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Peers vote to ban pornography depicting sex acts between stepfamily members
- azalemeth 6mo agoFor context, the (now accepted) amendment ensures that "anyone found to posses or publish pornography which shows incest between family members, or sex between step- or foster-relations where one person is pretending to be under-18, will be criminalised, with publication carrying a maximum penalty of two to five years’ imprisonment, depending on the severity of the content." This coming from a secondary legislature with an average age of 70. I do not think this a liberal move, to put it mildly.
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- amarant 6mo agoFirst they came for the porn, and I said nothing, for I am not sexy enough to produce it. Then they came for cryptography, and I kept my peace, for I don't understand the mathematics involved. Then they came for my browsing history, and I could not hide the porn in there, as cryptography was illegal. Well fuck...
- cjs_ac 6mo agoThis comment section will inevitably fill up with comments from people who have exactly the same thing to say, namely, that internet censorship is bad. That opinion has transcended the good-take-bad-take dichotomy: it's entered the pantheon of ideas that are seamlessly dumped into any mildly-related discussion and act as an impediment to any more interesting ideas. Here's a more interesting idea: because the pornography that's banned by this bill is made mainly in the US and Eastern Europe, and because it's distributed by businesses that are also located outside the UK, the UK has negligible ability to impose regulations that differ from other jurisdictions on the dividing line between legal and illegal pornography. The age verification system was imposable because there are very few websites that span the porn/not-porn divide, but this new bill regulates at too fine a level to enforce.
- ihsw 6mo ago[dead]
- PowerElectronix 6mo agoAs with most laws that are "useless in practice", this just opening the door and preparing/numbing the public to laws that will further extent control and censorship on internet and everywhere else.
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- amarcheschi 6mo agoAge verification system just push users towards alternative websites or other ways to access it Guess why a friend of mine who is not into computer science was telling me about him using VPN a few days ago
- kelseyfrog 6mo agoYou are absolutely right! It takes incredible bravery to admit that if we cannot solve the problem in totality then incremental improvements are useless.
- xnyan 6mo agoFair point, but I have been very surprised by how many normie friends have gotten a VPN since our state mandated age checks for adult content.
- tforcram 6mo agoThis. Incremental progress is one thing, but incremental movement that makes the problem worse and actually harder to solve later is not progress. It's indicative that maybe you're attempting to solve the wrong problem.
- kelseyfrog 6mo ago
- gjsman-1000 6mo agoGood.
- 0cf8612b2e1e 6mo agoSome ministers had opposed the amendment and suggested the new ban would have been difficult to implement because, under the law in England and Wales, it is not illegal for adults who are step-related to engage in a sexual relationship. This is amusing to me. Legal to do, but not legal to film.
- UI_at_80x24 6mo agoIn the infamous words of George Carlin: "Selling is legal, and fucking is legal; but selling fucking is not legal."
- handfuloflight 6mo ago"Driving is legal. Drinking is legal. But drinking and driving is not legal."
- lucianbr 6mo agoPeople forget Carlin was a comedian. "It's a big club and you ain't in it". Obviously the problem is the club is too small, that's why for most of the people it is true that they are not part of it. "Half the population is stupider than how stupid the average person is". As if somehow there's not a single person exactly on the median. In fact there is probably a huge number of people there, and within a margin of error of it.
- handfuloflight 6mo agoI am quite acquainted with Carlin. If there's anyone that can have their absurd logic repeated back to them, it would be a comedian. And That Right Soon.
- ceejayoz 6mo ago> People forget Carlin was a comedian. That would seem to include you?
- fluorinerocket 6mo agoI am sure they each personally researched the topic very thoroughly to come to this conclusion
- cheschire 6mo agoIntentional pun?
- wat10000 6mo ago"Once the law comes into effect, anyone found to posses or publish pornography which shows incest between family members, or sex between step- or foster-relations where one person is pretending to be under-18, will be criminalised...." Wouldn't the step/foster bit already be covered by child pornography laws?
