Extreme pornography
Encyclopedia
Section 63 of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008
is a piece of legislation in the United Kingdom
that criminalises possession of what it refers to as "extreme pornographic images". The law was enacted from 26 January 2009. It refers to pornography
, defined as an image "of such a nature that it must reasonably be assumed to have been produced solely or principally for the purpose of sexual arousal
", which is "grossly offensive, disgusting or otherwise of an obscene character", and portrays "in an explicit and realistic way" any of the following:
and a reasonable person looking at the image would think that any such person or animal was real.
The term covers staged acts, and applies whether or not the participants consent. Classified works are exempt, but an extract from a classified work, if the image was extracted for the purpose of sexual arousal, would not be exempt. Whether an image is "pornographic" or not is up to the magistrate or jury to determine simply by looking at the image; it is not a question of the intentions of those who produced the image. If an image is held in a person's possession as part of a larger series of images, the question of whether it is pornographic is also determined by the context in which it appears. Therefore an image might be legal in some contexts, but not in other contexts. Serious injury is not defined by the act, but is up to the magistrate or jury. Guidance on the bill gives examples of acts which would be covered: depictions of hanging, suffocation, or sexual assault involving a threat with a weapon; the insertion of sharp objects into or the mutilation of breasts or genitals.
The definition of "obscene" is not the same as that used in the Obscene Publications Acts, which requires that an image "deprave and corrupt" those likely to view it; instead this is the ordinary dictionary definition of "obscene". "Grossly offensive" and "disgusting" are given as examples of "obscene".
There is a defence for the defendant if he can prove that he "directly participated" in the act, and where the participants consented, but only if the acts are those that can be legally consented to in the UK (see Operation Spanner
). This defence is also not available to the photographer, or other "onlookers" who were present, but did not directly participate.
Where clauses (a) or (b) apply (of the above), the maximum sentence is 3 years; otherwise the maximum is 2 years. Adults sentenced to at least two years will be placed on the Violent and Sex Offender Register
.
's conviction in February 2004, the Government and police forces called for "violent" adult pornography sites to be shut down. Jane Longhurst's mother and sister launched a campaign against such sites. A petition promoted by MP Martin Salter
which gained 50,000 signatures was submitted to the government demanding a ban of "extreme internet sites promoting violence against women in the name of sexual gratification".
The Government was unsuccessful in shutting down such sites, since they are based in other countries and are legally made with consenting adults. In August 2005, the British government consulted on instead criminalising the possession of such images.
On 30 August 2006, the government published the results of the consultation and announced its intention to introduce a possession ban on all extreme pornography as soon as the legislative timetable allows. Opinions on the proposals were sharply divided in the consultation, with 61% (241 out of 397) of responses rejecting the need for stronger laws in this area, and 36% in favour (3% gave no opinion). The proposed maximum penalty for possession of these images was three years imprisonment.
On 26 June 2007, the government published the plans as part of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill. The bill extended the scope of the proposals from "serious, disabling injury" to "serious injury".
The law came into force on 26 January 2009.
In July 2009, Baroness O'Cathain proposed an amendment to the Coroners and Justice Act
that would bring in an equivalent law for "extreme pornographic writings".
As of June 2009, The Register claimed that, according to their sources within law enforcement, there have been two or three prosecutions against people selling Chinese pirated DVDs, which include some bestiality DVDs. A later case in 2010 also involved the use against someone selling pirated DVDs. In January 2011 a South African national living in Berkshire was sentenced to 12 months in prison to followed by deportation
for having downloaded 261 videos of people having sex with dogs, pigs, horses and donkeys. He also received additional concurrent sentences of two months and one month for four images of children which he had also downloaded, it was claimed inadvertently.
On 31 December 2009, a man was found not guilty under the law. The man was cleared by the judge after the prosecution offered no evidence against him. The film he was charged with possessing depicted a sexual act with a tiger, but it emerged that the tiger in the film was not real, and the image was a joke. Police and prosecutors admitted that they had not listened to the film with sound turned on. In March 2010 the same man pleaded guilty on a second charge for a six second video clip involving humans. He later changed his plea to Not Guilty due to advice from the organisation Backlash, and the charges were later dropped. The law has been used against people possessing only images of human adults (as opposed to the animal clauses), who have pleaded guilty.
