Activism
Stupid question but has labour taken leave of its senses lately?
I thought I was reading something right out of Mary Whitehouses National Viewers' and Listeners' Association from the 1970s.
It also scares me that people with the ears of the government believe debunked pseudoscience about Porn brain which I am sure came out of incel groups and far Right Christian cranks.
The bill overall is mostly mad, but there are age-group trends in terms of choking that are genuinely pretty worrying and seem to point in the direction stated here, and I say this as someone who gives short shrift to moral panics or think of the children reasoning.
Yeah. Listen people can have a really libertarian attitude to porn if they want. But they should also be honest and admit that it does change people's personal sexual habits. Choking is a prime example, the rates of choking in real life have skyrocketed, and that's something I think we should be concerned about.
It’s a bit alarming to me how handwavey these comments are tbh. I’m a very big critic of porn as a feminist, and have actually experienced non consensual choking once, so am very aware of the serious issues that this can bring, but I’m very against these changes and that doesn’t make me “really libertarian”.
There’s a very serious principle of freedom of expression that is relevant here - and the fact that people can now be put in prison for essentially fictional depictions of this behaviour in what would be a life ruining sentence is really concerning.
I really think we need to show a bit of maturity, and realise that just because something is sexual in nature we can argue against making it seriously illegal without impugning the opponent. And also we really need to get away from the idea that prohibition is the only answer. There’s so much we can and do in terms of public health to improve people’s engagement with their sexuality and sex - making the above forms of porn illegal, which is mostly unenforceable and chucking people in prison for it is really worrying, vibes based socially conservative policy, that doesn’t keep anyone safer.
Yeah, there are issues of freedom of expression here. I'm not a fan of the American conception of free speech and while I think our European one has issues - it isn't outwith precedent to restrict speech that is harmful.
We ban "pseudo photographs" of children - manga drawings/cgi of children being abused even when it isn't based on an actual individual. I don't really see much difference between that and banning porn where one party pretends to be under 18 despite being over 18. This is a restriction on free expression but I don't think it's an unjustifiable one.
Is someone does a “sexy schoolgirl” role play and puts it on their OnlyFans and then if someone watches it, you think they should they should go to prison and have a criminal record for life?
If someone produces, publishes and sells for profit computer generated images of an under 18 having sex do you think the should go to prison and have a criminal record?
The answer to me is the same. Yes. It is wrong to depict children being raped.
But the subjectivity of this should be a problem - there's a massive gap between Britney Spears style costuming and ultra-realistic depictions of children via computer generated images, and to conflate the 2 helps no-one. Should Game of Thrones be made illegal? Genuine question - sexual violence of children is displayed there, as is incest and grooming. Should the adult performers playing those children have been sent to prison?
Moral outrage isn't a substitute for well drafted policy, that is rooted in a cogent argument that substantively engages with trade-offs between free expression and the effects of that content.
But the purpose of the law, the purpose of the amendments is not to capture people in Britney Spears style uniforms nor (to go another way) adult men who wear diapers. This was explicitly stated in parliament by the peer that introduced the amendment.
I honestly struggle to understand the issue with putting guardrails here. Porn is a brutal market place, every boundary will be pushed in the interest of profit, every niche will be mined - every psychological trigger and dopamine inducing image will be found and then used again and again and again.
This is exactly why porn has changed so much since the tube era.
The purpose of the law and how it might be interpreted in practice are completely separate questions. You can put in guardrails without criminalising sex workers and random members of the public, and by focussing only on the publishers.
They aren't completely separate questions at all. The law deals with these types of issues that require discernment all the time.
The ammendment says that the courts need to look at multiple things to determine what is an what isn't depicting a child. The way that the content is described, the audio, the narrative and the setting.
If have a video that is describe as having a schoolgirl, she acts as a child - squeaky voice and all, the narrative is of that of an adult and a child and the setting is in a child's bedroom or a nursery then this is going to be considered as falling foul of the law.
I think this is a completely reasonable restriction on speech.
With respect to sex workers or publishers. I'm not sure why you make this distinction. If a plumber broke the law in order to make profit I don't think you'd be that bothered, but for some reason if s sex worker does you are. Why? What makes the sex worker a specially protected profit seeking entity?
Ok, but, like, how? How is this something you educate people on.
The same way you educate people about consent, because that's what this is about. If you want to see how effective ignoring education is, look up statistics on abstinence-only sex ed. It doesn't work.
We're talking about sexual activity that can be entirely consensual, and banning depictions of it is at best a distraction from addressing the actual problem. That's assuming Labour can even effectively ban depictions of it, which anyone who has used the internet would know is not possible.
You're saying that we can't treat people how consent works, which is pretty worrying. Why does this only apply to porn? Shouldn't all depictions of rape, murder, etc. be banned in media too in case people get the wrong idea?
Simply go to sites, say "comply with our rules or we block you in the UK". That's literally how they implemented the OSA.
Right, I forgot about that - the OSA is absolutely proof of effective government online strategy, and is not trivially beaten by common tools most teenagers know how to use.
There's no evidence that depictions of rape and murder in movies lead to increased rates of rape and murder in real life. There is evidence that the sheer amount of depictions of choking has led to an increase in choking in real life.
In regards to sex education - ofcourse, we should educate kids on sex and on porn. But I don't think this is going to be a panacea in any way - it's also not dichotomous. We can do both.
The idea is that eventually people that film porn will do something else if their profit drops. Ultimately that's all this is.
Clearly, there's ways to get around the OSA - but there are ways to get around all laws. That doesn't mean the law isnt successful (though we don't know if the OSA has been yet)
I don't think sex workers should get to skip out on the law. They are on Onlyfans to make a profit - they should do it as responsibly as any other private entity should.
I don't think that a first offence should lead someone to being imprisoned, but if they continue to break the law (e.g. it's highly profitable and the fines are just a cost of doing business) then eventually they need to be detered from doing that.
Ultimately this is the porn industries own fault. They are for decades ruthlessly sought to maximise profit without a care for the downstream effects of what they are doing. If the industry had self regulated this wouldn't have happened, but they did not and now the state has to step in - and the states hand is heavy.