- RIMR 6mo agoWhy would child pornography laws have anything to do with someone pretending to be under-18? That's distasteful, sure, but objectively, people over-18 are not children. Basic recordkeeping laws should make it easy to ensure that everyone involved is of age, even if they're sucking on a pacifier, wearing a diaper, and saying "goo goo ga ga".
- Tangurena2 6mo ago> have anything to do with someone pretending to be under-18? CP statutes also deal with "simulations" of underage participants.
- smelendez 6mo agoI'm pretty leery of criminalizing possession here, especially if it's material produced before the law was passed, but even in general. It's not like the material is depicting actual abuse, where you can argue the participants would be harmed by people watching and sharing the material. Sounds like going forward the way around this would be to emphasize in the script that all the characters aren't related by blood and that everyone is of age.
- saltcured 6mo ago[flagged]
- MidnightRider39 6mo agoYup you you just can’t film them having sex
- ceejayoz 6mo agoYou probably can. You just can't note their relation. I'd imagine 99.999% of "step-whatever" porn is not actual step-whatevers.
- nslsm 6mo ago[flagged]
- saltcured 6mo agoHmm, being from the western US, I wasn't even aware that this is an Islam-adjacent topic in the UK. I was thinking of inbred UK royalty jokes. (And, to some extent, our own Appalachia inbreeding stereotypes which overlap with UK-derived sub-populations.)
- FuriouslyAdrift 6mo agoFirst cousin marriage is legal almost everywhere... in Canada, one can marry their niece or nephew.
- sva_ 6mo agoAnd, until very recently, seemingly encouraged by the NHS? > A blog published on 22 September by NHS England’s Genomics Education Programme said that marriage between first cousins had “various potential benefits,” while acknowledging that children of first cousins had an increased chance of being born with a genetic condition. https://www.bmj.com/content/391/bmj.r2061 https://www.bmj.com/content/391/bmj.r2061
- komali2 6mo agoOk I'm just gonna straight up ask: do people actually like "oh no stepbrother" porn? What's with the huge proliferation of it? I only watch it because it seems like 80% of the well shot, quality porn is step family shit, and I'm wondering if I'm participating in some kind of bizarre feedback loop where step family porn happened to be a category that started getting higher quality production value, which got more views, which led to studios erroneously believing people were watching because they have a step family fetish. I just try to ignore that aspect.
- jghn 6mo agoWhen this has come up in the past the conventional wisdom seems to be the other way around. At some point they noticed that if they slapped a stepfamily label on an otherwise normal vid that most people wouldn't care and still watch it, but it'd also attract the fetish crowd. This way they get more views for the same content.
- nemomarx 6mo agoMy assumption is that it's just easy to add and widen the audience to a random shoot? You put in a few lines of dialogue at the start and change the title, and it's not seen as so taboo that viewers will turn it off from that. But it gets some dedicated perverts searching for it where they might have ignored it before, etc.
- ceejayoz 6mo agoLike the keyword stuffing that happens on Amazon listings.
- Phelinofist 6mo agoThey have some kind of story and buildup, the thrill of doing something morally objective, sometimes the "getting caught" aspect ... or so I have heard
- leptons 6mo agoI typically watch porn with the audio turned off, because all of the dialog is just so bad in one way or another. I'm not there for the dialogue, and I don't care about the fake set-up before the actual porn starts happening.
- zoklet-enjoyer 6mo agoConsenting adults should be able to do whatever they'd like with each other and if they want to record it and share it, that's none of my business. How much mainstream entertainment is centered on murder? Is that ok?
