Monthly Archives: November 2013

ALERT: Parliament Considers UK Internet Block-List

David Cameron’s announcement of an Internet filter to “protect children” has raised great concern this year; and yet, as I wrote following the announcement, the filter is merely a first step towards Internet censorship: I referred to it as “Internet Censorship 1.0”. The filter is not a legal requirement, but a voluntary agreement between the government and ISPs; but it was inevitable that legislation would follow. And indeed it has: the Online Safety Bill is a private member’s bill which is about to have its second reading in the House of Lords.

A casual reader might assume it simply refers to the filtering system already discussed, but in fact it contains something far more serious: an attempt to introduce a mandatory UK Internet block-list. This historic move would truly put the UK in the same camp as China and Iran: the government, or more likely, unelected regulators, would deem a site to be inappropriate for viewing by the British public, and it would vanish from our view of the Internet. Below is the key text from the bill, with my comments in bold.

(1) Internet service providers must provide to subscribers an internet access service which excludes adult content unless all the conditions of subsection (3) have been fulfilled. Note that “adult content” is a very broad term. This blog is already considered “adult content” by some UK mobile networks.

(2) Where mobile telephone network operators provide a telephone service to subscribers, which includes an internet access service, they must ensure this service excludes adult content unless all the conditions of subsection (3) have been fulfilled.

(3) The conditions are— Now watch carefully…

(a) the subscriber “opts-in” to subscribe to a service that includes adult content; This simply puts the existing filter plans into law.

(b) the subscriber is aged 18 or over; and The ISP must age-check the subscriber before allowing them to opt in – this already happens on mobile networks. The juicy bit is next:

(c) the provider of the service has an age verification policy which meets the standards set out by OFCOM and which has been used to confirm that the subscriber is aged 18 or over What does this mean? Let’s break it down:

Clause 3(c) means that even if the user has proved their age and opted in to see “adult content”, the ISP must only allow them to do so if the service meets content standards as set by the media regulator Ofcom. Each ISP can’t, of course, check every site on the Internet. Instead, the only technical solution is to block any service that appears to provide adult material, unless it is on an Ofcom-approved list.

Does such a list exist? Yes: Ofcom has already delegated the power to regulate online video services to a private organisation called ATVOD. ATVOD requires video services to register (and pay), and to comply with a series of UK-specific content guidelines. How many adult services comply to ATVOD? At present, around 20, and most of these are fairly soft, and are mostly linked to existing adult TV channels.

There are millions of porn sites in the world. There are many million more sites that contain sexual imagery, sexual chat, sex education material or other content that might (according to some people) not be suitable for under-18s. Under this bill, ISPs would be breaking the law if they failed to block a site containing “adult content”, and so if a service is in doubt, it will be blocked, to be on the safe side. As noted above, massive over-blocking has already occurred on mobile services.

There is no partial step into Internet censorship; either a block list exists, or it doesn’t. Once created, it can be used for any purpose; David Cameron has already hinted at blocking “extremist” sites. And “extreme”, like “adult content” is wide open for interpretation. Although we generally believe we live in a free country, we have always been a censored one. The Internet blew a hole in the power of the state to decide what can be published and what can be seen. It is no surprise that the state wants to reclaim that power.

Any step to create a UK block list must be opposed by anyone who believes in free expression. We must ask our MPs: why does Britain, almost alone in the democratic world, see the need to implement such a measure? Why are British people more in need of “protection” than Americans or other Europeans? As a private member’s bill, the Online Safety Bill may well fail, but the measures are most likely to reappear in an official government Communications Bill. We have time to protect our Internet freedom, but we don’t have long. What can you do? We will be making an announcement shortly. Please join our mailing list to receive alerts.

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Are Sex and Porn Addictive?

We’re pleased to welcome a new blogger. David J. Ley PhD. is an American clinical psychologist who practices in Albuquerque, NM. He is the author of The Myth of Sex Addiction, writes a blog for Psychology Today, and is a frequent speaker on radio and television. His website is: http://Drdavidley.com

David J. Ley PhD
David J. Ley PhD

The cry “save kids from addictive porn” has resounded through Britain of late, part of the argument for restricting pornography access. The idea sounds sensible, at least at first. Like drugs or alcohol, porn (and sex in general) can feel really good. So, it seems to make intuitive sense that sex could be addictive in similar ways. Unfortunately, the idea of sex and porn addiction is merely an expression of human fears of sexuality, and is a concept which reflects the manipulative power of pop psychology and moral panics.

