UKC

Digital ecconomy bill set to ban "unconventional" porn sites
While some things (ie violence, urination etc) may seem reasonable others such as any public displays of sex or female ejaculation may seem a tad over the top. However if you consider that the porn industry full stop is exploitive then would this not be a good thing all round?

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/porn-websites...

In reply to Duncan Bourne:

Makes me reminisce the paper based pornography of old. Your details weren't held on any database and if the heat was on you could stash it in a hedge

In reply to Duncan Bourne:
A good idea taken too far.
Humiliation, pain, depicting non consensual act's is fair enough.
Things like sex in public needs to be defined, out on the high street in view of anyone passing is one thing but a quiet spot in the woods with no passing people is fine.

The 4 finger rule, I can see both sides to that some people will be pressured in to fisting but others genuinely enjoy it.

Water sports, not my thing but if that's what consenting adults want to do then fair play.

The one that baffles me though is no female ejeculation, what could possibly be wrong with that?

In reply to Duncan Bourne:

I can only see this as good for society.

What children encounter on porn sites is not "normal" and therefore is placing unreasonable expectations on kids (particularly girls) to behave a certain way.

Having said that I have no problem with adults viewing porn of whatever variety if they should want to - as adults are far less impressionable and can make their own decisions on what they do or don't want to indulge in. The problem is how do you ensure it is only adults that see this material?

Regardless of the governments actions though the genie is out of the bottle

In reply to Duncan Bourne:

Crap idea.
Many providers wont give a f*ck (pun intended) and since they arent UK based will just laugh at any threats.
Any measures they can be arsed to put in I strongly doubt they will put effort into so anyone fancying that sort of thing just needs to use a vpn and wait a bit longer for gratification.

In reply to Duncan Bourne:

Is it full stop exploitative? It's a genuinely debatable point.

I would go for nanny state. Adults can police their own serial proclivities, and I must agree with an acquaintance of mind in her view that it normalises hetero, missionary position sexual expression (she was a bit more eloquent than that!).

Honestly, has the government got nothing more pressing to think about?

In reply to damhan-allaidh:
Agree. I can see an argument for cracking down on all porn, and I can see a strong argument for cracking down on porn that blurs (or ignores) the lines around consent, but specifically just cracking down on porn that you find a bit weird and icky seems rather silly.

In reply to balmybaldwin:



I came across (no pun intended) a number of things when I was in my teens that didn't turn me into a pervert that today would be classed as 'prison time'. I think that the difference today is that porn and in your face sexuality is everywhere.

In reply to Duncan Bourne:

The headline says "Porn websites in the UK ...".
Seeing as most smut is produced elsewhere, it's rather a toothless proposition.

Which reminds me of an ad my Mrs showed me in the Men seeking Men section of Time Out once, "Denture wearers only need apply."

In reply to balmybaldwin:



Well that is the perenial problem and strictly speaking you can't. I found my first "hedge porn' at the age of 8 (my Dad might still have it in the attic with my old toys) and what wasn't there could be found in my Dad's bedside table. When I started work at 16 there was usually a huge stack of them in the messrooms of the various places I worked.

In reply to Duncan Bourne:

On a visit to Amsterdam in 1977, I visited my first ever porn shop, and found myself rather amazed at what people enjoyed. It wasn't inspiring however.

In reply to Ramblin dave:

Anything that breaks the law is not just bannable (is that a word), but subject to the full force if the law and anyone breaking the law should be prosecuted.

The real issue here is a body of politicians who are not technically or intellectually capable of dealing with the Internet, who are a bit squeamish about their own sexuality (it's fun, it's comforting, its lots of different things to lots of different people, it's how we all got to be here), and maybe not assertive enough to tell parents, you monitor your child's Internet use and you talk to them about healthy sexual relationships.

Should've been sexual not serial in my other post. Ipad clearly as priggish as our MPs.

In reply to Duncan Bourne:
Banning stuff is rarely the solution to things dealing with primal urges. If the goal is to avoid what is depicted online happening IRL then sweeping it under the rug will just isolate those who want to see it further. The way to head off that stuff is being able to talk about it. Explain to teens or adults or whoever sees it that it's just fantasy and before doing that IRL you need to be sure everyone involved is on the same page etc.

Banning it doesn't make it go away, it's just sticking your head in the sand.

Some of those acts I see listed are also some of the most common fantasies. Something like 30 to 57% of women have a fantasy about nonconsensual sex, for 9 to 17% they prefer it (source: https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/psyched/200805/why-do-women-have-eroti... ). However that's of course just fantasy, doesn't mean they want to real thing. Still, seeing it online performed by 2 consenting actors could be the outlet they need. That's just the worst example, pain and humiliation fetishes could be equally common.

