Posts Tagged ‘extreme pornography’
Nick Clegg is calling on the public to help repeal bad laws. His website is not working very well yet, but if you go to http://yourfreedom.hmg.gov.uk/ and register, you can begin to express your views. Perhaps you might like to start by “search” and type in Sexual Freedom. If you are lucky, you may find Tuppy’s suggestion to Ban all the Laws against Consenting Adults’ Sexual Freedom. Let’s hear it for accessible brothels (by repealing all the silly laws criminalising keeping a brothel) and tick to agree with all the ideas you like, and against the others. Sex positive people are often too busy shagging to express their views so, this time, get to it!
Professor Stephen Guest discusses how the new offence of “possessing extreme pornography” threatens freedom of thought, in a free talk at UCL.
University College London (Darwin Lecture Theatre), Gower Street, London WC1
08 December 2009, 1:15pm
Scotland should be celebrating a vibrant, free society, rather than mimicking the prohibitionist, draconian nanny state that England has become. Sadly, all paths to Scottish freedom end in Glasgow, a city ruled by the Roman Catholic Church and the Wee Free Presbyterians.
It’s not as if Scotland isn’t heaving with consensual sexual activity. There are 190 couples on one swing site in Inverness alone, and more than a dozen fetish and BDSM clubs around the country. One Glasgwegian lass enjoyed sex with 52 men in a greedy-girl session at the Night of the Senses.
Exotic Edinburgh, Amorous Aberdeen, Daring Dundee, Invigorated Inverness and all Highland Flings are hopelessly apathetic in the knowledge that our lustful yearnings, already thwarted by the Wee Frees. will be beheaded in Glasgow, the city otherwise renowned for being the most violent in Europe, with the worst teenage pregnancy and STI /HIV rates too.
Scotland is deserted by its famous sexpots: Irvine Walsh fled to Dublin and Miami Beach, Billy Connolly to LA and Sean Connery to Switzerland, leaving ordinary sexpots to fend for ourselves to Keep Scotland Sexy.
We need to challenge Scottish plans to close down brothels. criminalise the buying of sex and the possession of extreme pornography.
Glasgow’s evangelical group CARE asked the Scottish Parliament’s justice committee to add a clause to the Sexual Offences (Scotland) Bill, to outlaw the purchase of sex. Glasgow City Council is also pressing for a ban on the purchase of sex. Ann Hamilton, of Glasgow City Council’s Community and Safety Services and lead officer on prostitution, said the new law on kerb-crawling was helping to combat street prostitution, but some women were continuing their trade elsewhere. The 2009 Stage 1 Report on the Sexual Offences (Scotland) Bill did not include legislation against the buying of sex.
However, the law already passed by the Scottish Parliament in October 2008 makes men who buy sex – or try to – liable to face prosecution. Under the Prostitution (Public Places) Scotland Act, anyone caught soliciting a prostitute for sex, as well as those “loitering for the same purpose”, can be fined up to £1000. See http://edinburghnews.scotsman.com/topstories/Call-for-outright-ban-on.4653578.jp
The Edinburgh Evening News reported on 03 November 2008:
“The campaign to amend the Sexual Offences Scotland Bill to include a clause making it illegal to pay for sex is well intended, but on closer examination misguided.
While it may reek of double standards that a blind eye is effectively turned to those who seek sex in saunas, while kerb crawlers are prosecuted, such a move threatens to drive underground what is a relatively well-controlled sector of the sex trade
There is no evidence that the introduction of the kerb-crawling laws has done anything to curb the trade in Edinburgh. While 30 men have been arrested in the past year, it has merely driven girls from their traditional haunts into less safe areas and into flats.
It would be naive to think these figures give a true reflection of the level of activity which still goes on and those caught surely only represent the tip of what is still a sizeable iceberg.
Since the kerb-crawling law was introduced last year, the mobile phone rather than the car has become the point of contact and the absence of a safety-in-numbers strategy has led to an increase in violence against the girls.
Since the trade was driven into the shadows, attacks reported to Scotpep have almost doubled from 66 in June 2006 to 126 last year. There have been 55 assaults and 17 rapes and sexual assaults.”
see http://news.scotsman.com/edinburghssexindustry/Sex-in-saunas-39Street-girls.4653583.jp
Any ban on the purchase of sex would contravene the European Declaration of Human Rights.
