UK citizens, are you aware that from the 26th January this year, you may have become a de facto criminal?

I’m not referring to that bag of weed hidden in your sock drawer, nor the drunken theft of those road signs a few years back. No, what I am referring to is hidden on your computer, in a folder within a folder; it’s probably got some nondescript name such as ‘Tax Stuff’ or ‘Word Documents’. Ladies and gentlemen, I am referring to your pornography collection.

The last time your solo-surfing material got you into trouble it was probably with your mum or your girlfriend, and you may well have been 15-years-old. But now the government is poking its long nose in where, quite frankly, I’d rather they didn’t.

Sections 63-67 and 71 of the United Kingdom Criminal Justice and Immigration Act on the possession of extreme pornographic images now dictate that it is an offence to possess certain images.

There are several key areas where this legislation poses cause for concern.

For example, ‘life threatening’ and ‘serious injury’ are not defined anywhere in the act; it is left to the judge and jury to decide whether an image counts as such. So would a shallow bleeding cut inflicted with a knife count as ‘serious injury’? Consider that anything that breaks the skin would be enough for an Actual Bodily Harm charge, as opposed to the less serious Battery. What about somebody with their hands around someone’s neck in an asphyxiation scenario? Truth is, you don’t really know until you’re on trial, which is not going to help your defence.

Moreover, the images do not have to be ‘real’ to be eligible under the legislation. Fake wounds count, as well as fake weapons and staged scenarios, as long as they are ‘realistic’ and ‘explicit’. If you own any BDSM pornography in which all the participants have given their consent and in which careful control has been exercised during production to make sure no-one is hurt, well, that’s illegal too.

So, what are the penalties?

That’s pretty serious when you consider that it is likely everybody involved consented of his or her own free will. But wait, there’s more.

Your image that did no lasting damage to anyone has just landed you on a list of pedophiles and rapists, which can seriously damage your future prospects.

The UK legal establishment has long been overly harsh on consenting practitioners of BDSM, as the infamous R v Brown case continues to show. It remains to be seen how much money and time individual police forces are willing to spend perusing prosecutions in these cases, especially when you consider that the majority of ‘offenders’ are unlikely to pose a risk to society.

So why bother? The law was a reaction to the case of Jane Longhurst, a teacher who was murdered by a porn-obsessed psychopath. Jane’s mother, Liz, has publicly lobbied Parliament to ban the images that she believes contributed to her daughter’s death. However, this thinking seems flawed, as put by Clair Lewis of the Consenting Adult Action Network:

Source.

CAAN predicts the laws will lead to “harmless criminals and victimless crimes.” The UK is sleepwalking into a 1984 culture, with our sleazy politicians introducing reactive legislations through the back door for popularist appeasement, and it is people like you and me who will suffer for it.

For information and advice about this issue please visit Backlash-uk.org.uk
Click HERE for a Government circular on the legislation.

We are such a fucked up society that it is amazing. We flip out if children are exposed to sex on TV. Sex is a very natural act, especially the way I do it. Yet, violence is a common everyday occurrence on the tube and hardly a concern is raised. Here's a glaring example: A mother of two won an astounding amount of money yesterday because her two young daughters saw some porn on a hotel television.

Seriously? Edwina McCombs, you are a terrific example of everything that is wrong with America. No, wait, I’m going to say the jury is a terrific example of everything that is wrong with America. You, Edwina, are just a pathetic waste of skin.

Last year, Edwina and her two children, 8 and 9, checked into a Value Lodge in Southern California. She left the kids to watch TV while she went and took a bath.

Uh, what kind of a fucking weirdo takes a bath in a hotel? Especially a cheap hotel like a Value Lodge. Do you know how much hooker juice is probably coated on the tub? And you’re lucky if you get out of there without an athlete’s foot infection on your anus. This leads me to conclude that Edwina is an idiot.

So, while Mommy was soaking in a mix of different folks sperm and blood, the kids started switching channels on the TV. Horror of horrors, they came across a porn channel.

Oh, no, something is very right.

Certainly this is an unfortunate incident, but in no way should it lead to a lawsuit. Are we going to say these children were horribly damaged by watching some sweet, sweet fucking? Oh, wait, now they are because of mommy’s reaction. Now they know there is something terribly wrong with sex. They should lead a fruitful and happy life with no issues at all.

The hotel owner actually offered a $50,000 settlement before the trial and Edwina turned it down. Her babies saw fucking! Surely that is worth more! You cannot put a value on their virgin eyes.

Uh, what? Economic damages? From seeing porn? Please explain.

I very much hope those two young girls grow up to desire cock like no other women before. May they need cock inside of them nearly every hour of the day and accept it from any man who happens to be near by. May they have babies in their wombs when they are 15 and several STD’s before 18. It would really make me happy if mommy’s worst fear played out. So, please, God, let these young ladies become the whores their mommy so fears.

