The porn industry is facing a major shakeup, with more countries than ever adding stricter age restrictions or outright banning certain sites. Adult entertainment websites have been warned to comply or face fines in their millions, while users who try to get around these laws face punishments of their own.
In the latest move, the United Kingdom has deemed that ’strangulation’ pornography will be reclassified as a criminal offense that could land you in prison. Pornhub apparently has an extensive list of some 28,000 banned terms that can't be searched on the site, although this isn't publicly available.
Legal action can be taken if you try to create, or even view, this kind of content online, as a list of banned acts continues to grow.
LADbible's 'For F**k's Sake' campaign has been started to spur a conversation about how porn is consumed. Showing that 77% of the Gen Z generation watch pornography in some form, this might have something to do with why VPN usage has spiked alongside Pornhub traffic taking a hit due to new state bans in the USA and UK age verification.
What sex acts are banned in the USA?
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There's no comprehensive list on which specific sexual acts involving consenting adults are banned, with many rules depending on individual state laws, federal obscenity laws, and whether illegal factors like underage participants and trafficking are involved. Despite growing controversy about what is and isn't banned, it'll come as no surprise that anything involving minors is strictly banned.
Federal law confirms that anyone under the age of 18 engaging in sex acts is illegal, which extends to both real-life minors and any computer‐generated or simulated images that appear to show minors.
In an era of deepfakes and AI, this is becoming an increasingly dangerous issue.
Producers of sexually explicit materials have to keep records proving that participants are over the age of 18, while all acts have to be distributed without violating a region's obscenity laws.
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Trafficking, coercion, and illegal elements are banned alongside sexual acts like bestiality, necrophilia, and incest, although laws don't always list them by 'act type' as a nationwide ruling.
What sex acts are banned in the UK?
Given the UK's recent clampdown on 'choking', there are even more questions about what's counted as a criminal offense – particularly in the realms of BDSM. Materials involving consenting adults over the age of 18 are generally legal as long as it doesn't fall into specific categories. In terms of certain BDSM or fetish content, it's not automatically illegal as long as it involves consenting adults and no serious harm is caused.
This legally grey area has become a minefield, but notably, acts involving anyone under the age of 18, non-consensual/exploitative acts, and anything listed under Section 63 of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008 are outlawed. This clarifies it's illegal to possess “extreme pornographic images," such as those that appear to threaten a person's life, anything that results in (or is likely to) harm to a person’s genitals, anus, or breasts. It extends to intercourse or oral sex with an animal, as well as anything that appears to show "sexual interference with a human corpse."
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The recent developments of the strangulation legislation will also make the possession or publication of materials relating to this a criminal offense.
It's not as black and white as you'd think
Even though the law is the law, areas of ambiguity include the caveat that just because an act is legal between two consenting adults doesn't mean it can be produced and distributed. The law often uses terms like 'serious injury', 'threatening life', and 'explicit or realistic depiction', although they can be interpreted by courts and prosecutors in various ways. It should also be noted that proposals like the age verification stipulations are continuing to evolve.
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Any acts involving consenting adults, without illegal participants, and showing no serious harm are more likely to be legal, but it's not guaranteed without looking deeper into how these adult materials are produced and distributed.