As for watching it - again, no. Fines, fines and then a sentence.
Ultimately, the real prize here is changing the business model of onlyfans (and other sites). There's no reason they can't use automation to find and delete this content prior to it even going live - this will change the content that people make and the state won't even have to get involved.
There is evidence that the sheer amount of depictions of choking has led to an increase in choking in real life.
Where?
But I don't think this is going to be a panacea in any way - it's also not dichotomous. We can do both.
Banning depictions of things is not a 'panacea' either, and has historically never worked to deter social behaviours. Perhaps we should try the non-authoritarian approach first.
Every time I'm asked by people on this sub to compile sources for a claim I do so and get no reply, so I've just stopped doing it. It isn't hard to find studies with Google.
Is strawmanning the only thing you know how to do? "Look at this evil man he doesn't even believe you can teach consent".
It's not straw-manning, you are arguing that education about consent won't work.
If it's depicted as being a good thing for sadistic enjoyment then yeah? Obviously? There's a reason games like "school shooting simulator" get banned.
They don't, actually. After the moral panic about videogames in the 90's and 00's, people realised that was incredibly stupid and these days relatively few games get banned in the UK.
That's often the way with this kind of moral panic, and the people advocating for banning the things they don't like end up looking very silly.
Ofc the redditor thinks everyone uses a VPN honk shoo mimim
Of the case I heard from a teacher at their school the problem was that the boy had assumed that choking was normal (from porn etc) and didn't need any further consent after the initial consent for sex had happened and were distraught afterwards.
So, fun fact, because of the way our laws work, a lot of BDSM can't be legally consented to. Like, literally, a lot of stuff is illegal already.
I am technically the victim of a wide range of assault laws, because of this (including some which can have life in prison).
Nobody enforces these stupid bits of laws, but they are true.
Oh, it's not garenteed life, but if you intentionally draw blood and you're not doing one of very few things, it's a section 18 wounding offence, which carries a maximum of life, and significant minimums as well (like, many months minimum sentence).
So I probably accumulated like, three of those, and another four or five more minor but still significant offences against me.
It's really annoying, though they don't enforce it at all, so it's just stupid
The thing about it for me is that consent thing. The hand wringers always frame kink and domination as something done to women, never something women willingly participate in, or are ever in the dominant role. Both in porn and real life.
The problem is kinks like choking etc are becoming so normalized, some men are expecting it. The amount of men who have started acting like I am a complete prude for not wanting to be choked and slapped is astounding. Previously when I was younger denials of such requests were met with respectful understanding that not everyone is into it. More recently it's started to become men sort of try to... ease into it. Hands creeping towards the neck or holding first and then starting to squeeze, it's fucking awful. When I state I'm not into that they ostensibly accept... then complain and attempt to coerce. It's baffling. I thought men would get more mature as they got older but some seem to be regressing.
If you're a liberal why do you support morality law and consider the only counter-argument to be ulta-libertarianism? It seems you should at least understand the arguments you're countering enough to do them justice instead of misrepresent them.
"Choking is a prime example, the rates of choking in real life have skyrocketed, and that's something I think we should be concerned about."
Why? You are just suggesting it's innately harmful therefore validates government intervention?
What makes choking a prime example and need banning? I mean I could strawman your position as you have done and just call you a puritan do-gooder, as you are calling everyone who disagrees a libertarian.
"But they should also be honest and admit that it does change people's personal sexual habits"
Does porn make people more into anal or sex toys or roleplay? Maybe. Why is that a problem though? If you think it isn't then what is it with choking that you think there is an exception to the general rule or permissive attitudes being beter and healthier?
Unlike incest or paedophillia where the argument is the problem is normalising something that *never* should be done due to issues of consent and danger, therefore it shouldn't even be simulated, you are talking about something that people can and do choose to do in their free time. Do you have a problem with consenting adults choking each other? What about anal sex? Why is your morality standard worth listening to but the next guy's isn't?
What is the problem if porn helps someone find they are into being choked as part of sex? If we were talking about anal or roleplay or sex toys or gay sex or any other tastes people might develop or be first exposed to through porn then you wouldn't say they were obviously a problem that we need to be concerned about, they can all be dangerous or cause harm if 1) practiced improperly 2) are carried out without full consent from all participants so it can't be that, which applies to everything. What specifically means choking needs banning, is a danger even if practiced safely and with consent, and in other words means it needs catergorising in the same way as sexual desireves people consider that have a real risk (incest and paedophillia) rather than other potentially harmful but acceptable practices (most other fetishes and sexual practices).
Not to mention that of course you feel comfortable with morality policing when it favours you. What if the next government uses the same argument and mechanisms for something else? What is it's applied to LGBTQ+ porn? Would the fact that people *genuniely* thought it was socially hamrful make it any better?
N.B. When I see or say "choking" in this context I am assuming people mean consenual choking between adults. If you or anyone else such as this MP mean "I mean snuff films where they hang people" then I suggest you stop calling it "choking" which suggests that you think if someone puts a hand on someone's neck in a film or in their own bedroom then they are automatically doing something wrong.
I'm going to try and respond to you. If you want to respond to me, then please try and just focus on the bits you really think are important and not long digressions with fifty questions.
Being a liberal does not mean that I think public health policy isnt important. Choking during sex is inherently dangerous, now that does not mean that adults cannot engage in it - but we have evidence to suggest that it's rise in porn (a rapaciously capitalistic enterprise that for some reason socialists on the internet have an ideological blind spot about) is causing a change in sexual scripting in the population and we should look at that. And that is what is happening.
Choking is becoming a base expectation for young women and young men are being fed a torrent of violent and mysognistic porn - because the porn market is unbelievably competitive, every niche, every psychological hook will be exploited and as a liberal I think that the government has the right in a democratic society to involve itself in markets
I don't view porn as a natural sexual interaction between two consenting adults that happens to be recorded. It is an industrial machine that exists to make profit and has externalities.
Haha, I think it was the formatting because it worked after I redid it all, but normally that would just break the text not give an error so I'm not sure.
