Porn Protest: Mass Face-Sitting to Go Down Outside U.K. Parliament Over New Censorship of Web Porn Content
Here's a delightful little update in the saga of government censors versus the U.K. porn industry: This Friday, activists are planning to gather outside Parliament and stage mass simulated sex acts—specifically face-sitting. The demonstration is in response to last week's annoucement that a host of sex acts, from face-sitting to bondage to faux non-consent, will be banned from U.K. porn websites that charge for content.
This prohibition on portraying many BDSM and fetish acts hits especially hard for the kinds of niche sites more likely to rely on pay-per-video fees and subscriptions than advertising revenue, as the free, high-traffic tube porn sites do.
Friday's demonstration was planned by Charlotte Rose, a former bondage model and dominatrix who now works as a sex therapist. "Personal liberty is what we are fighting for on Friday which no one has the right to take away from somebody else," she told London 24. Along with the face sit-in, the event will also feature speakers discussing the new regulations and a sing-along of the Monty Python classic "Sit on My Face".
"To all of you who love cunnilingus unfortunately this record must be clothed—so shorts, leggings, tights, knickers are all good (it cannot be bare skin!!!)," wrote Rose on Facebook. "We will obviously have facial colour charts for health and safety to insure no one is being suffocated which the adjudicators will be monitoring."
For more on the the ins and outs of the U.K.'s new porn regulations, see this blog post from obscenity lawyer Myles Jackman. "Pornography is the canary in the coalmine of free speech: it is the first freedom to die," Jackman warned in The Independent. "If this assault on liberty is allowed to go unchallenged, other freedoms will fall as a consequence."
You can follow the Friday demonstration by checking out #PornProtest on Twitter.
