The lawyer behind the drafting of a new law against extreme pornography says it has the legitimate aim of criminalising content which “might induce certain people to copy what they are seeing”.
Andrew Sciberras said the law would prevent the glorification of violence against women in pornography.
He could not, however, exclude the possibility that the wording of the law would also criminalise BDSM (bondage and dominance, sadism and masochism) and other minority sexual preferences.
“It’s a bit of a grey area,” Dr Sciberras said. “If it’s explicit and realistic then the police would have a case to make.”
While criminalising pornography depicting bestiality or necrophilia, the new regulations make it illegal to possess images which portray non-consensual sexual activity or acts that could result in “severe injury”, even if the images are staged and all the participants are consenting adults.
Activists have warned that the British law on which the regulations are based has led to several convictions for possession of pornography depicting BDSM, rough sex and fantasy rape scenarios.
“It can harm anyone experimenting with alternative sexual acts that can be as safe (or safer) than intercourse,” Nick Cowen, a policy researcher at British pressure group Backlash, told this newspaper last week.
Dr Sciberras acknowledged the criticism of the UK law but said the regulations were a huge step forward in defining what should be considered pornographic and what should be considered extreme.
If it’s explicit and realistic then the police would have a case to make
“The law as it is today [before the new amendments] catches all forms of pornography,” he said.
Any material which places an undue emphasis on sex, whether it is on its own or accompanied by violence or cruelty, is currently deemed to be pornographic or obscene.
While stressing the progressive nature of the new law – including the requirement that images need to be viewed in their full context – Dr Sciberras defended the decision to criminalise certain types of pornography.
“Freedom of expression comes ahead of public morals, but there have to be certain limitations. In and of itself rape is a disgusting thing, so why should it be glorified? Why should we glorify violent sex?”
Clinical psychologist and trainee sexologist Nicholas Briffa, however, said that for many people, ‘alternative’ pornography was a way of experiencing sexual fantasies and satisfying sexual urges in a safe setting.
He pointed out that submission was the most popular sexual fantasy among the general population.
“The starting point should be consent. As long as the people involved have the mental capacity to consent, freely and continuously, then I don’t see an issue.”
At the same time, he acknowledged that pornography gave a “skewed view” of sexuality, and that when it came to staged depictions of non-consent, some viewers may not be aware that what they were seeing was not real.
Dr Briffa also called for the new law to be accompanied by a wider understanding of pornography and its effects.
“Today pornography is very widely accessible, so I do not believe the new law will increase its use. The role of the secular State should not be to ban but to regularise things that are already happening in society.”