Everyone remember last winter when England passed new regulations making the production of spanking, bondage, BDSM and several other kinds of positive, consensual adult videos illegal? It got talked about a lot at the time, and then it stopped being talked about so much. The law remained exactly the same, though, and it continued to effect UK based producers, having huge impacts on their lives.
Those who had to move their sites (or themselves) out of the country because of it have had big, bureaucratic messes and a lot of expenses to deal with. Those who didn’t have that option or who decided that their best choice was to remain in the UK have had even more stress to deal with: the fear of what’s going to happen next. I can’t imagine how much strain it puts on someone to know that the thing they’ve dedicated themselves to, invested all their time, creative energy and money in, has been made illegal and could possibly be taken away from them. It breaks my heart to think about, really.
So, when Pandora Blake and Nimue Allen started a fundraiser to support Backlash-UK, an organization that can offer legal aid to producers who find themselves in court because of these ridiculous regulations, I was glad to help out. I encouraged everyone who enjoys this blog to donate to the campaign, promising to give something back to the community in exchange for your help.
The deal was this: for every £10 donated, one cane stroke would be given. It started out with Pandora and Nimue each taking up to 50 cane strokes each. When those goals were reached, popular spanking and bondage model Amelia Jane Rutherford/Ariel Anderssen (same person, two names) volunteered to take 25 strokes, and Rosie Bottomley signed up for another 50. I was next to volunteer. If another £500 were donated, I’d be taking 50 strokes.
The fundraiser ended up collecting a total of £3,836. For those who don’t know, that’s about $5,700 that was donated in about a month’s time, or 767% of the original £500 goal. I was proud that I’d be getting all the strokes I had signed up for.
I had to wait until Paul got back from the UK to get caned, though, and once he got back, it didn’t happen right away. We we had houseguests, then we went out of town, then I had to shoot a lot of things, both for myself and other sites. Besides, you have to be in a good headspace to take such a severe caning.
Fifty cane strokes is A LOT to me these days. I was excited about what I had agreed to do, but very apprehensive. I could have signed up for a lower maximum, but I wanted to push myself. I do like playing hard, and I actually really like longer scenes, especially once I get into that headspace, but I don’t play that way very often anymore. I often get hung up on worries about marking or leaving myself too sore, or I get caught up in memories of times that weren’t enjoyable when I played hard. Over the past few years, it’s become increasingly harder for me to let go during longer, harder scenes.
So, I was nervous and apprehensive before my caning. Every one of the models who took sponsored canings reacted to the event differently. Most of the others I’ve watched seemed to enjoy it, some made sounds of pleasure, others giggled. I cried, but this wasn’t a bad thing.
Crying has always been a natural reaction to spanking and other corporal punishment for me, and for a long time, a crying headspace replaced a more traditional subspace for me when I was most relaxed during a scene. When the caning started, I was feeling a little nervous and a little shy about it. It hurt. The word that comes to my mind to describe the way that the cane feels is “spongy” which I know is very bizarre sounding. But the pain flexes and bends, swells and grows, like it’s absorbing into the other tissues in my body, welts raising up in a way that makes all of my body awareness focus on them.
I soon discovered that I needed the harsh, pulsing pain that was biting into my bottom. My crying was fueled by pain, but it was also relieving. It was almost therapeutic, like all my frustrations about ATVOD were manifested into something tangible, something that I knew that I could cope with.
Fifty strokes went by much more quickly than I expected it to. While at the beginning I was worried that I would never be able to take that many, I found that by the end I was in a space where I was almost surprised by the ending. Adrenaline and endorphins had kicked in, and despite my tears, I felt very still inside. Paul wrapped me up to cuddle on his lap and all was right with the world.
Doing something that I had, if just temporarily, worried I couldn’t do made me feel more confident about my ability to accomplish other things in my life, too, and gave me a little confidence boost.
So, now you get to watch the video! Click on this link to watch it streaming, or right click to save it to your computer. You’re welcome to reupload it and share it, but please provide credit and don’t re-edit it.
