Britain is drawing a line between "acceptable" and "unacceptable" sex in porn.
Effective December 1, the British Board of Film Classification (which is similar to the United States' FCC) has made it illegal for any porn made in the U.K. to portray this long list of sexy-time activites:
Spanking
Caning
Aggressive whipping
Penetration by any object "associated with violence"
Physical or verbal abuse (regardless of if it’s consensual)
Urolagnia (known as "water sports")
Role-playing as non-adults
Physical restraint
Humiliation
Female ejaculation
Strangulation
Facesitting
Fisting
The ruling is intended to bring the country’s online pornography regulations in line with restrictions that are already in place for its pornography sold in stores. (The regulations, however, only affect what is made in the U.K., not what is watched there.) The BBFC says the acts are "not acceptable" for view and that the last three are "life-endangering." However, the regulations make no distinction between consensual and non-consensual acts between adults, and many critics are calling the BBFC’s list of bans sexist.
"How else do you explain that depictions of female ejaculation are now banned in U.K. porn, but male ejaculation is not?" asks Lynn Comella, Ph.D., associate professor of gender and sexuality studies at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and co-editor of the soon-to-be-released New Views on Pornography: Sexuality, Politics, and the Law.
The BBFC, however, maintains that it’s difficult to prove that female ejaculation isn't actually "obscene" urination, according to VICE, which points out that the regulations disproportionately ban acts in which women gain pleasure and take a dominant role over men (think: BDSM and dominatrix pursuits).
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The Independent also claims that by banning these acts, the BBFC will hurt female-run businesses in the U.K. Many of the country's BDSM producers are independent women-owned companies. Meanwhile, professional female dominatrixes have been virtually banned from U.K. porn. "When governments start policing 'acceptable' and 'unacceptable' sexual activity between consenting adults, it stands to reason that sexual communities that already exist on the margins are the ones that risk losing the most: LGBT communities, kink communities, fetish communities," says Comella.
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While obscenity laws in the United States (yes, we have obscenity laws!) do not include a government-sanctioned list of activities that are banned from porn, many filmmakers do actually self-censor, says Comella. "There are some sexual acts that seem to run the risk of prosecution more than others, so some adult companies opt to avoid filming these [fisting, for example], lest they risk becoming a target for obscenity prosecutions." Who knew?
But even if spanking, handcuffs, or just porn in general isn’t your thing, the regulations could potentially still put a damper on your sex life, she warns.
"Bans such as this have a potentially chilling effect on all kinds of sexual expression and freedom that extend beyond pornography. If governments can ban depictions of spanking in porn, what's stopping them from also coming after your vibrator?"
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