The idea of sex addiction first sprang into the American consciousness in the early 1980’s, when Patrick Carnes, a prison psychologist, first published a book where he related sexual behavior problems to the problems of alcoholics. He advocated for the use of 12-step treatments, like what is used in Alcoholics Anonymous. Carnes’ ideas caught fire and spawned an enormous industry in the United States, tapping into tremendous fears of sexuality, particularly aspects of male sexuality.

The idea of sex addiction took root in fertile soil, which had been fertilized by centuries of fear and sexual suppression. The ideas that masturbation itself could be unhealthy can be traced back centuries to European physicians, who argued that masturbation depleted men of crucial energy. We now understand that many of the problems blamed on masturbation and excessive sexuality, from mental health problems or blindness, were actually the result of untreated sexually transmitted infections such as syphilis or gonorrhea. But, for hundreds of years, physicians advocated against the dangers of too much sex or too much masturbation. Kellog’s cornflakes and Graham crackers were originally invented to be bland foods that wouldn’t “stimulate” physical passions or lead to sexual arousal. Throughout history, societies go through periods of changing attitudes towards sex, from more liberal “free love” attitudes towards conservative times when sexual expression is restricted. Fear-based ideas such as sex addiction or nymphomania arise in times and societies that are attempting to suppress or control sexuality. Sadly, the medical field has often been an instrument of this control.

Historically, women suffered the most from these danger moral medical practices, where women diagnosed as nymphomaniacs were institutionalized, lobotomized, or had their clitorises removed, when doctors determined that these women liked sex too much (as much as men for instance). The diagnosis of nymphomania was finally abandoned and rejected as the medical field acknowledged that these diagnoses were based on culturally-determined gender stereotypes, not on medical or scientific data. Sex researcher Alfred Kinsey said it best, when he quipped that “a nymphomaniac is anyone who has more sex than their therapist.”

But today, it’s men’s turn. According to most studies, alleged sex addicts are overwhelmingly male. Between 85-92% of most “sex addicts” are men. There are two main reasons for this: first, the idea of sex addiction came to the fore at the same time that American media and society made a shift in the way that gender was regarded. For centuries, masculinity was seen as the ideal. Medical textbooks focused on male physiology, and females were ignored. Men were seen as smarter, and more valuable. But, beginning in the 1980’s, masculinity became a figure of ridicule. Men were increasingly portrayed as buffoons, subject to the whims of their penises. Penises themselves are most often portrayed as objects of humor, rather than sexual objects comparable to female genitalia. Men today are seen as less moral than women, and male sexual desires are seen as baser, deficient, and dangerous.

Gender differences in sexual desire, attitudes and values are clear. Men masturbate more than women, use pornography more frequently, are more likely to be interested in fetishistic sexual practices, engage in infidelity more, visit prostitutes more, and are more likely to be interested in casual sex. All of these behaviors have been regarded as symptoms of sexual addiction, when they actually reflect sexual differences between men and women. The field of sex addiction has served to attack (and excuse) male sexuality for the past thirty years. Historically, powerful men throughout history have enjoyed sexual privilege that included a “hall pass” from monogamy. But, as social views of masculinity changed, powerful men caught in infidelity needed something to blame. The idea that sex is addictive and a powerful drug became a convenient scapegoat, which actors, politicians and sports figures used to excuse their misbehaviors.

The second reason why sex addiction is focused on men lies again in the time when sex addiction emerged. The early 1980’s saw the rise of AIDS. With the AIDS crisis, unrestrained male sexuality, and in particular male homosexuality, was seen as not just a moral inconvenience, but a potential life-threatening behavior that endangered men and those around them. Today, studies show that gay and bisexual men are about three times more likely to be labeled as sex addicts, than they are to be diagnosed with mental health or drug and alcohol problems.

But, despite thirty years of public acceptance and media embrace of the idea that sex is addictive, sexual addiction is not a diagnosable illness. Medical and psychiatric industries have consistently rejected this concept, as based on moral and cultural values, with little to no scientific basis. Repeatedly, over the past years, proponents of sex addiction have been chastised for poor science, based on anecdote, rather than defensible empirical scientific research.

And yet, the idea that sex is addictive remains a powerful myth in modern society, because of its usefulness. Media and moral groups use this idea to invoke fear, tapping into normal human sexual anxiety. The idea that porn is addictive was used by religious groups to ban Playboy from the shelves of convenience stores, and is used today to invoke fear that childhood exposure to porn can create uncontrollable and damaging addictions.

