Violent porn legislation

[ciphergoth]

This is the best written, most cogent, clearest exposition of the issues around this legislation around violent porn I have read. It's long, but please read it all - AFAICT it never falters.

(props to angelmine)

Comments

[some-fox.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the link - very helpful indeed :-)

[adjectivemarcus.livejournal.com]

*nods* Andrew Rilstone rocks, I've got this feed on my flist and am constantly pleased to read his opinions on everything.

[aster13.livejournal.com]

Hmm, really quite interesting food for thought. Ta for that.

[djm4]

One slight issue I have with it is in this paragraph:

"If I get excited by looking at pictures of – say – a group of teenaged squaddies mud wrestling in the nude, then that's perfectly okay, provided I'm looking at a real film of real recruits being really abused in the sort of perfectly normal, heterosexual horse-play that made the British army what it is today. But if exactly the same scene is staged by a gay porn website for the benefit of the kind of people who like that kind of thing, then a crime is committed by anyone who looks at it."

I don't see why the gay porn web site version of the same thing would be illegal under the act, since as presented, it doesn't seem to fall into the following categories:

" i: serious violence *
ii: intercourse or oral sex with an animal
iii: sexual interference with a human corpse

* by serious violence we mean appears to be life threatening or likely to result in serious, disabling injury"

I may be missing something, though.

I'm not saying that he couldn't come up with an example that perfectly illustrates his point, just that the examples that he gave doesn't seem to.

[purplerabbits.livejournal.com]

That was one of my nitpicks. Another one is that law has just been passed which would require 'body worlds' to get a license to display human remains, which I very much doubt it would get...

[syllopsium.livejournal.com]

It's not a bad article, but I think in parts it's somewhat unhelpful.

There's far too much emphasis on necrophilia and it doesn't address the issue that consent is the critical point, not whether it offends humanity.

The difference between a real act of violence which causes sexual arousal, and a simulated one by a porn company is not in fact about reality IMO, it's about presentation and packaging.

Possible logical conclusions are :

1) If the packaging explicitly makes sexual references, it is likely to be porn.

2) If someone is sexually excited at two equivalent films - one real, one simulated then either both are pornographic, or neither is.

Assuming that output from a porn company is porn, or output from a film company is not porn is discriminatory, and is in any case easily worked around via seperate companies.

Therefore, to have any real effect, there will need to be more censorship on violent films.

[memevector.livejournal.com]

Did you ever read my one? here (http://www.uncharted-worlds.org/consultations/extremeporncensorship.htm).

I don't think it's as readable as his (it was meant for the government rather than a blog), but it's got some good bits in :-)