On 6 January, the jury took only 90 minutes to return a unanimous verdict of not guilty. The judge told them afterwards that this trial had been a test case, and that the legislation in question was still being interpreted.
backed a call to ban adult pornography as the Equal Opportunities
Committee supported a petition claiming links between porn and sexual crimes and violence against women and children. A spokeswoman said "While we have no plans to legislate we will, of course, continue to monitor the situation." In 2007, MSPs looked again at criminalising adult pornography, in response to a call from Scottish Women Against Pornography for pornography to be classified as a hate crime against women. This was opposed by Feminists Against Censorship
.
In September 2008, Scotland announced its own plans to criminalise possession of "extreme" pornography, extending the law further, including depictions of rape imagery
and other non-consensual penetrative sexual activity (whether or not the participants actually consented). The new law is included in Section 42 of the Criminal Justice and Licensing (Scotland) Act 2010, and covers images which realistically depict:
Again, the law covers images of staged acts, and applies whether or not the participants actually consented.
Material is considered extreme pornography only if the main purpose of creating it was to produce sexual arousal. This rules out most mainstream films, documentaries, war footage or instructional videos, regardless of content, though these would be included if images were extracted from them for the purpose of sexual arousal. Textual material or cartoon depictions are also excluded regardless of theme or detail.
The consultation stated "it is possible that such material may encourage or reinforce interest in violent and aberrant sexual activity to the detriment of society as a whole" but also that they do not have "sufficient evidence from which to draw any definite conclusions as to the likely long term impact of this kind of material" and that there was an "absence of conclusive research results as to its possible negative effects".
The consultation cited the case of Graham Coutts who killed Jane Longhurst, suggesting a link between violent pornography and the murder. Coutts had previously accessed websites that offered such pornography, although he had been practicing erotic asphyxia for five years before exposure to such material, and had told psychiatrists in 1991 that he feared his thoughts may lead to criminal behaviour.
The Government also wishes to criminalize possession of the material in order to attempt to reduce the risk of children coming into contact with it. The consultation cited a study which reported "57% of all 9-19 year olds surveyed who use the Internet at least once a week had come into contact with pornography online", but it did not distinguish between different forms of pornography, and the government has no plans to criminalize all pornography for the same reason.
In discussing the 2006 quashing of the conviction of Coutts, Jane Longhurst's purported killer, a barrister supporting the Backlash
stance observed:
In September 2007 the Government published a Rapid Evidence Assessment by Catherine Itzin
, Ann Taket and Liz Kelly, investigating "the evidence of harm relating to exposure to extreme pornographic material". This was criticised in a statement signed by over forty academics as being "extremely poor, based on contested findings and accumulated results. It is one-sided and simply ignores the considerable research tradition into "extreme" (be they violent or sexually explicit) materials within the UK's Humanities and Social Sciences."
The law has been criticised as likely breaching Articles 8 and 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights
. The Government also states this, but believes "this is justified as being in accordance with the law, and necessary in a democratic society for the prevention of crime, for the protection of morals and for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others".
The Government has conflated the issue with participants being abused in the production of such images, with Martin Salter claiming the existence of snuff film
s where women are raped and murdered on camera in Guatemala
. However, no such examples of images have been shown to exist, and the sites referred to by the Government are instead those produced in the UK and US with consenting actors (see "Sites labelled as "extreme pornography"", below).
The law has been criticised for criminalising images where no crime took place in their creation. In the House of Lords debates, Lord Wallace of Tankerness stated "Having engaged in it consensually would not be a crime, but to have a photograph of it in one's possession would be a crime. That does not seem to me to make sense." The law has also been criticised for covering images of consenting adults, for example including some forms of BDSM
or bondage pornography
.
In 2009, the organisation Comic Shop Voice said that the law may result in the ban certain comic books, such as Watchmen
, Batman: The Killing Joke
and several collections of manga
. They said in a statement: "Because this is a minefield for the law it then falls on the Police to enforce it, and it is their judgement that could lead to a prosecution. We COULD get to a point where the police could legitimately visit your home or workplace, and sanctioned by an un-elected magistrate or judge go through your collection and if they find any comic book that they feel will cause sexual arousal or displays extreme violence then they could arrest you."
