[Content Note: Discussions of rape and sexual assault.
Assume that all links have the same content warning.]
This doesn’t just extend to people doing BDSM: the issues of
sex work and pornography often overlap. There are all sorts of legal, social
and professional ways people are punished for their consensual sexual choices.
Perhaps now more than ever these issues are important: in the UK, for instance,
there have been many different attacks on sexual freedom and the criminalising
and stigmatising people who consume certain pornography or engage in certain
acts.
There was the well known “porn trial” of Simon
Walsh, who was charged for being in possession of “extreme pornography” for
a portrayal of anal fisting. Regardless of the fact that fisting is, as a
sexual act, entirely legal, the images were attacked as “extreme” as the acts portrayed
were “likely to result in serious injury to a person’s anus.” Walsh was
acquitted of all charges, but not without personal and professional harm.
The number of extreme pornography charges now stands at over
a thousand per year with only a small
percentage of them actually acted on. There are two factors here as to why this
is problematic: firstly, the number of people actually charged under extreme
pornography laws is probably a mere fraction of those who could be
charged under them. The lack of rigorous enforcement shows that, even though
prosecutions do occur, the laws are enforced arbitrarily. Secondly, the stigma
related to sex-related subjects - on top of the general upset as a result of
being charged with a criminal offense - means that people charged with it
suffer greatly professionally and personally.
This adds up to a law that is abusable, enforced on a whim
and severely damages those charged but found innocent. It’s also a law that
potentially criminalises people for possessing images of things that are, in
some cases, perfectly legal to do. It’s a textbook example of a
victimless crime - and, not only that, imposes the “victim” status on entirely
consenting adults.
From the Criminal Justice
and Immigration Act 2008, section “Possession of extreme pornographic
images”:
(7)An image falls within this subsection [I.E. Is an
“extreme image”] if it portrays, in an explicit and realistic way, any of the
following—
(a)an act which threatens a person's life,
(b)an act which results, or is likely to result, in
serious injury to a person's anus, breasts or genitals,
(c)an act which involves sexual interference with a human
corpse, orw
(d)a person performing an act of intercourse or oral sex
with an animal (whether dead or alive),
and a reasonable person looking at the image would think
that any such person or animal was real.
The Crown Prosecution Service’s guidelines
on extreme pornography slightly clarify a few of the vaguities, but there are
still considerable issues with how the law can be and is applied.
There is even talk of possibly expanding
this section to include “depictions of rape.” That is, depictions of consensual
non-consent or simulated rape - something that is legal to do. The acts in
“rape pornography” are rape in the same way that someone in a TV show being
punched is assault - that is, not at all. Here’s a post
by Emily Rose further discussing
the issue.
There are also issues regarding how people with alternative
sexual practices are treated in unrelated legal issues - a person’s consensual
sexual activities can be used against them on the grounds of “character.” For
instance, child
custody cases (here’s
a specific example) and even when filing rape
charges.
This is just scratching the surface on issues surrounding
BDSM and alternative sexual lifestyles and activities. For further information
and organisations, I recommend:
Backlash
(UK)
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