- stuffn 6mo agoI care more about how it's warming people up for more age verification and other censorship laws. I don't really care what happens to porn producers. Most of which are exploitative, abusive, and many times downright criminal. There is a non-moral argument to specifically target porn. Your libertarian argument falls flat on it's face when you start looking into who owns the majority of porn and what they've been known for. Extend this to OnlyFans, which simply turned pimps into shareholders. This is of course the fundamental problem with libertarians in general. They stand for absolutely nothing ("allow everything" is not a stance) which makes them simultaneously the worst ally to have and a formidable enemy to societal security. The moral argument however is worth considering. Numerous well cited studies have discussed the deliterious effects of porn consumption. Porn (over)consumption directly correlates to loneliness, especially among males, for example. It also correlates to poorer relationship outcomes, increases in the rate of STDs, and other interpersonal issues. In general, porn is no different than any other drug with all the downsides associated. We cannot say the same for "mainstream entertainment centered on murder". Murder in general has trended down year over year since the 60s. One would be able to make a stronger counter argument: the exposure to violent media has possibly made violence less appealing. You are bordering on using "violent video games create violent people" as proof we should not view porn differently. These are not the same argument as shown by a trivial search of elsevier.
- zoklet-enjoyer 6mo agoTl;dr Nah, actually I did read it but I disagree. I don't want people imposing their morals on me. Adults are responsible for their actions
- dogma1138 6mo agoHelp me step bro I’m stuck in 1984.
- bhouston 6mo agoI don't get the point of banning specific pornography niches/fetishes that are otherwise legal. Are there not much more objectionable fetishes than this one?
- mattnewton 6mo agoThis exactly. I don’t believe the government should be censoring porn, but I have a really hard time arguing that principle against studies that suggest it is normalizing choking and slapping women among the young men exposed to it. Why is this roleplay fetish the beachhead and not something like that?
- fiddeert 6mo agoThat's an odd perspective. I have heard of young women demanding to be choked and slapped (with their partners acquiescing) far far more than young men instigating the behaviour.
- mattnewton 6mo agohttps://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2025/jul/07/no-safe-way-risks-of-choking-during-sex https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2025/jul/07/no-safe... > Now thought to be the second most common cause of stroke in women under 40, it can also lead to difficulty swallowing, incontinence, seizures, memory problems, depression, anxiety and miscarriage. Looks like they are going after that too though.
- altairprime 6mo agoNot that have reached the top twenty in prevalence at major sites, no. Incest porn has grown (in concert with the typical move-out age increasing due to economic pressures*) from a long-tail niche decades ago to, looking through a certain United States site’s category list today, being approximately 4x as prevalent by quantity than category ‘British’ and 2-10x more prevalent than most other categories. I would imagine that British leaders are particularly hostile to that U.S. cultural export (and we are a, if not the, top exporter in that industry!) for various reasons beyond simple disinterest in it. Monarchies tend to disfavor that which diminishes their ‘above’ness relative to commoners, and export of this now-widespread U.S. fetish into British society certainly could be estimated to have that diminishing effect by British leaders. * For anyone looking for a controversial Econ/Psy dual-major thesis topic, inflation-adjusted wage and job losses for teens reaching their age of maturity resulted in the ‘moving out’ age spiking, which combined with known U.S. repressionist tendencies, resulted in a corresponding spike in the incest fetish export trade. (psych sidebar about how fantasies serve as an escape valve for being trapped in one's circumstances). (citations needed)
- seydor 6mo ago[dead]
- nekochanwork 6mo agoIf a conservative doesn't want to consume a product, they ban it for everyone.
- Natfan 6mo agohttps://archive.is/ZEwqt https://archive.is/ZEwqt
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- Natfan 6mo ago> Under this amendment, senior tech figures who have been made aware of *none* consensual sexual materials on their websites could face large fines, imprisonment or both if they do not act to remove without good cause. theguardian couldn't even be bothered to proof read? emphasis mine
- kps 6mo agohttps://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Grauniad https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Grauniad
- jmyeet 6mo agoAnything but exposing the abusers who Epstein and Maxwell trafficked to [1] and investigating (let alone prosecuting) child abuse [2][3]. Britain has many real problems. This isn't one of them. [1]: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/the-epstein-files-rattle-the-age-old-foundations-of-britains-house-of-lords https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/the-epstein-files-rattle-... [2]: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/2/26/british-politicians-covered-up-child-sex-abuse-for-decades https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/2/26/british-politicians... [3]: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/apr/28/outrageous-libel-laws-protected-jimmy-savile-lawsuits https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/apr/28/outrag...
