Blog Posts
Judicial Review of ‘extreme images’ law
Backlash Media Information: Monday 27th October 2014 “Tiger porn” victim requests human rights review of “extreme pornography” law by Crown Prosecution Service The law penalising possession of “extreme pornography” faces judicial review by a defendant previously charged with having a video of woman having sex with a tiger. It was […]
Ofcom Spanked
Dominatrix Beats Regulator into Submission; Ofcom deliver judicious spanking to ATVOD. A rattling good yarn. And a good laugh. If you’re being zealously regulated, contact Backlash. More coverage of ATVOD can be found at The Independent and Wired
Employment issues
Margaret Corvid in the New Statesman examines what can happen when kinky private lives are made public. More details here
On Cultural Harm and Pornographic Diversity
Jude Roberts has a significant post on the problematic concept of ‘cultural harm’, which is frequently used as a justification for censoring pornography, especially in the absence of evidence that pornography is associated with more concrete harms against people. Part of her argument links ‘cultural harm’ to the disproportionate focus of […]
New Statesman: The allure of the closet: is kink only sexy when it is underground?
Margaret Corvid discusses the kink closet, and Backlash’s work protecting the employment rights and family lives of people with a kinky private sex life: “People who are outed risk losing their professional and social status; access to their children; and, in extreme cases, going to prison for having engaged in […]
Independent: Web dominatrix wins David and Goliath battle with regulators
A dominatrix whose website provides paid-for bondage and sadomasochistic content has won her David-and-Goliath battle against a quango’s attempts to regulate her site in the same way as ITV Player. Lawyers representing Ms Itziar Bilbao Urrutia, who runs the website The Urban Chick Supremacy Cell (UCSC), declared the ruling “a […]
Dominatrix beats online video regulator into submission
MEDIA INFORMATION: IMMEDIATE RELEASE 15 August 2014 DOMINATRIX BEATS ONLINE VIDEO REGULATOR INTO SUBMISSION Ofcom spanks its internet video agency, ATVOD, for treating a small independent erotic website like a competitor to TV. A dominatrix and performance artist dealt a blow to the Authority for Television on Demand (ATVOD) this […]
Index on Censorship: Criminalising Kink
Jonathan Lindsell provides an excellent overview of recent moves to extend the extreme pornography ban and other attempts to stifle freedom of sexual expression by the current Government. Backlash is quoted as follows: [C]ampaigners contend the draft law’s language is too ambiguous. A policy researcher from anti-censorship organisation Backlash argues: […]
Backlash submits written evidence to Criminal Justice and Courts Bill Committee
Backlash has submitted expert evidence in response to an amendment in the new Criminal Justice and Courts bill expanding the definition of extreme pornography to include fictional portrayals of rape. The summary argument is as follows: The amendment to ban ‘rape pornography’ risks criminalising more than a million otherwise law-abiding […]
Letter to MPs on Criminalising “Rape Porn”
This week, the following letter was sent to a number of MPs and Lords, to raise concerns over the planned “rape porn” legislation. This was sent on behalf of Backlash and an alliance of other sexual freedom campaigns: Sex & Censorship, Consenting Adult Action Network, Campaign Against Censorship and the Sexual […]