The War on Porn Regular Updates about the Assault on The Adult Industry
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Sometimes it feels like the ‘70s never ended—just swap the disco for legislation. The U.K. is moving toward criminalizing depictions of choking during sex, framing it as a push to “protect women and girls.” On paper, that sounds noble. In practice, it’s a blanket ban that sweeps up consensual sexual expression between adults.
The ban wouldn’t just target production or distribution—it would criminalize possession. Even if the images are AI-generated. Even if no one is harmed. Even if the entire thing was created by consenting adults who enjoy that kind of play.
Proponents insist the mere existence of choking porn harms women, regardless of context or consent. Never mind that plenty of women actually enjoy “breath play” — whether that’s light choking, pressure, or controlled suffocation. Exposure itself, they argue, is a threat.
And in the name of “protection,” the government is essentially telling women what they can watch, produce, fantasize about, and do with their own bodies. Nothing says empowerment like a legal guardian you never asked for.
Lawmakers aren’t stopping there. Additional proposals would classify publishing sex-worker ads as “pimping,” and could even criminalize paying for webcam performances.
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The Choking Amendment
The amendment was introduced on November 3 as part of the Crime and Policing Bill now moving through Parliament. It already cleared the House of Commons and is sitting with the Lords, with committee sessions scheduled through January 2026. Odds of passage? Pretty high. Beyond the choking ban, the bill also includes provisions like outlawing protests outside judges’ and politicians’ homes.
The amendment, proposed by Labour’s Alison Levitt, would make it illegal to possess a pornographic image—defined as any image “produced solely or principally for the purpose of sexual arousal”—if it “portrays, in an explicit and realistic way, a person strangling or suffocating another person, and (c) a reasonable person looking at the image would think that the persons were real.”
Publishing such material would also be illegal, with publishing defined broadly as “giving or making it available to another person by any means.”
So if anyone has downloaded BDSM content over the past decade, they could be prosecuted. Same goes for fans of the Fifty Shades movies. And naturally, the creators and performers who made the work in the first place.
Under the amendment, possession could mean up to two years in prison. Publishing could mean up to five.
There’s a narrow defense for people who film themselves engaging in such acts, but only if they directly participated, and only if “the act did not involve the infliction of any non-consensual harm on any person.”
Platforms would also face new obligations. According to government materials, “the depiction of strangulation in pornography will be designated as a priority offense under the Online Safety Act, meaning platforms…will be required to take proactive steps to prevent users from seeing illegal strangulation and suffocation content. This could include companies using automated systems to pre-emptively detect and hide the images, moderation tools or stricter content policies to prevent abusive content from circulating.”
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Who Exactly Is Being Protected?
The government doesn’t hide the goal here: controlling private sexual behavior, including things that many women enjoy. Platforms, it says, “will be held accountable [for] ensuring content does not spread, which can lead to normalizing harmful practices in people’s private lives.”
Lately, sexual choking has become a cultural panic point—feminists, conservatives, anti-porn activists, and politicians all claim it’s a porn-driven plague assaulting unsuspecting women. The narrative paints breath play as a gateway to abuse and misogynistic violence.
But research complicates that narrative. Many women enjoy rough sex. Women are often the ones initiating choking. And most of the time, it doesn’t result in physical harm.
One survey of U.S. college and grad students found choking during sex was consensual 92 percent of the time, and “fewer than 1% of participants reported that their partner had ever lost consciousness due to their choking them.” Women, transgender, and nonbinary students were more likely than men to find choking pleasurable.
That matches a kink poll in which nearly 30 percent of women found choking erotic, compared to under 20 percent of men.
Another poll of young Australians found women were more likely to ask for choking than men. Porn was a common entry point—but not the only one. While 61 percent had seen depictions in porn, significant numbers cited movies, friends, social media, and partners.
A recent study found women were more likely than men to find sexual aggression in porn arousing. “About 69 percent of women in the study said they enjoyed at least some aggressive content, compared to 40 percent of men,” wrote Eric W. Dolan. “Women were also more likely than men to report arousal from ‘harder’ forms of aggression, such as choking or gagging, and were more likely to actively seek out pornographic videos that featured aggression.”
Of course, choking can be risky and can be dangerous if done wrong—or maybe even inherently unsafe, depending who you ask. (Some dominatrixes argue there’s no fully safe way to do it.)
But banning depictions doesn’t give people information to assess risk or negotiate safer play. And if anything, outlawing visuals may just make the behavior edgier without giving anyone better tools to stay safe, as writer Ana Valens points out.
If the real goal is protecting women, then education, harm-reduction, and honest conversations would go much further than criminalizing fantasies. Acting like this is some dark patriarchal conspiracy—rather than a thing many women choose and enjoy—turns a real conversation about safety into moral panic cosplay.
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Other Porn Amendments in the U.K. Crime Bill
The choking ban is just one piece.
One proposal would allow performers to retroactively revoke consent for published content, requiring platforms to remove videos anytime someone featured asks—no matter prior contracts or payments. The language is messy and doesn’t explain how publishers are supposed to validate consent across already-released material.
The amendment also states that a person “commits an offense if they publish or allow or facilitate the publishing of pornographic content online where it has not been verified that…every individual featured…is an adult.” Taken literally, this could make everyone uploading porn liable if any content on the platform includes someone under 18.
Violators could face two years in prison and fines. Platforms could be fined up to £18 million or 10% of global revenue. The government could also order hosting providers, registrars, or ISPs to cut ties.
Another amendment would make it illegal to create “an indecent photograph” in which an adult pretends to be a minor. That includes fantasy content where no actual minors are involved. It also creates a crime for sharing content—“including text shared on internet forums”—that “advocates or celebrates” adults having sex with minors. That kind of language easily sweeps up fictional narratives, literary analysis, and speech that doesn’t harm anyone.
Another proposal targets software designed to create or alter images of people “in an intimate state.” That sounds like a strike at deepfake and “nudify” tools, but the language is so broad it could criminalize software that creates adult CGI porn—even if used consensually.
In all these cases, the issue isn’t just intent—it’s wording so sweeping that normal sexual content, fictional narratives, and artistic expression could all be caught in the dragnet.
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Turning Ad Platforms Into ‘Pimps’ and Webcamming Into Prostitution
The bill also goes after sex work more broadly. An amendment from Mary Goudie would redefine pimping to include any facilitation of prostitution—even when no profit is involved. Publishing ads that facilitate sex work would also count as pimping.
Currently, it’s illegal to cause or control prostitution for financial gain. Under the new language, simply helping someone engage in consensual sex work—letting them borrow a car, offering a ride—could be criminal. Punishment: up to 10 years in prison.
Another amendment would criminalize giving or offering payment in exchange for sexual activity, even when the person being paid is consenting and not coerced. That includes physical contact and situations where someone “touches themselves for the sexual gratification of the other person.” There’s no explicit carve-out for digital performance, which could make paying for cam shows illegal.
Again: up to 10 years in prison.
While the choking ban has sparked headlines, these other proposals have slipped under the radar. Taken together, they paint a picture of lawmakers on all sides eager to police sexuality across the board—online, offline, consensual, fictional, and everything in between.
And it leaves a lingering question: when a government claims to protect us by deciding what we can desire, fantasize about, or consensually do with our own bodies…who is really being protected?