What you end up doing is making young women and men believe they are not normal and having to go underground or meet strangers to explore that side of themselves. The urges don't go away because they don't fit what society deems "normal".

In reply to Duncan Bourne:

The pornography angle is irrelevant, it is just an excuse, this is about putting a border in cyberspace and controlling people's ability to access websites outside the country. The Tories don't like the internet for the same reasons they don't like the EU: it is beyond the nation state and outside the control of Westminster government and London courts. They want to put things back the way they used to be in the good old days independent of practicality, cost and collateral damage.

In reply to TheFasting:

A good post and some good points. If a group of folks who get together to spank each other want to put it on the web then fair enough.
I am not too bothered by what kids see either. As long as we explain things to them they don't turn out bad.
What concerns me is the non-consentual and the exploitative nature of some porn.

In reply to Duncan Bourne:

Regulating the internet? Hilarious.

Govt totally out of touch.

In reply to Duncan Bourne:

Nanny state
What people do with each other or watch is up to them

The actors know what they are doing.

In reply to Duncan Bourne:

In general I am not in favour of banning things. I find that it stifles debate and is often unenforcable.
With this, however, I find myself on the horns of a dilema. On the one hand I believe that people have a right to self expression. I do not want to get pissed on or have someone paddle my bare arse but I can appreciate that some people do and who am I to deny them that? I find the idea of public sex exhilarating while others might be horrified. Each to their own. However It concerns me that others might be cajoled or forced into doing things that they would not normally do. We may say that the people men and women who take part in porn films are doing it of their own volition, we may even find some willing to stand up and say that they love it. But that may still leave a great majority that only did it for the money or were coerced or blackmailed etc. etc. Even in main stream films like "Blue is the warmest colour" coercion takes place. I love the film and its depiction of a relationship but acording to wikipedia "members of the crew said the production occurred in a "heavy" atmosphere with behaviour close to "moral harassment", which led some members of the crew and workers to quit.[Fabre, Clarisse (24 May 2013). "Des techniciens racontent le tournage difficile de "La Vie d'Adèle"". Le Monde (in French). Retrieved 26 May 2013.]". I like porn where I feel the participants are doing what they really want to do but in depictions of BDSM etc. it can be hard to tell. For me it is that power imbalance that I don't like. People like to be dominant and some people like to be subservient and all the shades imbetween but if the feeeling isn't mutual then it is wrong. deciding which is which from a viewing point of view is the crux of the problem

In reply to Duncan Bourne:

I expect that there will be a rather excitable group of MP, who will sit in a darkened room for months watching pr0n, debating what is 'unconventional'. It may well be the same sort of MP's who have 'unconventional' relationships themselves.

From a technical point of view it is very easy to block access to all pr0n sites, VPN's and TOR nodes. The Dave had the idea of a great firewall. There is still some who think that is a good idea. Possibly because they could make money from its implementation

In reply to Duncan Bourne:
IIRC a high proportion of people (women particularly) who are in the porn industry have histories of abuse. Possibly the best one can hope for is a way of stopping young and impressionable people from viewing porn, and it shaping their perception of what is 'normal' when having sex.

In reply to Timmd:

Possibly the best one can hope for is a way of stopping young and impressionable people from viewing porn, and it shaping their perception of what is 'normal' when having sex.

Porn is out of the bag and won't go back in so we need to realise and accept to a point that young people will see it and discuss and educate teenagers to the fact that many of the things that porn would seem to trivialise and portray as normal are pretty unconventional.

I've no idea what it covered in sex ed in schools these days but I really hope it's a bit more comprehensive than what we had in the early 90s which pretty much involved putting a condom on a bottle, Not sure what they were suggesting we should do with the bottle afterwards but anything like that is probably covered in the recent legislation.

In reply to mark s:

Seen the film Lovelace? It is about the making of Deep Throat, probably the most famous porn film in history. Even in that case the oral sex was apparently very much coerced, not consensual at all. I agree with you that people should be free to do as the freely choose, but very much doubt that choosing freely is the way the porn industry works.
Still does not mean that banning websites is the way forward. Dedicated prosecutors that go after obvious cases of rape are probably the better option, in which case one should leave the wesites running but track them for the evidence.

CB

In reply to dread-i:


In my experience pretty much everyone who is involved in securing computers and communications systems thinks that that this is a terrible idea and that getting ISPs to keep a list of every website visited is even worse. The people who want to do this have a religious, feminist or legal agenda and are mainly technically illiterate.

