England Bans Violent Porn

31 thoughts on England Bans Violent Porn

1. I find this quite depressing. Particularly pernicious is this “appears to be” part, which seems to invite quite a bit of discretion. As with the issue of, say, *computer-generated* child-porn [where the only issue is the effect on the viewer, rather that its creation], we just have no idea whether stuff like this serves as a substitute for, or a complement to, actual violent sex. It seems that in the absence of genuine knowledge, the state ought to resist the urge to criminalize.

   To take it further … we have pretty darn good knowledge that alcohol IS criminogenic; that being drunk DOES increase the likelihood of criminal activity in a way that, say, being high on pot does not. But we recognize that this alone isn’t a conclusive reason to criminalize drinking.

   This is the problem with legislation-by-grisly-anecdote. I feel terrible for the woman whose daughter was killed, but that doesn’t make this a good law.

2. I was torn about this news for the very same reasons you list above (censorship, who decides what’s “violent?”). There is some very nasty underground stuff floating around and it’s clear that not all women who appear in pornography are there by choice. I saw some pretty horrible stuff in a women’s studies class back in college. Some rape scenes and physical torture are NOT pretend, but real (yes, I realize that “Snuff” was faked, I’m not talking about that film). The professor had guts just collecting it to show her students. Regarding any prosecution relating to pornography, at the very least anyone who commits a crime in the production of porn should face the legal system. But I would like to believe that happened before the new law.

3. Furthermore, if the rationale for this is about about trying to discourage the violent oppression of women by men through disallowing certain images that might somehow provoke it, then the fact that this ban will also undoubtedly apply to gay male S&M pornography has to be admitted to be just collateral damage. Leslie Green’s [who is teaching a class on sexuality and the law at NYU this semester, in fact!] article about whether the Dworkin-MacKinnon critique applies to gay male pornography seems on point, here.

   Not to mention the basic point that giving police the power to come into someone’s house to search their computer for dirty pictures is, well, a bit worrisome.

4. Does pornography “shape” our understanding of sex, or is pornography a reflection of our culture’s understanding/misunderstanding of sex and gender roles? I too am a pro-sex, anti-censorship, feminist in that I believe porn to be symptomatic not the root cause, as someone like Dworkin would argue during the sex wars of the 80’s. Clearly, pornography varies and the vast majority of it is made for the male hetero viewer by male hetero producers but some feminists are making strides in deciding if pornography can be of a feminist perspective and if so what would that be? See: Becky Goldberg’s documentary……and check out Linda Williams, “Hard Core.”

5. Banned in the United Kingdom, not just England.

6. One reason why I am staunchly anti-censorship is that I can tell everyone right now that “violent” porn will be defined to the benefit of mainstream porn which often involves aspects of violence or outright rape (bodice-ripper novels where “she says no but means yes”, even old James Bond films where the charming chauvinist 007 smacks around some women and charms her with being so manly), and against the benefits of people involved in BDSM who are deeply concerned with issues of consent (hi Thomas). Censorship will always be defined to benefit the majority in the long run, which is a good argument against “hate speech”, too.

   Simply put, the concern is that if “violent” porn is thus outlawed only outlaws will use and produce violent porn. Possession of pornography where there is no consent (child pornography is automatically nonconsent) is at least immoral, and production of such porn can not fall under the umbrella of “Free Speech”. Best way to address these problems is IMHO greater openness about the whole industry, and laws that protect pink-collar workers against abuse and coercion.

   My own tastes probably aren’t relevant, but I usually prefer looking at relatively benign sexual pictures (soft porn, or simply pictures of beautiful women) whereas when I want fantasies and descriptions of sexaul acts and intercourse I prefer written porn, which may include “fetishes”. Perhaps one reason is that production of porn is in such suspectible morally gray area, or it’s just a preference. Dunno.

7. I think free speech arguments break down pretty quickly if the production actually includes acts of violence – by their very nature unconsenting. There’s a freedom of press that’s unimpeachable, but it doesn’t mean that I get to shoot you, take a picture of it, and publish it on your printing press.

8. Oh, and the other thing I meant to say is that the interesting part of this question is that if violent pornography promotes violence, and therefore a state interest in its regulation and ban, what about violent non-pornography? James Bond movies? Martial Arts flicks? Rambo? Is there a particular reason why these would be protected?

9. Werty, I was just talking about this on the Monarchy thread. The English legal system historically encompasses Wales, but not Scotland. This is a domestic act of the Westminster Parlaiment. The Scottish Executive is free to do as it sees fit WRT Scottish law, which is a different system. So, the be precise, Jill was correct that England has banned certain violent porn, and it is also true that the British parlaiment has banned it in Wales. See here; the bit about jurisdiction is at the end.

