Background: A guy from North London was charged with distributing ‘obscene’ DVDs after a police officer bought some from him. They included lots of lovely (or not-so-lovely, depending on your preferences) gay sex acts, including fisting, BDSM and piss-play.

The acts themselves were legal, what the law frowned upon was distributing DVDs of said acts to people who wanted to crack one off over them. The ‘Obscene Publications Act (OPA)‘ makes it illegal to publish material that is likely to ‘deprave and corrupt.’

Two excellent ladies livetweeted during the trial (see end of this for links to people who know more about it than I do), including not just details of the material but the arguments from the prosecution and defence. It was utterly fascinating: we weren’t just watching people discussing what counts as obscene, we were watching an unfolding debate about whether it’s even acceptable to legislate against the very subjective notion of ‘obscenity’.

Society has always been keen on making moral judgements – it’s what society does. X is good, Y is bad. This is fun and kinky, but that’s just plain wrong. We can’t stop society from having opinions on things, but we probably should take those opinions with a pinch of salt, especially given that in the past they’ve been pretty wrong. Society used to think it was totally unacceptable to have sex outside marriage or (shock horror) be gay.

The defendant was victorious in this case, and was found not guilty on all counts: the jury saw no problem with the material as far as this law was concerned and agreed that it probably wasn’t going to deprave anyone.

This is great news for fisters, watersports fanatics, and gay guys who like to inject saline into the scrotum of a loved one, slap that scrotum around a bit, then sell DVDs of the event to people they met on the internet.

The problem’s still there

But it doesn’t really solve the ultimate problem. The law is still there, which means that we’re still reliant on society to decide what counts as ‘obscene material’. CPS guidance suggests it could include any of these things:

• sexual act with an animal
• realistic portrayals of rape
• sadomasochistic material which goes beyond trifling and transient infliction of injury
• torture with instruments
• bondage (especially where gags are used with no apparent means of withdrawing consent)
• dismemberment or graphic mutilationactivities involving perversion or degradation (such as drinking urine, urination or vomiting on to the body, or excretion or use of excreta)
• fisting

Some of these are clearly extremely niche activities, which are illegal in and of themselves (dismemberment, sex with animals, etc). But some are acts which many normal, healthy people perform, film and watch on a regular basis: piss-play, coprophilia, fisting, bondage, etc.

The DVDs in this week’s obscenity trial featured acts from this list. The fact that the jury found ‘not guilty’ on all counts is a huge step forward for sexual liberties, and indicates that this list of ‘obscene’ things may well be trimmed in the future.

But we still live under a legal system that says society can judge whether sex videos made by consenting adults and sold to consenting adults are ‘obscene’ enough to warrant punishment.

So although having more liberal attitudes helps us trim the list of acts that are considered ‘obscene’, encouraging society to become more liberal isn’t the ideal solution. The solution lies in getting rid of this law.

We need to persuade society that we don’t need a law to criminalise publication of consensual sex acts. We need to tell society that lots of people watch porn and don’t turn into mad perverts desperate for their next fisting fix. We need to tell society to fuck off out of the bedroom and let us shit on each other in peace.

Over to the Obscenity Trial experts:

This is just my opinion – other people have written about the obscenity trial far better than I ever could, and with more knowledge than I have. So for the full story see any or all of these links:

My new favourite lawyer, Myles Jackman, explains why the OPA is an anachronism.

Excellent journalist and swift-thumbed livetweeter Nichi Hodgson discusses why the outcome of the trial is a victory for sexual freedom, and explains why the OPA should be abolished.

For more info and ongoing awesome, check out Lexington Dymock, who was also livetweeting the trial and keeping us up-to-date on the exact nature of the filthy acts that were occurring.

“I love fucking you by that corner in your room. It means I can brace both my hands against the wall and really go for it.”

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Some questions are designed to elicit sexy answers, and others invoke a sense of wariness and dread. “Do you like spanking?” falls into the latter category, and here’s why:

‘Spanking’ encompasses a range of things – you can be spanked by someone who is giggling and brandishing a pink heart-shaped toy from Anne Summers. You can be spanked by a teacher, parent, boyfriend, girlfriend, or midget in a gimp suit. You can be spanked until it just about hurts or you can be spanked until the agony is so much that you want to bite straight through the pillow and into your bottom lip.

