all porn banned from UK internet

'it's a choice someone makes to go out and buy a newspaper'? I just don't understand what this means, is he saying people who use the internet must view porn? That they don't have a choice?

 

Apparently facebook even consider paintings of topless women offenisive. A while ago they warned the Louvre Facebook page to take down ancient classics of boobies and now this guy has been warned of his behaviour. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-seed/when-is-a-nude-ok-on-face_b_586356.html

My wife performs burlesque, she's been warned a few times about some of her pictures and in each of them she wears pasties and they still get their knickers in a twist.

 

FFS! The actual Louvre? They were warned as to content?

 

The fact kids are being brought up on 'The Sun' is more disturbing...

 

Sounds good in theory. But all the bods need to do in practice is mask their IP address, non? I'm surprised the "powers that be" think a pop-up will make a difference. A visit by the police and the offenders activity logged on file would be a more effective, and a greater deterrent. Is that too simple?

LB

 

Wait, so is it all porn or just the violent and simulated rape porn thats getting banned?

 

All porn, until you go and sign up for porn (opt-in) with your service provider. Getting worried kiddo? It's only in the UK but I'm sure Ireland will follow

 

Haha I'd be lying if I said I wasn't. Cant have legal sex and now no porn? What am I supposed to do now, use my imagination? D:

...I dont have an imagination Haha

 

I'm fully behind any action that weeds out and stops child porn, but I'm TOTALLY against them banning normal porn, and I'll explain why.

I'm just against censorship, and certainly over something like normal sex that just about every single adult human being does. So to be offended by people doing it is quite frankly stupid. If people want to work in that industry and people want to watch it, it shouldn't be up to governments to ban it. It is not something that causes harm to those that watch it, so why should governments stick their oar in? Do they then get to come in and say what positions you can have sex in, or control other things you do in the privacy of your own home?

Sure, protect minors from porn be it as a victim of it, or from the point of view of them watching porn. But, censorship is a slippery slope. Should not be up to governments to decide what is ok to do sexually in your own home if that sexual activity is not already illegal. I'd see a ban on violent movies like Saw or Hostel etc. long before they should be going on about porn, which is only sex, which we ALL do.

I’d heard they were going to ban porn in public places, and I don’t have an issue with that, but if it’s a full ban on what adults can watch at home them I’m one hundred percent against it. Fine for people to have judgements on people that watch porn or make porn, but it is easy to stand in a glass house throwing stones until censorship bangs on the door of something you like. Maybe naked statues, or naked artwork in museums will come up – you never know once you start censorship.

As writers we should be concerned about censorship, as we work in a field that can always suffer from this as well. We often have sex in books, and violence, and kids can often get easy access to those. Hence I'm never in favour of it without very good cause. Gevernments need to focus on the people breaking the laws that are in place, not trying to control the internet, which is their main concern more than anything else.

 

Love this. Amen. I don't care if it is censorship, it's needed. I applaud this.

 

It's not a done deal. It's just what Cameron is proposing. It'll need to be debated, amended, voted on, etc. Furthermore, it appears he's backing down a bit, as people point out the difficulty/drawbacks of such a draconian solution to the 'problem'.

Here's from yesterday's (22 July) Independent:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/online-porn-ban-david-cameron-retreats-in-war-on-internet-porn-amid-debate-over-censorship-8726991.html

 

That's the point. It's not NEEDED, only wanted by those who don't want it themselves. People don't have to watch it, and that is down to choice, but forcing a choice on others is not needed, or right. There is nothing dirty or disgusting about sex, and if people want to watch it, so what? It's not like all we all don't do it or we wouldn't have such a massive global poplation.

Note that I'm not advocating illegal porn movies at all, but those are already illegal to watch and make in most cases. This whole thing is more about the government wanting control of the net more than anything else. You only have to look at how effective they have been at blocking pratebay to see just how well it will go if they try to do it with porn.

 

I think it's a great idea to marginalise porn, but it'll take a while and they need to address all other abuses because one feeds the other. Porn is not a normal part of sexuality, because not only does it pander to a minority only (men who watch porn) whilst being shoved down everyone's throat all the time, but it's riddled with abuse, and emotionally, it messes kids up, their expectations of sex and partners. Nudity and sex can be presented in it's pure form in movies, books etc. Where I grew up, almost all our movies had multiple sex scenes, but in context of the story. I saw my first sex scene at a Pula Film Festival, when I was 6. Nobody batted an eyelid, although my grandma was a bit mortified. When I was 13, I started going topless on the beach, like most other women. It was the German tourists that were drooling all over and taking photos, our men were totally normal about it (not staring and chasing the Germans away). And as for knowledge and a bit of imagination, we had comprehensive sex ed and contraception was not demonised in any way. And still, most of us chose not to have sex until we were out of school.

