Possession of Violent Pornography Outlawed in UK

An anonymous reader writes "The BBC is reporting that possession of violent pornography is now punishable by three years in prison. This decision was handed down in response to a campaign waged by a grieving mother who lost her daughter to someone obsessed with violent pornography." From the article: "Shaun Gabb, director of the anti-censorship organization the Libertarian Alliance, said: 'If you are criminalizing possession then you are giving police inquisitorial powers to come into your house and see what you've got, now we didn't have this in the past.'"

Comments

simulated violence pornography saves lives

[SuperMario666]

Isn't it better for these weirdos to have safe outlet for these destructive fetishes? These simulated images do not create the fetish, they only provide an outlet for it. As a parent, I would rather these guys wanking in front of a PC in their parents' basements than strangling my daughter in some alley.

Admittedly, simulated images weren't enough for this guy, but he would have been killing much sooner if the internet hadn't sated his needs.

Re:Total Crap

[eln]

David Berkowitz (Son of Sam) claimed the neighbor's dog told him to kill people. I think we should ban dogs.

Re:Disgusting

[Overzeetop]

But where do you stop?

Violent naughty pictures?
Naughty pictures?
Violent pictures?
Violent pames?
Violent movies? (Everybody liked Saw, right?)
Violent sports (UFC, WWF)?
All contact sports?

How about in the non-content arena?
Alcohol?
Caffeine?
Cars with HP to exceed 75MPH or torque to better than 0-60/8sec?

Re:Does pornography increase incidents of rape?

[maynard]

Nice strawman. Not all porn uses rape play acting. A better question would be "does porn increase promiscuity?"

Well then, have another study which looks at the increase in porn availability in Japan and contrasts that with the crime rate. Same conclusion.

"The most dramatic decrease in sex crimes was seen when attention was focused on the number and age of rapists and victims among younger groups (Table 2). We hypothesized that the increase in pornography, without age restriction and in comics, if it had any detrimental effect, would most negatively influence younger individuals. Just the opposite occurred. The number of juvenile offenders dramatically dropped every period reviewed from 1,803 perpetrators in 1972 to a low of 264 in 1995; a drop of some 85% (Table 1). The number of victims also decreased particularly among the females younger than 13 (Table 2). In 1972, 8.3% of the victims were younger than 13. In 1995 the percentage of victims younger than 13 years of age dropped to 4.0%."

Now, as to your assertion that these studies are "strawmen" arguments, would you please explain this assertion rather than just claiming it so? I don't see the strawman you allege. Next, how do you plan to gage an increase or decrease in promiscuity? Would that be by survey? If so, then good luck getting accurate data (you'll need it).

You don't understand the logic.

[raehl]

Nobody expects the guy to NOT look at violent porn. He's sick. He can't help himself. He *HAS* to look at it.

So, if you make it illegal, the people who are not sick will stop looking at it. Then anybody still looking at it must be a sick person, so you know to arrest them, and you arrest them BEFORE they kill anyone, thus saving lives.

Same philosphy behind gun control - pro-gun lobby often responds to gun control with the argument that "If oyu make guns illegal, only criminals will have guns!" Which is exactly the point - if guns are legal, you can't tell teh difference between a law-abiding firearm owner and a criminal with a gun. If guns are illegal, you just have to arrest everyone with a gun and you get most of the criminals in prison before they manage to commit more serious crime.

At least, that's the way it's supposed to work.

There is no such thing as consent in the UK anyway

[Matterball]

If you happen to have violent, spanky, whips and chains sex and you happen to leave a bruise or a cut or anything more than "transient and trifling" you can't say that you consented to it. So if you need to go to the doctor after a heavy session, he may call the police and your partner in the act can be jailed for actual bodily harm. The fact that you consented to get beaten up is no defence. And now they want to make it illegal to even watch two people beating each other up for their own gratification. This, in a country that has a long history of caning and other such fetishy acts - do a search for "English punishment" and see what comes up. Tabloid media, and idiots. Same as usual. Are they now going to ban sales of canes and whips and other toys designed to inflict pain on people for sexual gratification? Sooner or later, someone's going to commit a crime and they'll find a pair of fluffy handcuffs and outlaw those as well. Arrrgh!