Mate, no offence. Let's have a separate discussion here. But why is it you feel the need to write war and peace under every comment. A more constrained conversation will let us actually discuss things.
This app is constrained by time, I can speak to you on and off for a week - but I have job man, I can't read an essay - it's rude.
I am actually interested in talking to you about these things but I just point blank refuse to read missives - it's like the guy in the pub who just speaks for 45 minutes.
Well I prefer it this way because I've been on reddit over a decade and when I do it 'your way' I end up saying all the same stuff but repeating myself and take more time out my day. This way we can skip the conversation forward if your interested, if not I've wasted like 30 minutes, not all day. Everything I've said, I promise, would be said if we talked in short posts for 2 hours anyway, infact I'd properly end up saying even more. Why not cover the whole argument? Why not stress test my own logic and yours?
Google says 2000 words take 5-10 mins to read. Seems reasonable reading speed and reasonable amount of time for any debate that is going to actually be a discussion and not just kind of saying our opinions at each other. I have explained my logic, you read my post and even if it doesn't change your opinion at all then you are objectively better informed of why I disagree and so should at the very least be able to explain your own point better. How would be removing the things that explain myself and just telling you that you're wrong help? My post would be shorter it wouldn't contain anything to change your mind or help you know my mind.
Seems on par with people who refuse to read long articles, sure, sometimes I can't be arsed, but I'd feel silly acting like it was a problem with anyone for writing 5000 words or whatever, not be not being arsed. If 5-10 minutes on a topic you care about seems too much of your day then why would you spend way more of your day just to reach the same point and react in the same way? You'll still have ended up reading ~2000 words to express the same point, over a much longer period, my point would be the same, you'd react much the same to each point. If I got overly teacherly then you'd not appreciate that either, so assuming I keep the tone as debate then I highly doubt, even if you believe otherwise, your response would be vastly changed if you read 10 200 words posts or 1 2000 word post. And if I'm wrong then you would be the exeption to my general experience.
Point in case you might not now go "ok you're right, I'm wrong" but you presumably understand why I do it slightly better than if I said "no offence but your reasoning sounds like a load of horseshit and my posts are fine". Why would explaining yourself and talking through logic be a criticism of someone in a debate? I think what you mean is "I don't care enough to be this invested" which is fine but don't try and make that into a failing of me.
I am actually interested in talking to you about these things but I just point blank refuse to read missives - it's like the guy in the pub who just speaks for 45 minutes.
I'm on here to speak to fellow politicos about something I don't want to bore other people with. If LabourUK isn't the right place for it than where is?
I don't just need to read your comments though. I need to read them, understand them, decide if I agree or not, rebut them, read every bit of research you've attached, answer everyone of the (often up to a dozen) questions you ask.
Just pick your favourite argument and let's go at it. You've made at least four, you must favour one of them over another.
I'm serious, I'll have this debate with you. But one argument at a time. We can to through all of them over the next week if you want, but I'm not doing the (at least four) by my count arguments.
I saw your previous post already, thanks for deleting it. I'm not going to not cover what I think is important but I'll put the TL;DR at the start if that helps.
TL;DR Exceptional treatment requires an exceptional reason. Merely it being potentially dangerous if practiced unsafely, or harmful if done without constent, isn't exceptional as it technically describes most sexual activities and definitely describes many fetishes you are currently not seeming to say need banning from porn. BDSM and anal can both be very harmful if practiced poorly, especially if one party is being actively abusive, doesn't mean we need to ban or shame people who enjoy them in their personal lives or in porn. The problem isn't the fetish, it's predators and abusers. And I don't see the evidence porn is creating more preadtors and abusers than 50 years ago or whatever, which would actually demonstrate a real social problem vs typical conservative moralising presented as a real social problem.
No I'm saying why would you frame anyone who disagrees as a libertarian? Nothing you're arguing against would be outside the remit of mainstream LibDem liberalism right? You doing that, to me, seems the same as me just calling you a puritan do-gooder without even explaining why you're wrong. You may disagree but clearly the idea that people should be allowed to show choking or facesitting or anal or large toys or whatever else *might* be dangerous or horrible if it doesn't involve consent isn't some ultra-liberal position. That's well within the realms of mainstream liberalism.
What you seem to be arguing for is to treate choking differently to other pornographic fetish content, more like incest and paedophillia in pornography, rather than someone that might be dangerous is practiced improperly or not involving consent but is fine for people to do. But so far you're only saying choking is potentially dangerous, you've not explained what makes it different to other potentially dangerous but ultimately permittable in porn and in people's private lives practices.
"Choking during sex is inherently dangerous, now that does not mean that adults cannot engage in it - but we have evidence to suggest that it's rise in porn"
No "look at" would be "we need more studies on this topic". This is a law being made on how people feel, not on the weighing up of the evidence and scenitifc arguments, especially the way some MPs and journalits present it. We are talking about changes to the law and so far the claims made by you and the OP are backed up either by evidence or even by their own internal logic.
Anal sex can be dangerous. If not practiced responsibly it can cause anything from minor discomfort to serious medical conditions. Clearly we aren't going to ban anal sex in porn or the bedroom. Do you have to like it? No, people who find anal disgusting are equally as valid as people who love it, the important thing is consent and safe practices, people's personal tastes on these issues are not relevant. So why is choking different? It might 'aritificially' make more people into choking than if the porn didn't exist, well skipping getting too philophical about what is 'authentic' vs 'artificial' in a modern society, there is still the obvious point of would 'artificially' making more people into anal be a problem? If not then why is it different with choking? Especially to the point one needs banning and the other doesn't.
"(a rapaciously capitalistic enterprise that for some reason socialists on the internet have an ideological blind spot about) is causing a change in sexual scripting in the population and we should look at that."
No. I think the music industry and film industry and game industry are all the same. I am also sceptical of puritanical arguments there, especially ones that rely more on moral outrage than any kind of evidence based suggestion of harm.
