Porn depicting sex between step-relatives set to be banned in the UK

There must be a line somewhere, and it is reasonable to debate where exactly that line should be.

In this case, it feels natural to me that the line for images should be aligned with the line for the act itself.

Banning images of things that are not themselves illegal makes little sense to me and feels a bit like someone trying to legislate away otherwise legal behavior just because they personally find it distasteful.

I tend to agree with the perspective that this is a display of a desire to “reenact” and process personal and collective/intergenerational traumatic experiences (similar to violence in movies) on the one end, and the desire to repress and deny them on the other hand (position to ban; protection of perpetrator by silencing the victim). It reminds me of a psychology paper about whether BDSM practices are useful to process traumatic experiences or if the downsides prevail.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0092623X.2024.2...

The question is, if we ban such “phantasies”, are we not merely strengthening repression and silencing of trauma, and by that perpetuating it. Or how do we go about sprinkling in a conscious awareness of why the urges exist to go deeper with them without the shame/blame to protect the original pain and misdeeds, rather than just continually repeating them, both as fantasy/role play and in real abuse.

I want to additionally mention but not link to the subreddits full of incest fantasy stories (or are they), and a reminder that abuse leads to abuse fantasies in the victim until it is properly processed and integrated. As long as we shame victims additionally for this healthy mechanism of the psyche we will be doomed to repeat it.

It's funny how the people accused of running a child sex trafficking ring get to be morallity police for what adults can produce and watch.

This coverage relates to anti-porn amendments supported by peers in the UK House of Lords. That does not mean the amendments have support from the Government or any real chance of making it into law.

Next, they'll be banning porn depicting sex between ministers and farm animals.

The weird bit is that the UK is the inbreed/incest hot zone of Europe:

"It is estimated that approximately 55% of marriages within the Pakistani community in the United Kingdom are between first cousins. This practice, often referred to as consanguineous marriage, is culturally favored within certain communities, leading to higher rates of inbreeding coefficients, which can be comparable to those found in other regions with high rates of cousin marriage, such as in the Middle East."

The UK refuses to make it illegal. That would be racist. The worst crime ever.

Not judging anyone’s kinks but when there are so many major issues to solve this is what is being focused on? Maybe that’s the point

Wonder how they will classify 'cousins' given its unfortunate prevalence in the UK

this is one of the most popular themes in pornography for whatever reason. incest titles increase click through rates to any porn video, even if they contain no incest content or even reference to incest

why this is so huge is fascinating. i suspect it is not really about the age gap, but rather the emotional trauma and sexual confusion so many people experience living in the same house hold as non biological "family members". the tension between "it is taboo to be attracted to my family" and "I am sexually attracted to a physically attractive person of no biological relation who lives in my house"

a male and female 19 year old of no biological relation, who only met each other 4 years earlier when their parents started dating, would very naturally feel sexual attraction to each other. indeed, they would share many of the social and biological traits of their parents. yet, this would be a massive taboo. consider the huge trauma of the mother being betrayed by her daughter sleeping with her step-sibling, or even her step-parent, fear of this, jealousy, fantasy.

of course the combination of taboo with sexual attraction will result in an entire genre of erotic fantasy much like adultery, cheating, professor-college student, or any other relationship of power and betrayal

the real question is, at what point does expressing the human condition become illegal? especially when as others have noted, it is legal to do the thing in real life but apparently not photograph it

and if this content is harmful to the consumer, why is other pornography apparently not? Should we ban also onlyfans?

This feels more like a joke. Off course the step- word was meant to be omitted in order to challenge pervert instincts, so this ban is justified. I can imagine the embarrassment in many UK homes. But, banning a legal relation while allowing rape, animals or extreme age and size differences is odd. I suppose cousin and unkle/aunt relationships will increase. How is it supposed to be enforced? Will there be a word filter?

I wonder where the line for "porn" will be drawn on this topic.

Will this make a number of Game of Thrones episodes illegal? Should they already be illegal, as Cersei and Jamie are full, not step-siblings?

My initial instinct to this headline was: Why would you ban that? After reading the article, I might agree this is a reasonable option.

From my perspective this type of porn was basically just porn with a bit of story attached to it, which imo elevates it slightly. Though I was mainly thinking about the step-sibling variety. From a male perspective the stepfather variety always gave me the ick, with the stepson dynamic lying somewhere in between. But I was looking at it as someone without any step-relationships in real life.

Now, after also looking up the prevalence of step-relationships lying between 10 and 40% depending on what you count, I am a lot more vary of this trend in pornography from a societal perspective. Even besides the more insidious possible effects mentioned in the article, I can see how this type of fantasy can give the (presumably majority male) porn audience wrong ideas. Like considering every woman a possible partner instead of just peer, even in the wider context of family.

In theory I agree with these kind initiatives to try and at least steer things in the right way but I also realise how often they fail. And who knows the trend following such a ban could be worse.

Ultimately, you are only treating symptoms here and ignoring the societal problems that lead to this being a thing in the first place (loneliness, fewer human connections, rise of individualism, etc.)

"Doing X with NOT my stepsister"

There you go, fixed. Who should I send the invoice to?

Is there some philosophical/ethics work done on the question which fictional crimes, taboo breaks or unethical behavior are okay and which aren't? Iirc Japan takes the extreme position of legalizing all fictional wrongdoings, whereas the west is okay with fictional violence (e.g. murder mysteries), but not okay with some other things. Where to draw the line?

It's time more people learnt YKINMKBYKIOK

Sex in hospitals, in schools, public places, public transport, in prision, violence, desperation, power relation, aliens?, most Japanese/animated porn is about non-consensual sex. A lot of this is illegal and most of it could be misinterpreted and lead to real life misunderstandings. At this level 80% of porn could be banned.

