British Pols Want Pervs To Sod Off, Not Get Off

The British Parliament is poised to pass a law that will criminalize the ownership of porn deemed "extreme," by which it seems to mean anything that doesn't include a silicone-enhanced blonde smiling in false ecstasy.

An image is deemed to be extreme if it "is grossly offensive, disgusting or otherwise of an obscene character" and portrays in any way an act which threatens a person's life, or which results or appears likely to result in serious injury to someone's genitals or breasts.

So, if it involves whips, chains, Japanese rope torture, nipple clamps, piercings, weights, erotic or auto-erotic asphyxia, ball torture, smoking cigarettes (it can kill you!) or things I thankfully have not seen, read about or thought of yet, the British government wants your pervy ass in the slammer even if the pictures depict consensual acts or are posed (and thus don't depict real acts).

The reason is that there was one psycho killer who raped and strangled Jane Longhurst and blamed it on his addiction to necrophiliac porn (already illegal in Britain and gross) and asphyxiation porn. Her mother campaigned long and hard for a law to make illegal all the so-called extreme porn, the end result of which is a law that detractors think is far too vague and criminalizes far too much.

Designer Vivienne Westwood's son Ben, pictured here, is concerned that his art, which includes scenes of bondage and domination, would be criminalized under the new law.

He fears some of his pictures, which often show images of people bound and gagged, could be outlawed in the new year. "I simply don't believe it is the Government's business to interfere in people's sexuality," he said. "What particularly offends me is that these laws were brought in without any consultation whatsoever with the people they affect. That is not a democracy."

The British government swears — as governments always do when they decide to restrict the rights of their citizens — that the law isn't aimed at people like Westwood but at the owners of really extreme pornography that isn't already illegal (as bestiality, necrophiliac and pedophiliac porn already is) but that they totally know should be.

Battle Lines Drawn Over Bill To Ban 'Extreme' Porn [The Independent]