Australia is retarded. There, I said it. The whole continent. All the people living on it. Retarded. Except for one teenager. He is smart. How could I reach such a conclusion about an entire continent? Because of the way Australia is handling porn. Sweet, sweet porn.

The Australian government created an $84 million porn filter for the Internet The NetAlert filter was released on Tuesday and the country rejoiced because Australia’s children we so very much safer. Kids could go back to being kids and would no longer have to endure the relentless thrusting of cocks in and out of vaginas on their monitors. Australia had managed to do what American politicians cannot: Turn all of Australia into a 1950s sitcom.

The country’s new Leave It To Beaver bliss lasted about 30 minutes. That is how long it took 16-year-old student Tom Wood to break through the porn filter. That is $84 million well spent.

Thirty minutes. I’m going to go on record here and say that governments should not waste money on programs like porn filters. Any software creator who is even slightly talented will not work at a low paying government job when they can make much more money at a private company. The result is a porn filter that can be cracked by teenagers, who are probably savvier than the idiot who created the system anyway.

Also, maybe parents should be the porn filters. Why the fuck does the government have to be involved in whether or not kids see sweet, sweet porn? I find government involvement in who sees porn to be more obscene than a cock penetrating a woman’s anus over and over and over and over and over and over and over. Oof. Here’s an idea: Keep the computer in the living room, or another space where kids can always be watched. Throw your own software on your own computer to keep the kids off Suicide Girls. The fact that governments needs to keep kids from watching sex is retarded. Especially when violent images seem to be okey-dokey. Money shot or gun shot? That is the question.

Really? In 30 minutes? Bullshit.

Uh, yeah. I guess that is why you spent $84 million on a useless porn filter.

Sixteen-year-old Tom explained to the situation to the government

I think young Tom is applying for a job.

FearTheReaper knows America is really weird about porn, also. But that does not mean he can’t rip on an island of criminal spawn when they deserve it.

Yesterday, in a speech to the members of a lobbying group known as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, confirmed mediocre quail hunter and allegedly inept Vice President of the United States Dick Cheney trotted out some well-worn talking points in a clumsy attempt to justify President George W. Bush’s intention to send 26,000 additional American troops to Iraq. (When, in fact, 58 percent of Americans think our troops should be home by 2008).

Cheney’s bluster and bombast covered familiar territory: Leaving Iraq makes us less safe at home, setting a timetable for U.S. force withdrawal invites certain military disaster, anyone in the U.S. Congress who questions the plan to add more troops to the meat-grinder is actually undermining their mission (read: Ms. Pelosi, you are a commie-pinko-fascist-with-marginal-fashion-sense) and last, but not least, that more troops are necessary to win the war in Iraq.

Mr. Cheney’s ability to pass bold face lies couched in faulty syllogisms off as political and military gospel is both truly sublime and utterly ridiculous.

The Iraq War is lost. So, the fact that Mr. Cheney thinks that 26,000 more troops will win the conflict is like me thinking that buying more DVD’s of porn star Jenna Jameson (of which I have many) will exponentially increase my chances of sleeping with her. (Which I, as of yet, have not).

Yet, while struggling to quantify this latest round of desperate rhetoric from a morally, politically and spiritually bankrupt leader, my mind flashes on an equally important and relevant truth – Dick Cheney and Ms. Jameson have a lot in common, actually.

In Wicked Pictures 2000 release Dream Quest, Ms. Jameson, in a tour de force performance, hooks up with a merry band of fairies (no, not that kind, Gen. Pace, you intolerant blowhard) to travel to the realm of all our dreams.

In this world of nocturnal imaginings, Ms. Jameson encounters the evil Vladimir, a tyrannical ruler who displays no tangible human emotion and counts myth and innuendo, lies and fable as absolute truth. (Sound like anybody we know… or even worse, like anybody who 62 million people voted for?)

Vladimir also retreats, whenever there’s trouble, to a dark, subterranean dwelling, replete with A.C., hi-def tee-vee and a putting green. A secret hideaway eerily similar to Mr. Cheney’s “undisclosed location.”

Vladimir is on a mission to destroy humankind’s ability to engage in wild, kinky and fulfilling sexual fantasy. In a moment of unadulterated passion, the brave and stalwart Ms. Jameson decides to take on Vladimir with every fiber of her surgically enhanced being.

So, as the Democrats bandy about the right tone to strike, the right message to send and the right sound bite to disseminate about the war, about a potential withdrawal, and about the future of our country as we know it, the titanic struggle between Vladimir and Jenna…I mean between Mr. Cheney and Congress…continues.

Let us hope, for all our sakes, Ms. Pelosi and co. take a page from Ms. Jameson’s book and kick some megalomaniac ass.

