Content Warning: NSFW
Okay, so you’re a female porn star in Britain, raking in the Sterling for performing sex acts with consenting adults. Some of those acts might include aggressive whipping (as opposed to the charmingly fey version), strangulation, and water sports (no, we don’t mean jet-skiing). Well, today is a sad day for the scepter’d isle’s women of adult entertainment. The British Government has just outlawed the filming of certain acts. The Independent is reporting that in an amendment to the Communications Act “Video-on-demand (VoD) online porn now [must] adhere to the same guidelines laid out for DVD sex shop-type porn by the British Board of Film Censors (BBFC).”
“While the measures won’t stop people from watching whatever genre of porn they desire, as video shot abroad can still be viewed,” writes the Independent, “they do impose severe restrictions on content created in the UK, and appear to make no distinction between consensual and non-consensual practices between adults.” The banned acts include female ejaculation, fisting, and facesitting. The rationale for the ban is that some sex acts are “life-threatening,” something porn stars dispute. “The new legislation is absurd and surreal,” comments dominatrix Itziar Bilbao Urrutia. “I mean, why ban facesitting? What’s so dangerous about it? It’s a harmless activity that most femdom performers, myself included, do fully dressed anyway. Its power is symbolic: woman on top, unattainable.” The Independent also points out that the ban seems to target women more than men. “More worryingly, the amendment seems to take issue with acts from which women more traditionally derive pleasure than men.”
