On November 6, amendments to the UK's Crime and Policing Act take effect that outlaw the possession and publication of pornographic images of strangulation or suffocation, along with content in which performers role-play as people under 16 and "fauxcest" — simulated incest between non-blood-related characters such as step-siblings. Publishing or possessing such material carries up to five years in prison and a fine, and "possession" explicitly includes an image stored on a phone, a hard drive or in cloud storage.
The trigger was a lengthy pornography review by the Conservative peer Baroness Gabby Bertin. She cited "anecdotal evidence" that fauxcest can be used between an abuser and a child, describing the genre as a "fig leaf" for actual abuse. The backdrop is the spread of choking in mainstream pornography, which has been linked to real deaths; in August a 16-year-old girl in Australia died after losing consciousness while being choked consensually during sex.
The ministry denies any intent to police sexual expression. "These laws aren't about policing people's sexual freedom, they're about cracking down on content that normalizes violence against women, encourages unlawful behavior, and can cause real-world harm," spokesperson Clara Coleman told Wired, framing the measure as part of a pledge to halve violence against women and girls within a decade.
The criticism targets the drafting rather than the goal. The obscenity lawyer Myles Jackman has no objection to banning depictions of strangulation as such — the risks are documented and separate offences already exist. The breadth is what concerns him: "Given that it would appear that face-sitting is now arguably suffocation, the insertion of a penis could equally be considered suffocation because it blocks the airways." His conclusion is that Britain may in effect have banned oral sex in online pornography. Whether it has is a question a court would answer case by case.
Platforms are not waiting for case law. IWantClips has already published new guidance for UK creators and removed clips, with a banned list that includes "breast smothering", "jeans facesitting", "BBW facesitting", "scissorhold" and "butt drops". UK-based creators are combing through their libraries. "When the state starts regulating which types of pornography people are allowed to watch, a dangerous precedent is set," the dominatrix and producer Trans Princess Jezebel told Wired. "Where will it end?"
OnlyFans is the most exposed company in the room. Its parent, Fenix International, is based in Britain — which is precisely what lets the regulator Ofcom fine it up to 10 percent of worldwide revenue, a lever it has struggled to apply to US-based operators. OnlyFans says it complies with the law in every jurisdiction where it operates and has long-standing safety measures in place.
A second risk sits in the moderation layer. Platforms already run image recognition at scale to find prohibited material, and creators worry about collateral damage: collaring or leather-fetish clips, say, swept up by a classifier that has learned to look for anything resembling pressure on a throat. The practical result would be censorship by model, applied at a scale nobody voted for and with an error rate nobody publishes.
The law also travels. Because possession covers files stored on a phone, the industry attorney Michael Fattorosi warns visitors to the UK to think about what is in their camera roll — a point that matters for an audience that is global by default.
Underneath the drafting fight is a real harm. Choking is not only a cinematic gesture: it can cause unconsciousness, brain injury and death, and it has become common among young adults partly because it is ubiquitous in media and pornography. The argument is whether an instrument aimed at one act has to be drawn broadly enough to catch dozens of others, and whether the evidence base justifies the collateral. So far the record consists of anecdotal claims; there are no published figures on investigations or prosecutions under the new provisions.
What to watch: the first prosecutions, which will fix the statute's real reach; whether Ofcom issues platform guidance; whether the possession offence is enforced against travellers in practice; and whether Italy, the Netherlands and Spain follow, where Jackman says similar measures are under discussion.