- ceejayoz 6mo agoThe UK has been far better at this than the US thus far. While we were having "No Kings" rallies over our elected Epstein co-conspirator, they arrested and demoted a royal family member over it. And a separate lord.
- Tangurena2 6mo agoThere was a second person arrested? I thought only Andy got got.
- ceejayoz 6mo agoLord Mandelson, former ambassador to the US. https://www.npr.org/2026/02/23/g-s1-111196/uk-peter-mandelson-epstein-misconduct-investigation https://www.npr.org/2026/02/23/g-s1-111196/uk-peter-mandelso...
- fiddeert 6mo ago[dead]
- efilife 6mo agoLooks like the "we are just protecting children" ploy will now expand to protect even more people! I honestly expected them to wait a bit longer before doing this
- jMyles 6mo agoWhat is too bawdy, too immodest, too immoral to depict in a figment of film (assuming for the moment that the state even has legitimate authority in this area)? One of the greatest films ever made is a comedy depicting the combination of psychosis, greed, incompetence, and bigotry bringing about mass murder and nuclear holocaust, culminating with the characters planning orgies in a mineshaft. If depicting _that_ is OK (and it is - Dr. Strangelove is one of the finest in the medium, not only in its commentary on war, but its commentary on film), how in tarnation can adult actors pretending to be step-siblings cross the line?
- SequoiaHope 6mo ago“Today we are sending a powerful message: we will stamp out misogynistic and harmful content online and create a safer world.” I’ve not read the full report, but I have to presume this will ban depictions of women participating in consensual S&M on the ground that someone thinks that’s misogyny? Many times have I eagerly strapped myself on to a St Andrew’s cross and enjoyed a stimulating flogging. It feels good! It releases endorphins! It’s healthy! Sex is about playing with bodies in fun consensual ways. Maybe it doesn’t ban women’s participation in S&M per se, but the article does mention a ban on choking which is an act which is not without risk but which consensual adults can safely engage in. What is upsetting is the penalty is prison. For possession of porn made by consenting adults. Awful. Anyway if women can’t see depictions of things they would enjoy, they will be deprived of the opportunity to discover themselves. This is not fighting misogyny this is about enforcing one group’s views on others and criminalizing consensual behavior.
- dtj1123 6mo ago"anyone found to posses or publish pornography which shows incest between family members, or sex between step- or foster-relations where one person is pretending to be under-18" This reads to me as though sex between foster-relations where one person is pretending to be over 18 is still A-OK. Wasn't it already illegal to depict sex with an under-18 year old though?
- gulfofamerica 6mo ago[dead]
- djoldman 6mo agoIt's interesting how restricting the commercialization of recorded sex acts (by consenting actors) has had more success over the last few decades than restricting the commercialization of recorded violence (by consenting actors). Adding to the curiosity: there seems to be many more possible legal actions in the sex category than the violence category.
- standardly 6mo agoWHAT are you doing, step-peers?!
- gmuslera 6mo agoMeanwhile is still legal to distribute and claim payment for videos depicting killing, mass killing, torture, crime, drug abuse and dependency and so on. Priorities are where the highest bidder puts them.
- theturtle 6mo ago[dead]
- puppycodes 6mo agoThe UK gets more absurd by the day. Unfortunately this is a well established part of their history to criminalize speech they find distasteful.
- leosanchez 6mo ago> well established part of their history Any historic examples ?
- puppycodes 6mo ago- anti-social behaviour orders (ASBO) - Public Order Act 1986 - John William Gott / Blasphemy Laws - Public Order Offences: Using "threatening, abusive or insulting" words in public - Lèse-majesté laws / Seditious Libel The list is very very long.
- leosanchez 6mo agoThank you!