What I am trying to say, porn is a substitute for normal sexuality and nudity being a part of mainstream culture. America is having a heart attack when a nipple shows, and but most dads are beating it off to scenes of ?simulated gang-rape of a teenager, wrecked labia and everything. What the hell is all that about?! Is it possible that those men are so hypocritical, or so blind?

Pornography is damaging because it is addictive to most men, and it creates a sexual deviation where what's on screen and one's own hand is a superior substitute for real life sexual and emotional experiences. Men defend porn with passion, because their most puerile fantasies are but a click away, but it's the same as passionate smokers claiming they choose to smoke and can quit for good whenever they want. But the rest of us have the right in law to not be victims of passive smoking.

 

Wow Jazz, some pretty sweeping statements there.

You say porn panders to a minority, men who watch porn, I don't know any man who hasn't watched porn, beit on his own with a box of Kleenex or with his girl/boyfriend but I've never known or even heard of anyone addicted, neither have I ever heard anyone having to defend a porn habit by saying "I can give up anytime" as if it were a cigarette.

I would venture a guess that most women will throw more than a casual glimpse at a porno too even though a tiny minority would admit it but it's funny that the vast majority of women would not think twice about near raping a Chippindale at a show. Men wouldn't do this at a strip bar or lap-dance club.

By the way, I am talking about normal, everyday porn between consensual adults with no violence, not even simulated - just gratuitous sex with crap storylines and worse music.

You mention it screws up kids and gives them false ideas of what sex is. I think I was about 12 when I saw my first porno, a VHS stolen from my dad's locked cabinet and watched with friends at little Jonny's house down the road when his mam was at bingo. Not long after a 'nudey mag' was doing the rounds at school - massive giggles all round. At this point I'll add that all porn was banned in Ireland; Playboy, VHS, you couldn't even buy condoms until 1986 when I was 16 - not that I needed one till a year later

Anyway, you mention how sexually free you were as a child, you were 6 watching your first sex scene, I would turn over the channel if my 6 year old was in the room. I would never want her going topless on a beach until she was old enough to go on holiday alone and then it's her choice. Way too many paedos hanging round beaches for me and topless kids are just a tease.

I do agree though that our culture makes sex a taboo. I went to an all boys catholic school and we had NO sex education at all. "That 'thing' between your legs is for peeing only - KEEP YOUR HANDS OFF IT!" was about the only mention it ever got. Here in France kids can drink wine in bars and restaurants at 12, cider at 14, beer at 16, kids are brought up to respect alcohol and there are not a lot of rowdy drunk kids running about the streets all night. In Dublin where kids can't even look in an off-licence window until 18, it's a race to get drunk. Same with sex, no sex-ed, everything a taboo, a big mystery and girls are pushing prams at 13 and 14 while the same age boys are being persecuted for paedophilia, unlawful carnal knowledge of a minor even though they themselves are minors. The boy and girl going on the sex offender's list forever.

Our attitudes to sex, in the West, are crazily conservative but I don't think it's fair to blame honest to goodness porn - I think if redtube was about in my teenage years I would have been better at it or at least knew what to do

 

I don't like this type of big brotherism because there are non-destructive consumers of porn as well. Why should they have to pay because some jackasses can't moderate their consumption or stray to such avenues of porn that would get them sterilized in some Eastern European countries?

This I agree with. Banning nude paintings is just weird and to me those who decide to ban it come off the biggest pervs.

I disagree to a degree. There's amateur porn that isn't affected by the industry, so it can be a normal part of sexuality. I believe it is possible to consume porn (or erotica) so that it doesn't eff you up, but a lot of it comes down to the consumer him/herself.

I do agree that it certainly can be, and often is, and it can put pressure on us normal women if we start to torment ourselves with the idea that men want us to look like blondjobs with bolted-on boobs and cooches like a ten-year-old kid's. Porn can offer totally creepy images and fantasies.

Our society is sad and funny that way. I laugh my ass off everytime yet another nipplegate happens because the hypocrisy is outstanding.

Not just men though, women too. Women also have expectations their regular joe boyfriend won't be able to deliver. Some people can keep fantasies as they are and are happy with their real life relationship, some get screwed up, addicted, lose self-control. I still think the responsibility to keep this from happening is not a government's business. Chasing down pedophiles is different, fencing out all porn feels just weird (not that the UK can actually go through with this).

I think it's been established already that there're lots of disgusting forms of sex offered online, but you probably meant this in a more naive way, as in in non-abusive, non-destructive, non-demeaning type of sex...

