1) Deciding the really important issues. This occurs with minimal public involvement, and that always to the overt reticence of the ruling class. "Expert" voices are projected downward to the masses, pronouncing authoritatively both about objective truth and characterizing the subjective preferences of the masses.
2) What are often called "wedge issues", or more recently "culture war" issues. These issues are often sensational by nature, and further sensationalized by the media to evidently encourage public participation in the discourse. Expert voices continue to guide the conversation along an established Overton window, but without making the public feel unqualified to give their opinion, just the opposite.
Is this what democracy is supposed to resemble? The hoi polloi fighting amongst themselves over what genres of pornography are acceptable, while the leaders run off to back rooms to make global-reach decisions about war, macroeconomics, and the shape of our society to come?
I just can't imagine a functional democracy where the main discussion or topic of focus for any serious person, at this time, is incest porn.
Don't forget abusing children
This is, by the way, a fundamental limitation of democracies, and why we tend to establish republics instead. It's not realistic to expect people to become informed about geopolitics, and economics, and education, and ciminal justice, and 100 other things, before casting a vote. So rather than vote on these things directly, we elect people whose job it is to know about these things and/or consult with experts who do.
this lack of biological relation is what facilitates the desire in the first place, and then comes the taboo
We aren't talking about depictions of incest either. There is no relation between step-siblings/parents/etc. And in these videos, every single person is unrelated to every other person even in the depictions. The step-child has both a step-mom and step-dad... Where I come from, that would be an adoption? I would guess the next form of these videos will be adoption porn.
Amendment 297: "Pornographic images of sex between relatives"
Amendment 298: "Pornographic content: online harmful content"
Amendment 299: "Amendment of possession of extreme pornographic images provision to cover incest"
Amendment 300: "Pornographic content: duty to verify age"
https://bills.parliament.uk/publications/65033/documents/790...
Who moved these amendments?
BARONESS LEVITT: principal legal advisor to the director of public prosecutions from 2009 to 2014, working under Keir Starmer
BARONESS BERTIN: commissioned by the Government to lead an independent review into the regulation of online pornography
BARONESS KIDRON: an advocate for children's rights in the digital world
BARONESS BENJAMIN: WTF it's Floella Benjamin from my childhood. So this is what she's doing nowadays?
It went from being the most taboo type imaginable to the first things kids will see when they get a phone and look for adult content.
I understand and agree with children, and bestiality being off-limits due to the non-consenting nature of any sexual interaction with them but a fantasy re-enacted by actors about incest/stepincest or even playing dead people? Why do you care? It's someone else's kink, not yours, you wouldn't like if the majority of people thought your vanilla sex kinks are off-limits (no more missionary for you, it's disgusting!).
Logically, none of these arguments apply to “step-incest”.
Is this a step-phenomenon to clickbait titles?
Somehow the sites a providing incorrect feedback to the uploaders and creators, which skews HEAVILY towards adding stepmom/stepsister into the title and plot. Someone pointed out that it's a convenient "plot" for having two people in the same room, but apparently the adult industry never figured out that having the actors pretend to be a couple is an equally convenient plot.
Incest fantasies are far more common than the number of people who would admit to them suggest.
Just like almost no one will admit to finding a girl a day under 18 sexually attractive, yet somehow "barely legal" porn is extremely popular.
To be more specific, the idea that step-cest warps children's minds is laughable when the larger issue is that 95% of porn portrays women as submissive sex dolls that exist for male pleasure. Don't forget the unrealistic expectations around body and beauty standards
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0092623X.2024.2...
The question is, if we ban such “phantasies”, are we not merely strengthening repression and silencing of trauma, and by that perpetuating it. Or how do we go about sprinkling in a conscious awareness of why the urges exist to go deeper with them without the shame/blame to protect the original pain and misdeeds, rather than just continually repeating them, both as fantasy/role play and in real abuse.
