Part of the digital economy bill, a new proposal is set to ban web users in the UK from accessing websites which portray a range of “non-conventional” sex acts.
The proposal forces internet service providers to block sites hosting content that wouldn’t be certified for commercial DVD sales by the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC), an odd threshold for porn to live up to.
Although the BBFC haven’t put together a definitive list of sexual acts to be banned, the censoring will apply to acts that most of us wouldn’t even think are that “unconventional”, including spanking, whipping or caning that leaves marks, female ejaculation and sex in public, alongside some acts that are more unusual like those involving urination and menstruation.
This censorship means that mainstream adult websites would have to make whole sections of content inaccessible to UK audiences in order to comply with censorship rules, despite the acts being shown being legal for those over the age of 16 to perform and for adults in most liberal countries to film, distribute and watch.
A spokesperson for the BBFC said, “In making this assessment, we will apply the standards that we apply to pornography that is distributed offline. If a website fails on either of these [age verification or obscene content] tests then a notification of non-compliance will be sent to the site.”
Many adult film producers who have worked with the BBFC have already been forced to cut scenes out of their videos.