It is already illegal to traffic human beings and to sexually exploit, rape or assault children, so any new Scottish legislation is unnecessary. If any proposed legislation becomes law, it will be used as an excuse to close down saunas and parlours that provide a public service.
What consenting adults do, look at, and perform, is not the business of the state. Therefore any pornography that is made with consenting adults is not to be banned and its possession not to be criminalised.
CJLB, the Criminal Justice and Licensing (Scotland) Bill
see the latest, dated 05 Mar 2009 on www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Justice/crimes/pornography/ExtremePornograhicMateria
POSSESSION OF EXTREME PORNOGRAPHIC MATERIAL
The Criminal Justice and Licensing (Scotland) Bill was introduced into the Scottish Parliament in March 2009 and contains provisions to:
- introduce a new offence which will criminalise the possession of obscene, pornographic images which explicitly and realistically depict those which are of an extreme violent and sexual nature
- increase the maximum penalty from 3 to 5 years, for the existing offence under section 51 of the Civic Government (Scotland) Act 1982, for the publishing, selling or distributing or possessing with a view to selling or distributing obscene material
Summary of the new offence
The new offence criminalises the possession of obscene, pornographic images which explicitly and realistically depict:
- an act which takes or threatens a person’s life
- an act which results or is likely to result in a person’s severe injury
- rape or other non-consensual penetrative sexual activity
- Sexual activity involving (directly or indirectly) a human corpse
- An act which involves sexual activity between a person and an animal (or the carcase of an animal)
The maximum penalty for the new offence will be three years imprisonment.
The new offence is similar to that at section 63 of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008, which applies in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. The Scottish offence goes further than that offence, however, in that it covers all images of rape and non-consensual penetrative sexual activity, whereas the English offence only covers violent rape.
The offence will not catch those who accidentally come into contact with this type of material and the provisions will contain a defence to this effect. There will also be a defence for those who can prove that they participated in the act depicted, that the extreme nature of the act was apparent and not real and there is no intention to distribute the material.
Under section 51 of the Civic Government (Scotland) Act 1982, it is already illegal to publish, sell or distribute or to possess with a view to selling or distributing the obscene material, including the obscene pornographic material which is covered by this new offence. The Bill therefore contains provisions to increase the maximum penalty under section 51 of the 1982 Act in respect of extreme pornographic material from 3 to 5 years.
The Scottish Government proposes to increase the maximum penalty under section 51 of the 1982 Act in respect of the publishing etc. of extreme pornographic material from 3 to 5 years.
……………………………………………………………………………………….
What you need to know and do
If this Bill becomes law, it will produce a situation whereby acts of the most extreme animal cruelty are likely to get you six months imprisonment, having sex with an animal can get you up to 2 years imprisonment and possessing a picture of someone having sex with an animal can get you three years imprisonment, selling it 5 years.
Possession of Extreme Pornography has been banned in England and Wales under the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act since 26th January 2009, and nothing has changed except people who like looking at extreme images are losing sleep at night instead of sleeping soundly, and Ben Westwood’s photographic book, F**k Fashion: The Erotic Photography of Ben Westwood has been removed from the shelves.
Mark Cowling of University of Teesside makes this comment, “It seems to me that aspects of this legislation are ridiculous (over and above libertarian objections to the whole principle)”.
Scottish MSPs Patrick Harvie and Robin Harper from the Scottish Green Party and Margo Macdonald, Independent, are known to be challenging this new legislation. Write to ask how you can help here:
Robin Harper
Webpage : http://www.robinharpermsp.org
Patrick Harvie
Website: http://www.patrickharviemsp.com
Margo Macdonald
Website: http://www.margomacdonald.org
CAAN (Consenting Adult Action Network Scotland) is protesting and planning a meeting with Sexual Offences team about the CJLB. You can reach them on
. Please contact them before sending any attachments.