A group of King's College London students have produced a film in 2010, Hanging Perverts, debating the perils and moral issues behind the law. It includes interviews with several public and political figures, such as Baroness Sue Miller
of the Liberal Democrats, bondage photographer Ben Westwood, son of Vivienne Westwood
, as well as people working in the industry, such as hardcore BDSM pornographic actress Masie Dee.
listed the websites "necrobabes", "deathbyasphyxia" and "hanging bitches" as examples of sites that should be shut down.
Membership of Necrobabes was used as evidence in the murder trial of Patrick Anthony Russo, a musical director at a Texas church, who murdered Diane Holik in 2001. During the subsequent police investigation it was found out that Russo had been a paying subscriber to Necrobabes. Partly because of his Necrobabes membership and other evidence found from his computer, including browser history and web searches for "asphyx
", Russo was found guilty of strangling Holik to death.
Russo was given a life sentence.
However, the site owners assert "The material we produce is fanciful, even cartoonish in many regards; there is nothing realistic about it. Our viewers know this. Far from normalizing violence, it relegates it squarely into the realm of fantasy." It states that scenes are simulated, and that no one was harmed during the making of our photo stories and videos. They claim that, contrary to the aforementioned petition, they "do not encourage nor condone real-life violence against others". The site states that there is no pornography on the site, and claims that it is exempt from the record keeping requirements of 18 U.S.C. § 2257
, because there are no images of actual sexually explicit conduct.
The site is registered with the ICRA
so that it can be blocked by Microsoft
Internet Explorer
's Parental Controls. As of December 2009, the site's contents are unavailable.
referred to sites such as Necrobabes as "sick".
The Guardian
suggested that the worst still from Hitchcock
's Frenzy
"is easily the equal of any Necrobabes gore".
The site has been covered in the US media, which support that the site is entirely fantasy using consenting models.
.
launched a campaign in 2005 to challenge the joint UK Home Office and Scottish Executive proposals to criminalize simple possession of material.
The Consenting Adult Action Network
is a growing grass-roots network which opposes the law and any other legislation that restricts the sexual choices of consenting adults. It has organised protests against the new law.
Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008
The Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom which makes significant changes in many areas of the criminal justice system in England and Wales and, to a lesser extent, in Scotland and Northern Ireland...
is a piece of legislation in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
that criminalises possession of what it refers to as "extreme pornographic images". The law was enacted from 26 January 2009. It refers to pornography
Pornography
Pornography or porn is the explicit portrayal of sexual subject matter for the purposes of sexual arousal and erotic satisfaction.Pornography may use any of a variety of media, ranging from books, magazines, postcards, photos, sculpture, drawing, painting, animation, sound recording, film, video,...
, defined as an image "of such a nature that it must reasonably be assumed to have been produced solely or principally for the purpose of sexual arousal
Sexual arousal
Sexual arousal, or sexual excitement, is the arousal of sexual desire, during or in anticipation of sexual activity. Things that precipitate human sexual arousal are called erotic stimuli, or colloquially known as turn-ons. There are many potential stimuli, both physical or mental, which can cause...
", which is "grossly offensive, disgusting or otherwise of an obscene character", and portrays "in an explicit and realistic way" any of the following:
- (a) an act which threatens a person’s life,
- (b) an act which results, or is likely to result, in serious injury to a person’s anus, breasts or genitals,
- (c) an act which involves or appears to involve sexual interference with a human corpseNecrophiliaNecrophilia, also called thanatophilia or necrolagnia, is the sexual attraction to corpses,It is classified as a paraphilia by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association. The word is artificially derived from the ancient Greek words: νεκρός and φιλία...
, - (d) a person performing or appearing to perform an act of intercourse or oral sexOral sexOral sex is sexual activity involving the stimulation of the genitalia of a sex partner by the use of the mouth, tongue, teeth or throat. Cunnilingus refers to oral sex performed on females while fellatio refer to oral sex performed on males. Anilingus refers to oral stimulation of a person's anus...
with an animalZoophiliaZoophilia, from the Greek ζῷον and φιλία is the practice of sex between humans and non-human animals , or a preference or fixation on such practice...