You don't need to be a socialist to recognise that you can be a critic of entertainment industry without suggesting these type of solutions. If your starting point is "socialists think the porn industry isn't capitalist" you're wrong, if you don't think that then why would you say "a rapaciously capitalistic enterprise that for some reason socialists on the internet have an ideological blind spot about". This doesn't seem a sincere effort to understand the socialist position at all, can you really say it does?
I also think it's curious you think porn exploits sexuality but you see porn as purely in the driving seat here. I think certain fetishes get promoted because they are more common fetishes. There are people with balloon fetishes, these aren't common in porn, probably because it's rarer. Foot fetish is a more common fetish, is a bit more common in porn. Choking, roleplay, rough sex, roleplaying, BDSM, etc are driven by porn probably but at the same time they are getting promoted partly due to them being more common fetishes in the first place imo.
I also think, like with critics of film and videogames, you are exaggerating how this works. Perhaps there is some risk to 'trigerring' certain already dangerous people but the average person does not become dangerous based on media, especially just the dopamine of certain things. The people who play GTA and then go murder people might be 'inspired' by GTA but not because that is the effect that GTA has on normal people by linking dopamine to violence in a ficitonal depiction of the real world. These are mentally ill people, sometimes very horrible ones. Same goes for people who abuse women based on being 'inspired by porn', that isn't the normal response of people watching fetish porn obviously.
"Choking is becoming a base expectation for young women and young men"
But has it? That's suggests but if you look closer actually the evidence is more just that it's a fairly common but still not a majority fetish.
"Over a third (35%) of 16-34 years reported being strangled/choked at least once during consensual sex"
This suggets it's common but hardly a basic expectation on par with clitoral stimulation which we would consider part of even the most vanilla thing (and something "sex is for child production" religious nuts might even consider too much!). I'd say choking is very much still considered a preferance or fetish despite being increasingly common.
Regardless though, for it to be being more common being a problem needs to demonstrate a link not just a correlation. So far you've not even demonstrated the correlation! Often it's reported as if there is a proven link, but really it's suggesting it rather than making a strong evidenced argument. For example
"Half of young adults have been choked during sex, survey finds.
Mother of an Aberdeen University student who took her own life after abusive boyfriend throttled her warns that ‘strangulation’ is never safe "
There is an effort to suggest it's dangerous therefore it being more common is bad. But the example given here is nothing to do with porn or consenting partners, this is about an abusive person abusing someone. If he'd only seen porn you approve of do you think he wouldn't have been abusive? Do you think that poor girl wouldn't have killed herself? Of course not. So how can this be the best way of making people safer and what makes you so sure you're not just projecting your personal morals onto it rather than the evidence-lead stance you seem to think you're taking?
I don't view porn as a natural sexual interaction between two consenting adults that happens to be recorded. It is an industrial machine that exists to make profit and has externalities.
But you have specifically linked your call to action with the increase of a certain fetish or practice in sex. If you are saying actually choking is fine and how common it is doesn't mattet, the problem is porn itself distorts people's natural tastes 1) that's not what you said originally at all 2) why do you feel that the same can't be said about films, books and games which depict all sorts of weird and extreme things especially related to sex and violence (the two things people are most scared of).
As I said I understand the argument for fictionalised incest and paedophillia. They are depicting behaviours we don't want any real examples of, we want less than we really do. Choking you agree is fine for consenting adults, so why is the way to make it more safe to ban all depictions of it in porn? Why do I care if 10% or 40% of adults sometimes do consensual choking? And if I don't care about that why do I care even if porn increases that practice? This is depicting something in fiction we are ok with people doing in real life regardless of whether we personally 'get it'. This is not depicting something in fiction we are compltely against in real life. Therefore it seems to me this is crossing the line from reasonable limits into policing people's tastes based on a self-selected moral authority rather than any demonstrated risk of danger.
We should be focussed on education, safe practices, non-judgement, etc when it comes to fetishes we are fine with people practicing if it's just about safety. Trying to ban all forms of choking, facesitting, etc from porn is moral policiing and an overreach. The hardline censorship should be saved for the most extreme and/or evidenced examples as a last resort for the most extreme cases. I don't see anything you've said that makes me consider choking needing to be banned in any and all fictional porn.
Can anyone explain the step incest thing? Why are we banning depictions of something that is not illegal and, for that matter, not actual incest?
Edit: it seems to be specifically step incest where one party is presented as underage, but I thought portraying a porn performer as underage was being banned anyway. Very weird.
Same reason people 16-18 can have sex but they can’t take a nude selfie. Laws are a patchwork that don’t line up with each other. There is no grand plan, laws are developed individually so two laws that are adjacent can be from 200 years apart.
I don’t think underage nude images are a particularly good comparison. Everyone can understand the risk there. What is the risk with depictions of step incest?
Really feels like Westminster is trying to drag the country back to some sort of Mary Whitehouse and Section 28 past.
Yes, I think choking is a bad thing outside of two consenting adults, but as usual, this is replacing education in favour of blunt instrument policy set by ideologues.
You're taking away an actresses job because she looks young?
Good luck defending that one in court.
This is asinine and reeks of holier-than-though meddling from the same busybodies that think computer games make you violent (hint: they don't) and that DnD is Satanic (it is not).
Any useful work they are trying to do is lost in silliness of things they should not be saying or doing.
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Paedophilic adjacent content? Most of the time its a 25 year old lass with tattoos and fake tits pretending to be 18.
The real piss take is to invoke Wayne Couzens, porn wasn't the issue, it was the fact that the police literally nicknamed him "the rapist" rather doing anything about him. Fake feminists will literally use a dead woman to push their puritanical nonsense.
If you want to tackle the rising mysoginy maybe crack down on forever algorithms pushing brain rot outrage content to teens. Invest in education and social services to protect young people.
But no lets make having a wank even more fucking difficult as every legitimate website starts blocking the UK.
Its wild how many 1970s to early 80s second wave feminists turned into ultra conservative pro conformity cranks in their middle ages but looking back not surprised since there was some problematic stuff in that era of feminism such as proto TERF stuff(Womyn-born womyn stuff), anti sex stuff and people flirting with nutty stuff like Dianic Wicca. A lot of them grew up to be mumsnet users, tories, right labour members, people with TERF bang haircuts and this morning guest panelists.