Then again, maybe the real solution lies with Mr. Cheney and wife Lynne. Maybe, if they watched a few hours of Ms. Jameson’s best work (I can lend them whatever they need) and spiced things a bit up in the Vee-Pee suite, then maybe Mr. Cheney wouldn’t be so inclined to send young women and young men (like my best pal Jimmy, Jr. from Bed Stuy – rest in peace, bro!!!) off to die in Iraq for no good reason whatsoever with such orgiastic fervor.

Peace, in the Middle East.

It's a revelation that is likely to spark opposite reactions in individuals depending on their internet experience. Those who are still trying to somehow affix postage to their e-mail will probably be shocked, SHOCKED to learn the results of the latest government study that about 1% of the internet is pornographic content. While other people who have actually been on the internet more than once in the past decade will probably be more amazed that it is only 1% of the internet, considering the anecdotally true digital age adage that "you're never more than two clicks away from a naked girl." Consider where you're reading this article.

Of course, modern day moralists think this is the perfect justification for pushing the Children's Online privacy Protection Act (COPA) again, a reactionary bit of "won't someone think of the children?" legislation forced down the country's collective throat in 1998, and mercifully neutered at the hands of Third Circuit court of appeals, and eventually the Supreme Court as well. Detractors successfully argued that commercially available software was significantly more effective in blocking pornographic material than the awkward, government all-encompassing approach mandated by COPA.

This worthless bit of legislation was put on the sidelines almost immediately after it passed, and the final nail in the coffin should have been the Supreme Court's upholding of that decision. Pornography is still out there, Pandora's box was opened long ago, the sky has not fallen as a result, and we should all just keep merrily going on our own ways.

Not content with making the creation and distribution of "violent porn" illegal, UK legislators will be criminalizing possession of pictures of "material featuring violence that is, or appears to be, life-threatening or is likely to result in serious and disabling injury."

While what happened to Jane Longhurst is a tragedy, it seems odd that parliament would be so quick to place the blame on the pornography viewed by her killer, rather than the killer himself, for her murder. If a law is required to deal with a problem of this scope then presumably thousands of people view this sort of pornographic material all the time, and cases like these, particularly in the UK, which has a relatively low murder rate, are rare. So if so many people are exposed to this kind of porn so often and incidents like this happen so rarely, how is it possible to place the blame on still images?

There are those in the UK who foresee problems with the ban as well.

It's amazing to me, an American, that people interested in S&M actually have representatives trying to preserve their rights at all, since in the US anything even slightly different from straight, vanilla sex is usually ostracized and demonized, and never taken seriously by legislators.

Even those who don't find the images stimulating should take pause when governments of free countries decide to start making particular types of content (made with consenting adults) illegal. Particularly when they're not depicting any actual illegal activity; the condition for what constitutes a "violent image" clearly states that the image need only "appear to be" threatening in order to qualify. It's a slippery slope, and not too difficult to imagine what will be next on the ban list.

Despite massive politlcal setbacks in the conservative movement, with Democrats looking in the best shape in many years for the fall, the culture war seems to continue unabated. Last year newly appointed Attorney General Alberto Gonzales started a renewed war on porn, the first major clamp down on American pornography since the heyday of Ed Meese. Now conservative groups have decided to push the war another step, by demanding hotels remove porn from available selections in room.

It's not entirely clear what having "porn in the mainstream" desensitizes people to. Except maybe idiotic, puritanical taboos about sex that have lingered in American consciousness for centuries. The arguments made for keeping porn in hotels is eminently reasonable, while the argument against it just.... confounds logic. Observe.

Makes sense, right? No one is forcing it on anyone else, it's a purely business decision made by the hotel chains, and if parents don't want their kids watching porn they can ask the hotel to block the movies.

I'm going to quote his last line again, in case people missed it the first time.

This may be one of the dumbest arguments ever made. And this man may be one of the dumbest people to ever live. The most dangerous things that jumps out at me from reading this isn't the threat that pornography in hotel rooms poses, but the fact that mouth breathers like this guy have the ear of powerful Washington politicians who just might decide to listen to him.

With any luck, nothing at all will ever come of this, and even zealots like Gonzales will realize that even states with strict obscenity laws are going to have a hard time regulating what types of movies people watch in the privacy of their own hotel rooms.

Democracy can only thrive in a "marketplace of ideas." That is, when many different options are presented and people can pick and choose what they like, while disregarding what they don't. Something these groups just don't understand. If they believe pornography to be a bad thing, then by all means, tell people why (and giving a bit of evidence and logic to go along with it might not hurt either.) But don't restrict their choices because of your own, personal, warped sense of morality. It's fundamentally opposed to the very idea of a free and democratic society.