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Throw people in prison for writing erotic fiction? For putting a racy subject line on an email message? Or for possessing porn that depicts SM or bestiality -- even pretend? Something approaching thought-crime is becoming soup de jour in the Anglo world's war on sexual expression. So it seems, anyway, given recent cases in the U.K., Canada, and the U.S.

On May 19, the U.S. Supreme court upheld a federal porn "pandering" law that imposes a mandatory minimum five years in prison for even incidental words hinting at illegal images of the underaged -- even if no such images exist. In May in Pittsburgh and in April in Saskatoon, prosecutors won convictions against two sexually-explicit storywriters. And in the U.K. a law targeting "extreme porn" has passed British Parliament.

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Limes, rum, floggings

While in North America, words are newly under the gun (see sidebar), in Britain it's depictions of sadomasochism, bestiality, and necrophilia. Clause 63 of an omnibus crime bill that passed Parliament on May 9 bans production and distribution -- as well as private possession -- of visual erotica on those themes. As of 2009, people caught with "extreme porn" face up to three years in prison and/or hefty fines, plus a spot on Britain's sex-offender registry.

The proposals "risk inadvertently criminalizing hundreds of thousands of British citizens," says Backlash, a group that tried to block the law.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown's government -- which pushed through the legislation first mooted under Tony Blair -- has bragged that the extreme-porn ban puts the U.K. at the global forefront of controlling obscenity.

From the standpoint of British web surfers, that's not necessarily a bragging point. "If you use the internet for any purpose that might be construed as other than respectable -- be afraid. Be very afraid," warns John Ozimek, on the U.K. tech news site The Register. The new porn provisions could affect "a very large proportion of the adult population in the U.K.," Ozimek says, noting how web browsers often cache images of any site that's visited -- or that pops up all on its own. For anyone exploring sex online, accumulating banned-in-the-U.K. content on their hard drive will be easy, since in most countries, porn spiced with depictions of, say, mock violence is no big deal.

Many Britons will soon risk prosecution for images -- on their computers or in their libraries -- that were legally produced and obtained. "There may be a need for an amnesty, during which the public are able to hand in any material that could be considered a crime to possess," suggests John Beyer of Mediawatch, which supported the anti-porn bill.

For Britain's SM community, the extreme-porn ban is a nightmare -- making mere possession of large swathes of fetish erotica grounds for jail.

Already, just-past-vanilla SM play can run afoul of British law. A person responsible for any injury, pain, or mark that a court decides is more than "trifling" or "momentary" is liable for assault -- and a partner's consent is no defense.

That was the dismal standard set in 1990 in cases emerging out of a police inquiry dubbed Operation Spanner. In the end, 16 gay men were convicted on charges arising from consensual SM play and handed sentences of up to four-and-half years. On appeal, some terms were reduced, but the convictions were upheld, eventually even by the European Court of Human Rights.

Mission creep

Britain's new extreme-porn ban puts hair-triggers on those big legal guns. Possessing even excerpts from mass-market, government-rated movies can trigger a prosecution, if cops deem they were selected for purposes of arousal.

The new ban echoes and extends the prohibition on mere possession of porn depicting minors -- but gives even more arbitrary power to morals police, contends Derek Cohen of the Spanner Trust, the London-based SM defense group.

"In theory a sexual act which involves, say, scarification on the breast could be deemed a 'serious injury,'" Cohen says. "That's a much more subjective judgment than saying whether or not this or that model is a child."

Even though Clause 63 is now law, civil libertarians aren't giving up. One strategy, Cohen says, is to re-fight the legal battle over Spanner, with hope that U.K. and European courts will -- almost 20 years on -- recognize that in SM, consent is the central issue.

The sheer irrationality of the U.K.'s new extreme-porn ban may help.

"You get put in prison longer for having a picture of someone having sex with a pig than actually having sex with a pig," notes Cohen.

With Anglosphere courts and lawmakers already deluded into thinking words equal reality, pictures have now attained a status psychedelically hyper-real. Before more freedom is lost, can reason break the spell?

To aid the fight against the "extreme-porn" ban, visit Spannertrust.org, Backlash-uk.org.uk, Inquisition21.com.

Author Profile:  Bill Andriette
Bill Andriette is features editor of The Guide
Email:	theguide@guidemag.com