I want to additionally mention but not link to the subreddits full of incest fantasy stories (or are they), and a reminder that abuse leads to abuse fantasies in the victim until it is properly processed and integrated. As long as we shame victims additionally for this healthy mechanism of the psyche we will be doomed to repeat it.
two teenagers move into the same house because their parents started a relationship. they see each other little because both step-parents have shared custody arrangements. they have no biological connections whatsoever. four years later they are both 19, alone together a lot, et cetera. but simultaneously, this is a huge taboo, a betrayal of the parents, a great psychodrama
i knew one guy in college whose girlfriend cheated on him, with his biological father. a great betrayal, a great freudian cuckolding. what kind of strange fantasy will this man have now?
checkmate
Actually from your history you're for banning all kinds of things, some that make sense and some that massively increase government power. A pro-authoritarian anti-authoritarian stance is confusing...
Where I'm guessing it will simultaneously be decided that it would be racist to target them/ good Muslims never watch porn/ carry on ignoring the problem to the point where most people aren't aware. I only know about it because an ex was a medical professional
This is about forbidding the depiction of such activity, so I don't think logic will help.
Sex is THE biggest reward function for mammals.
"What if they're cousins instead"
Why hasn't God controls for ignorance of blood relation and conception?
In its first chapter, the Christian Bible suggests that we are all incestuous descendents of Adam and Eve and their children.
"You are all inferior"
Is God benevolent if there is accidental conception by incest, and it genetically damns the sinless child and multiple generations of their progeny by design?
Anything closer than first cousins risks the health of the child.
But isn't it unjust to by design persecute by genetically damning the lineage of the victims of
why this is so huge is fascinating. i suspect it is not really about the age gap, but rather the emotional trauma and sexual confusion so many people experience living in the same house hold as non biological "family members". the tension between "it is taboo to be attracted to my family" and "I am sexually attracted to a physically attractive person of no biological relation who lives in my house"
a male and female 19 year old of no biological relation, who only met each other 4 years earlier when their parents started dating, would very naturally feel sexual attraction to each other. indeed, they would share many of the social and biological traits of their parents. yet, this would be a massive taboo. consider the huge trauma of the mother being betrayed by her daughter sleeping with her step-sibling, or even her step-parent, fear of this, jealousy, fantasy.
of course the combination of taboo with sexual attraction will result in an entire genre of erotic fantasy much like adultery, cheating, professor-college student, or any other relationship of power and betrayal
the real question is, at what point does expressing the human condition become illegal? especially when as others have noted, it is legal to do the thing in real life but apparently not photograph it
and if this content is harmful to the consumer, why is other pornography apparently not? Should we ban also onlyfans?
Also, I can just see the industry changing from "stepbrother" to "my mom's boyfriend's son." Suddenly if the parents aren't married then it's not illegal. What about if the parents are divorced? Does ex-step-sibling count? The whole thing seems absurd. These are works of fiction that have not "graduated", as Preet Bharara would say.
What I find weirdest is how incredibly prevalent this „genre“ (?) is? Not only is it popular, it is literally everywhere
> But justice minister Baroness Levitt warned that cracking down on pornography depicting sex between step-relatives was complicated, because not all > relationships between step-relatives are illegal.
and then later:
> Lady Bertin said she was "mystified why it does not include step-incest", as she moved her proposal, which peers backed 144 votes to 143.
> She added: "Nearly all step-relations between step-parents and step-siblings is illegal.
> "This is because Parliament recognised the clear power imbalance in step family relationships within households, and also Parliament acted because step-relations are the most likely relationships in which child sexual abuse takes place.
I guess there must be some limited definition of these interactions which are legal.
There you go, fixed. Who should I send the invoice to?
—bad IBEW joke
face palm
From my perspective this type of porn was basically just porn with a bit of story attached to it, which imo elevates it slightly. Though I was mainly thinking about the step-sibling variety. From a male perspective the stepfather variety always gave me the ick, with the stepson dynamic lying somewhere in between. But I was looking at it as someone without any step-relationships in real life.
Now, after also looking up the prevalence of step-relationships lying between 10 and 40% depending on what you count, I am a lot more vary of this trend in pornography from a societal perspective. Even besides the more insidious possible effects mentioned in the article, I can see how this type of fantasy can give the (presumably majority male) porn audience wrong ideas. Like considering every woman a possible partner instead of just peer, even in the wider context of family.