   About the substance, some readers might expect me to be unhappy about this because I’m a sadomasochist. I take a different view. First, in England and Wales, there are some significant limitations on heavy BDSM, and what they are is really an open question in the law. Second, the standard is specific to material “featuring violence that is, or appears to be, life-threatening or is likely to result in serious and disabling injury.” This is certainly not the kind of deliberate targeting of BDSM that appeared in the Dworkin/MacKinnon ordinances. Certainly, it leaves some conduct out in the cold, such as strangulation (that’s what the underlying case was about). But any conduct that is “life-threatening” or “is likely to result in serious or disabling injury” is in the “closed course/professional driver” category anyway. This act does not ban the depiction of BDSM, in other words. The act bans snuff porn, even if simulated, and bans BDSM practices that people should not try without rigorous training. Those restrictions are not insignificant, but I do think that there is a large benefit to quashing the eroticization of killing and mutilating women at a fairly reasonable cost. Also, these restrictions merely extend to possession the bans already in place on distribution.

   The problem is in the discretion exercised in enforcement, which might be horrible. But in a patriarchy, the tools of the patriarchy will inevitably interfere in the execution of measures meant to roll back patriarchy; the only alternatives are to act carefully and adjust as necessary; or to do nothing. The latter hardly seems like a good idea.

10. Well, it worked with drugs, and regular pornography, and prostitution. And gambling too, right? I mean, nobody has the urge to gamble now that gambling is illegal in most instances, and jeez sex with strangers for money… the vast sanction of the law got rid of that pretty quickly, didn’t it?

11. Oh, and the other thing I meant to say is that the interesting part of this question is that if violent pornography promotes violence, and therefore a state interest in its regulation and ban, what about violent non-pornography? James Bond movies? Martial Arts flicks? Rambo? Is there a particular reason why these would be protected?

    What about gratuitous narrative sexualized violence? CSI, Law & Order: Gory Sex Crimes Unit, any other formulaic crime drama, even graphic rape scenes in films like Rob Roy and Boys Don’t Cry? What about artists like Jenny Saville?

12. Thomas, is it possible that loopholes designed to protect BDSM practitioners would make it too difficult to enforce laws against nonconsensual violent pornography? What’s the difference between, say, a bodice-ripper film and one involving modern dungeon accessories? Are there specific cues that would be necessary to separate scripted BDSM scenes from scripted nonconsensual scenes?

13. Thomas, re: “the only alternatives are to act carefully and adjust as necessary; or to do nothing” … this strikes me as a dangerously false dichotomy. At least if what you mean–the obvious referent within the context of this discussion–is “act carefully using the coercive tools of state criminal law.” Because once it becomes phrased in the open like that, it’s quite clear that one can do many, many things to oppose the eroticization of killing and mutilating women while nevertheless not, uhm, throwing people in jail for looking at sexist pictures. One can write blog against it; talk against it; be aggressive in opposing even subtle manifestations of it with harsh words, firm disapproval, and even social ostracism. To say that all of this amounts to “nothing” seems quite wrong to me. Does this blog, for example, only matter if it succeeds in getting readers to vote for politicians who vote for the right laws?

14. If I read the BBC article right, the new law just augments penalties for obscene material containing violence, but bans nothing that wasn’t already illegal:

    The new law will not target those who accidentally come into contact with obscene pornography or affect mainstream entertainment industry working within current obscenity laws.

    Thus any gay male BSDM porno that was legally available last month will be legal next month, along with Law & Order, Irreversible, and Basic Instinct.

    There’s a story about the depiction of sexual violence in Basic Instinct, (which I’m not 100% is true). The MPAA censors allegedly objected to this one scene where you could see this actor’s penis. Female frontal nudity is acceptable for an “R” rating but male frontal nudity is a no-no. They tell Verhoeven he has to cut that scene or he won’t get an “R” rating. Verhoeven objects, “Yeah, sure, you can see that guy’s penis, but it’s OK, see, because he’s been murdered!” The MPAA say, “The guy with his pecker out, he’s dead? Oh, well in that case it’s all right! Dead guys’s penises aren’t obscene; you can leave the scene in.” In contrast to the U.K. legislature the MPAA judged that murder makes sexual indecency less indecent, not more. But then this is the U.S.A.

15. Piny, I’ve gone around and around in my own head with the idea of a specific loophole for consensual BDSM. I’m not sure it can be done.

    One can’t key it off of leather or latex fetish costumes or dungeon equipment, because that represents the media image but not the reality of most BDSMers. One could in theory require that a safeword or safesign be in place, but how would one determine that from the face of the material if it was not used in the scene?