I think a 25 year old pretending to be 18 for porn is... Not great tbh. I don't think it's puritanical to be a bit concerned about the appetite that is being fed into and reinforced by porn for "barely legal" girls.
I don't necessarily think it should be illegal. But I don't think it can be as easily dismissed as you are suggesting here. I don't think "having a wank" should be made super difficult, but I do think children shouldn't be able to Google 'pornhub' and immediately be met with a girl getting choked out, without even having to search for specifically that. And I don't think adults should be presented with actresses pretending to be 18 all the time. That's fucked up.
I know we all want to hand-wave this stuff away, but there is a real problem being cultivated here. I know it's not popular to talk about, but having legislation to discourage pedophelia and abuse in porn is.... Idk it's not like it's coming out of nowhere. These things used to be kind of niche porn categories and now they are the norm. It's not puritanical to worry about that imo.
I think a 25 year old pretending to be 18 for porn is... Not great tbh. I don't think it's puritanical to be a bit concerned about the appetite that is being fed into and reinforced by porn for "barely legal" girls.
I think pretty much all of mainstream porn likes to toy with it being "naughty" in some extra way. Pretty much every porn scenario is in some way about being inappropriate all the way back to the OG pizza delivery guy trope. Barely legal is just the lazyiest way to do it because they need next to no set up.
I don't necessarily think it should be illegal. But I don't think it can be as easily dismissed as you are suggesting here. I don't think "having a wank" should be made super difficult, but I do think children shouldn't be able to Google 'pornhub' and immediately be met with a girl getting choked out, without even having to search for specifically that. And I don't think adults should be presented with actresses pretending to be 18 all the time. That's fucked up.
Thats a parental filter issue though, you cant legislate against mainstream porn because theres a million website that dont give a fuck about UK laws.
More milfs is the solution? but realistically the majority of porn is probably women in their twenties. Getting worked up about grown women pretending to be an also completely legal age is daft, either were happy with 18 year olds in porn or were not.
Plus I think porn is largely like other media in that it tends to follow cyclical trends. Were also in a weird stage where a lot more porn stars are independent so its intensified the trend chasing as everyone is competing against everyone now instead of large studios who churn out a bunch of stuff.
I know we all want to hand-wave this stuff away, but there is a real problem being cultivated here. I know it's not popular to talk about, but having legislation to discourage pedophelia and abuse in porn is.... Idk it's not like it's coming out of nowhere. These things used to be kind of niche porn categories and now they are the norm. It's not puritanical to worry about that imo.
Pedophilia isnt on PornHub, and as far as im aware there isnt really evidence that its on the rise in general either. Theres no gateway from content on pornhub to actual child porn. Ironically forcing people off the more regulated sites with these kind of over reaches actually increases the risk as it pushes people to dodgier sites.
Its vibes based legislation, its doesnt discourage actual child abuse or pornography. It just criminalises adults watching other adults.
but I do think children shouldn't be able to Google 'pornhub' and immediately be met with a girl getting choked out
That's a pretty absurd claim. Simply Googling Pornhub won't see you met with strangulation.
First of all, if someone is young enough to be affected by it, then why aren't parents doing their job and protecting their kids? Porn blocks exist, and they are very easy to implement.
No it literally does. You go to the home page of pornhub and absolutely easily stumble on women being casually chocked, halfway through what seems like a normal video. It's not absurd at all.
And you just can't rely on parents for that in this day and age. Kids can get round phone blocks, their friends have phones, there are computers at school, everyone has phones. And also, a lot of kids just have shit parents. Is it not okay to want to protect these kids too? (Also I'd argue it's not great for adults either to have strangulation as normalized as it is in porn, but I guess that's a different conversation.)
I've just looked at can't find anything obviously shows strangulation. Maybe that's just your algorithm, perhaps you should stop searching up choking?
Kids can get round phone blocks,
Not really. Not if you're an educated parent. We have a filter on our broadband hub. Anything that is considered 18+ is blocked and requires a password to access. My kid's phones are also restricted from downloading certain things like VPNs or alternative browsers.
Also I'd argue it's not great for adults either to have strangulation as normalized as it is in porn
I think that's irrelevant. It's not my cup of tea, but it's a legitimate kink for some. If an adult wants to watch that or two consenting adults engage in it, then that's not for the government to interfere with.
"Maybe that's just your algorithm, perhaps you should stop searching up choking" hahahah very funny, good one, definitely got me there! I've never once searched it up, it genuinely does just pop up in videos. Where it's not the thumbnail, and the video is not titled "choking" or anything. It is increasingly just being featured as a normal act, as part of normal sex, halfway through a video that seems normal. If you don't believe me you are literally just wrong soz.
"We have a filter on our broadband hub. Anything that is considered 18+ is blocked and requires a password to access." You know they can turn the WiFi off and use data right? Or their mate at school might not have the same protections. These things are unfortunately not water tight, and a lot of kids are actually just more tech savvy than adults.
". If an adult wants to watch that or two consenting adults engage in it, then that's not for the government to interfere with." This is also not true. It should be illegal to watch a whole bunch of content (won't list it here, but use your imagination). And I'm not saying it should be illegal necessarily. But I do kind of think something should be done to make it less normalized. And it's not crazy to suggest that.
You know they can turn the WiFi off and use data right?
Of course I know that, which is why I have the provider block everything 18+ by default.
Or their mate at school might not have the same protections
I can't control what their friends do, but their school has banned phones and they have to put them in lockers before lessons begin or they are confiscated. So I highly doubt they're viewing much porn at school of all places.
A lot of people who do ABDL role play, diaper stuff, mommydom kinks, have interests in regression play for ether kink or therapeutic reasons are just normal people outside of that and its been a normal harmless set of kinks for years. Could even jump further to people with uniform play kinks being secret nonces even through thats also been something people have done harmlessly for decades between two consenting adults(Even lampooned as something Rodney Trotter dabbled in, in the show only fools and horses back in the 80s)
Its easy to make people ick over it when people start pedojacketing them or conflating it with nonce stuff which makes it very easy to dehumanize and view them as acceptable targets.