You can be spanked by someone who can’t get hard unless he knows you’re uncomfortable – who digs his fingers into the back of your neck and forces you over his knee, yanks your knickers down and rubs his cock into you while he whacks you. You can be spanked by someone who’s afraid that if he gives you more than a light-hearted slap you’ll report him to the authorities.

So the question ‘do you like being spanked?’ is about as relevant as ‘do you like food?’
Like ‘food’, I think everyone likes spanking. Be it a gentle tap on the bum to demonstrate ownership or so they can see your butt jiggle as they’re fucking you from behind, right up to a full-on gutwrenching spitefuck accompanied by slaps so hard they give you stars behind the eyes.

The question might open things up for more discussion and more extravagant play, but I’m always wary of giving a fully honest answer. Yes, of course I like spanking. But I’m loathed to tell you how I like it in case you spend the next five fucks trying to get the tone, the rhythm and the strength to my exact specifications.

So I think what I’m proposing is that we come up with a Universal Spanking Declaration, along the lines of:

“I like being spanked in some way, shape or form.”

That way we can assume everyone likes a bit, and push things gradually until we reach the point at which they say “oh fuck yes, that’s it.” After all, that’s basically what we do with sex itself, right? No one says “once my penis is inside you, do you want me to maintain a fairly steady, slow rhythm, or would you prefer me to tease you a bit then go at it hammer and tongs until you come all over my cock?”

No. With sex we play jazz. Because we assume everyone likes it we expend our energies working out how they like it best.

From now on, if you sign up to my Universal Spanking Declaration, I shall do the same. I know you like it, I just need to find out how; I’m going to play jazz.

Now bend the fuck over.

Warning: don’t fucking try this at home. I like getting choked during sex, but I am aware that it’s quite a dangerous thing to do, and therefore I don’t want to encourage you to plough on with this without an understanding of the risks and ways to mitigate them.

Now that’s out of the way: choking is one of my favourite things. It’s controlling, it’s cruel, it’s taboo, it says “hey, I’m going to do this whether you like it or not.” It makes a lot of guys, even ones who are otherwise pretty vanilla, very hard indeed.

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Number 14 wears leather gloves. When we go out for dinner – we always go out for dinner – he makes a show of taking them off and putting them on the table beside him. He’s calm. I’ve never heard him raise his voice, or get agitated, or even visibly excited. Number 14 is the domliest dom I know, and I’ve never had sex with him.

Why is he on the list? I don’t usually include people I haven’t actually fucked, but the things he’s done deserve more credit than the catch-all title ‘play.’ Play can be anything from a quick spanking at a party to a full-blown throat-fucking in a dark alley. The latter, I think, deserves a bit more credit.

He likes to find places that are private but public. Hidden nooks and doorways where he can press me into the wall and order me not to make a sound. It’s incredible what a pair of leather gloves and a calm demeanour can do to stop me from making the noises I’d usually revel in.

On the hunt for one of these places once he found what looked like an abandoned room just outside the entrance to a block of flats – just a door in a wall that took us into a place no bigger than a cupboard, with broken glass bottles on the floor and no lights.

He put his hand over my mouth and whispered to me not to make a sound, then yanked my skirt up and my knickers down and touched me until I was trembling and could barely stand.

Every time someone walked past the door, or I breathed too loudly or made any noise, he grabbed my throat and stopped me breathing until they’d gone. He kept doing this, then stopping, then doing more, then stopping, until I was so weak and frustrated that I was crying, and had we been somewhere no one would have heard us I’d have been begging him to fuck me.

When I got to that point he pushed me down until I was squatting on the floor and shoved his cock into my mouth, always maintaining his total silence and calm.

He held my hair with his leather-gloved hands and shoved himself right into my throat. It didn’t take long – after a few minutes, just as I started to choke and bruise, he came hot and hard into the back of my mouth.

Ever the gentleman, he walked me to the train station and held me up when I stumbled.