Your Daily Sex

The Guildford Diocesan Synod has submitted a motion to the General Synod, the Church of England's legislative body, seeking to prevent children and young people from online exposure to pornography. The General Synod, which takes place in York next month, will consider the motion.

In the papers published last week, the Rev Charleen Hollington, a member of the Leatherhead Deanery Synod, Guildford, wrote:

Access to pornography means that a distorted and harmful view of what constitutes normal sexual relations is being absorbed by each new generation of children and young people.

This is placing pressure on young boys and girls to conform to stereotypes of domination on the one hand and submission and degradation on the other, and is creating a wider culture of abusive attitudes towards girls and women.

A law requiring age verification for access to commercial porn sites was meant to come into effect in 2018, but it never did for reasons having to do with bureaucratic delay and then a changed approach by the Government. 'Increase awareness of harms of pornography'

Hollington also criticised the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport's Bill, saying:

If passed, the proposed legislation will go some way to addressing the problems. However, legislation introduced in 2018 which was designed to require age verification for access to commercial porn sites never came into effect.

Therefore, the need for the motion to be passed by General Synod now remains as strong as it has always been. The motion acknowledges the current problem, asks the Government to take action and recommends programmes to increase awareness of the harms of pornography.

Saint-narcisse is a 2020 Canada film by Bruce La Bruce
Starring Félix-Antoine Duval, Tania Kontoyanni and Alexandra Petrachuk

When a young man who thought his mother was dead discovers that she may still be alive, he goes on a quest to find her. His journey takes him to a remote cabin in the woods where his mother lives in exile with a mysterious young woman.

The BBFC rated the film 18 uncut for strong sex, sexual violence. The BBFC explained further its decision:

There are scenes of strong sexual activity, some of which include nudity. There are also strong sex references.

There is a scene of incest between adult males. There is sexual abuse and harassment from a priest in a position of power and trust.

There is strong violence in scenes in which men are stabbed, accompanied by injury detail and blood in the aftermath of violence. There is also drug misuse and infrequent strong language ('fuck')'

UK gay-focused (non-porn) distributor Peccadillo Pictures has claimed that Amazon Prime Video UK is refusing to make Canadian artist and filmmaker Bruce LaBruce's provocative dark comedy Saint-Narcisse available on its online store.

Company MD Tom Abell said its request to list the title on Amazon's UK online offering had been turned down without explanation. Abell said:

We are totally mystified as to why Amazon Prime Video is refusing to make the critically acclaimed Saint-Narcisse available to its customers, both here in the UK and internationally. The DVD continues to be sold by Amazon but they won't stream it.

Abell noted that the company had a similar experience with Chilean prison drama and Venice Queer Lion winner The Prince in 2020. In that instance, Peccadillo was informed the movie contained offensive content that clashed with the streamer's guidelines.

The film had previously been available on Amazon Prime Video in the U.S. and France but was removed in May, also without explanation.

Melbourne's longest-running adult cinema is closing. The basement-level adult theatre on Elizabeth Street has been screening pornography for more than 50 years, with many punters taking advantage of its $20 all-day ticket offer. Its reign as Melbourne's longest, continuously running cinema is coming to an end in the next month or so.

Crazy Horse Cinema, which is located in the basement below Club X sex shop, was previously known as the Star Theatre before being bought and rebranded in 1985. And while it did become infamous for screening exploitation and sexploitation films, it's also recognised by film historians for its historical contributions. Visitors could also catch amateur movies shot on 16mm film of local events like sports matches and news reruns, and a lot of that footage has since been catalogued by the National Film and Sound Archive.

The venue is set  to become a sex shop.

A legislative debate about lowering the age of legal majority in Japan has quickly devolved into a sensationalist campaign about adult performers aged 18-19. It has now morphed into a proposed new law under which anyone who signs a contract to appear in pornographic productions could void that contract at any time for any reason.

Japanese newspaper The Mainichi published a lengthy account allegedly based on two anonymous women's experiences of abuse in the Japanese adult industry.

The report did not identify any specific companies or directors behind the accounts of labor and sexual abuses but it does seem have spurred a group of lawmakers into pushing for some proposals that would make it impossible for the adult trade to continue.

The newspaper then extolled the bill proposed by a bipartisan group of lawmakers which not only allows people who agree to appear in pornographic content to terminate their contracts, but also requires video vendors in such cases to recover the products and delete the footage. Mainichi explained that this novel law also mandates that a month must pass between the signing of the contract and the filming of the video, and four months between the filming of the video and its public release.