Two consensual adults or cartoons acting something illegal. And in UK porn is banned for underage already... So it seems problematic that they could just as easily justify to ban any book or video that depict illegal things

>NOT stepdaughter

checkmate

There's a helpful introduction paragraph:

    Peers agreed by a majority of one to ban videos and images
    depicting relationships that would not be allowed in real life.

    They also agreed to bring intimate pictures and videos of adults
    pretending to be children in line with similar images of real children.

The title might be better summarised as:

Porn depicting a specific set of unlawful sexual activity is set to be banned.

Question

How is this going to work in practice, if I watch a vid that's tagged 'step relative' am I going off the jail and on the register?

Does it have to be in the description?

What if it's just been tagged every which way and does actually appear to portray anything illegal?

What if the tags and titles are removed, and I watch exactly the same videos. Am I committing an offense because in someone's head canon the characters are related?

I don‘t hold a strong opinion on this, but I still find it a bit weird that they are set to ban something in porn that is - as far as I understand - perfectly fine irl?

What I find weirdest is how incredibly prevalent this „genre“ (?) is? Not only is it popular, it is literally everywhere

I reckon someone in government is just annoyed that basically all porn is incest porn these days.

I know people love science here, so can someone tell me what's exactly the difference here between gay porn and incest porn? Isn't love is love? And both will not produce kids here so what's wrong scientifically?

Generating as much political distraction as possible so people don’t talk about MP corruption, Michelle Mone, youth unemployment, or immigration. Anything the state finds problematic for us to talk about.

The UK is going over board on so many things lately, can they even call themselves a FREE country anymore? First SPEECH, then VPNs and now PORN.

This is not a pipe.

It's funny that it's still presumably legal to marry your step sister, not in pretend videos but in real life. And we honestly shouldn't have a problem with that given the disgust around incest presumably comes from the likelihood of genetic defects.

Woody Allen would like a word.

I do 't think porn has anything to do with inbreeding in uk

Tom and Jerry should be banned since it promotes violence.

It is also interested that this topic is less likely to be flagged on HN than posts about Microslop or Voldemort.

new Porn Category is about to drop… “cousin twice removed”

What about daddy porn

Judging by this, some legislators parents must have been close relatives.

So, what, I need to search for 'sister's friend' instead of 'hermanastra'? 'hot' OK?

face palm

LOL. The UK, you doth protest too much.

And yet your not allowed to discuss the implications of marriage between cousins in case people become upset

>"around half of all sexual abuse cases against children were perpetrated by step-parents"

I understand most commenters are reacting to their masturbatory fantasy aspects of pornography, but I am more concerned about the real life sexual molestation of children. In particular, I am a bit concerned about the statement I quoted above.

First, I want to emphatically state that it is not my intent to minimize the risk of sexual abuse committed by step parents.

I learned 25+ years ago that my wife's grandfather, who lived with them, started raping her when she was 7 years old until he died when she was 14. She never told a soul until she revealed this secret to me when she was 44. I have read an extensive amount about sexual abuse over the ensuing years. What I learned stunned me.

Studies dating back to the early 1900s until when I was researching were consistent: 1 in 3 women reported they had suffered serious ongoing sexual abuse when they were children. These studies were almost all anonymous with most women survivors still keeping the secret.

By definition, this would appear to indicate widespread sexual abuse that was almost certainly not related to step parents ( I did a quick GoogleAI check while writing this which indicates 9-10% of American children live in households with a step-parent ).

My purpose behind this comment is to note that the 50% figure mentioned in the article is based upon actual cases reported by the children - and everything I have learned is that the overwhelming majority of cases are never reported and, indeed, never mentioned to anyone and kept a total secret forever by the abused women.

And it is easy for me to see that reporting of a step-parent is much more likely than the reporting of a parent or grandparent or other close family relative. Indeed, I suspect the a high percentage of the non-step parent cases in England are likely non-family members (again, because of the likely fear and shame felt by the child when the abuse is by a close blood relation).

I felt the need to address the misleading nature of the quote. I am sure it is factually accurate, but misleading for the reasons I've outlined.

Lastly, please remember to look at the next high school graduating class in May/June this year and think to yourself that one in three of the girls receiving their diplomas are likely hiding a terrible life changing secret. It angers me this information is kept so quiet. I urge everyone to take the time to look into this subject. Please educate yourself for the sake of your children - male and female.

Edit: After writing this, I did a quick GoogeAI search and GoogleAI indicated studies show 86% of women never reveal the abuse. It also indicates that the percentage of woman suffering sexual abuse before 18 is one in four, not one in three. It would appear that the information has changed slightly with AI compared to my pre-Ai reading - but it doesn't really change the substance of concern for what is happening behind closed doors.

Royal intermarriage > Inbreeding: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_intermarriage#Inbreeding

"What if they're cousins instead"

Why hasn't God controls for ignorance of blood relation and conception?

In its first chapter, the Christian Bible suggests that we are all incestuous descendents of Adam and Eve and their children.

"You are all inferior"

Is God benevolent if there is accidental conception by incest, and it genetically damns the sinless child and multiple generations of their progeny by design?

Anything closer than first cousins risks the health of the child.

A stopped clock is right once a day. This is one thing I agree with for once. This stuff is obviously meant to be a backdoor for online ID though.

Good. Our society will surely suffer some sort of degradation from the way incest porn has become the most promoted and “normal” type of porn

It went from being the most taboo type imaginable to the first things kids will see when they get a phone and look for adult content.