If government wants to create a border in cyberspace so the BBFC can 'control the internet' you can be sure that courts will start issuing injunctions to block websites for other reasons and it will start interfering with UK residents ability to access foreign news or non-pornographic content. There's no way a US or German website for whom the UK is a tiny niche market is going to remove every film or story the BBFC or UK courts don't like or design age controls in the form that the UK government mandates.

The biggest issue is there is no way either of these measures can be enforced unless the government also starts removing the right to use encrypted VPNs to tunnel internet traffic to the US or some other country. This is a path governments have been down before - banning encryption or mandating weak encryption they know how to break - the problem is that it lets everyone else hack your communications as well. The list of websites collected by ISPs is going to turn into a massive blackmail database and bans on VPNs and strong encryption are going to result in hackers stealing sensitive information from companies and individuals. It simply isn't worth compromising security and privacy so as to prevent people watching porn.

In reply to tom_in_edinburgh:

>The biggest issue is there is no way either of these measures can be enforced unless the government also starts removing the right to use encrypted VPNs to tunnel internet traffic to the US or some other country.

You seem to be missing the point. These measures can be enforced. They can allow your VPN to big.corp, but still block your anonymizer VPN.

>The list of websites collected by ISPs is going to turn into a massive blackmail database

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/investigatory...

In reply to tom_in_edinburgh:


I actually shuddered when I read this. Of all the countries across the globe why would you exit in the US? Any of the Scandinavian countries or western/central euro countries have better laws and rights in place to protect internet usage with less logging and lower latency than the US will ever have.

In reply to Removed User:


Because most of the websites I want to access are hosted in the US and if my VPN pops out in a big data centre in the US its going to be pretty much as fast as a non-VPN connection.

In reply to Duncan Bourne:

It's a good thing.
I'm fed up of these porn stars exploiting my obsession with shagging my fist.
My bell end is red raw

In reply to birdie num num:

I told you use the cream. Remember the motto.
Use vasaline
to be obscene

In reply to Duncan Bourne:

I thought it was:

Never use Deep Heat
To beat your meat

In reply to damhan-allaidh:


Even if said law is a brand new one imposed upon you overnight by a bunch of out of touch idiots?

In reply to Bimble:

I suppose I should've made it clearer that I was referring to specific ones protecting peopke from coercion, etc.

In reply to dread-i:


The Chinese, who aint bad at this sort of thing, dont find it that easy. Do you reckon the UK with the almost inevitable use of crapita or someone similar would do better?
Aside from anything else there is the sheer cost and admin hassle of allowing authorised VPNs.
If you got for blacklists then you will be forever chasing. If you go for whitelists then you may end up with small companies not being able to run VPNs for their staff.

In reply to cb294:

Interesting that the posts in here seem to take a male dominated (stop it) view of pornography, and one of men exploiting coercing women...?

Another way to look at it is the more Susie Bright/Annie Sprinkle point of view, where women are active, creative participants in creative erotic art forms.

Just thought I'd throw that in there for a bit of fun.

In reply to damhan-allaidh:

I actually like that idea.

In reply to Duncan Bourne:
This won't effect dwarf beastiality porn will it? I can't get aroused without watching a three and a half foot tall middle aged woman pleasure a goat.

In reply to damhan-allaidh:

Statistics? Exploitation of women by men is as old as humankind, a throwback to our ecology and evolution. Doesn't mean we should not strive to be better than our evoluitonary baggage.



CB

In reply to cb294:

No it certainly does not. I wasn't referring to particular statistics just qualitatively to themes on this thread. Just saying that it is also sexist to assume that women don't participate in erotic art as equals or even lead. As I suggested, check out, for example, Susie Bright for a woman's point if view.

In reply to KevinD:

>The Chinese, who aint bad at this sort of thing, dont find it that easy. Do you reckon the UK with the almost inevitable use of crapita or someone similar would do better?

They dont need to do better, they just need a big stick. In China people are getting jail time for misuse of the internet. (Thought crime, not hacking, terrorism, pr0n etc).


No, you simply buy in a list, it's all automated. There are no shortage of category lists that are updated many times per day. You simply pick the categories you don't want people to see and they go away. There are also reputation providers, who can tell you all about a site using multiple metrics. So if the VPN end point is big.corp or small-company.example, you can find out what they do in great detail.
http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/ukclimbing.com

There is an entire eco system of content filter providers driven by the education sector and large businesses who don't want to be held liable for the actions of their users.

The attitude that this is impossible to enforce, is wrong. As long a people keep on believing that, they won't understand just how fragile their freedoms are.

In reply to dread-i:


I have seen those lists. They are, as most lists of that type are, poor.
Either you blacklist stuff. Which means inevitably you miss a ton of things.
Or you whitelist it which means you add massively to your admin costs.
This is not something which scales well.


