We always knew Margaret Thatcher was a prude, but we had no idea she was this puritanical.
A trove of new documents released by the National Archives in the U.K. have unveiled that the Iron Lady once considered a law banning sex toys (i.e. dildos, butt plugs, nipple clamps, etc.) in an effort to promote “public decency” and prevent “physical injury.”
The documents reveal the former prime minister was persuaded to consider the law by notorious antifeminist, antigay, anti-television, anti-obscenity, anti-everything campaigner Mary Whitehouse.
Thatcher’s home secretary, Lord Leon Brittan, wrote to his boss in September 1986 about Whitehouse’s “strong case” for banning sex toys under the 1959 Obscene Publications Act, the same law used to prosecute the publisher of DH Lawrence’s classic romance novel Lady Chatterley’s Lover.
Brittan explained: “Some of the items in circulation are most objectionable, including some which can cause physical injury.”
He went on to say that he believed that sex toys could be deemed “deprave and corrupt.”
In response, Thatcher requested Brittan prepare a test which would allow lawmakers to set a new bar for measuring what was indecent. After mulling it over for a bit, Brittan replied that trying to measure that sort of thing would be too complex a concept for the courts to litigate over and the plan was swiftly abandoned.
The news of Mrs. Thatcher’s war on sex toys comes mere weeks after the U.K. government imposed a new law banning certain sex acts in British-made adult videos, including spanking, facesitting, and caning, among other things. Lawmakers deemed the acts morally corrupt and dangerous, sparking outrage among many who accused the government of attempting to police their bedroom behavior and impose upon their civil liberties.
Related stories:
Hey Brits, You Can Perform And Watch These Sexual Activities, Just Don’t Film Them
How The UK Ruined Gay Sex For Everyone
Graham Gremore is a columnist and contributor for Queerty and Life of the Law. Follow him on Facebook and Twitter.
PRINCE OF SNARKNESS aka DIVKID
A LOT of EXTREMELY disturbing rumours (increasingly garnering credibility) about oh-so-respectable pillar of the establishment Leon Brittan!
broadshoulder
Just the sound of her name fills me with shivers. I whooped with joy when she died. Gay hating homophobe.
Billy Budd
Bitch of the devil.
Desert Boy
The Iron Hag was a vicious homophobe.
tk92
Maggie a homophobe? She did vote to end the legal ban on homosexuality, while she was in House of Commons. Also important to remember that even as a conservative she very rarely mentioned homosexuality and she came to power in 1979, a time when even progressives of the era would be considered homophobic in today’s era.
I understand why liberals hate her. She beat them on pretty much every major issue. It took her own party to oust her since she won 3 landslide elections, where Labor was never able to defeat her.
broadshoulder
@tk92: Your obviously an American by your spelling.You’ve been fed a load of righteous nonsense fed by the American media.But she WAS a homophobe.
She brought in Section 28 in 1988 which effected every gay person in Britain. She sat on the sidelines (I remember it to this day) and nodded in agreement when the MPs stood up to mock and ridicule homosexuality honestly believing it harmed children. She pushed and pushed until Section 28 went through. I was there all the way through the Thatcher years
I make no bones about it.I’m glad she’s dead.
SteveDenver
Typical conservative: obsessed with what others are doing in their sex lives, willing to believe that straight people don’t perform similar sex acts, wanting to exert control.
I think SHE was hurt or injured by a sex toy that went up her ass like a vacuum tube and was never retrieved.
Desert Boy
@broadshoulder: You might want to watch this YouTube video of the Iron Hag and then retract your defense of her.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VRRWuryb4k
MarionPaige
I love that a lot of people in England had the balls to celebrate this bitch’s death. How is it rude to celebrate the death of fuckers like Thatcher, Koch, Giuliani, Hitler …? When Thatcher died there was a push to make Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead (song) Number One in England.
For the longest time, my theory was that THERE COULDN’T POSSIBLY BE A GOD AND A FUCKING EDWARD KOCH. That Koch was proof that there was no God.
From all that I’ve read, Thatcher rode aping Ronald Reagan to fame. As if Reagan’ idiot privitization policies in America were perfect for England
PaulBrown
And here I thought that there coudn’t be anybody worse than David Cameron, who has been hitting on online porn pretty hard the past years.
I guess Maggie was pretty religious, but banning sex toys would be foolish. It makes a girl’s sex life so much better, since vibrators make orgasms much easier to reach.
Btw, how’s the latest law on forbidden sex acts? If women can’t climax anymore, then the male cumshot should be banned too. Ain’t this making this law illegal? (equal rights, right)
That law is useless anyway. It’s only making a victim of the people producing the content. Everybody gets their stuff for free from free sex sites like pornhub, http://theporndude.com/, thumbzilla,… The only thing the government is doing, is support piracy currently.
billforsyth
Thatcher was an arch hypocrite as was her party .They courted and flattered the madder end of the ‘moral majority’ purely for electoral gain whilst honouring paedophiles and colluding in massive cover ups of appalling abuse at the highest levels .The Conservative party became a national laughing stock when their various sleazy scandals were exposed .Censorship in the UK has become largely redundant with the coming of the internet and the European convention of human rights .
goodfloyd
I kinda laughed at this, but now I’m thinking it could have been crazy. I see nothing wrong with sex toys, but the latest UK law banning certain sex acts really got me thinking. I’m thinking why stop there? Let’s ban missionary position, since everybody is doing it and did you notice some people actually tongue kiss? Let’s ban that too.
Seriously though, banning sex toys could have had an unpleasant effect for the sex toys industry, especially in porn movies and adult chat sites(chaturbate or https://www.fapshows.com anyone?)