Honk if you like kinky pictures

There was a protest here in the UK on Wednesday arranged by members of Informed Consent against the proposed Criminal Justice Bill. Here, a picture taken by one of the people involved. This girl loves this image. It’s fun, it has the very political backdrop of Westminster,London and yet, will anyone who has any clout regards the bill take any notice of the voices of a group of deviants?

The press release regarding the protest :-

Concerned members of the public took their lobbying to the streets yesterday outside the British Library and Houses of Parliament, in advance of the Royal Assent of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill

Protestors at the British Library talked to a journalist from Radio 1. Showing her an image from Madonna’s book SEX, they talked about how they weren’t sure if some posed photographs in Madonna’s book might be illegal, due to the vague wording of significant parts of sections 62-64 of the Bill and the lack of clarity about how this law is going to be interpreted in court. One person commented “I can’t seek advice from a solicitor every time I look at an erotic image!”. Leaflets were peacefully shared with people entering and leaving the Library while a few protestors moved outside to symbolically burn a page from a book they believe likely to be banned under the new law.

Later the demonstration moved to Parliament Square, where objectors distributed more leaflets and cheered as passing cars honked their horns to show support at their placards being waved. Small crowds also gathered as two women staged a pink-fluffy-handcuffing and ’strangulation’ on the Parliament railings, as their interpretation of the kind of things the government’s definition of ‘extreme’ might include, were it similarly acted out in a pornographic setting.

Campaigners believe that it not the Law’s business to dictate what images consenting adults may choose to view for the purposes of arousal if no actual crime is taking place in that image, and are surprised the government has made no clear distinction between actual and staged scenarios.

BACKGROUND:

During the House of Lords debate on 30 April, Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer described this move as: “truly the domain of the thought police. These clauses are the state entering the bedrooms and minds of citizens before they commit any crime that involves harm to another human being.” Baroness Howe of Idlicote and others in both Houses of Parliament have called for a Parliamentary Select Committee to be set up to inquire into “New Media and Violence” and consider what changes need to be made to the Criminal Justice Bill before Section 62 is enacted.

To this girl, the proposed legislation is just another knee-jerk policy of the current government. A murder, committed with someone with dark and extreme interests tars us all with the same brush. Just because people look at pornographic or bdsm images…it doesn’t mean that anything they choose to do in ‘real life’ is going to cause harm or be non-consensual.

It will be interesting to see how it all unfolds.