Porn laws

Home Office minister Paul Goggins has announced the government’s intention to crack down on those who download violent pornographic images. This follows directly from a three-year campaign by the grieving mother of Jane Longhurst, and has little to do with any evidence linking violent porn with violent acts (obviously, because nothing conclusive has been published).

The news aroused John Beyer to put out a “news release“, highlights of which include:

There is plenty of research evidence concluding that the widespread availability of pornography is harmful to society because it presents a false view of human sexuality.

The annually rising rate of violent sexual crime is a good indicator of the harmful influence of pornography.

The murder of Miss Longhurst is the tip of a very large iceberg.

Amazing how he knows these things.

We hope that the legislation announced today will lead to a wide ranging review of the pornography industry and result is a long overdue strengthening of the criminal law.

UPDATE: Spiked has a well-argued piece by Brendan O’Neill about this proposed law – the gist being that it is more about political posturing than responsible, evidence-based legislation.


12 Responses to “Porn laws”

  1. Andy L says:

    Unfortunately for Byer he appears to have made a slight typo here – where he’s said there is “plenty” of research evidence, it should read “barely any, and none with any decent methodology”.

    Note that this is a government proposal document, and there’s a link to it on the BBC website with the appropriate email addresses to contact the creators. I thoroughly suggest you do and point out the stupidity of this policy.

  2. Andy A says:

    There’s a tendency to say that Smith reads violent porn, therefore Smith’s violent acts are a result of that. No one seems to say that Smith is a violent person, therefore he likes to see violent porn and commit acts of violence. Correlation but not necessarily a causal link.

  3. Dan Factor says:

    John Beyer wishes for laws that impose his morality on others. He talks about pornography turning intamacy as a spectator sport. Which means he would prefer sex to be kept behind closed doors for everyone no matter what their personnal views and prefrences.
    The laws put forward by government will crack down on illegal violent porn (such as depictions of rape and sexual stragulation) which has been proven to have some influence on violent rape offenders.
    However the law will not completly ban any images of sex on the internet and nor should it. Adult consensual sex images is perfectly harmless and if people are chooosing to view them it is no buisness of Beyer’s or anyone else.
    Beyer would like the law to enforce his prudish morals on us all. He’s a prude so he wants us all to be a prude.

  4. Christopher Shell says:

    Aren’t the terms ‘intimacy’ and ‘spectator sport’ intrinsically mutually exclusive? One implies special/privileged privacy, whereas the other implies publicity. Whatever is public is by definition no longer intimate.

  5. tom p says:

    Christopher – It’s Beyer who used the terms ‘intimacy’ & ‘spectator sport’ in his ‘News release’ that the monitor linked to. Dan was merely refuting Beyer’s claims, which used such terms clearly because they are contrary to one another and helped to further his viewpoint.

  6. Andy L says:

    Dan – there is no evidence of violent porn having effects on violent rape behaviours. None at all. Even the government admit as much in their policy document about this.

  7. Christopher Shell says:

    You are speaking about them as though they were 2 different things. The central overlap of content between them is large.

  8. Dan Factor says:

    Beyer is right that most porn does not have anything to do with intamacy. Intamacy is only when it is personnal, something which is public is not intamate.
    However this is his opinion and the law is not there to force his views (or anyone else’s views) on others.
    His views about porn is mostly about his own prudish attitude to sex, that it should be kept behind closed doors and not put on display.
    This is because sex on screen offends HIM, which is fair enough but again that does not mean others should be denied the freedom to view it.
    These prudish views of his are not about protecting people from harm but about making sure sex is kept out of the public arena as much as possible just because he and those of his thinking “don’t like that sort of thing”.
    The law is here to protect us from harm and to deter against crime NOT to stop people doing things which are perfectly legal but a few prudes dissaprove of.

  9. jamal says:

    They need to find some way to police the porn on the internet also. Its all good them arresting the downloaders, but this is still placing some increased level of responsibility on the citizen, rather than on internet providers, who should also be taking some responsibility here.

    Since it is apparant that people will download porn regardless of the laws, why then is all the responsiblity on people that are proving not to be responsible. For this reason internet providers should share the responsibility and be at risk of prosecution for enabling people to upload illegal porn, and for enabling it to be viewed in their browsers.

    Some people argue against this, but then will support the very same type of laws that will prosecute people for influence crimes, or for knowingly providing the means of premises for crimes to be committed. The fact is that internet providers clearly know that porn is being uploaded and downloaded over their networks.

  10. Shaun Hollingworth says:

    This is a step too far, for a government of a free country. It is wrong to make criminals out of people for looking at pictures unless you are sure the material is harmful to those depicted. I note that the government say “realistic depections of” and this is simply to make law enforcement’s life easier. As such it is unnacceptable. It is criminalisation of the imagination, expressed in pictures albeit sexually explicit ones. This kind of blatent repression shoud be vigoursly fought against.

  11. Shaun Hollingworth says:

    Jamal wrote:

    “internet providers that porn is being uploaded and downloaded over their networks”

    So What ?
    Porn isn’t illegal. At least the consensual stuff isn’t, and I hope it never will be. We don’t live in Iran.

  12. Lee says:

    Well, the ultimate question is where do they draw the line? For example they have not said (to my knowledge) if this extends to artworks? or just movie and photos. The reason I say this is that if this ban covers artworks, then say goodbye to a majority of the Japanese cartoons above a 15 rating… say goodbye to lots of classical works like Peter Paul Rubens’ Rape of the Sabine Women, painted about 1635-40 and currently hanging in a prestigious gallery… oh and the church MAY have to change their ‘bleeding naked guy nailed to a crusifix logo, ‘ as this would techically fall under this new law… personally I recommend a fluffy bunny in a field as a legal alternative.