In theory I agree with these kind initiatives to try and at least steer things in the right way but I also realise how often they fail. And who knows the trend following such a ban could be worse.
Ultimately, you are only treating symptoms here and ignoring the societal problems that lead to this being a thing in the first place (loneliness, fewer human connections, rise of individualism, etc.)
I suspect the operative part here is "ick" and I get it. But why do you think homosexuality was illegal for so long? What about the trans debate? What about your own personal kink?
Your personal ick isn't a reason to stop someone doing something that doesn't harm someone else.
Will this make a number of Game of Thrones episodes illegal? Should they already be illegal, as Cersei and Jamie are full, not step-siblings?
How is this going to work in practice, if I watch a vid that's tagged 'step relative' am I going off the jail and on the register?
Does it have to be in the description?
What if it's just been tagged every which way and does actually appear to portray anything illegal?
What if the tags and titles are removed, and I watch exactly the same videos. Am I committing an offense because in someone's head canon the characters are related?
mapontosevenths•1h ago
In this case, it feels natural to me that the line for images should be aligned with the line for the act itself.
Banning images of things that are not themselves illegal makes little sense to me and feels a bit like someone trying to legislate away otherwise legal behavior just because they personally find it distasteful.
usrnm•1h ago
So, no more crime on TV?
josefritzishere•1h ago
benj111•54m ago
Why is it I can watch James Bond murder a couple of dozen people on the big screen and that's fine, but watching a perfectly normal consensual act is taboo.
Christ, I don't get the step relative thing, but if you do, but don't want to do anything to your step child. Go for it.
It wasn't long ago that homosexuality was conflated with pedophilia. This is coming from exactly the same place.
And then there's the intellectual honesty. Are these people not into anything sexual? I get the school girl thing. I'm not a pedo, I'm sure a psychologist could break it down, but I don't get it, when I break it down. Do the politicians have these fantasies and are in denial? Think they can 'control their urges' but others can't?
Why can't it be that I like the idea of a grown adult female in school uniform sexy, and that I'm honest about that and I'm honest about the fact I don't want to sleep with a 15 year old.
RajT88•35m ago
These days it feels like: yes, they have them. No, they are not in denial, they just feel like indulging them is for people like them and not people like you.
Hizonner•4m ago
It's not a "step relative" thing. It's a relative thing. Sticking "step" in the titles is a dodge.
maratc•1h ago
The idea of this, as far as I understand, is to make some fantasies illegal.
nephihaha•1h ago
andy_ppp•1h ago
edgyquant•1h ago
maratc•1h ago
edgyquant•1h ago
Tom and Jerry is not equivalent to videos of intercourse and you should rethink your life and how depraved your view of sex is if you are trying to make the case they are in defense of children consuming pornography.
andy_ppp•1h ago
boesboes•58m ago
benj111•45m ago
Tom and Jerry depicts 2 beings assaulting each other which is bad.
Porn in this case depicts near incest also bad.
You could say tom and jerry is worse because that's aimed at kids, where as porn is aimed at adults who we tend to trust to tell fantasy from reality.
The comparison was then moved forward to ai porn.
That has no real people.
So is that bad?
It's a legitimate question. This isn't about reality, it's about depiction. Real people depicting a thing crosses the line. A cartoon depiction does not. Where does ai stand.
But as we all know, the line is one is violence where as one is sex, and you appear to think that it's worse to depict a normal consensual act than depict violence or murder.
wongarsu•1h ago
andy_ppp•1h ago
benj111•52m ago
croes•1h ago
maratc•1h ago
Mashimo•1h ago
beaker52•1h ago
Not before we get GTA 6 please.
eesmith•1h ago
Ergo you think the judge in the Facebook case was wrong to chastise Meta employees for wearing Ray Ban-Meta AI glasses, under threat of concept should they take pictures at a public trial?
Recording devices and cameras are generally banned in Los Angeles County Superior Court.
tbrownaw•1h ago
Why? Things are made illegal because someone involved is (presumed to be) harmed. That assumption doesn't hold if everyone involved was hired to pretend for the camera, or at least not in the same way. Maybe ban the movie industry as a whole over it's reputation for chewing people up?