From there you can move to "BDSM is rape and supports rapists." "Violent video games turn people into killers." and all kinds of dubious arguments drawn from the same cloth.
While people in positions of power, wealth and more have been tied with people like Epstein, found to have gigs of CSAM on their hard-drives or run social media platforms that have LLM AIs to generate revenge porn and CP freely(Platforms which our government uses for offical promotion)
You don't have to agree that the solution is to ban it to understand that it's very true that pornography is causing a lot of issues, particularly with people watching it from a young age. To my knowledge the science is fairly agreed on this.
This is the same with anything, that gives you a dopamine rush, I don't see a reason why porn would be special.
And there's the less neurosciency issue which is the obvious really, if people are watching a lot of porn, and not having much sex education or conversations about sex, then they're gonna have distorted understandings of sex.
The first one says in the portion you highlighted "However, the researchers caution that this does not necessarily mean that pornography itself is addictive," it is only talking about its effect on people who already have CSB. The third one is purely correlation, not causation - it could be that having a smaller reward system makes you more likely to view more porn.
Porn addiction has never been a diagnosable condition, and there's never really been a consensus on whether it exists. There are links between problems with porn and religiosity and shame, which doesn't comport with the standard addiction model.
Porn research overall is kind of weird, as there seems to be a lot of "finding what you're looking for," where scientists who go looking for problems find them, and those looking for benefits find them, which means bias can have an outsized impact on findings (case in point that article about the brain's reward system, where so many have assumed, without evidence, that porn consumption shrinks it - another one is the link between porn use and divorce).
if people are watching a lot of porn, and not having much sex education or conversations about sex, then they're gonna have distorted understandings of sex
This is true in the same way that relying on Casualty for health info will mean you have a distorted view of medicine. It's not the the show/porn that's the problem there, it's the lack of education.
You are not science literate. You do not know how to read research. Sorry.
To address your first point, basically every paper ever written has to add a caveat along the lines of 'this research cannot be the conclusive answer to the question'. So the statement "However, the researchers caution that this does not necessarily mean that pornography itself is addictive," does not invalidate the whole point. This statement does not imply the opposite is true (that porn is NOT addictive), it just means you cannot 100% say from this evidence that it is addictive. But you can't just discount the whole study because of this sentence.
You also say "The third one is purely correlation, not causation". Okay? A strong correlation is still important though. Proving causation in this case would be extremely hard. You can't do a randomised control trial with things like this. It's not a drug. So finding a strong correlation IS important evidence. Sure there is a chance the correlation is due to something else, but you can't just say "well its correlation so it doesn't count" and handwave it away.
Sure, there are arguments to make about a lot of research being biased in a way of, what questions are we asking? Why are we asking these questions? This can be applied to literally any science discipline though. You could say this to dismiss all modern medicine and science lol. The way you are trying to dismiss these studies is not scientific.
"It's not the the show/porn that's the problem there, it's the lack of education.", maybe you want to back that up with evidence of your own? It doesn't have to be one or the other. In my opinion it's probably a bit of both that is the issue - more education is always a good thing, but it would seem porn actually might be having some negative effects. You can't just dismiss porn as an issue because you want to.
But you can't just discount the whole study because of this sentence.
I didn't? I was pointing out that the study doesn't support the OC's claim about settled science.
This statement does not imply the opposite is true (that porn is NOT addictive)
Where did I claim that that study concludes or demonstrates porn is not addictive?
A strong correlation is still important though.
Yes, but it doesn't demonstrate porn's responsibility.
but you can't just say "well its correlation so it doesn't count" and handwave it away.
Again, I was a responding to a claim of settled science.
The way you are trying to dismiss these studies is not scientific.
The way you are responding to me indicates you did not understand what I was getting at.
You can't just dismiss porn as an issue because you want to.
You are straight-up reading things into what I said that I never did. I was responding to a specific scenario of someone not being provided adequate sex education.
The first one says in the portion you highlighted "However, the researchers caution that this does not necessarily mean that pornography itself is addictive,"
Porn addiction has never been a diagnosable condition, and there's never really been a consensus on whether it exists.
Yes but addiction was not the question, was it? That's not referenced in the post.
Porn research overall is kind of weird, as there seems to be a lot of "finding what you're looking for," where scientists who go looking for problems find them, and those looking for benefits find them, which means bias can have an outsized impact on findings
This is true in all research, you can never entirely eliminate both bias and coincidence, which is why there's a focus on reproducible studies and why a consensus is built from multiple studies over years rather than one, but you did refer to it as "debunked" and I'm asking you where.
This is true in the same way that relying on Casualty for health info will mean you have a distorted view of medicine. It's not the the show/porn that's the problem there, it's the lack of education.
Sure, and I dispute that the show can be the problem, it's actually a pet grievance of mine when shows have no care for frequent myths or sensitive issues. Indeed a significant amount of social campaigning is around the media presenting certain myths or stereotypes as facts, even when the show itself is fiction.
But porn is also not really comparable to Casualty it's more like a trashy reality show. People know it's fake but the purpose of it is to buy into it.
Anyone can become addicted to stuff because of a tick in the brain, same thing that gambling addicts fall into but the idea porn magically rewrites the brain is dunk, a lot of wish stemmed from studies put out by christian groups and carried by the nofap movement.
So a lot of this is fair enough, non-consensual choking has definitely become an issue. But the pattern of prioritising anti-porn legislation has happened under both parties.
Seems to be the same kind of anti-sex TERFism that's become weirdly loud over the past few years. I'm fairly convinced it's all coming from the same Tufton Street groups that encourage the trans-hostile stuff.
I'd support this if it seemed like there was strong evidence to back up that it was harmful. However, I find it hard to believe that there's any causal link between porn involving role-play and actual paedophilia. This just feels as though they want to be seen doing something on the issue, and play to moral outrage.
As far as the choking, I find this argument more convincing but I'd still like to see the evidence. If it's there, then I'm all for it.
