In January we told you about the UK’s Digital Economy Act, a 2017 law that requires websites with adult content to verify that users are 18 or older before allowing access. The law goes into effect this April, and it’s already starting to change how gay adult websites do business.
The law punishes any sites that don’t require users to input their drivers license or passport info to verify their age, but not all adult websites have done this. So, to cover their butts (figuratively), one website—Men at Play, a gay adult site which regularly features men in suits—has started taking down all of its publicly viewable trailers and putting them behind a paywall (link NSFW).
Right now, the videos on Men at Play come with a message that says, “In compliance with the ATVOD (Authority for Television on Demand) statutory rules, MenAtPlay will be replacing all our online non-member hardcore previews with softcore alternatives.”
But the site has not yet uploaded softcore previews for all of its videos. And yet, many of its pages still entice users to play videos by displaying sexually explicit images from each scene.
How about we take this to the next level?
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The few Men at Play scenes that do have softcore previews are still quite explicit: They don’t show any butts or genitals, but the sexual action is barely cropped out and there’s plenty of thrusting, moaning and other noises that make it clear what’s happening.
Related: Gay adult film performer accuses Next Door Studios exec of making death threats
While we’re focusing on Men at Play, the UK law will actually affect all US gay adult sites too. Sites like Sean Cody and Raging Stallion will have to create UK-versions to hide any sexually explicit material behind an age verification check, or else they’ll risk being banned from Her Majesty’s internet or incurring a large fine.
This law has emerged at a time when US websites are censoring adult content under SESTA/FOSTA and state Republicans are trying to ban adult content as a “public health emergency.” Indeed, we are in a new era of digital sex-phobia.
Polaro
Britain is so screwed up. Possibly worse than the US. This and Brexit make them tools of the Russians and the crazy PC nuts; double whammy. If a teenage wants to see porn, they will find a way, now it just makes them criminals, like teenage me stealing Playgirl magazines back in the 70’s.
Apolodorus
Still wondering how you managed to cram “pc nuts”, Russians and Brexit in the same bag. Who are these shroedinger like PC nuts?
But this is the internet so I decided to note it, rather then argue it.
broadshoulder
Britain is going through the ringer at the mo – its not as screwed up as the Americans. But what is…
We need a decade like the nineties or the sixties where life got better…not worse
Kangol
The 1960s involved active protest that began in the post-WW2 years, and resulted in the most liberatory decade this country has ever seen, the 1970s. Are you willing to fight for the right to live and be free? The 1990s involved a backlash to the Reagan-Bush led right-wing backlash of the 1980s. Are you willing to speak up and out as people did then, and not become complacent, which brought us the unmitigated disaster of George W. Bush? I hope so.
truckeralex
This could EASILY have been solved years ago with a simple .xxx for all adult sites, thus leaving medical sites available. Allowing for blockage of the .xxx suffix.
ORPHEUS
This article, as you may [or, may not] have noticed, has granted little indication that this identical so-called “standard” is going to ever be seriously enforced against all of those HETEROSEXUAL adult web-sites that exist in cyber-space. Therefore, one is led to believe that this is a surreptitious targeting of the lives and freedoms of a gay-community: A race of people that may not yet–all–be comfortably Out, and are now–therefore–going to be expected to “input their driver’s license or passport information” which come with YOUR PHOTOGRAPH, just to be able to see erotic images that celebrate our existence. Lesser-trained, gay-political warriors-to-be, could feel a little “timid” about this personal data being collected in theoretical files. What I predict to result in this, is any number of potential customers refraining from this intrusive step of once-simple online access, and the businesses that produce the erotica, suffering–as a result– financially…And, perhaps unto financial ruin; which would not be out of the question to consider is PRECISELY what the architects of this law had in mind; in the first place.
Brian
What are you talking about? It says in the very first sentence of the article that it’s websites with adult content. It should be obvious why the article focuses on the gay angle.
NYCdude
People still watch porn? Jesus! Get an imagination, goes so much better.
Daggerman
….Oh for crying out loud boys know a hell of a lot about sex before 18, the law is not just an ass it’s so stupid…
Aires the Ram
Shall we go back to the days (that I remember well), when we drove to the next town or two over, went to a magazine/book shop that had all the porno mags, bought them, read them, j/o/’d to them, then went home and either hid them under the mattress or up above the ceiling tiles in the basement? Funny thing is, even back then, we had access to porn as teenagers. What makes anyone think that all these “laws” are going to stop the youngn’s from getting access to porn? You either get it from the web, or you get it from a magazine store that carries it, or you get it from your buddy who found his Daddy’s stash, and you go out behind the barn and jerk off to it? Who do they think they are kidding?
PLAYS WELL WITH OTHERS
HERE IAM: Are you seeking professional mental health assistance with your very disturbing obsession with porn?
This is nothing more than a veiled attempt by the far right to continue to mind everyone else’s business. What I wish to view in the privacy of my home is NO ONE else’s business…
PLAYS WELL WITH OTHERS
Kids are curious, it’s part of hitting puberty. As a Gay kid I was frustrated because I had to look at the Playboy’s my friends stole from their Fathers and feign interested. Another Gay kid and I went into NYC snuck into a porn theatre on 42nd Street. While my friend was in the bathroom he was almost raped by some old creeper. So sorry dude, am so very in favor of kids jerking it to porn in the safety of their own bed.
cancorv
“Here I am” seems a little arrogant and unaware of a pluralistic world. I’m not sure why a well-brought up and probably well-educated person would like others to act according to his beliefs. A gaping hole.
djmcgamester
I don’t see the problem with verifying the people using the sites are adults. I’m not against porn but is it really so bad to potentially limit overexposure to porn? People calling this terrible must also think that asking people to prove they can legally drive by producing a driver’s license is also abhorrent.