New UK legislation expands banned porn

Thanks to Diogenes for calling attention to this development. He posted his update on OC, probably because this does not deal directly with child porn. It does, however, criminalize porn in which participants, even if adult, pretend to be under 16. Even without that specific relevance, I think it deserves attention on the main board as a significant expansion of porn policing. It isn't surprising that this step has been taken in the UK. The UK has been leading the way in sex policing for some time now, as some of the commentary in the video linked by Diogenes points out. (I would include the Cass Report as part of this trend, though Diogenes and others might disagree. I very much like Helena, to whose videos Diogenes has linked before and does again in this context. She is a trans woman and has a video on trans issues with which I largely agree. I recommend it, but I hope I can avoid sidetracking this post into a trans debate.) Diogenes seems to draw largely pessimistic conclusions from this development, and I can understand that. But I think there is an argument to be made that this is a positive development for those of us whose tastes in porn were already criminalized. Diogenes is correct in pointing out that "no one can oppose them without seeming to publicly disclose their own fetishes," and this is a point that Helena also makes. But expanding porn policing beyond stigmatization of age gap sex risks provoking backlash. There is, perhaps, no guarantee that this backlash will be powerful enough to derail the present expansion, much less that it will persuade anyone to question whether it is rational to criminalize porn involving either actual or imaginary adolescents or children. But I would suggest the possibility that this step, or if not this step the next one, might prove to be more than the general population is willing to tolerate. hugzu ;-p (Boychat.org link) Burnham's govt goes full Taliban on wanking (Diogenes OC post)