    If material was distributed whole, one could have before-and-after interviews with the participant (I have even seen promotions for commercial BDSM websites that use after-scene interviews to contextualize the action, and I think it’s a great technique) but on the internet that stuff might be stripped out at a long scene gets cut up into short video segments and sent around; or it might just get cut for bandwidth. This might be a viable strategy for controlling commercial distribution, but I doubt is would be effective for controlling non-commercial distribution or possession; and I’m not interested in protecting an industry of people making money off of BDSM so much as protecting people doing BDSM and representing their own sexuality.

    There are two problems with representations of sex; the conditions of production and the effect on the consumer. The problems admit of different solutions. The context of production — that it involve meaningful consent and safe practices — turns on who is making the material and how. Most dangers can be eliminated by simulation, etc. In theory, this can be well policed for commercial production and probably for home producers as well. It admits of solutions that travel through who the makers are and how they make it. But that’s not what Parliament was after here.

    The Act was aimed at the effect on the consumer, and in patriarchy, that’s not a problem that can be resolved without changing the culture. Any material that goes out to a public audience is interpreted by each audience member individually, and that interpretation imports the impact of patriarchy on the viewer. This is not a problem specific to BDSM. Every depiction of the human body is to some extent implicated. Women can produce lesbian porn for women, but some man may see it and stroke to it and think heteronormative thoughts and impose his own interpretation. Somebody could watch my wife kick me in the testicles and interpret it as an abusive relationship. It’s almost impossible to control that.

    But if one ought not to depict sexuality at all for fear that the mainstream will impose its patriarchal interpretation on it, then we literally give up trying to communicate with each other about sexuality that is outside the mainstream; I’m not willing to do that.

    Solutions to this problem are inherently unsatisfying in my view: they work from the four corners of the material and turn on balancing the interests. Here, Parliament has chosen to do that: they don’t try to prevent depiction of BDSM. They try to prevent depiction of acts (BDSM or not) that look like either mutilating or killing women or acts that run a large risk thereof. It’s a balance that, even interpreted the way I think is fair, sweeps in some stuff that I think is fine. Breath control is what the Act was explicitly targeted at. Views vary on how dangerous it is, but it’s a risk that some people will take fully aware; that in my view reasonable informed BDSMers might take. But the interpreters sometimes see it as snuff porn and eroticize killing people. I’m not convinced (because the evidence is so unclear) that exposure to the images actually influence men to rape and kill women. But they certainly may. They also may encourage BDSMers to do things that are dangerous and technically beyond their capacity. Finally, they may in a more general way normalize killing women or taking risks with their safety. That’s true of a lot of material; like Jackass. But that does not mean it isn’t true, or that it isn’t troubling.

16. I wouldn’t censor violent porn, because it is too tough to define. But I do have to say, my libertarian instincts regarding porn have been tempered in recent years by the stuff that is out there, and much as I don’t agree with Catherine MacKinnon and Andrea Dworkin when they made it sound like even cheesecake photos were rape, they did predict that porn was one gigantic slippery slope to the nastiest sorts of degradations of women.

    The freedom to put sex on the screen was a hard-won and important freedom, one that can be put to feminist ends. But for the most part, unfortunately, the type of sex that it is being put on the screen is sex that women would never enjoy and that indeed would disgust many women.

17. PLN, I meant “measures” broadly, and not just to include the power of the State. The same thing I said in those last sentences applies to a private right of action or to an advertising campaign: patriarchy will act on the measure and in some respects thwart and confound the actor. Unless the actor is prepared to give up, the only thing for it is to plan, try, and adjust. That goes for changing the culture as well as changing the law.

18. I think free speech arguments break down pretty quickly if the production actually includes acts of violence – by their very nature unconsenting. There’s a freedom of press that’s unimpeachable, but it doesn’t mean that I get to shoot you, take a picture of it, and publish it on your printing press.

    The problem is that one can also consent to act in a filmed violent pornographic scenario, and it is only the portrayal, not any possible coercion, that this law targets.

    I’m sure there’s coercion in the porn industry – probably more frequently of a subtler nature, rather than overt rape. Seems to me that the answer to that kind of thing is not banning porn, but rather stricter regulation of the working conditions of porn performers. Unfortunately, I suspect that many would either (1) regard this as giving unacceptable legitimacy to porn production, or (2) just not care altogether.

19. One reason why I am staunchly anti-censorship is that I can tell everyone right now that “violent” porn will be defined to the benefit of mainstream porn… Censorship will always be defined to benefit the majority in the long run, which is a good argument against “hate speech”, too.

