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> Although the age verification policy was first proposed by the Conservatives during the 2015 general election, it took years to develop and make it into law.

> Although the age verification policy was first proposed by the Conservatives during the 2015 general election, it took years to develop and make it into law. Why are such laws always proposed by conservatives? Aren't they supposed to be for smaller, less intrusive government?

TeMPOraL 7y ago
Possibly because pornography is against conservative values, at least for some definitions of "conservative".
- galaxyLogic 7y ago
  Right. In the patriarchal society the patriarchs, the Abrahams, can have many wives. That means there are many men who can not have any wives. Now if those wifeless men had access to pornography they might get the idea that they want a wife too. So it's better for the patriarchs to keep porn away from the less fortunate men who might be inspired by it to demand a rule that no man can have more than one wife.
  - esarbe 7y ago
    Since the UK is not a patriarchal society, this comment contributes nothing. Also, to keep the peace in societies such as you described, it would probably make sense to have pornography available as outlet for repressed sexual desires.
    - galaxyLogic 7y ago
      In my opinion UK is, more or less, "patriarchal society". All societies are, more or less, no? Would you agree that say Saudi-Arabia is a "patriarchal society"? I can readily agree with your point it would probably help them as a society to legalize porn but seems like they are not going to do that any time soon: https://www.quora.com/Is-porn-banned-in-Saudi https://www.quora.com/Is-porn-banned-in-Saudi Why? If they did allow it the absolute power of the ruling dynasty could be questioned in other ways and that might be the end of that dynasty.
      - esarbe 7y ago
        I'm sorry if I don't answer your questions directly but approach them from a tangent. I don't quite buy into the Patriarchy mythos. For me, this is oversimplifying how societies form and develop their structure and rules. If you want to equate "Patriarchy" with hierarchy; sure, be my guest. That's what a lot of ardent Feminists tend to do and my guess that is because it made for a convincing story if you were a privileged female member of the upper-classes of late 19th-century England. It was also probably very tempting to be able to point at any member of the opposite sex and say "It's your fault!". (At least these are my guesses why we struggle so hard to overcome the Patriachy mythos.) I don't think that this approach has much merit to it, however. To me it looks like a lot of what is considered "Patriarchy" are simply the remnants of cultural agreements that were made in a time when survival and reproduction where the predominant driver of the societal web. You don't send out your woman to battle war, they are the reproductive coin of your society. You send men to war, men are expendable. Our traditional social compact follows this logic. But it was always a compact between males and females. It was never something that Men coerced Women into. It was an agreement out of necessity. Woman live in seclusion, Men die free. Sure, you are free to call these traditional, born-out-of-the-necessity-for-survival compacts 'patriarchal'. But 'matriarchal' would be just as appropriate. So, why is pornography banned in Saudi-Arabia? Why is homosexuality considered an abomination? Howly cow, I don't know. I guess it has something to to with the tenants of the Abrahamic religion(s). Other traditional don't have that much beef with sex and sexuality. I don't think that allowing pornography would topple the regime, though it could put some strain onto the dynasty[0]. Looking forward to have a fruitful discourse! [0] https://www.yourbrainonporn.com/ https://www.yourbrainonporn.com/
  - TeMPOraL 7y ago
    Besides this being completely irrelevant to the present-era UK, keep in mind that those societies warred a lot, which meant men died, skewing the gender balance. Provisions for polygamy worked as a rudimentary social safety net for widows. (As a general point, in my perhaps limited knowledge, weird or appalling customs from the past tend to have economic underpinnings.)
    - galaxyLogic 7y ago
      Sounds like a reasonable theory to me. Any links on scholarly research into this?
rtkwe 7y ago
You're mixing fiscal/government conservative with social conservative. Most conservatives are both socially and economically conservative so in most places the right-libertarian is relatively small and doesn't hold much power.
noobermin 7y ago
The UK conservatives differ from American Republicans.
- TallGuyShort 7y ago
  They're different, but American Republicans abandoned the idea of limited government a long time ago. It'll come up as a talking point, but only if it supports what they want anyway, not because they actually want to limit it on principle.
galaxyLogic 7y ago
Conservatives are the Big Brother. They like to watch over you and control you. They are not "liberals". Liberals are the opposite of conservatives. Liberals are happy to give you permission to enjoy your life. Think about the semantics of the word 'conservative". It means keep things the same they are, conserve the status quo. Now who would support such a viewpoint? Of course those who benefit from inequality, who are on the sunny side of it.
- mkohlmyr 7y ago
  This is a overly simplistic and (sorry) borderline childish point of view. The truth is that political ideology does not fit neatly on a continuous line from "liberal" to "conservative" and that party lines have been drawn in such a way that the original semantics of the labels no longer apply to a large set of preferred policies on either side. Some kind of multi-axial graph or multi-dimensional matrix would be more useful. Social & Fiscal are two useful axes, and the bare minimum of what you need in order to sensibly represent modern day politics. It might actually be an interesting thought experiment to explore what other axes are most useful.
  - galaxyLogic 7y ago
    I'm thinking more in terms of one such (possible) axis conservative-liberal, not in terms of two-party politics. So while there are countless numbers of ways we could categorize people I think conservative-liberal is a rather well-defined and by necessity over-simplified characterization. "Conservative" can be defined as a person who wants to conserve society as it is now or as it was earlier, the good old 1950s. "Liberal" means a person who would like to liberate what is currently oppressed. I assume that "conservatives" want to conserve their own power because who in their right mind would want to conserve a situation where they are oppressed. Those who want "liberation" do not want to conserve the current state of affairs.
- cauliflower99 7y ago
  Believing things are as simple as 'conservative' or 'liberal' is a poor point of view. One indoctrinates himself with this attitude.
faceplanted 7y ago
That has literally always been a lie.
_carl_jung 7y ago
That we still use a single dimension to assess people's position on a topic as complex and multi-faceted as politics is mind-boggling.
mantap 7y ago
The plans were also dropped by conservatives. I seriously doubt Boris Johnson cares about banning pornography, he has a girlfriend 24 years his junior (not that there's anything wrong with that), he is about as far from vicar's daughter May as it's possible to get.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
cr0sh 7y ago
Remember, those who yell the loudest about something, are usually guilty of indulging in it the most.