(whether dead or alive),
and a reasonable person looking at the image would think that any such person or animal was real.
The term covers staged acts, and applies whether or not the participants consent. Classified works are exempt, but an extract from a classified work, if the image was extracted for the purpose of sexual arousal, would not be exempt. Whether an image is "pornographic" or not is up to the magistrate or jury to determine simply by looking at the image; it is not a question of the intentions of those who produced the image. If an image is held in a person's possession as part of a larger series of images, the question of whether it is pornographic is also determined by the context in which it appears. Therefore an image might be legal in some contexts, but not in other contexts. Serious injury is not defined by the act, but is up to the magistrate or jury. Guidance on the bill gives examples of acts which would be covered: depictions of hanging, suffocation, or sexual assault involving a threat with a weapon; the insertion of sharp objects into or the mutilation of breasts or genitals.
The definition of "obscene" is not the same as that used in the Obscene Publications Acts, which requires that an image "deprave and corrupt" those likely to view it; instead this is the ordinary dictionary definition of "obscene". "Grossly offensive" and "disgusting" are given as examples of "obscene".
There is a defence for the defendant if he can prove that he "directly participated" in the act, and where the participants consented, but only if the acts are those that can be legally consented to in the UK (see Operation Spanner
Operation Spanner
Operation Spanner was the name of an operation carried out by police in the United Kingdom city of Manchester in 1987, as a result of which a group of homosexuals were convicted of assault occasioning actual bodily harm for their involvement in consensual sadomasochism over a ten year period.The...
). This defence is also not available to the photographer, or other "onlookers" who were present, but did not directly participate.
Where clauses (a) or (b) apply (of the above), the maximum sentence is 3 years; otherwise the maximum is 2 years. Adults sentenced to at least two years will be placed on the Violent and Sex Offender Register
Violent and Sex Offender Register
In the United Kingdom, the Violent and Sex Offender Register is a database of records of those required to register with the Police under the Sexual Offences Act 2003, those jailed for more than 12 months for violent offences, and unconvicted people simply thought to be at risk of offending...
.
History
After Graham CouttsGraham Coutts
Graham Coutts is the man convicted of murdering school teacher Jane Longhurst on 14 March 2003. At the time, he was a guitarist and part-time salesman living in Brighton, UK. Coutts claimed that Longhurst had died accidentally during consensual erotic asphyxiation, although the prosecution...
's conviction in February 2004, the Government and police forces called for "violent" adult pornography sites to be shut down. Jane Longhurst's mother and sister launched a campaign against such sites. A petition promoted by MP Martin Salter
Martin Salter
Martin John Salter is a British Labour Party politician who was the Member of Parliament for Reading West from 1997 to 2010.-Early life:...
which gained 50,000 signatures was submitted to the government demanding a ban of "extreme internet sites promoting violence against women in the name of sexual gratification".
The Government was unsuccessful in shutting down such sites, since they are based in other countries and are legally made with consenting adults. In August 2005, the British government consulted on instead criminalising the possession of such images.
On 30 August 2006, the government published the results of the consultation and announced its intention to introduce a possession ban on all extreme pornography as soon as the legislative timetable allows. Opinions on the proposals were sharply divided in the consultation, with 61% (241 out of 397) of responses rejecting the need for stronger laws in this area, and 36% in favour (3% gave no opinion). The proposed maximum penalty for possession of these images was three years imprisonment.
On 26 June 2007, the government published the plans as part of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill. The bill extended the scope of the proposals from "serious, disabling injury" to "serious injury".
The law came into force on 26 January 2009.
In July 2009, Baroness O'Cathain proposed an amendment to the Coroners and Justice Act
Coroners and Justice Act 2009
-External links:*, as amended from the National Archives.*, as originally enacted from the National Archives.* to the Coroners and Justice Act 2009....
that would bring in an equivalent law for "extreme pornographic writings".