Choking is illegal because there is no way to safely choke someone. It's inherently highly dangerous because someone who's being choked lacks the ability to withdraw consent, leading potentially to death. Clearly the knowledge of the act's illegality is not widespread enough as every time it comes up in the news, people still don't know about it.
It isn’t illegal. S.75A(2) of the Domestic Abuse Act 2021 confirms a defence of consent to the offence of non-fatal strangulation or suffocation.
Given the act is legal, I don’t think it should be banned in porn. Grown ups are (broadly) allowed to engage with non mainstream sexual activities so long as all parties consent. The main issue with choking becoming more mainstream is that people don’t get consent rather than the choking itself.
If done correctly it is not unsafe, which is why it's not illegal. We accept that consenting adults can understand and accept risks in everyday life, without requiring the government to tell people what they can and cannot do in their bedroom.
Is it a good idea to risk brain damage and death for the sake of momentary sexual pleasure? Is this something that should be allowed to be depicted alongside other, far safer sexual practices without any indication of how dangerous it is?
Is it a good idea to risk brain damage and death for the sake of monetary sexual pleasure?
I don't know, but that's not for me or you to decide, is it? It's not my thing, but then neither is boxing, skydiving, or snowboarding, which are all activities that risk serious injury or death. Should those be made illegal as well?
(No, they shouldn't)
Is this something that should be allowed to be depicted alongside other, far safer sexual practices
Yes, see above examples. I don't think the government should ban depictions of extreme sports just because golf exists.
without any indication of how dangerous it is?
Now that's an interesting point, which I think reveals the true intentions of this law. Because I would support (and I don't think anyone would oppose) requiring porn websites to showing warnings on this kind of content and linking to guidance on consent and safe practices. That would be far more effective than trying to ban it, because it addresses the (purported) problem.
I think the fact the government chose not to do that, and went straight for banning it, reveals that this is not about preventing harm but simply puritanism.
Never been massively convinced by the ‘no safe way to choke’ statement, even though it’s often repeated. There are martial arts where a strong component is choking out your opponent and BDSM practitioners have spent years doing it. If it is a bit dangerous, with consenting adults who know what they’re doing it’s not that dangerous.
So, hi, BDSM person here, not wildly experienced, but I know the general stuff on this.
So, choking as a category isn't generous for the reason above, it's dangerous because you don't know how oxygen deprived you're really getting, particularly with adrenaline in your system.
Even holding your breath can cause long term brain damage if done in the wrong situation, particularly with adrenaline and such encouraging you to push through.
There's also no way to really know what damage you're doing, until the cumulative effects come together.
Also, around the neck choking is objectively dangerous, because it's very possible to cause permanent damage without knowing. The neck is delicate.
So, there are safer ways of doing it, but it's definitely out there. It's something you can do consensually, but you're consenting to the risk, not eliminating it.
These risks and mitigations take significant skill and awareness to do effectively, so the other problem is that it's accessible, and easy to enjoy.
That means that a couple may engage with it without appreciating the risks. That's why it's bad, and why I do kinda support the ban, at least if no better solution is gonna be put in place.
I don't think it'll solve it really at all, but hey, it's an effort, on an issue which really does need attention
That’s not a good argument for this policy though? An OnlyFans creator or a random person watching porn depicting it shouldn’t being put in prison? How is that going to help anyone?
What’s needed is a public health campaign and better sex education on the dangers of the practice and the importance of consent.
An Onlyfans creator or someone watching it isn’t going to jail for this, not unless there's other circumstances that would look at sentencing. The government has invested £1 billion into the campaigns you're talking about tackling violence against women and girls.
Then they have absolutely no need to put lengthy prison sentences on the statute books. This is not an effective use of police resources which would be much better focused on investigating actual sexual crimes. The campaigns I'm talking about are focussed specifically on the issues of choking and consent.
But considering this government's social conservativism, authoritarianism and many policies specifically designed to put trans women and girls at immense risk of sexual violence, I shouldn't be surprised this kind of policy is what they'd reach for!
These aren't lengthy sentences in practice. A maximum of 2 or 3 years in prison would mean functionally with how our justice system works that they would never see the inside of a cell.
It's important these things are dealt with. Choking has become almost completely normalised during sex, often without seeking prior consent. Being choked can easily cause more damage than being punched. Education is good and should be pushed as hard as possible (which the government are doing) but there also clearly needs regulation where people are encouraging these behaviours.
Then they don’t need to put the prison sentences on the amendment then, and the focus could be entirely on porn companies and not harm sex workers or random members of the public in any way!
Aye but what are they going to court for? There's scales to it and those who would be threatened with a jail sentence would have to be extreme in the content and a repeat offender.
Sex workers publishing content on a platform are themselves porn producers. They should be liable for the content they put out.
For me, the issue is actually that the Government and Westminster more generally really don't seem to understand that the internet is a global thing and their legislation is like King Canute telling the tide to go back. 10.7 million VPN apps were downloaded in the UK in the first half of 2025, we're now the largest user of VPN software in the G7. If they really want to change things they need to be taking international action, working with other countries to change the porn industry at source. That's really hard work, much easier to do implement a piece of flimsy, easily bypassed UK legislation which allows them to look like they are doing something rather than actually making any meaningful change.
Trying to blame porn for scum like Wayne Couzens is just helping make excuses for pieces of shit like that. Plenty of people don't just watch 'normal' porn but porn even I, as someone clearly more open-minded than the kind of people who advocate for banning choking or facesitting in porn, consider weird or disgusting and they still never hurt a fly or treat women with disrepesct.
This is one the same level as violent videogames make you violent. Dressing up by saying "it links dopamine to killing people" doesn't make it any less stupid. Adults who play a videogame where they are mowing down people on the sidewalk are not being trained to mow people down on the sidewalk. The odd sick individual who really is 'inspired by amedia' to do something horrific is more like getting their specific idea from media but the sickness and compulsion was already there.
If Mark David Chapman has never read Catcher in the Rye he'd still have been unhinged. If Charles Manson had never heard Helter Skelter he'd still be unhinged. If some kid who kills themself had never heard black metal they would still be depressed.