Sex and porn, can cause problems in people’s lives, just like any other human behavior or form of entertainment. But, to invoke the idea of “addiction” is unethical, using invalid, scientifically and medically-rejected concepts to invoke fear and feed panic. The history of the idea of sex addiction should be a cautionary tale to modern British society – whenever this ploy is used, its intent is to restrict sexual freedoms, based on conservative social philosophies.

Models & Performers: Lend Your Support!

dont-censor-meThere are many censorship actions taking place in the UK right now. Everything from porn, Page 3 and lads’ mags to strip clubs are in the firing line. Anything sexy is declared sexist! We’re told this is about protecting women. And yet, it is women who are under the greatest attack. Those women who have chosen to undress for a living are told that what they do is wrong. The censorship lobby is picking up steam. Everything from strip clubs to web sites are being forcibly closed down.

If you are a pornstar, model, webcam girl, stripper, fetish performer or otherwise make your living from your body or your sexuality, you are under the threat of being censored!

Please help us fight back by lending your voice to the campaign. Just download and print this sign, snap a photo of yourself with it, and mail it back to us! Your photo will be published in a gallery on this blog.

Photos can be clothed or undressed, with or without your face showing. Please accompany the photo with your name (working name or real name) and a short message to those people who want to suppress your image.

Thanks!

Concerns Raised Over “Child Protection” Conference

The UK video-on-demand regulator, ATVOD, has announced a conference on child protection, to be held in London on 12th December. In an open letter, below, we raise concerns with the nature of the conference and some of the speakers to be featured. (UPDATE: a response was received on 19th November, and has been appended to the end of this post).

Jerry Barnett
SexAndCensorship.org

18 November 2013

Open letter to: Julia Hornle, ATVOD board member

Cc: Sue Berelowitz – Deputy Children’s Commissioner

 

Dear Julia,

I am writing with regard to the ATVOD-organised child protection conference taking place in London on 12th December. I am informed that you selected the conference speakers. I write on behalf of a number of people who are greatly concerned that the conference line-up is not altogether suitable for an event whose purported goal is to determine what best can be done to protect British children.

The concerns are twofold: first, the lack of expertise related to the effects of content on viewers, including children and teenagers, and second the inclusion of two speakers whose beliefs seem out of place at a conference dedicated to child protection.

On the first point: How children and teenagers are affected by what they see online is widely debated. A great deal of research has been done over several decades, and a good deal has yet to be done. There is still however no conclusive evidence to support how harm, if any, is done by  sexual, violent, or other material and it would therefore seem premature to suggest remedies until the existence and nature of any problem is properly understood.

For this reason, it is puzzling that the conference speaker list includes no expertise on this matter, and yet plenty of expertise does exist. It would seem suitable to include a child psychologist, or somebody who has directly tried to research the effects of viewing such material.

A number of suitable individuals come to mind, but we might suggest:

  • Dr Guy Cumberbatch is a chartered psychologist who has been commissioned previously by Ofcom to conduct research on this very subject area. It would seem sensible that the conference should be informed by an expert in child psychology before coming to any conclusions.

  • Dr Clarissa Smith is Professor of Sexual Cultures at Sunderland University, and (along with colleagues) is conducting the most exhaustive study to date into the effects of pornography on its users.

  • Sharon Girling is a former senior Police officer with national responsibility, now an independent consultant, and probably the UK’s leading authority on online child abuse imagery, and protecting abused children who are identified from such imagery.

It may be dangerous to rush towards policy-making without input, at such a critical event, from people such as the above. As history shows, rashly drafted laws and regulations might disrupt existing child protection activities, and thus have the reverse effect to that originally intended.

On the second point: we note with concern the inclusion of the following two speakers:

  • Paula Hall is billed as Chair of the Association for the Treatment of Sex Addiction and Compulsivity. However, there is widespread skepticism among mental health professionals that “sex addiction” is even a genuine condition, or whether it simply stigmatises normal sexual response. Although “hypersexuality” was previously accepted as a psychiatric condition (as once was homosexuality), it has now been removed from the most recent manual of psychiatry, DSM-V. It is worrying that you consider what many believe to be quack psychiatry to be relevant to this discussion.

  • Julia Long is a spokesperson for the morality group Object, which campaigns against all forms of sexual expression, whether consumed by children or adults. Object frequently attempt to link adult material to sexual violence, although they have no evidence to back this point of view. They have claimed (without evidential foundation) that adults are harmed by accessing pornography, reading lads’ mags and visiting strip clubs. Again, their inclusion seems incongruous at a conference aimed at protecting children, a subject in which Object and Ms Long herself appear to have no expertise or prior interest.