    Do you have any evidence of this?

20. Nerdlet: the Little Sister’s bookshop case in Canada is the obvious one that comes to mind. A brief (and obviously not disinterested) summary of the case can be found here. One sentence version: various things concerned with sexuality that were routinely delivered to other, mainstream, bookstores were systematically seized by customs officials when en route to a gay/lesbian bookstore.

21. Were such materials never seized or challenged anywhere else? I read the link, but there are a lot of links within it – I can’t even find exactly what material was being seized, there.

22. Thomas, perhaps I’m simply too much an American first-amendment sort, but I just find it baffling that the hesitant, just-maybe, who-knows considerations you adduce–which seem to boil down to “might perhaps encourage acts harmful to self or others”–are taken as justifying putting someone in prison for up to three years for possessing pictures.

    Do you honestly believe that for any X, so long as we have as much reason to believe X might encourage an equal level of social harm as we do for the possession of violent pornography, X should be prohibited on pain of three years imprisonment?

    If the rejoinder is that there’s very little positive good to be balanced on the other side; that possessing violent pornography just doesn’t weigh heavily the way that, eg, the right to consume alcohol does (because as I said, we know drinking increases the likelihood of violent crime), can we at least agree that the deeply private nature of the forbidden activity–having pictures in one’s own home, most likely!–means a rather frightening level of intrusiveness in enforcement?

    Is it really such a radical proposition to say that locking people up in cages for years should only be reserved for acts that are genuinely, incontrovertibly harmful? Am I really that out-of-touch with the mainstream?

23. I am torn as well. What does it say about a woman’s right to choose a particular vocation or how they express themselves sexually? Also from a psychological standpoint, this person was sick long before they saw violent porn. I do think the violent porn is pretty sick though.

24. PLN, perhaps I didn’t make this clear, but I am not addressing policy considerations in the abstract or pretending that this Act of Parliament is a US statute. I gave my opinion on this in the context in which it exists: in England, which has nothing like the right to personal privacy as against the State that our contry was founded on (and in fact, England is a surveillance nation in a way that most Americans cannot imagine; in metropolitan areas, big brother really is almost always watching), and where both the material in question and some BDSM are already illegal. All they have really done is refuted the Stanley v. Georgia proposition that material that is illegal may be possessed in the home for privacy reasons notwithstanding its illegality. Against that backdrop, I’m okay with what Parliament did.

    As for what the mainstream thinks, don’t ask me. I’m not really in the mainstream of anything. I’m socially left but essentially capitalist in economic/distributional orientation, a non-cognitivist on questions of ethical philosophy, and among feminists I’m hostile to mainsteam porn and a Swedish-model proponent on sex work, but a sadomashochist and very trans-friendly, which leaves me in the crossfire between the anti-porn folks and the folks who adopt the term sex-pos…. so there you go. Finding anyone who agrees with me on more than a few things is a challenge. I don’t stand for anyone but me.

    As to the weight of the sanctions, pointing out maximum sentences (in bold) is a clumsy and basically hypothetical way to talk about the use of the criminal prosecution power of the State. This law proscribes possession of material that is already illegal, and permits the imposition of criminal penalties that include up to three years of imprisonment. In practice, this will generally amount to a lot of official cautions (like Pete Townsend got for paying to view child pornography) and maybe the occasional imprisonment. Do I like that? When the viewer is someone not actually raping or mutilating women, not really. But as I said, this area admits only of unsatisfying answers that balance interests … badly.

    I’m even less satisfied with shrugging and saying that there’s nothing we can do about it. We’re on a feminist blog here where we, collectively, complain all the time about how women are protrayed. I believe the way women are depicted has an impact; and that it supports patriarchy. I think that some depictions are more harmful than others. I think normalizing the killing and mutilation of women is a problem. (To a certain extent I also think that normalizing BDSMers doing dangerous stuff is a problem, but that problem has a lot in common with, as I said, dangerous stunts like those on Jackass.) I want to get some curbs on that. Perhaps this Act is not the ideal solution; but now, in England, I think it doesn’t suck as bad as some alternatives.

    There are some free-speech absolutists that don’t want any restrictions on the dissemination of images. When I was younger I held that view and now I don’t. There are even more folks, IME that hold the view that they want a good deal of certainty of a direct causal relationship between porn and rape before they are willing to restrict free expression. I think the impact of the collective culture of male entitlement to sexual use of women’s bodies is powerful, but the connection is nebulous. The worst part, in my view, is not porn but the more routine use of women’s bodies as commodities to sell everything; and after that, the massive array of mainstream porn that merely stands for the proposition that women are sexbots. Those are problems that probably cannot be addressed by coersive power in a way that I’d support. Here, we’re dealing with a small but important subset of the same problem: not the normalization of woman as sex object, but the normalization of murdering and disabling women for entertainment. Because of the focused nature of the problem, for the reasons I have said, I think that it can be addressed through the coersive power of the state, and that this route is effective is problematic. It certainly will not eliminate the flow, but it will reduce it and force it underground — which, when one is concerned with the effect of speech legitimizing something in the larger culture, is actually the goal.