Notable uses
A 20 year old St Helens man was prosecuted for having "extreme" images involving women and animals on 10 February 2009. The images were reported by a PC repair shop. He was given an 18-month supervision order, 24 hours at an attendance centre, and had to pay costs of £65.As of June 2009, The Register claimed that, according to their sources within law enforcement, there have been two or three prosecutions against people selling Chinese pirated DVDs, which include some bestiality DVDs. A later case in 2010 also involved the use against someone selling pirated DVDs. In January 2011 a South African national living in Berkshire was sentenced to 12 months in prison to followed by deportation
Deportation
Deportation means the expulsion of a person or group of people from a place or country. Today it often refers to the expulsion of foreign nationals whereas the expulsion of nationals is called banishment, exile, or penal transportation...
for having downloaded 261 videos of people having sex with dogs, pigs, horses and donkeys. He also received additional concurrent sentences of two months and one month for four images of children which he had also downloaded, it was claimed inadvertently.
On 31 December 2009, a man was found not guilty under the law. The man was cleared by the judge after the prosecution offered no evidence against him. The film he was charged with possessing depicted a sexual act with a tiger, but it emerged that the tiger in the film was not real, and the image was a joke. Police and prosecutors admitted that they had not listened to the film with sound turned on. In March 2010 the same man pleaded guilty on a second charge for a six second video clip involving humans. He later changed his plea to Not Guilty due to advice from the organisation Backlash, and the charges were later dropped. The law has been used against people possessing only images of human adults (as opposed to the animal clauses), who have pleaded guilty.
2011 test case
In January 2011, a man was tried before Stafford Crown Court for possession of staged images, depicting a knife attack and a drowning in a bath. The prosecution said "There is a need to regulate images portraying sexual violence, to safeguard the decency of society and for the protection of women". Expert witness Feona Attwood for the defence said the images were like stills from a 1970s Hammer horror film. The case was a landmark trial, possibly the first case tested by a jury. It was also notable as a case where he admitted that he intentionally downloaded and retained the images in question (as opposed to, for example, accidental downloading).On 6 January, the jury took only 90 minutes to return a unanimous verdict of not guilty. The judge told them afterwards that this trial had been a test case, and that the legislation in question was still being interpreted.
Scotland
In 2004 in Scotland, a committee of Members of the Scottish ParliamentMember of the Scottish Parliament
Member of the Scottish Parliament is the title given to any one of the 129 individuals elected to serve in the Scottish Parliament.-Methods of Election:MSPs are elected in one of two ways:...
backed a call to ban adult pornography as the Equal Opportunities
Equal opportunity
Equal opportunity, or equality of opportunity, is a controversial political concept; and an important informal decision-making standard without a precise definition involving fair choices within the public sphere...
Committee supported a petition claiming links between porn and sexual crimes and violence against women and children. A spokeswoman said "While we have no plans to legislate we will, of course, continue to monitor the situation." In 2007, MSPs looked again at criminalising adult pornography, in response to a call from Scottish Women Against Pornography for pornography to be classified as a hate crime against women. This was opposed by Feminists Against Censorship
Feminists Against Censorship
Feminists Against Censorship is a large network of women founded in 1989 to present the feminist arguments against censorship, particularly of sexual materials, and to defend individual sexual expression....
.
In September 2008, Scotland announced its own plans to criminalise possession of "extreme" pornography, extending the law further, including depictions of rape imagery
Rape pornography
Rape pornography is a genre of pornography involving the depiction of rape.There is debate over if this form of pornography encourages men to commit rape. The pairing of sex with violence distinguishes the issue of rape pornography from that of pornography in general...
and other non-consensual penetrative sexual activity (whether or not the participants actually consented). The new law is included in Section 42 of the Criminal Justice and Licensing (Scotland) Act 2010, and covers images which realistically depict:
- (a) an act which takes or threatens a person’s life,
- (b) an act which results, or is likely to result, in a person’s severe injury,
- (c) rape or other non-consensual penetrative sexual activity,
- (d) sexual activity involving (directly or indirectly) a human corpse,
- (e) an act which involves sexual activity between a person and an animal (or the carcase of an animal).
Again, the law covers images of staged acts, and applies whether or not the participants actually consented.
