UK Porn Consumers Could Be Facing Arrest
Posted at 1:48 PM Apr 29, 2008
In the United Kingdom the Obscene Publications Act, which was first introduced in 1857 (though it has changed over the years to keep up with the times), has traditionally been used to prosecute pornographers and retailers that sell porn.
But with a bill outlawing the possession of "violent and extreme pornography" set to become law next week, UK porn consumers face the possibility of being prosecuted for owning porn marked as objectionable.
Liz Longhurst, whose daughter Jane Longhurst was murdered in 2003 by Graham Coutts, has been a strong force behind the bill. In his murder trial, Graham Coutts was revealed to have a fetish for breath play - he had downloaded a large cache of strangulation porn the day before choking Jane Longhurst to death.
This new law could criminalize porn material made with performers who are fully consenting to the work. Though intense BDSM play is obviously not to everyone's liking, the fact that material depicting "an act which threatens or appears to threaten a person's life" (a phrase from the bill) leaves a hell of a lot up to interpretation.
The questions remain: does violent porn inspire people to do non-consensual harm to others? Or even - would people find inspiration for their fetishes without seeing or reading about them first?
--Audacia Ray
Learn more:
Read When does kinky porn become illegal? on the BBC News
Wikipedia article on the UK's Obscene Publications Act
Wikipedia article on Graham Coutts
more: News
this law disturbs me a great deal...it's always been a common tactic to blame the porn/music/book for the acts of a defendant rather than the defendant themselves. A BDSM film never killed anyone, another person did.
Posted by: Ren at April 29, 2008 4:25 PM
Thanks for publicising this issue. The plans have been on the board for some 2 years now, and are in the final stages of going through Parliament. We've been fighting, and winning every argument but still the government has forced it through regardless.
Other links:
The campaign against the proposed law
The message board for those interested in the campaign
The wiki set up to pool resources and information about the issues
Posted by: SnowdropExplodes at April 29, 2008 5:41 PM