 

[MENTION=52161]erebh[/MENTION] [MENTION=53403]KaTrian[/MENTION] [MENTION=45548]Selbbin[/MENTION]: I stand corrected about women, you are right. I am still convinced that men outweigh women in their devotion to and consumption of pornography at least 100 to 1. But you must remember, when you and I and people of our generation watched that porn with a mate when we were 13 in the eighties, it was different from this aggressive saturation of the world with every possible kind pornography. Then it was rebellion, a rare occasion, a special thing. Like 'South Park" kids when they are returning the porno tape, it was an absolute mission. And here and there you got a Butters, someone who totally flipped out and thought of nothing else ever since, but all others just started to wish they could try it for real. I am cool with porn being on the margins, like it used to, as long as we weed out abuse from it and as long as it isn't marketed like any drug of addiction. But I don't want it everywhere, I want the society which is comfortable with sexuality, in real life.

 

[MENTION=45548]Selbbin[/MENTION]: I agree, a lot of people don't get that not all sex and nudity is porn. But in a society (ours, today) where almost all sex depictions available are pornographic, and anything artistic or erotic is completely marginalised, it's logical that people will think that what is there is the only thing there is. Also agree, bans don't work. They don't work with food, drugs, alcohol, sex, they won't work with porn either. But ban vs all out pornification isn't the only available choice. There's a middle ground which can be achieved.

I think human sexuality is a damaged concept, and it needs to be healed, perhaps for the first time in the past 2000 years. We need to look across the board, address false and damaging taboos, address the issue of sexual violence and the issue of exploitation of the vulnerable. While there may be little, IT-wise, that can be done to make these proposed 'filters' work, we can certainly work on the overall issues, and tackle excessive pornography simply by making it less interesting to an average human. In the mean time, though, I'd like it a bit less in my face

 

When I re-sold telecoms for WorldCom, along with web products, wifi and such, we had a deal with a hotel chain supplying movies-on-demand via IP into rooms. Of course 99% of hotel movies were porn and it was advertised clearly that such charges were billed as 'sundries'. Anyway, these pornos where quite popular and were charged by the minute. I don't think any movie went by the 3-4 minute mark. That's about the length of their 'interest'. Once you're done you're done kinda thing.

I think the whole sex thing for kids has to be less of a mystery. Once something is banned we all want it, or at least want to know why it was banned and try it for ourselves, (I don't mean beastiality here before someone jumps in). Who remembers Frankie Goes To Hollywood's Relax in 1983. It was out 6 months, played on radio, no-one cared. All of a sudden it's banned on BBC and it's number 1 for a year, Two Tribes came along and the video got banned, then we had Relax no.1 and Two Tribes no.2 for a year.

Banning is not the answer, education is and a de-sensitising to porn - take out the mystery and teach kids to appreciate it.

Also while we're at it, this thing about paedophiles trying to access kiddie porn getting a pop-up note to seek help - the police should be straight round to those bastards!

 

Is that what kids are calling it these days?

The problem with internet porn is that it takes away the special meaning, the destination, the terroir of porn if you will. It used to be that it took a college dare to travel to Nuevo Laredo to see a donkey show. If you wanted a teenage lady-boy, you had to save up to fly or sail to Thailand. Now, it is all just a click away. Kids these days don't know how easy they've got it.

In all seriousness, however, I do know some guys who are "addicted" to porn. They were gluing pages of the Sears Catalog underwear section together long before the internet existed. I like to think that their constant masturbation and keyboard cleaning is saving a woman's life because I don't know how they would be without it. I admit I love to look at naked women; burn me at the stake if you must. I'm not that big a fan of sex porn (mainly because of some of those godawful camera angles), but, as long as it is not causing harm to others, I am not going to ask to ban it.

Does the porn industry cause problems in society? I think you get into a chicken/egg scenario there. Are the girls/guys in porn recruited, or would they have found another way to destroy their lives and fathers' pride? Does porn affect real life notions of normal sex? If it does, then take 50 shades off the shelves, because that sadomasochistic book is twisting the mind of too many housewives and waterlogging too many fingers

 

Haha yeah Unfortunately there are men and boys, and they aren't very rare, who escalate in their interests, both in time and in theme, it's the nature of addiction and porn has proven to be very addictive. Make this drug freely available and free (in today's world) and you have a problem.

No, take the mystery out of normal sexuality and human body, and teach kids to appreciate that. Not porn. Porn is a perverted substitute for a normal physiological need that is subject to all kinds of ridiculously unnatural rules and regulations. You don't want the government to interfere with your right to porn? I don't want them to interfere with my right to breastfeed a baby in a public place, or go topless on a beach, or see normal sex on tv, in context and without false hysteria.

I would hope that was proposed for some undercover reasons. Paedos operate in rings. The prerogative isn't to catch one, but to catch all the people who exchange children and images with him as well. So the pop up might be a tag or something that'll latch on the surveillance to your IP and interfere with your emails of whatever these clever cyberspies do. It also might be a completely oblivious idea by someone who knows as much about the IT as they do about Greggs pasties (if you saw that debacle of British politics not too long ago).