Adult videos online in the United Kingdom are being forced down the vanilla highway, thanks to a newly beefed up law.
New York magazine reports that Britain’s Audiovisual Media Services Regulations 2014, a statute that regulates which naughty acts can and can’t be filmed in the U.K. for release on DVD has expanded the mandate to include videos recorded for online consumption.
The list of things you can no longer do on the Web in the U.K. include:
- spanking
- caning
- aggressive whipping
- penetration “associated with violence”
- physical or verbal abuse (even if consensual)
- strangulation
- urolagnia (or, as you and I like to call it, “water sports”)
- facesitting
- fisting
While local anti-censorship groups are up in arms (but no doubt shying away from verbal abuse, lest it be filmed and aired in some online news segment), the law doesn’t affect what is viewable in the U.K., only what is filmed.
Perhaps British porn companies can outsource their fisting, spanking, and strangulation to India, like American companies do with technical support and human resources.
redcarpet30
So if a guy lies on his back spreads his legs to get his ass eaten, thats A-OK. But if he stands up and squats over someones face, OMG THINK OF THE CHILDREN!
Give me a fucking break England! WTF is wrong with you? We thought you were cool!
john.k
The British maker of spanking films “Sting Pictures” relocated to the Czech Republic a few years ago because their legal position in Britain was so uncertain.
zaneymcbanes
Pornography only became legal in the UK relatively recently, like 1998. As progressive as they are, they’re also weirdly conservative in some areas. Elective abortion is still technically illegal there.
Tobi
It’s a criminal offence to own or even view “extreme” pornography in the UK since 2008. The problem is the definition of “extreme”, as it will depend on whether the CPA, judge and/or jury views the material as “offensive, disgusting, or otherwise of an obscene character”. Individuals have been advised to plead guilty for downloading from Kink and several ISPs report customers who access such sites.
Trippy
So… you’re still free to piss on me, just don’t film it. Got it.
vive
Funny how the U.K. has become quite the police state over the past decade or so.
tricky ricky
several brit companies are gonna go under because of this. some of this list is their bread and butter, and bubble and squeak too.
MarionPaige
“It’s a criminal offence to own or even view “extreme” pornography in the UK”
“extreme” porn is illegal in the US as well. According to “legend” when the US set out to prosecute a US producer / distributor of porn who bragged about how extreme his stuff was, US Attorneys elected to order one of the producer’s videos by mail from Pennsylvania, because they felt that PA Obscenity laws favored them winning a conviction.
The producer was in fact convicted and sent to prison. As I recall, he claimed he eventually pled guilty to prevent prosecutors from going after his wife. And, the kicker is that this particular producer produced straight porn (although it included simulated rape and abduction). Imagine how easy it would be for Prosecutors to have gone after gay adult producers if they wanted to (or, if a Republican was in the White House)?
Not really sure how big the UK Adult business is but I do know that there is a UK producer that used the name Straight Hell at one time that pretty much specialized in filming all of the now UK prohibited acts.
Tobi
@MarionPaige: I wonder how Kink get away with it, they’re based in SF I believe? It’s also probably an easy win for the cops too. I don’t think the 2008 law was publicised at all here in the UK, so I’m guessing a lot of people don’t realise they’re viewing anything illegal by visiting the site. I can’t imagine anyone risking the average geriatric jury being shown content from a site like Kink, so when the cops turn up at the door after being alerted by an ISP, it’s likely they’ll plead guilty to a judge so as to get off with a fine for a first offence, albeit with a criminal record.
MarionPaige
California in general is liberal towards the adult industry, it is the only state where the production of adult content has been specifically de-criminalized.
Technically, filming any of the acts listed in the UK law in the US would be illegal in all US states EXCEPT California.
MarionPaige
“Technically, filming any of the acts listed in the UK law in the US would be illegal in all US states EXCEPT California.”
It would be illegal for a production company (or person) to pay people to perform the acts for the purpose of producing pornography.