I know this. I also know they are mostly there for legal liability reasons. If you show you are blocking then you have met your obligation and it also makes it easier to carry out disciplinary action.


I never said it was impossible. I said it was difficult and would put massive costs onto all those people who bribe, sorry, support out of the kindness of their hearts the politicans.
I also said any attempt in the UK would most likely be done by the normal amateurs who spend far more on their contract lawyers than on software professionals.

In reply to Duncan Bourne:


Unconventional, different strokes for different folks. What you might think is "Unconventional", I might think of as "normal"?

Who decides and how?


How is the Porn Industry Exploitive? They are all adults, they all get paid, they all have their reasons and make choices to do that job. Just like you chose to do your job and not another. And women get paid much much higher than the men, and men have to resort to "Gay for Pay" to compete with wages or make up for lost earnings. Is that a pay gap that Feminism wants to tackle? For the interest of "Equality"?



Of course, its got nothing to do with the constant barrage or shit programming like TOWIE and the like and inappropriate female roles models. I quote Lady GaGa, from a song no doubt many a young girl sang along to "When it comes to love, if its not rough it isn't fun?" Or NDubz "You can call me daddy, even though I am not your father."

And that god awful book "50 Shades of Gray" apart from being an appalling work its also a very inaccurate, dangerous and incorrect representation of the BDSM community. Its depictions are of Domestic abuse and not of a healthy relationship that happens to indulge in "Unconventional" sexual festish. And women were lapping that crap up, and the terrible other publications that jumped on that band wagon. Putting women in very dangerous situations and open to manipulation and incorrect and wrong "relationships" based on a false BDSM idea.

There is a lot more pressing mainstream brainwashing to be dealt with before pornography. And its not like pornography effects how men should look, think and be worried about penis size?

Sick of being preached about porn and negative effects on women and ignoring the same issue for blokes. Its an industry, its a job. The actors and actresses are all grown ups and can make their own choices.

And what kind of a parent are you to allow your kids to watch conventional porn sites, let alone unconventional. Why aren't we condemning the parenting and the lack of supervision from Parents?

In reply to Bootrock:


While I agree with most of what you said I can not believe that you said this. Not saying that ALL of it is exploitive but ... 1) Just because you get paid to do something doesn't mean that you are not being exploited 2) It is not always clear that people are being paid to do it, especially re. "amateur" porn. 3) There an argument that it "preys' on vunerable people. Drug addicts and people so desperate for money that they will do anything. Not every porn star gets to be an italian politician and very few, I imagine, had it as a career choice. I think your comment that men have to resort to gay pay says it all about how attractive the job is

In reply to Duncan Bourne:


All good points. Ron Jeremy has a good autobiography, its well worth a read by the way, he wanted to be an actor but ended up in Porn and used it as a good career. Quite amusing too.

1) They are still adults, they have made choices in their life. 2) Thats a very very good point, and also ties in with Revenge Porn Laws, and has a lot of complications in itself. I am sure that certain types of "Unconventional" Porn has interviews with the actresses after the scene, showing the actress consented and enjoyed the experience. I am unsure how you would be able to regulate "Amateur" stuff. 3) Again, they are all adults, and make choices in their life, I was homeless for a bit, and while no prude, I wouldn't have resorted to getting paid to be tied up and violated by a big german hausfrau. (I would have done it for free! ha!)

Porn has taken a huge nose dive since the invention of the Internet, it used to be quite lucrative and well paid, but the ever increasing availabilty of porn, and free porn has decimated the income and cash flow to the industry.

In reply to Bootrock:


I agree. I think that this has not only affected the porn industry (music industry too as an example) but I think that porn has proably been hardest hit.

I have to say that I am not against porn persay, heck I use it myself so I don't want to get all hypocritical about it. I do have concerns about the explotative aspect of it and would not be comfortable watching something where I thought that someone was being coerced against their will or if it was something they had not intended for mass viewing. Even so there are grey areas where one might not be sure. Especially in the amateur market ("if you love me you'll let me film you playing with this banana" type coercion).
People who are adults have a right to the choices they make but for some people those choices can be very limited. For instance miners in Mongolia work in horrendous dangerous conditions and get paid a pitance for long hours to extract rare earth minerals etc. that are worth a fortune on the open market. It is their choice to do that work, they could starve or find another equally bad job, but they are still getting exploited by people further up the chain who are minting it. In fact any situation where someone is treated in an unfair manner is exploitive. Though what fairness is will vary from person to person

In reply to Duncan Bourne:

Given that it is MPs who will decide what counts as 'unconventional', I'd imagine there won't be many sites that end up banned...

Seriously though, how on earth are they going to stop 'niche interest' websites hosted abroad from reaching our shores?