[LAF] When does kinky porn become illegal?

[Volodya .]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7364475.stm

When does kinky porn become illegal?

By Chris Summers
BBC News

A bill outlawing the possession of "extreme pornography" is set to become 
law next week. But many fear it has been rushed through and will 
criminalise innocent people with a harmless taste for unconventional sex.

Five years ago Jane Longhurst, a teacher from Brighton, was murdered. It 
later emerged her killer had been compulsively accessing websites such as 
Club Dead and Rape Action, which contained images of women being abused 
and violated.

When Graham Coutts was jailed for life Jane Longhurst's mother, Liz, 
began a campaign to ban the possession of such images.

WHAT IS EXTREME PORNOGRAPHY?
A man browses pornographic DVDs in a shop
As defined by the new Criminal Justice Bill
An act which threatens or appears to threaten a person's life
An act which results in or appears to result in serious injury to a 
person's anus, breasts or genitals
An act which involves or appears to involve sexual interference with a 
human corpse
A person performing or appearing to perform an act of intercourse or oral 
sex with an animal

Supported by her local MP, Martin Salter, she found a listening ear in 
then home secretary, David Blunkett, who agreed to introduce legislation 
to ban the possession of "violent and extreme pornography".

This was eventually included in the Criminal Justice and Immigration 
Bill, which gets its final reading this week and will get Royal Assent on 
8 May.

Until now pornographers, rather than consumers, have needed to operate 
within the confines of the 1959 Obscene Publications Act (OPA). While 
this law will remain, the new act is designed to reflect the realities of 
the internet age, when pornographic images may be hosted on websites 
outside the UK.

Under the new rules, criminal responsibility shifts from the producer - 
who is responsible under the OPA - to the consumer.

But campaigners say the new law risks criminalising thousands of people 
who use violent pornographic images as part of consensual sexual 
relationships.

People like Helen, who by day works in an office in the Midlands, and 
enjoys being sexually submissive and occasionally watching pornography, 
portrayed by actors, which could be banned under the new legislation.
She feels the new law is an over-reaction to the Longhurst case.

"Mrs Longhurst sees this man having done this to her daughter and she 
wants something to blame and rather than blame this psychotic man she 
wants to change the law but she doesn't really understand the situation," 
says Helen.

"Do you ban alcohol just because some people are alcoholics?"

She has an ally in Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer, a Liberal 
Democrat peer who has fought to have the legislation amended.

"Obviously anything that leads to violence against women has to be taken 
very seriously," says Baroness Miller. "But you have to be very careful 
about the definition of 'extreme pornography' and they have not nearly 
been careful enough."

She has suggested the new act adopt the legal test set out in the OPA, 
which bans images which "tend to deprave and corrupt".

But the government has sought to broaden the definition and the bill 
includes phrases such as "an act which threatens or appears to threaten a 
person's life".

Speaking from her home in Berkshire, Mrs Longhurst acknowledges that 
libertarians see her as "a horrible killjoy".

I'M NOT DOING ANYTHING WRONG
A lot of people would like to march and demonstrate against this law but 
if you stick your head above the parapet you are going to get yourself in 
the firing line
Helen defends extreme porn
Click here to read more
"I'm not. I do not approve of this stuff but there is room for all sorts 
of different people. But anything which is going to cause damage to other 
people needs to be stopped."

To those who fear the legislation might criminalise people who use 
violent pornography as a harmless sex aid, she responds with a blunt 
"hard luck".

"There is no reason for this stuff. I can't see why people need to see 
it. People say what about our human rights but where are Jane's human 
rights?"

A spanking exhibition at Amora sex museum in London
What is considered obscene has changed over the years

Recently, the much-publicised rompings of Formula 1 boss Max Mosley have 
served as a reminder that kinky sex is found in all walks of society.

And just as Mr Mosley is fighting the expose of his antics, calling it an 
invasion of private life, so Baroness Miller says the new law also 
threatens people's privacy.

"The government is effectively walking into people's bedrooms and saying 
you can't do this. It's a form of thought police."

She says there's a danger of "criminalising kinkiness" and fears the 
legislation has been rushed through Parliament without proper debate 
because it is a small part of a wider bill.

Deborah Hyde, of Backlash, an umbrella group of anti-censorship and 
alternative sexuality pressure groups, has similar concerns.


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 make sense to me
Lord Wallace of Tankerness

"How many tens or hundreds or thousands of people are going to be dragged 
into a police station, have their homes turned upside down, their 
computers stolen and their neighbours suspecting them of all sorts?"

Such "victims" won't feel able to fight the case and "will take a 
caution, before there are enough test cases to prove that this law is 
unnecessary and unworkable".

Another opponent of the new law is Edward Garnier, an MP and part-time 
judge, who questioned the clause when it was debated in the Commons.

"My primary concern is the vagueness of the offence," says Mr Garnier. 
"It was very subjective and it would not be clear to me how anybody would 
know if an offence had been committed."

But the Ministry of Justice is unrepentant, saying the sort of images it 
is seeking to outlaw are out of place in modern-day Britain.

"Pornographic material which depicts necrophilia, bestiality or violence 
that is life threatening or likely to result in serious injury to the 
anus, breasts or genitals has no place in a modern society and should not 
be tolerated," says a spokeswoman for the ministry.
Graham Coutts
Graham Coutts, who killed Jane Longhurst after viewing extreme pornography

Yet opponents have also seized on what they see as an anomaly in the new 
law, noted by Lord Wallace of Tankerness during last week's debate in the 
House of Lords.

"If no sexual offence is being committed it seems very odd indeed that 
there should be an offence for having an image of something which was not 
an offence," he said.

With that partly in mind, the government is tabling an amendment that 
would allow couples to keep pictures of themselves engaged in consensual 
acts - but not to distribute them. Lord Hunt, who has charge of the bill 
in the Lords, admits it is being rushed through to meet a deadline. But 
he denies the law has not been thoroughly considered and maintains it 
will only affect images that are "grossly offensive and disgusting".


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