Arguments
The Government consultation stated that "the material may often cause serious physical and other harm to those involved in making it; in some cases the participants are clearly the victims of criminal offences". The consultation did not attempt to estimate the frequency of these events, and there is no evidence that such content is being distributed at all. The law would cover images whether or not the participants consented, and would include not only images where extreme violence is taking place, but also fictitious images where people are role playing such violence.Material is considered extreme pornography only if the main purpose of creating it was to produce sexual arousal. This rules out most mainstream films, documentaries, war footage or instructional videos, regardless of content, though these would be included if images were extracted from them for the purpose of sexual arousal. Textual material or cartoon depictions are also excluded regardless of theme or detail.
The consultation stated "it is possible that such material may encourage or reinforce interest in violent and aberrant sexual activity to the detriment of society as a whole" but also that they do not have "sufficient evidence from which to draw any definite conclusions as to the likely long term impact of this kind of material" and that there was an "absence of conclusive research results as to its possible negative effects".
The consultation cited the case of Graham Coutts who killed Jane Longhurst, suggesting a link between violent pornography and the murder. Coutts had previously accessed websites that offered such pornography, although he had been practicing erotic asphyxia for five years before exposure to such material, and had told psychiatrists in 1991 that he feared his thoughts may lead to criminal behaviour.
The Government also wishes to criminalize possession of the material in order to attempt to reduce the risk of children coming into contact with it. The consultation cited a study which reported "57% of all 9-19 year olds surveyed who use the Internet at least once a week had come into contact with pornography online", but it did not distinguish between different forms of pornography, and the government has no plans to criminalize all pornography for the same reason.
In discussing the 2006 quashing of the conviction of Coutts, Jane Longhurst's purported killer, a barrister supporting the Backlash
Backlash (pressure group)
Backlash is an umbrella group formed in 2005 to coordinate opposition to the “Consultation on the possession of extreme pornographic material” issued in the UK jointly by the Home Office and the Scottish Executive...
stance observed:
In September 2007 the Government published a Rapid Evidence Assessment by Catherine Itzin
Catherine Itzin
Catherine Lenore Itzin was an Honorary Research Fellow in the Violence, Abuse and Gender Relations Research Unit, Department of Applied Social Studies at the University of Bradford...
, Ann Taket and Liz Kelly, investigating "the evidence of harm relating to exposure to extreme pornographic material". This was criticised in a statement signed by over forty academics as being "extremely poor, based on contested findings and accumulated results. It is one-sided and simply ignores the considerable research tradition into "extreme" (be they violent or sexually explicit) materials within the UK's Humanities and Social Sciences."
The law has been criticised as likely breaching Articles 8 and 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights
European Convention on Human Rights
The Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms is an international treaty to protect human rights and fundamental freedoms in Europe. Drafted in 1950 by the then newly formed Council of Europe, the convention entered into force on 3 September 1953...
. The Government also states this, but believes "this is justified as being in accordance with the law, and necessary in a democratic society for the prevention of crime, for the protection of morals and for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others".
The Government has conflated the issue with participants being abused in the production of such images, with Martin Salter claiming the existence of snuff film
Snuff film
A snuff film is a motion picture genre that depicts the actual death or murder of a person or people, without the aid of special effects, for the express purpose of distribution and entertainment or financial exploitation. For-profit snuff films are generally regarded as an urban legend, whose...
s where women are raped and murdered on camera in Guatemala
Guatemala
Guatemala is a country in Central America bordered by Mexico to the north and west, the Pacific Ocean to the southwest, Belize to the northeast, the Caribbean to the east, and Honduras and El Salvador to the southeast...
. However, no such examples of images have been shown to exist, and the sites referred to by the Government are instead those produced in the UK and US with consenting actors (see "Sites labelled as "extreme pornography"", below).
