No Porn Please, We're British

A new law under consideration in Great Britain would make possession of "violent and abusive" pornography punishable by up to three years in prison. Home Officer Minister Paul Gagging Goggins believes such images are "extremely offensive to the vast majority," and that they have no place in society.

Honest, I'm going to barf if they tell me they're mostly doing it to protect the precious childr—... Shit, too late.

Mr Goggins told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "We do feel it necessary to provide some form of protection for the public, particularly for young children increasingly accessing the internet. It is very important that we protect them from accessing these kinds of extreme pornographic images." He said there was also a responsibility to "reduce demand" for this kind of material, both to protect those who were abused in its making and the public.

Thanks for bearing with me while I sponge off my keyboard.

Now, to battle: At what point, exactly, does permissible porn cross over into violent and abusive porn? Justice Potter Stewart's risible I-know-it-when-I-see-it rule won't cut it — and never has, as Gary Meyer reminds us in this five-year-old but still-perfect little essay (not safe for work):

[I]f it's about sex with ostrich feathers, it's erotica; if it's about sex with the whole ostrich, it's porn. Or it depends on whether it's supposed to get you off. Like we're gonna ask some dead writer what the deal was. "Hey, Henry Miller, that Trollop of Capricorn stuff — was that art, or were you just trying to give us boners?" Human divining rod and Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart wimped out trying to define porn, but he claimed, "I know it when I see it." Great. All we gotta do is dig him up and our troubles are over.

Seriously though: plenty of people think the pictures of nekkid ladies in Playboy are porn, and that all porn is abusive and an inducement to violence. (Think I'm exaggerating? Au contraire.)

So who gets to decide what goes too far, and how to define big amorphous words like "violent" and "abusive"? Are the Brits going to have a censorship committee that will earnestly discuss if a facial cumshot is allowable or abusive? And if the verdict comes down that that's permitted, how about a bukkake gangbang? Or how about a golden-shower scene — is that potentially abusive enough that it could land you in the pokey for a few years? Will the committee bravely tackle the possible violence in everything from fisting photos to extreme-bondage tapes? And if so, what about the fact that the performers, with maybe one exception in a thousand, are willing participants? They didn't get hurt — in most cases, they got paid! Doesn't that tell-tale little truth somehow factor into all of this?

If it's not the abusiveness towards the "victim" in front of the camera that counts, but the raw depiction of sexual abuse, period, does that mean that viewing any movie with a rape scene could be enough for a conviction? The Accused? The Color Purple? The Hotel New Hampshire? Go ahead and scoff — and then remind yourself that nannies feel no compunction about going after mainstream movies, or any kind of art. Just ask some of the people who had the temerity to rent the Academy Award-winning movie version of Nobel Prize author Günther Grass's novel The Tin Drum.

While I'm at it, I have just one more question, and it pertains to the great masses of children in whose name, supposedly, such laws are being written: When did it become OK to teach kids that mommy and daddy aren't really equipped to raise them with proper boundaries, but that, luckily, we have the government for that?

Comments

[stephen]

why do 2 of 3 movies with rape in them feature Jodie Foster?!? If I were you I'd replace The Color Purple with Taxi Driver...and in a hurry.

[Todd Grimson]

Uh oh.

[Martin Evenall]

I can think of all sorts of art photography that would be caught by this law: from Robert Mapplethorpe downwards.

And what of stills from countless legally-available horror and thriller films?

Is purely 3D-rendered (Poser, etc?) art to be covered? Drawn comics (remember the 'Lord Horror' trial)?

Will special FX creators be able to tout their services by showing examples of their work online?

[SisterGeoff]

Or photos from world war two, or any other dark portion of our past of present?