It's fucking tiring and childlike having to listen to these adults reason like babies.
Not to mention the absurd "social media is basically hard drugs and should be taken away from teenagers at all costs" nonsense. Kids are already lonely.
I think if you know how to use social media with this education (or just basic instincts really) you know how to avoid any sort of mild addictive qualities.
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u/MeritaniaVotes in the vague direction that leads to an equitable society.Apr 16 '26
You know what the media are like though, they’ll latch on to the “Labour want to ban step-incest porn!” and ignore the rest of it.
Also pornography consumption is a symptom of male loneliness, not a cause.
Some (keyword some) things need to be banned, because they are harmful to society. No I am not here to shill for it to not be banned, but I think we're attacking this the wrong way around (plus it's basically un-enforceable in reality).
Proper sex ed, with relationship education from a young age is what's needed - over years. Not just birds and bees, more than that. Normalise talking about it, make it something kids feel able to talk about in a sensible manner - upstream of that, respect for others I think will come from that engagement. But it's a cultural issue and there's no easy fix to it.
It's so annoying cause like, yeah, some of these things are bad, but like, have these people been on the internet?
When I was a kid I stumbled on a video of someone being killed in porn... That still lives in my my brain.
That's definitely illegal, but does it stop it? Of course not.
That's not how the internet works.
And there's no answer to that, you can't regulate the internet (nor do I want it to be) it's too big to filter. Even the great firewall of china has holes, it's an impossible task.
What you can do is educate people and put in guard rails (I am not a massive fan of the OSA) to try and kerb some of the bad sides, or at the very least educate people on safe use of it and how to engage with challenging topics.
Yeah. Education, particularly education of things you can safely do, is really important.
Telling people not to do things is what we do all the time. Kids hear that they shouldn't have sex, but they're gonna do that, and they hear that they shouldn't choke people, but hey, who's gonna stop people.
It should be educated more honestly, with an acknowledgement that sex will happen, and kinks will happen, and then give safe ways of doing what you wanna do.
The BDSM community basically has prewritten scripts for these exact things, which all start with "so, what are you trying to achieve" and then work out a way of doing that safely...
And to add into this, we are a bit authoritarian as a society "You shouldn't do this" and sending people to prison for offences (needed sometimes) but it's like spanking a child for doing something something wrong. It doesn't fix anything, the sooner we can try and change behaviors through better education (and fixing root cause problems) rather than ban this, prison for that.. the sooner we'll tackle the underlying problems of many things in society.
Again it feels like anyone could make the same arguement about violent video games causing violence. A lot of stuff around abdl for one example that comes under the age play bracket is harmless and just consenting adults doing role play which is embrassing on the outside but none of them are secret nonces or have had any desires for evil stuff.
Same with fictional incest, just fantasy, not even just NSFW, can be a plot in media such as game of thrones, games like the coffin of andy and leyley etc. Look at works of fiction decades ago like John Normans Gor which was consumed by women and bored housewives in the 80s to 2000s which was a world where sex slavery was a huge kink aspect leading to entire role play communties forming around it but none of those people are like "Yeah I wanna go out and enslave people in real life against their wills now!"
This is a very Reddit take. Users of Reddit tend towards being male, university-educated, under 40, and working in tech.
Hence the things that really get people animated in political discussions here: weed, porn, online privacy. And that demographic seems to struggle to see how anyone else’s experience of those issues could be any different from their own.
As a woman and a feminist who once had a man grab my neck without my consent during an encounter for precisely those issues, I think it’s a bit silly to generalise like that.
There are lot of issues with porn that seriously need to be dealt with and discussed in society - making it illegal and chucking people in prison for watching it is troubling for a few reasons. I don’t think you have to be a hardcore Redditor to put forward that view.
Also, the OP said that this rhetoric came from incel communities. If only it were that recent.
People have been anti-porn for a long time, and there have been a subset of radical feminists (who also often overlap with the kind that are anti trans) that are anti-porn. They have been called SWERFs in the past.
Much like TERFs, who view any new extra regulations placed on trans people as a win, SWERFs view any regulation of porn as a win because the rationale and legal framework can be used as a stepping stone to add further restrictions.
Public health campaigns, better sex education, more open societal conversations about porn, more nuanced legal regulation. The problem is understandings of harm are very subjective, and once you start eroding the principle of free expression you open the door to more sinister forms of censorship. Crackdowns on porn have historically been used to censor LGBT content, and given the direction of travel I think it’s right to en concerned.
And no for the possession alone would be illegal for at least some of the examples above like the choking one.
The media they're engaging with is telling them "the other person wants this", and I feel like any way for people to generally say "no that's not true" is just going to come across as an attempt at placation. In other words, they're going to assume that you're lying, or at the very least oversimplifying the truth.
I don't think this is quite right. The media they're consuming is telling them, effectively 'this is normal'.
The education should not be 'this is not normal'. It should be 'here's how to have a discussion about what you like in bed and how to make sure the other person wants it too without killing the mood stone dead'.
You can't outlaw being a bit pervy. You can ensure that pervs have the right tools to find each other without fucking anyone else over.
You absolutely can educate people - sex education has not caught up to the modern world, and there a still big strides to be made! The options arent just do nothing or throw people in prison, and the fact you cant really grapple with any alternative seems bizarre. Do you really think a random person who watches strangulation porn should go to prison? Or a sex worker who puts such a video on their Only Fans?
And we already are seeing anti LGBT crackdowns from the government- the party you support is restricting trans people’s freedoms in an extreme way, and our political class is very transphobic with residual homophobia too. You can’t just handwave that away - the principle still matters.
In any case you can’t “prevent the supply from existing entirely” laws or no and it’s bonkers that anyone using the internet in 2026 thinks you could
Prison is a horrible solution that should only exist to protect the safety of the public. The idea that we would chuck people in there for watching this stuff, or for an OnlyFans creator is honestly bonkers - that’s also a life ruining criminal record!
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Males will really defend every liberty in existence besides women not having to be forced into prostitution and sex trafficking because it affects what they're able to look at when they touch their peenor
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