The law has been criticised for criminalising images where no crime took place in their creation. In the House of Lords debates, Lord Wallace of Tankerness stated "Having engaged in it consensually would not be a crime, but to have a photograph of it in one's possession would be a crime. That does not seem to me to make sense." The law has also been criticised for covering images of consenting adults, for example including some forms of BDSM
BDSM
BDSM is an erotic preference and a form of sexual expression involving the consensual use of restraint, intense sensory stimulation, and fantasy power role-play. The compound acronym BDSM is derived from the terms bondage and discipline , dominance and submission , and sadism and masochism...
or bondage pornography
Bondage pornography
Bondage pornography specializes in the depiction of sexual bondage or BDSM activities, as photographs, stories, movies, or drawings.- Detective magazines, comic books and early fetish magazines :...
.
In 2009, the organisation Comic Shop Voice said that the law may result in the ban certain comic books, such as Watchmen
Watchmen
Watchmen is a twelve-issue comic book limited series created by writer Alan Moore, artist Dave Gibbons, and colourist John Higgins. The series was published by DC Comics during 1986 and 1987, and has been subsequently reprinted in collected form...
, Batman: The Killing Joke
Batman: The Killing Joke
Batman: The Killing Joke is an influential one-shot superhero graphic novel written by Alan Moore and drawn by Brian Bolland. First published by DC Comics in 1988, it has remained in print since then, and has also been reprinted as part of the trade paperback DC Universe: The Stories of Alan...
and several collections of manga
Manga
Manga is the Japanese word for "comics" and consists of comics and print cartoons . In the West, the term "manga" has been appropriated to refer specifically to comics created in Japan, or by Japanese authors, in the Japanese language and conforming to the style developed in Japan in the late 19th...
. They said in a statement: "Because this is a minefield for the law it then falls on the Police to enforce it, and it is their judgement that could lead to a prosecution. We COULD get to a point where the police could legitimately visit your home or workplace, and sanctioned by an un-elected magistrate or judge go through your collection and if they find any comic book that they feel will cause sexual arousal or displays extreme violence then they could arrest you."
A group of King's College London students have produced a film in 2010, Hanging Perverts, debating the perils and moral issues behind the law. It includes interviews with several public and political figures, such as Baroness Sue Miller
Susan Miller, Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer
Susan Elizabeth Miller, Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer is a Liberal Democrat member of the House of Lords.She married firstly John Miller and secondly Humphrey Temperley, both of whom were active in political life as Liberal Democrats...
of the Liberal Democrats, bondage photographer Ben Westwood, son of Vivienne Westwood
Vivienne Westwood
Dame Vivienne Westwood, DBE, RDI is a British fashion designer and businesswoman, largely responsible for bringing modern punk and new wave fashions into the mainstream.-Early life:...
, as well as people working in the industry, such as hardcore BDSM pornographic actress Masie Dee.
Sites labelled as "extreme pornography"
In 2004 following Graham Coutts's conviction, an Early Day MotionEarly day motion
An Early Day Motion , in the Westminster system, is a motion, expressed as a single sentence, tabled by Members of Parliament for debate "on an early day" . Controversial EDMs are not signed by Government Ministers, PPS or the Speaker of the House of Commons and very few are debated on the floor...
listed the websites "necrobabes", "deathbyasphyxia" and "hanging bitches" as examples of sites that should be shut down.
Necrobabes
Necrobabes is a website hosting images of women pretending to be dead. The site is subtitled "erotic horror for adults". Necrobabes was included as an example of a site that relatives of Jane Longhurst, who was murdered by Graham Coutts, thought should be banned.Membership of Necrobabes was used as evidence in the murder trial of Patrick Anthony Russo, a musical director at a Texas church, who murdered Diane Holik in 2001. During the subsequent police investigation it was found out that Russo had been a paying subscriber to Necrobabes. Partly because of his Necrobabes membership and other evidence found from his computer, including browser history and web searches for "asphyx
Asphyxia
Asphyxia or asphyxiation is a condition of severely deficient supply of oxygen to the body that arises from being unable to breathe normally. An example of asphyxia is choking. Asphyxia causes generalized hypoxia, which primarily affects the tissues and organs...
", Russo was found guilty of strangling Holik to death.
Russo was given a life sentence.