To object to Ann Hamilton’s crusade to ban the purchase of sex, contact her here:
Ann Hamilton
Glasgow Community & Safety Services
Westergate
11 Hope Street
Glasgow G2 6AB
Phone 0141 276 7400
Fax 0141 276 7699
Email
To object to the Criminal Justice and Licensing Bill
email (the preferred method of getting in touch) -
By post to: Jim Wilson, Scottish Government, Criminal Law and Licensing Division, Room GW.15, St Andrew’s House, Regent Road, Edinburgh EH1 3DG
By phone – 0131 244 7050
To express your views on the Sexual Offences Scotland Bill, contact Andrew Proudfoot, Assistant Clerk to the Committee, on 0131 348 5047 or email
Send your opinions to your MSP
Find your local MSP on
http://www.theyworkforyou.com
on the Scottish Parliament webpage http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/apps2/MSP/MSPHome/Default.aspx
or
Tell your MSP that you cannot see any reason why any pictures of consenting adults, even if deemed “extreme pornography”, however threatening-looking, or convincing the acting, should be outlawed (and tell them why), and that this section should be removed from the CJLB.
You don’t need to use posh language, just say it as it is. For example, websites showing porn stars getting hung are obviously just acted, as you see the same starlets being hung over and over again. Show those MSPs how stupid they are being if they fall for the fundamentalist, puritanical prohibitionist arguments rather than your common sense.
AND HURRY!
The Criminal Justice and Immigration Act (CJIA) came into law in May 2008.
This law makes it illegal to possess pornographic images which show an act which threatens a person’s life, an act which results, or is likely to result, in serious injury to a person’s anus, breasts or genitals, an act which involves sexual interference with a human corpse, or a person performing an act of intercourse or oral sex with an animal (whether dead or alive).
The law applies to England and Wales (so not Scotland or Northern Ireland).
“Pornographic images” includes both still photographs and videos and the acts referred to can be both consensual BDSM and non-consensual violence.
The section of the Act relating to extreme pornography takes effect from 26 January 2009.
You can download a leaflet explaining what the law says and how to protect yourself here.
One of the defences available is that the images depict the consensual activities of the owner of the image. However as many SM activities are currently illegal it is now vitally important that we get as much support as possible to change the law on consent and injuries sustained during sex.
A PDF of the relevant sections of the Act can be found here.
A PDF of the Ministry of Justice Information Sheet on this section of the CJIA can be downloaded here.
This sheet contains reference to a recent ruling (R v Porter) concerning what “possession” means in terms of Internet images. For the legally minded a copy of this judgment can be found here.
You should review your porn collection before 26 January 2009 and delete any images which you think might break this law.
Please pass this email on to anyone who may be interested or potentially affected by this law.
Here’s the links to these important PDFs again
- Spanner Trust leaflet explaining what the new law says
- Relevant sections of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008
- Ministry of Justice Information Sheet
- Recent judgment confirming that just viewing images on a web site does not constitute “possession”
Derek Cohen
chair, the Spanner Trust
Porn Law Commencement Date 26th January 2009
The long awaited date for commencement of the Porn Laws was at last discovered by a chance phonecall and followed shortly after with a release of government guidelines for the public regarding sections 62-67 of the CJIB.
http://www.justice.gov.uk/news/announcement261108a.htm (gov. guidelines pdf link on page)
CAAN released the date to various publications that have been supportive, including the Register and Bizarre magazine, and we went on to announce it on Informed Consent (UKs largest BDSM website), our Facebook group and on MelonFarmers.
Please pass this date on to anyone and anywhere you can as that is the date by which all extreme porn should be deleted from your computer.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/11/26/pr0n_ban_date/ (release story)
As one anonymous (probably now ex-) labour party member posted on El Reg in response to the release of the government guidlelines:
Dear Government,
Fuck you.
No really, fuck you very much.
Yours sincerely,
a lifelong Labour voter (aged 42 and a half)
There is still understandably a lot of panic and fear both around what to delete and how to delete it. Hopefully we’ll have a detailed guide to ‘How to delete your porn’ on the website in the new year. But as a rough guide…
WHAT SHOULD YOU DELETE?
We just don’t know for sure, and neither does anyone else (including lawyers we have spoken to), so here’s the rough overview:
- Images have to be realistic. (photographs, unrated films, clips from rated films, good cgi, photorealistic art)
- AND images need to be pornographic. (but context on your computer, or in a collection, can MAKE it deemed to be pornographic/used for sexual arousal).
