The UK 'extreme' Porn law

[Dan And Jennifer]

On the May 9, 2008, The Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill received Royal Assent. Part of this Bill, Part 5, Clause 63 to be precise, is to criminalise "extreme" pornography. "Extreme"? An "extreme image" is an image of any of the following - (a) an act which threatens or appears to threaten a person's life (b) an act which results in or appears to result (or be likely to result) in serious injury to a person's anus, breasts or genitals, (c) 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, where (in each case) any such act, person or animal depicted in the image is or appears to be real. From UK Parliament.


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[Paul - Personal Changes]

While some may feel that any laws of restriction with regard to personal sexual behavior are harmful to the human condition, sometimes they actually are appropriate.

My understanding is that in the US, there is a difference in law between sexual deviations and sexual perversions. A deviation (deviant behavior) is a variation from the "norm" or the "mainstream" of human sexual behavior. This would include things like fetishes, bi-sexuality, homosexuality, etc. A perversion is when a human performs a sexual act with someone or an animal who is not capable of giving permission to participate in the sexual act. This would include: necrophilia (sex with dead bodies), bestiality (sex with animals), negrophilia (sex with infants), pedophilia (sex with pre-pubescent children), etc.

Obviously, in this regard, the law is clearly there to protect those who are unable to protect themselves from sexual agression.

The extreme "hurting of the body" part of this U.K. law is also there to keep people from even thinking about or focusing on such extreme sexual situations. After all, if someone injurs themselves with this, then who pays for the consequences? Often, the government ends up paying the hospital bill. Like it or not, humans often mimic what they see. This is why TV ads showing people drinking a certain soda or eating a certain food or eating at a certain place, when repeated often, will tend to create that behavior in others. While it's a numbers game, it does work to some degree. It's the old, "monkey see, monkey do" thing... and it's very effective. So, while it's true that none of us like to be told what to do... in this case, they actually are looking out for our best interest. When people, especially young and impressionable ones, repeatedly see these types of images... and their hormones are raging and they are young and ignorant.. well, things happen.

I agree that governments are often too intrusive in our lives, but in this case, I support their efforts for the reasons stated above.

[Paul - Personal Changes]

In yesterday's reply, I quoted negrophilia as having sex with infants. I was concerned that I may have spelled it wrong... that it should have been neglophilia... but upon checking the DSM-IV-TM reference for disorders, the psychiatric and psychologic professions now simply refer to all sexual encounters with pre-pubescent children as pedophilia. Sorry about the error.

[ShaunK]

In general, I am all for minimal government influence in persona lives, I think the government has no business governing anything involving a person's sexual activities EXCEPT in the following situation:

Non Consenting Partners

This includes people who are too young or too mentally unprepared to be able to give a mature consent to the activity, or someone incapable of giving consent (which includes corpses and animals).

There are several areas in which I feel laws overstep personal freedoms. We have enough social and religious pressures regarding sex, why should we have laws governing them? If it isn't harming anyone, and sex is done in a consenting manner between two well informed partners, I hardly see the need for any kind of government influence.


But my general view is that all victimless crimes should be gotten rid of.

[Robert in Indiana]

By this law some body modifications come under scrutiny. Sure there are fetish castration, amputation and fisting people. But they generally treat their stuff as restricted anyway. And what about the faux amputation photos and well done FX scenes in internet movies?