How much responsibility should the law take for what happens in the bedroom? According to the government, it depends on whether cameras are present, with a new bill criminalising possession of pornography depicting acts such as strangulation and imagined incest, just to name a few.
Porn doesn’t exist in a vacuum, and its influence on real life sexual behaviours and expectations is real. According to officials and campaigners, it is fears surrounding the normalisation of violent or dangerous sexual acts that is at the forefront of the decision to introduce the legislation. As a feminist, this reasoning makes it virtually impossible to argue against the need for intervention. Similarly, the prohibition of incest-themed content can be defended on the grounds that this type of content may risk normalising abusive familial relationships.
The government’s intention to prevent sexual violence and exploitation is clearly necessary. However, good intentions don’t necessarily translate into good legislation.
One of the most significant shortcomings is the lack of precise definitions. The government’s own guidance acknowledges that strangulation is not defined, and that the decision of whether an image depicts strangulation will be a question for each individual court case. Leaving key terms like this open to interpretation risks creating uncertainty over precisely what is being criminalised, making the very act of criminalisation a moot point. More fundamentally, there is a question of whether the policing of the making and possession of such material is actually the most effective way of dealing with the issue of sexual violence. Of course removing certain content from circulation may be one part of a solution, but there is a much bigger picture of underlying issues to address. Without meaningful education for young people surrounding consent and healthy sexual relationships, there is the risk of treating the symptoms while leaving the underlying problem untouched.
Regulating pornography is a key step in laying the foundations for a safer culture surrounding sex, but it cannot build this culture alone. Protecting women requires more than banning harmful material, it requires challenging sexist and harmful attitudes which existed long before pornography ever did, and which created the market for this type of pornography in the first place. The government is right to recognise the linkage between pornography consumption and how people perceive sex, but it must also recognise that this legislation is only one part of the answer.
“Official portrait of Baroness Bertin crop 1, 2026” by House of Lords / photography by Roger Harris is licensed under CC BY 3.0.
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The porn ban is not enough to protect women and girls
How much responsibility should the law take for what happens in the bedroom? According to the government, it depends on whether cameras are present, with a new bill criminalising possession of pornography depicting acts such as strangulation and imagined incest, just to name a few.
Porn doesn’t exist in a vacuum, and its influence on real life sexual behaviours and expectations is real. According to officials and campaigners, it is fears surrounding the normalisation of violent or dangerous sexual acts that is at the forefront of the decision to introduce the legislation. As a feminist, this reasoning makes it virtually impossible to argue against the need for intervention. Similarly, the prohibition of incest-themed content can be defended on the grounds that this type of content may risk normalising abusive familial relationships.
The government’s intention to prevent sexual violence and exploitation is clearly necessary. However, good intentions don’t necessarily translate into good legislation.
One of the most significant shortcomings is the lack of precise definitions. The government’s own guidance acknowledges that strangulation is not defined, and that the decision of whether an image depicts strangulation will be a question for each individual court case. Leaving key terms like this open to interpretation risks creating uncertainty over precisely what is being criminalised, making the very act of criminalisation a moot point. More fundamentally, there is a question of whether the policing of the making and possession of such material is actually the most effective way of dealing with the issue of sexual violence. Of course removing certain content from circulation may be one part of a solution, but there is a much bigger picture of underlying issues to address. Without meaningful education for young people surrounding consent and healthy sexual relationships, there is the risk of treating the symptoms while leaving the underlying problem untouched.
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Regulating pornography is a key step in laying the foundations for a safer culture surrounding sex, but it cannot build this culture alone. Protecting women requires more than banning harmful material, it requires challenging sexist and harmful attitudes which existed long before pornography ever did, and which created the market for this type of pornography in the first place. The government is right to recognise the linkage between pornography consumption and how people perceive sex, but it must also recognise that this legislation is only one part of the answer.
“Official portrait of Baroness Bertin crop 1, 2026” by House of Lords / photography by Roger Harris is licensed under CC BY 3.0.
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