- AND the image needs to show some level of ‘serious’ harm to breasts anus or genitals that isn’t qualified exactly, or a life threatening activity (ie involving threat with a weapon)…and we presume things like asphyxiation.
- AND the image needs to be judged “grossly offensive” by a jury.
The definitional detail just won’t start to evolve until there have been instances tried in court.
If you want to be sure not to fall foul of this act… delete everything you have that has any level of violence or threat in it… we all have to make our own judgement call on this.
HOW DO YOU DELETE IT?
For images in your computer:
If you are non-techy just delete the stuff.
If you are techy, you need to delete stuff beyond your own abilities to retrieve it.
If you are very techy you need to smash your hard drive, drive over it several times in a tank, jump up and down on it, cover it in petrol and set fire to it (responsibly please).
Images other than on your computer should also be destroyed responsibly, we imagine in the case of books this would mean burning them. So lovely to be a member of a society where book burning is actively encouraged. (not)!
Wacqui Jacqui at it again
Jacqui Smith announced she will make kerb crawling punishable as a first offence, hand more power to police and councils to close brothels and outlaw paying for sex with someone controlled for another’s gain.
The International Union of Sex Workers (IUSW) say the measures further complicate already outdated, confusing and ineffective laws governing the sex industry.
Those convicted of the new offences face substantial fines and criminal records and may also be prevented from working in sensitive occupations.
Miss Smith said that ignorance that a prostitute was controlled by a pimp would not be a defence. “It won’t be enough to say ‘I didn’t know’,” she said. Though she did not go on to say how anyone was supposed to know for sure and avoid criminalising themselves, whilst still maintaining their legal right to buy consensual sex.
In future, whether an individual ends up on the Sex Offenders’ Register will depend not on their conduct, but on the honesty of the prostitute they have sex with.
IUSW spokeswoman Catherine Stephens said “The Government could have made sex workers safer, but they’ve failed. The measures they are proposing endanger us all”.
The government could have chosen to follow the example of New Zealand, by recognising the rights of sex workers, allowing sex workers to create safe areas to work and to negotiate working conditions without fear of reprisal by the state. But instead they chose the Swedish method…. Hopefully if they are so fond of following Sweden’s lead we can look forward at least to……
some good news… (but we’re not holding our breath)
Late last month in Sweden the National Board of Health and Welfare (Socialstyrelsen) took the decision to declassify some sexual behaviours from being illnesses in order to avoid strengthening prejudices about them.
The diagnoses which will soon disappear from the disease registry include fetishism, fetishistic transvestitism, sadomasochism, gender identity disorder in youth, and multiple disorders of sexual preferences.
Agency head Lars-Erik Holm said that the changes emphasize that these behaviours are not illnesses in and of themselves, nor are they something perverse.
“These diagnoses are rooted in a time when everything other than the heterosexual missionary position were seen as sexual perversions,” he said.
It was 30 years ago that Socialstyrelsen took a similar step in removing homosexuality from Sweden’s list of diagnoses.
Some real good news
CAAN has the support of Spike Rhodes, London club promoter and organiser of the first London Gay and fetish Awards. We think we were the only non-gay organisation in the final nominations for the awards and went on to win the specialist website section on the night.
We asked Cristian Torrent to be on hand to pick up the award on our behalf which he duly did.
Clair Lewis (who had to drop out of attending at the last minute) says…
“Big love and thanks go to Spike Rhodes for including CAAN in the nominees, to Cristian Torrent for representing us at this event, to our webmaster, to the gay press for supporting our campaign work, to everyone who voted for us at this fantastic event, and most of all to everyone who has supported and worked with and for CAAN over the last 8 months in scores of different ways.”
Press
Another publication to support and cover CAAN’s actions consistantly is Bizarre Magazine and we had a full page in their December issue as a write up of the Ben Westwood Demo back in October. Interestingly in the same issue on their letters page they advise readers not to delete old copies of the magazine until the publisher has a better idea of how the law is going to be applied.
(There could just be more to this than meets the eye. Bizarre is part of the Dennis Group, published by none other than Felix Dennis, of Oz fame. Those of a certain age may remember him giving the establishment a bloody nose over the trial of the Oz Schoolkids’ issue. So perhaps he’s just the man to give the Labour Government a run for their money on the extreme porn law).