The anomalies in the conference line-up have led to questions as to whether this event is about child protection or Internet censorship. I look forward to your response, and hope that you can put minds at rest regarding your goals in setting up the conference panels.

Regards,

 

Jerry Barnett
SexAndCensorship.org

 UPDATE: the following response was received on 19 November:

Emailed on Behalf of Julia Hornle

Dear Mr Barnett,

Thank you for your letter and suggestions for the joint ATVOD-QMUL conference on 12th December.

We have finalised the composition of the panels and speakers.  I’m familiar with the work of the speakers you suggest and have no doubt that they also have interesting contributions to make, perhaps at a different conference.  Please let me know if you are organising such an event in the future.

Kind Regards,

1984-2014: Conference Will Mark 30 Years of UK Censorship

The Sex & Censorship campaign is pleased to announce that Jerry Barnett, the campaign founder, will appear as a keynote speaker at a conference on censorship, called to mark 30 years since the Video Recordings Act introduced a regime of video censorship to Britain. The event, titled 1984: Freedom and Censorship in the Media – Where Are We Now?, will take place at Sunderland University on April 8-9 2014.

The organisers have released an excellent two-minute video to promote the event, which you can see below. Please watch and share! Further information about the conference can be found at the event web site.

Censorship Laws Used To Attack Homosexuals

In September 2011, a man accessed a legal gay porn site from a hotel room’s computer. A subsequent guest saw the site listed in the browser history and (for reasons best known to herself) complained to the hotel management. Six months later, the man was arrested and his computer seized. Police later charged him with making indecent images of children and possession of an image of a child being abused.

This week, the charges were dropped. The images were all found to come from legal web sites and were of young-looking men, but not of children. What is truly bizarre is that the police had not bothered to carry out the most basic checks on their evidence before presenting the case to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS). Neither had the CPS questioned the poor state of the evidence before deciding to take the case to court. Meanwhile, a man had been publicly linked to child abuse – a slur that ruins lives, whether or not it has any substance.

The case collapsed because the man’s lawyer, Myles Jackman, carried out the basic evidence-checking that the authorities had failed to do, and found that the images came from a site that had retained model identification information under America’s USC 2257 law. Even when he presented this evidence to the CPS, they failed to drop charges for several more months. After two years of having his name dragged through the mud (during which time his father died, never seeing the outcome of the case), the man was exonerated.

Jackman believes there is strong evidence that the CPS uses its powers to persecute gay men. The same appears to apply to the police. Indeed, after homosexuality was legalised, the police continued to raid gay venues, using the Obscene Publications Act (OPA) rather than the previous laws that had allowed them to directly target homosexuals.

In the infamous Spanner case of 1987, police prosecuted gay men who had videoed their sadomasochistic parties. Although their acts all took place in private, and between consenting adults, they were convicted of causing wounding and actual bodily harm; the judge ruled that a person had no right to consent be assaulted (although this ruling doesn’t seem to apply in TV shows like Jackass, which are deemed suitable for UK TV broadcast).

In the 2012 Michael Peacock case, another gay man was prosecuted, this time under the OPA, for distributing “obscene” gay S&M videos. OPA prosecutions usually result in a guilty plea to avoid the publicity and cost of a trial, but Peacock chose to defend himself (Jackman was his solicitor), and was found not guilty by a jury, in a decision that left the very basis of UK obscenity law in tatters.

Also in 2012, Simon Walsh (who is, you might have guessed, a gay man) was charged under the ridiculous 2008 “extreme porn” law, for possession of images of sex between consenting gay men; again, he was found not guilty, but only at the cost of his career and at huge personal expense.

The state, it appears, has not yet accepted that homosexuality is legal. Furthermore, the existence of a series of badly written censorship laws has given the police and CPS the power to harass people at will, whether for homophobic or other reasons. Laws drafted to protect children from abuse,  and to “protect” the public from obscene material (whether or not the public needs or wants such protection) are used as tools of persecution.

The original British censorship law, the OPA, seems to serve no useful purpose. Denmark scrapped its obscenity laws in 1969, yet Danish society failed to collapse. But in recent decades, an endless stream of new censorship laws have been added to the statute books, most of them more illiberal than the OPA, which at least allows the accused to request a trial by jury.

Somehow, most democracies survive without the weight of state censorship power that the British authorities have at their disposal. Indeed, some of these laws would be unconstitutional in the United States. Perhaps it is time to join the dots: Spanner, Peacock, Walsh, as well as this week’s events, as well as many others. Censorship appears to gain us nothing as a society, but it erodes the rights of law-abiding citizens, and especially those of sexual minorities.