The original debate concerned amending a law lowering the age of majority by extending additional contract protections specifically to adult performers under 20 years of age. The lawmakers came up with the bill after Japan lowered the age of adulthood in April, making it no longer possible for 18- and 19-year-olds to cancel contracts to which they have agreed.

Your Choice was a friendly porn video producer and distributor who became particularly well known for its Your Choice Viewers Wives series of videos compiled from video submissions from its own viewers.

The company started out in the dark UK times before the legalisation of hardcore porn. In the 70s Your Choice started running a mail order service where customers would select videos from a catalogue and make their orders via an office in the Netherlands. The orders were then fulfilled via agents in the UK who would make copies to order from smuggled master tapes. Your Choice were very successful in the market because of their good approach to customer service.

After the legalisation of porn in 2000, the company continued to operate online from the Netherlands, but very much still targeting a British audience for its now legitimate exports. At this bumper time for porn sales, Your Choice advertised with Melon Farmers, and the company was a pleasure to work with.

The advent of free porn tubes sites very much diminished sales, but Your Choice continued on until closure in 2019 when trading challenges and Brexit made the company unviable.

Now Oliver Carter of Birmingham City University has written an interesting article detailing the rise and fall of Your Choice.

See his full article Satisfaction Guaranteed [pdf] from cambridge.org .

Oliver has also been involved in a research project that explores the cultural and economic history of the British pornography business, and has an upcoming book book on 8mm British hardcore pornography and its regulation coming out later this year.

A new law has come into force in the UK (and anywhere else in the world if involving a UK national). There are new offences for breath play without consent and breath play with consent that results in serious harm.

In Part 5 of the Serious Crime Act 2015 (protection of children and others), after section 75 insert—

75A Strangulation or suffocation

(1) A person (“A”) commits an offence if—

(a) A intentionally strangles another person (“B”), or

(b) A does any other act to B that—

(i) affects B's ability to breathe, and

(ii) constitutes battery of B.

(2) It is a defence to an offence under this section for A to show that B consented to the strangulation or other act.

(3) But subsection (2) does not apply if

(a) B suffers serious harm as a result of the strangulation or other act, and

(b) A either—

(i) intended to cause B serious harm, or

(ii) was reckless as to whether B would suffer serious harm.

United Sex Workers are crowd-funding to launch legal challenges against strip club bans across the UK, starting with a judicial review against Edinburgh City Council. We desperately need your help 203 any contributions you can offer will help us fight to keep our livelihoods afloat and our workplaces open.

Strip club bans violate workers' rights at a time of severe economic crisis. They form part of a wider attempt by the state to oppress precarious workers and dictate what women and other minorities can do with their bodies.

We **cannot** stop this without you, so please donate and share!

Background:

On the 31st March 2022, Edinburgh City Council voted in favor of a nil-cap on Sexual Entertainment Venue (known as SEVs) licenses - effectively shutting all Edinburgh strip clubs as of April 2023 and forbidding any new ones to open. The consequences of this for workers, including strippers, bar staff, and security, will be devasting.

This nil-cap is a result of one of the several SEV consultations that have taken place across the UK where workers' voices have been completely ignored. It leaves hundreds of precarious workers unemployed during a time of unprecedented financial insecurity and rising living costs.

Nil-caps are plainly unlawful as they discriminate against women and other marginalised groups, such as people with disabilities and migrants, who make up the majority of strippers. If Councils continue to adopt them, the consequences for workers across the UK will be devastating.

We have a legal team in place to challenge the nil-cap's compatibility with the Equality Act 2010 and are confident we will win. But we need your help!

Spanish sex workers and adult industry figures are sounding the alarm about a proposed new law, supported by politicians from both the ruling and opposition parties, aiming to outlaw all forms of paid sex work -- including commercial pornography.

Last week, the ruling Spanish Socialist Workers' Party, known as PSOE, introduced a proposal for an "abolitionist law against sexual exploitation," something that had been included in the party's platform.

Prominent politicians within PSOE have taken up the abolition of sex work as their personal cause. These include the party's General Vice-Secretary Adriana Lastra, who last month took to the press to promote a change in the Spanish penal code to mandate up to three years of jail time for anyone paying for sex.

The proposed legislation would revive the crimes of "proxenetism," meaning pimping or pandering, and "tercería locativa " or brothel keeping. Both were removed from the penal code in 1995 by a previous Socialist administration.

Noted Swedish-Spanish adult filmmaker, producer and studio owner Erika Lust took to Twitter today to sound the alarm about the impending government attempt to ban all sex work, including adult performance. Lust tweeted:

This International Sex Workers Day, I want to take the opportunity to express my unconditional support to all sex performers currently based in Spain, where the government is once again threatening their safety with prohibitionist bills that claim to 'protect their rights'.