Today is not a good day to be a female porn star living in the United Kingdom.
The Audiovisual Media Services Regulations 2014 is a long, boring amendment to the 2003 Communications Act that includes such erotic passages as, “A video work in respect of which the video works authority has issued a R18 classification certificate.” Mmm, oh yeah, you like it when I respect you, don’t you? Thankfully, the Independent put it in terms even the common John Q. Pubichair can understand: “Video-on-demand (VoD) online porn now [must] adhere to the same guidelines laid out for DVD sex shop-type porn by the British Board of Film Censors (BBFC).”
Meaning, the following sex acts are banned in porn shot in the U.K.
-Spanking
-Caning
-Aggressive whipping
-Penetration by any object “associated with violence”
-Physical or verbal abuse (regardless of if consensual)
-Urolagnia (known as “water sports”)
-Female ejaculation
-Strangulation
-Facesitting
-Fisting
The last three are included because they’re potentially “life-endangering.” This amendment sucks for everyone (although, ironically, porn stars are still free to suck whomever they’d like), but especially so for women, who aren’t allowed to ejaculate while being recorded anymore.
“The new legislation is absurd and surreal,” Itziar Bilbao Urrutia, a dominatrix who produces porn with a feminist theme added to Vice UK. “I mean, why ban facesitting? What’s so dangerous about it? It’s a harmless activity that most femdom performers, myself included, do fully dressed anyway. Its power is symbolic: woman on top, unattainable.” (Via)
The U.K. government seems to have their priorities in order.