselves charged with possession of extreme pornographic images.
What are the UK’s porn laws?
In December 2014 pornography produced in the UK was subject to strict rules. The types of scenes which studios could film were severely restricted with an amendment to the 2003 Communications Act.
Some of the activities banned by the Conservative government could overtly affect the porn consumption of gay men in the UK – including those who watch BDSM, rimming (facesitting) and fisting.
The two latter viewed by the BBFC as potentially “life endangering”.
A list of banned scenes in the UK was drawn up by the Independent and includes:
Spanking
Caning
Aggressive whipping
Penetration by any object “associated with violence”
Physical or verbal abuse (regardless of if consensual)
Urolagnia (known as “water sports”)
Role-playing as non-adults
Physical restraint
Humiliation
Female ejaculation
Strangulation
Facesitting
Fisting
A survey by the British Sexual Fantasy research Project in 2007, of 19,000 adults in the UK, found that 86% of men and 56% of women admitted to having viewed pornography, with a third of adults fantasising about playing a dominant or aggressive role during sex, and a third fantasising about being submissive.
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Six per cent of UK adults, or approximately 2.9 million men and women, admitted to privately having violent sexual fantasies of some kind, meaning that hundreds of thousands of normal people who pose no specific risk of committing sexual offences could be targeted as criminals under the extreme porn law.
Sam Bowman, Executive Director of the Adam Smith Institute said,
“Most people don’t want the government in their bedrooms, but that’s what extreme porn laws do. This report highlights just how bad these laws really are – they turn millions of law-abiding adults into potential criminals simply for enjoying consensual spanking or dressing up in the bedroom. The evidence is very clear that pornography does not drive violence, and indeed it may reduce it. These are badly drafted laws that should never have made it to the statute books, and this report confirms the urgent need for the government to scrap them.”
Nick Cowen, author of the paper said,
“The extreme porn ban criminalises depictions of sex acts even if they are safely performed by consenting adults. We have seen the law used, in particular, to target and expose gay men. Each such case represents a personal tragedy and a disgraceful use of our criminal justice system’s scarce resources. The costs of the law are disproportionate to any public benefit, and as implemented cannot plausibly protect women’s interests for which the ban was supposedly introduced.”
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