Across the pond
The entire kink community is teetering on the brink of oblivion. Why in just a few months from now the very existence of anything even remotely kinky is vanish totally out of existence because of a new law that is working its way through government now. You had better stock up now, cause in just a few months, just as soon as this law takes effect, then there will be no more kink ever anywhere.
At least thats the hype everyone seemed to be saying last year.
This little panic attack was making the rounds all over kink-related forums and newsgroups back in august of last year. It was sparked by this article that leads with the amazing tag line that ‘Possessing and accessing extreme internet pornography could become illegal under government proposals ‘. Sure sounds scary enough? Don’t it? Damn that evil Bush administration and the right wing fundamentalist christian zealots oppressing us!
Unfortunately all of the ‘the sky is falling’ hype didn’t include a few bits of detail that appeared in the article itself. Most notably that this isn’t even happening in the united states. Its going on in Britain. However, that didn’t stop anyone from claiming this was a violation of the First Amendment and how this was just another example of George Bush trampling on free speech.
Also missing in all the hooting and hollering agent this law was that it wasn’t being backed by some fundamentalist christian group. The main activists in this case is the family of murder victim Jane Longhurst. Now the scumbag that killed her was already caught, tried, and is serving a 26 year jail term. But that hasn’t stopped the family from crying “there ought to be a lawâ€. (Skip the fact that murder already is against the law in the UK.) Although several religious groups came out in support of the new law once the ball got rolling, religious groups were not the original spark.
It must have been a slow news day back in august, because although the murder that sparked this campaign happened back in March 2003, the media feeding frenzy only took off in the last couple weeks of august 2005. When I was researching this thing again, fairly well all the info I was coming across was dated from august 15 2005 to august 31 2005. Finding anything before this or after this time window was a bit tricky.
And what I was finding all had the same nervous anticipation to it. The law was to go into effect in just a few more months and when it did it was doomsday. Its coming any day now. We dont have much time left. Soon it will all be over. The countdown is on.
So what happened? Whats the status of the law now?
I wish I knew. Everything I find on this topic while I am researching seems to circle back around to this 2-week anxiety attack from back in august. I have no idea if the proposal passed. I have no idea if the proposal was dropped. I have no idea if the proposal is still ongoing. The entire issue seems to have vanished into the netherworld.