    How would this play in the US? Well, because we’ve got Stanley enshrined in our constitutional law, I would be much more reluctant to let the State breach that barrier. We as Americans have more to lose, which changes how the balance plays. We have a more entrenched role for private rights of action in the US, and I tend to be sympathetic to the general idea of the Dworkin/MacKinnon ordinances (though the texts themselves reflect those two women’s values in ways that I am just totally unreconsilable to and for me to support such an idea it would need a big redraft). And I’m willing to listen to ideas. But I’m not on board with the idea that the coersive power of the State, in every place and at every time, is such a bad thing that I don’t ever want it used to prevent individuals from looking at an image in their private homes. In fact, to support that proposition, one would have to endorse the decriminalization of possession of child pornography; a position I do not endorse.

25. This is an interesting subject. I have an instinct that recoils from censorship of any kind. But in this case I am conflicted. I am still oppossed to censorship but extremely death and snuff loving ponography offends me, It is a hard call.

    Female dominant media is on the rise and may be viewed differently than the male dominated variety. Some even live relationships where their bdsm leaks into a 24/7 relationship that others may try to intervene as rescue from abuse.

    The subject is certainly complicated

26. PLN, a further point which think I implied but neglected to state: the intrusive enforcement you raise does not necessarily follow: indeed, nothing in the Act changes the circumstances under which law enforcement may invade the home; only what they may base charges on if they find it. In practice, criminalizing private possession is entirely theoretical except in two circumstances: where the distribution of illegal materials leads to the user coming into possession, such as online stings of people buying child porn; and when a search is in order for other reasons, such as incident to a complaint of another crime. If someone is charged with raping and beating women in England, am I disturbed that he may also be charged with a crime for having videos of women getting badly beaten when they search his house for evidence? Not really. And if someone is downloading illegal material, is he really engaged in private conduct, or is he engaged in commerce in the worldwide internet? So that if he is the supply end of an unlawful trafficking transaction, are we adding much to the prohibition?

27. Steve, I am very, very critical of attempts at 24/7. I think, no matter how it starts, the dynamics are such that compliance becomes habit and over time, a person who lives in a state of inequality over time is necessarily affected by it. If we recognize the impact of patriarchy on women and the the freedom with which they make choices over time, surely we must be skeptical of anybody who says, “my slave chooses to be a slave, and makes that choice every day freely just as if unconstrained, though my slave is always constrained.”

    On my account, meaningful consent to power exchange in BDSM means that the power dynamics are artificial and deliberately constructed, and are constructed with limits. If the bubble in which the power exchange takes place has no boundary, then it’s not in a bubble, and the power exchange is not artificial.

28. Are there specific cues that would be necessary to separate scripted BDSM scenes from scripted nonconsensual scenes?

    This is the problem with banning performances of any sort. Are there specific cues that tell us that CSI isn’t about real people being murdered and raped? Are there specific cues that tell us that Will Ferrell isn’t actually a Hitler fanatic?

    I can see a justification for this law in that it makes it easier to prosecute these occurrences than existing anti-violence crimes are, and I’m not convinced one way or another as to its validity. But there is no easy answer as far as separating performances from reality. If there was, this law wouldn’t be necessary – the film would be all the evidence necessary to prosecute under existing law.

29. Long live Andrea Dworkin.

30. Are there specific cues that would be necessary to separate scripted BDSM scenes from scripted nonconsensual scenes?

    Piny, I misread your question. If you are talking about signifiers in works of fiction to show that the characters consented, just an indication that there is a safeword ought to be enough — in the context, an astute viewer will get the meaning. Or, and this is the reality of a lot of BDSM scenes, there’s no roleplay involved and stop simply means stop. So, for example, in a film if a woman is pinching a man’s nipples, he says, “ow … OW!” and she smiles and says, “are you asking me to stop?”

    Here’s the question, though: how much does introducing the context of consent into the narrative affect how it plays out to a wider audience? I don’t mean to ask that in an overly critical way; in fact, I think it has a pretty positive impact, because it normalizes the idea of frank communication about consent and it works to counteract attempts to reimagine the scene as nonconsensual, so I think it fixes quite a bit of the problem.

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