TeMPOraL 7y ago

Possibly because pornography is against conservative values, at least for some definitions of "conservative".

galaxyLogic 7y ago
Right. In the patriarchal society the patriarchs, the Abrahams, can have many wives. That means there are many men who can not have any wives. Now if those wifeless men had access to pornography they might get the idea that they want a wife too. So it's better for the patriarchs to keep porn away from the less fortunate men who might be inspired by it to demand a rule that no man can have more than one wife.
- esarbe 7y ago
  Since the UK is not a patriarchal society, this comment contributes nothing. Also, to keep the peace in societies such as you described, it would probably make sense to have pornography available as outlet for repressed sexual desires.
  - galaxyLogic 7y ago
    In my opinion UK is, more or less, "patriarchal society". All societies are, more or less, no? Would you agree that say Saudi-Arabia is a "patriarchal society"? I can readily agree with your point it would probably help them as a society to legalize porn but seems like they are not going to do that any time soon: https://www.quora.com/Is-porn-banned-in-Saudi https://www.quora.com/Is-porn-banned-in-Saudi Why? If they did allow it the absolute power of the ruling dynasty could be questioned in other ways and that might be the end of that dynasty.
    - esarbe 7y ago
      I'm sorry if I don't answer your questions directly but approach them from a tangent. I don't quite buy into the Patriarchy mythos. For me, this is oversimplifying how societies form and develop their structure and rules. If you want to equate "Patriarchy" with hierarchy; sure, be my guest. That's what a lot of ardent Feminists tend to do and my guess that is because it made for a convincing story if you were a privileged female member of the upper-classes of late 19th-century England. It was also probably very tempting to be able to point at any member of the opposite sex and say "It's your fault!". (At least these are my guesses why we struggle so hard to overcome the Patriachy mythos.) I don't think that this approach has much merit to it, however. To me it looks like a lot of what is considered "Patriarchy" are simply the remnants of cultural agreements that were made in a time when survival and reproduction where the predominant driver of the societal web. You don't send out your woman to battle war, they are the reproductive coin of your society. You send men to war, men are expendable. Our traditional social compact follows this logic. But it was always a compact between males and females. It was never something that Men coerced Women into. It was an agreement out of necessity. Woman live in seclusion, Men die free. Sure, you are free to call these traditional, born-out-of-the-necessity-for-survival compacts 'patriarchal'. But 'matriarchal' would be just as appropriate. So, why is pornography banned in Saudi-Arabia? Why is homosexuality considered an abomination? Howly cow, I don't know. I guess it has something to to with the tenants of the Abrahamic religion(s). Other traditional don't have that much beef with sex and sexuality. I don't think that allowing pornography would topple the regime, though it could put some strain onto the dynasty[0]. Looking forward to have a fruitful discourse! [0] https://www.yourbrainonporn.com/ https://www.yourbrainonporn.com/
- TeMPOraL 7y ago
  Besides this being completely irrelevant to the present-era UK, keep in mind that those societies warred a lot, which meant men died, skewing the gender balance. Provisions for polygamy worked as a rudimentary social safety net for widows. (As a general point, in my perhaps limited knowledge, weird or appalling customs from the past tend to have economic underpinnings.)
  - galaxyLogic 7y ago
    Sounds like a reasonable theory to me. Any links on scholarly research into this?