December’s issue went to press before the government guidance was issued but we suspect there certainly will be images in back copies of Bizarre which will breach the letter of the Porn Laws. The government advises that images in books and magazines should be disposed of ‘responsibly’.
If Bizarre does have images which breach this law the first test cases will be as interesting (if not more interesting) than the recent furore over the IWF blocking access to Wikipedia for hosting an image of a heavy metal album cover (by the Scorpions) which was deemed to be child porn. Unfortunately it’s an image which was not only available on wiki…but also on Amazon, at HMV and in local bookshops and in any record shop which sells the Scorpion deluxe box set.
Rather more staid a publication, but a very thorough and thoughful piece by John Ozimek (often of el Reg) in the Liberator Magazine (pdf)
The article starts on page 20.
Liberator magazine ‘acts as a forum for debate among radical liberals in all parties and none’.
Enough of the past..and into the future: current actions and how to join in…
If anyone is interested in leafleting, this is a brilliant way to help CAAN, so please contact us at the same address for flyers, or a copy for you to print – if you can print them it saves us money and hassle, but we will also have a stock for anyone else.
Demo 25th January
The purpose of the leafleting is to help advertise a demo to be held on 25th January, the eve of the porn ban. It’s a Sunday evening and as yet we don’t have the final details. Put the date in your diary and keep an eye on our website for an action notice (and hopefully I’ll get another newsletter out mid January).
Spread the word…. This will be a celebration of sexual diversity before the stroke of midnight turns innocent people into unemployable sex offenders.
Porn advice seeking mission challenge: how many can we do in 6 weeks? If you don’t think you can make it to London for a demo, and you don’t like leafletting, you can join in from your home town. We would like as many people as possible to receive a selection of images from our pornographic evidence collection, with a list of questions and use these tools to seek advice from their local police as to what will and will not be legal. The police should at least by now be able to tell you which images they can arrest you for in January, even if they can’t anticpate which way a court will jump.
If you feel like having your own porn expedition (alone or with a couple of mates) send an email FOA to Clair at the usual e-dress.
General Help
CAAN is indebted to so many people who have helped by donating things but the one thing we are always short of is people willing to declare and use particular skills such as… Additional Web Support, Researchers, Phone Contacters, E-mail & Letter writers, Leaflet giver-outers, Individuals capable of keeping tabs on income and expenditure, Fund-raisers and liaison artists (people who can act as go-between with a particular section of our audience: Press, politico’s, celebs, munches, etc.)
Lots of people get in touch to say ‘how can I help?’ It actually helps us if you can make that decision first…do you have a specific skill? Can you donate time or money? Do you want to come along to demos, or join in with online campaigns?
One of the most time wasting (and demoralising) things for a growing pressure group is giving people things to do only to find they don’t get done. Please offer your help responsibly and realistically…we’d rather people offered and did a small thing than took on something huge and then ran away.
If you have any of the named skills (or anything else useful…cartooning, baking us cakes etc) and have the time and energy to put them to use for CAAN please let us know at
and don’t forget everyone can help us by spreading the word about CAAN.
Donations to CAAN should still be sent via a paypal account at
Signing up to the CAAN statement of principle is probably the one single easiest effective thing a person can do. (followed by encouraging other people to do it too) We are drawing support from a very wide base as we had hoped…libertarians, academics, the gay and BDSM communities, and lots of people who have seen what CAAN are doing and just believe what the statement says makes sense. For those who still think signing the statement points you out as being some kind of sexual devient or purveyor of violent porn…. you couldn’t be more wrong.
Heres a reminder of the statement and a link to the sign up page…
“We believe in the right of consenting adults to make their own sexual choices, in respect of what they do, see and enjoy alone or with other consenting adults, unhindered and unfettered by government.”
“We believe that it is not the business of government to intrude into the sex lives of consenting adults.” http://www.caan.org.uk/sign.php
Feel free to forward this newsletter to anyone you think may be interested. And if you’d like to be involved with the design or writing of the next letter drop us a note.
And finally…. Have a Cool Yule, a Merry Christmas or enjoy your seasonal equivalent and we’ll see you all hopefully in January!