Ban pornography depicting strangulation, review UK ministers
UK Parliament Advances ‘Step’ Porn, Consent Withdrawal Laws
LONDON — The House of Lords, the U.K.’s upper house of Parliament, on Monday approved amendments to the pending Crime and Policing Bill that would invalidate talent contracts, and outlaw ‘step’ porn and content in which adult performers appear to portray minors.
Step Content Ban
The House of Lords approved an amendment making possession or publication of pornographic images of sex between relatives a priority offense under the Online Safety Act — a label that currently applies to material such as CSAM and terrorism content.
In December, the government rejected proposed amendments that would have criminalized content depicting sex between stepparents and stepsiblings. Echoing this stance, the amendment as introduced by the government would not have applied to content depicting sex between step relatives.
However, Baroness Gabrielle Bertin, a Conservative member of the House of Lords who served as independent lead reviewer on the influential U.K. pornography review, introduced language extending the prohibition to include “step” content, which the House of Lords approved.
Bertin told the House of Lords, “Depictions of incest being banned is great, but it is just token if you do not ban step incest as it will all be driven into the step incest category, which is just as damaging.”
If the Crime and Policing Bill becomes law with the amendment intact, possessing such material could be punished with up to two years imprisonment, a fine or both, while publishing such material could be punished with up to five years imprisonment, a fine or both.
Withdrawal of Consent
The House of Lords also approved an amendment to the Crime and Policing Bill that would entitle anyone appearing in adult content to withdraw their consent at any time.
The amendment would make it “irrelevant” whether an individual has previously given their consent to publication of the content in which they appear. If they subsequently withdrawn their consent, platforms would have to remove the content within 24 hours.
Prior to the vote, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State Baroness Alison Levitt told the assembled Lords that while the government accepted the intended aim of the amendment, it could not accept the proposed approach.
“The part of the amendment relating to the withdrawal of consent and its application to professional entertainment contracts has a number of practical implications,” Levitt cautioned. “Where content is produced legally, as with the wider film industry, the rules and regulations governing its use are usually a commercial matter to be agreed between the performer and the production company, taking into account the intellectual property framework.”
If the Crime and Policing Bill becomes law with the amendment intact, violations could result in imprisonment of up to two years, a fine or both. Platforms found to violate the law could be fined up to 18 million pounds or 10% percent of their worldwide revenue.
Adult Performers Portraying Minors
The House of Lords additionally approved an amendment that would outlaw content that “mimics” child sexual abuse by featuring an adult performer who “appears to be or is implied to be a child.”
Notably, this prohibition would interpret elements such as costume and setting as evidence of whether an adult performer is portraying a minor. No explicit mention of a character’s age would be required.
The government opposed this amendment, with Levitt warning legislators that it would create challenges for police and government authorities charged with enforcing CSAM prohibitions.
“It is important to remember that the purpose of this suite of legislation is to criminalize indecent images of actual children and to help identify and swiftly safeguard children who are subject to sexual abuse,” Levitt said. “Expanding the scope of the Act to include adults who can and have consented to make pornography risks diverting resources for the police to try to distinguish children from adults who are pretending to be children. It risks delaying necessary safeguarding activity and leaving real children at continued risk of harm.”
If the Crime and Policing Bill becomes law with the amendment intact, content interpreted as featuring adult performers portraying minors would, like “step” content, become a priority offense under the Online Safety Act.
Pornography Review Head Denounces Industry
Measures intensifying regulation of adult content online gained momentum following the release, in February 2025, of the “pornography review” initiated under the conservative government of former U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.
The review’s recommendations included banning any adult content deemed “degrading, violent and misogynistic.” This led to the inclusion, in the Crime and Policing Bill, of content depicting nonfatal strangulation, or “choking.”
Bertin, who headed the review, repeatedly condemned the adult industry during Monday’s parliamentary debate.
“It is a sector that has been driven to abusive extremes by powerful, profit-driven algorithms, too often monetizing sexual violence and degradation,” Bertin told the House of Lords. “Exploitation and trafficking are rife. Sexual abuse material remains far too easy to find on these sites, and many survivors tell us that what is filmed as content is in reality recorded abuse. This cannot continue.”
Bertin called for “a far more aggressive business disruption process across the porn ecosystem.”
Porn is ultimately about the money, she said. “We need far tighter regulation and law that ends the grey area and replaces the passive, light-touch self-regulation with far more proactive scrutiny.”
Once the Crime and Policing Bill passes out of the House of Lords, it will return to the House of Commons for consideration of the new amendments.
By Rick Louis
Ban pornography depicting strangulation, review urges UK ministers
Independent review also calls for ban on other ‘legal but harmful’ material that is degrading, violent or misogynistic
Thu 27 Feb 2025 15.49 GMT
Pornography depicting strangulation should be made illegal along with other kinds of “legal but harmful” sexual material, according to an independent review for the UK government.
The recommendation is one of 32 made by the Conservative peer Gabby Bertin, who was commissioned by the former prime minister Rishi Sunak to scrutinise the industry in 2023.
Lady Bertin also recommended banning the possession, distribution and publication of other degrading, violent or misogynistic pornography, as well as the prohibition of “nudification” apps.
Choking during sex is becoming increasingly normalised, with one survey showing nearly four in 10 women aged 18 to 39 have experienced it.
Bertin said pornography had always been a fact of life, but in recent years its scale and impact had “transformed dramatically” owing to online distribution.
“The evidence is overwhelming that allowing people to view legal but harmful pornography like choking sex, violent and degrading acts, and even content that could encourage child sexual abuse, is having a damaging impact on children and society,” she said. “The law needs to be tightened with more proactive regulation of online platforms.”
Bertin’s review said non-fatal strangulation or “choking” sex had already been criminalised under the 2021 Domestic Abuse Act and should therefore be added to the definition of extreme, illegal pornography.
Responding to the report, government ministers said “graphic” strangulation pornography was already illegal but they would take “urgent action” to address the problem.
However, Bertin said there was no case law to support the government’s argument that strangulation pornography was in effect banned under the 2008 Criminal Justice and Immigration Act.
“I am not confident that its inclusion is clear,” she said, adding that the Obscene Publications Act should be updated to include choking material. This would remove any legal ambiguity over the issue, she said.
The review has been published days after the UK communications watchdog published measures to tackle online misogyny, including tackling explicit deepfakes and “revenge porn”.
Pornography is viewed regularly by more than a quarter of the UK on social media and pornography sites. According to the UK communications watchdog, Ofcom, men are twice as likely as women to visit a pornographic site.
Other recommendations from the review include making pornography that depicts incest illegal, creating an ombudsman for victims of intimate image abuse, and banning people who upload illegal material online from uploading material on to platforms.
The UK technology secretary, Peter Kyle, said on Thursday he would not hesitate to “adapt the law” to prevent people from accessing degrading pornography online.
Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme before the publication of the review, he said: “I know that this content is harmful to many of the people who currently have free access to it. We have the powers to prevent people getting the access to it, even if the material is provided from elsewhere.
“We just need to find ways of making sure that that is done efficiently and effectively. And if I have to adapt the law in response to any gaps that emerge in these powers then of course I’ll act as swiftly as I can.”