rtkwe 7y ago

You're mixing fiscal/government conservative with social conservative. Most conservatives are both socially and economically conservative so in most places the right-libertarian is relatively small and doesn't hold much power.

noobermin 7y ago

The UK conservatives differ from American Republicans.

TallGuyShort 7y ago
They're different, but American Republicans abandoned the idea of limited government a long time ago. It'll come up as a talking point, but only if it supports what they want anyway, not because they actually want to limit it on principle.

galaxyLogic 7y ago

Conservatives are the Big Brother. They like to watch over you and control you. They are not "liberals". Liberals are the opposite of conservatives. Liberals are happy to give you permission to enjoy your life. Think about the semantics of the word 'conservative". It means keep things the same they are, conserve the status quo. Now who would support such a viewpoint? Of course those who benefit from inequality, who are on the sunny side of it.

mkohlmyr 7y ago
This is a overly simplistic and (sorry) borderline childish point of view. The truth is that political ideology does not fit neatly on a continuous line from "liberal" to "conservative" and that party lines have been drawn in such a way that the original semantics of the labels no longer apply to a large set of preferred policies on either side. Some kind of multi-axial graph or multi-dimensional matrix would be more useful. Social & Fiscal are two useful axes, and the bare minimum of what you need in order to sensibly represent modern day politics. It might actually be an interesting thought experiment to explore what other axes are most useful.
- galaxyLogic 7y ago
  I'm thinking more in terms of one such (possible) axis conservative-liberal, not in terms of two-party politics. So while there are countless numbers of ways we could categorize people I think conservative-liberal is a rather well-defined and by necessity over-simplified characterization. "Conservative" can be defined as a person who wants to conserve society as it is now or as it was earlier, the good old 1950s. "Liberal" means a person who would like to liberate what is currently oppressed. I assume that "conservatives" want to conserve their own power because who in their right mind would want to conserve a situation where they are oppressed. Those who want "liberation" do not want to conserve the current state of affairs.
cauliflower99 7y ago
Believing things are as simple as 'conservative' or 'liberal' is a poor point of view. One indoctrinates himself with this attitude.

faceplanted 7y ago

That has literally always been a lie.

_carl_jung 7y ago

That we still use a single dimension to assess people's position on a topic as complex and multi-faceted as politics is mind-boggling.

mantap 7y ago

The plans were also dropped by conservatives. I seriously doubt Boris Johnson cares about banning pornography, he has a girlfriend 24 years his junior (not that there's anything wrong with that), he is about as far from vicar's daughter May as it's possible to get.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

cr0sh 7y ago

Remember, those who yell the loudest about something, are usually guilty of indulging in it the most.