However, the site owners assert "The material we produce is fanciful, even cartoonish in many regards; there is nothing realistic about it. Our viewers know this. Far from normalizing violence, it relegates it squarely into the realm of fantasy." It states that scenes are simulated, and that no one was harmed during the making of our photo stories and videos. They claim that, contrary to the aforementioned petition, they "do not encourage nor condone real-life violence against others". The site states that there is no pornography on the site, and claims that it is exempt from the record keeping requirements of 18 U.S.C. § 2257
Child Protection and Obscenity Enforcement Act
The Child Protection and Obscenity Enforcement Act of 1988, title VII, subtitle N of the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988, , , is part of a United States Act of Congress which places stringent record-keeping requirements on the producers of actual, sexually explicit materials...
, because there are no images of actual sexually explicit conduct.
The site is registered with the ICRA
Internet Content Rating Association
Internet Content Rating Association was an international non-profit organization with offices in the United States and the United Kingdom...
so that it can be blocked by Microsoft
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
Internet Explorer
Internet Explorer
Windows Internet Explorer is a series of graphical web browsers developed by Microsoft and included as part of the Microsoft Windows line of operating systems, starting in 1995. It was first released as part of the add-on package Plus! for Windows 95 that year...
's Parental Controls. As of December 2009, the site's contents are unavailable.
Coverage
The Early Day Motion referred to Necrobabes as "corrupting". The SunThe Sun (newspaper)
The Sun is a daily national tabloid newspaper published in the United Kingdom and owned by News Corporation. Sister editions are published in Glasgow and Dublin...
referred to sites such as Necrobabes as "sick".
The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
suggested that the worst still from Hitchcock
Alfred Hitchcock
Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock, KBE was a British film director and producer. He pioneered many techniques in the suspense and psychological thriller genres. After a successful career in British cinema in both silent films and early talkies, Hitchcock moved to Hollywood...
's Frenzy
Frenzy
Frenzy is a 1972 British thriller film produced and directed by Alfred Hitchcock, and is the penultimate feature film of his extensive career. The film is based upon the novel Goodbye Piccadilly, Farewell Leicester Square by Arthur La Bern, and was adapted for the screen by Anthony Shaffer. La Bern...
"is easily the equal of any Necrobabes gore".
The site has been covered in the US media, which support that the site is entirely fantasy using consenting models.
Legality
Necrobabes is hosted in the United States and has been online since 1997. The UK Government has attempted without success to get the US authorities to shut down sites such as Necrobabes. Such images are legal in the US, and it has been claimed they would be hard to ban without violating the First AmendmentFirst Amendment to the United States Constitution
The First Amendment to the United States Constitution is part of the Bill of Rights. The amendment prohibits the making of any law respecting an establishment of religion, impeding the free exercise of religion, abridging the freedom of speech, infringing on the freedom of the press, interfering...
.
Hanging bitches
The site hangingbitches.com was run by Frans van der Hulst. The site was shut down, but he has since opened more sites. The images are produced in the United Kingdom with British model actors who have been shown alive and unharmed.Organizations
BacklashBacklash (pressure group)
Backlash is an umbrella group formed in 2005 to coordinate opposition to the “Consultation on the possession of extreme pornographic material” issued in the UK jointly by the Home Office and the Scottish Executive...
launched a campaign in 2005 to challenge the joint UK Home Office and Scottish Executive proposals to criminalize simple possession of material.
The Consenting Adult Action Network
Consenting Adult Action Network
The Consenting Adult Action Network is a grassroots network of individuals in the United Kingdom that was formed in 2008 to protest and oppose laws restricting activities between consenting adults, most notably the criminalisation of possession of "extreme pornography".- History :On 14 June and 22...
is a growing grass-roots network which opposes the law and any other legislation that restricts the sexual choices of consenting adults. It has organised protests against the new law.
External links
- House of Commons debate on 6 May 2004
- House of Commons debate on 18 May 2004
- Necrobabes
- NecroDudes - Equivalent site featuring men
- Jane Longhurst Trust
- Backlash and the Consenting Adult Action Network oppose outlawing extreme pornography.
- Summary of responses to the Consultation on the Possession of Extreme Pornographic Material
- Government consultation
- wiki collating information and arguments about the proposed law
- Point by point response to the consultation paper by Institute of Ideas Policy Watch The 2010 independent film produced about the law
- 'Law, Morality and Disgust', an academic article that considers the scope and application of the law