I hope you enjoy it! If you feel inclined to do something to help out, you can donate directly to Backlash-UK by clicking on the link on their page (no one will get caned though, sorry).
You can also support the producers who have been affected by these laws by joining their sites. Some examples include:
Dreams of Spanking, Nimue’s World, Northern Spanking, Restrained Elegance,
Triple A Spanking, Spanking Sarah, English Spankers, Red Stripe Films, Punishment Films,
Sound Punishment, Sarah Spanks Men and many more.
So, let’s talk about the new ATVOD law that came into effect in the UK on Monday. I’d guess that many of you have already heard a lot about it, and if you read Pandora Blake’s blog you’ve already read much more cogent and significant writing than what I’m about to present here, but I long ago came to the conclusion that there’s no reason not to talk about something just because others have already done an excellent job of it. Besides, this issue needs all the media attention it can get, and I’m still seeing misinformation about the situation being passed around on social media.
People on twitter and Fetlife have been talking about the UK’s “spanking ban” or “porn ban.” These terms aren’t actually very accurate. The ATVOD law is a piece of legislature which limits what sorts of sexual activities can be presented in “video on demand”, a category which includes basically all forms of internet pornography: streaming and downloads on membership sites and pay-per-download videos hosted on sites like clips4sale and even content which is given out for free.
The law has been talked about a lot in the spanking community because it directly affects us: one of the things prohibited by the law is the infliction of any kind of pain inducing activity which is beyond “transient and trifling” and which leaves any mark on the body beyond slight reddening of the skin (welts, bruises… basically marks). This sums up most of the spanking content produced anywhere in the world. But the term “spanking ban” isn’t really the right one to use for two reasons. First of all, someone unaware of the situation reading that might come to the erroneous conclusion that spanking itself has been banned in the UK. It has not. That’s actually one of the things which is upsetting about the law: things which are perfectly legal to perform are illegal to film and distribute. The second reason is because while the prohibition of spanking in pornography is the part that will most directly affect most of us, the list of acts that are classified as “extreme pornography” is long and it includes a lot of things that are problematic. The term “porn ban” is also not entirely correct. Not all porn has been made illegal. Only a lot of the interesting stuff.
Spanking producers anywhere in the world have been dealing with a certain form of censorship for as long as internet spanking porn has existed. What we can and can’t show on film has been previously decided for us not by our governments, but by the companies that we use to process credit cards. CCBill, Clips4Sale and other companies that producers use to receive payment used to be the primary people who set the rules for what could and couldn’t be offered online.
Their rules restrict a lot of kinks, but are actually, by comparison, fairly permissive towards spanking porn: they prohibit showing any blood for any reason, limit what kind of ageplay scenarios can be presented, get fussy about words signifying blood relationships (“father,” “mother,” “brother,” “sister” et cetera) and force us to be careful about what words we use to talk about force and consensual non consent. They can also prohibit what is and isn’t too extreme in terms of marking, but it usually doesn’t come up.
Except, of course, for the time that it did. In 2013, CCBill forced Pandora Blake to remove a handful of scenes from Dreams of Spanking and to make changes to all the language used on the site, getting rid of words like “little girl” and “forced.” She had to comply or lose her ability to make money from her site, but she wasn’t being pushed into this by the law. She responded by making the content available for free on Darker Dreams.
Now that censorship is being enforced by the government and not just by corporations, this sort of work around isn’t possible anymore: like I mentioned before, UK producers can’t even give the content away for free. In addition to that, because making this content is illegal it doesn’t just mean that breaking the laws will result in your site being taken down (which in and of itself is disastrous for a producer, since for almost everyone I know producing spanking videos their site is their full time job and primary source of income) but in actual legal action being taken against the producers. As far as I understand the law (and feel free to correct me if I don’t have a proper understanding of it) someone could actually, hypothetically go to jail for making illegal, “extreme” pornography.
Looking at the law directly doesn’t tell you exactly what is and isn’t permitted in an easy to find manner because the law works by classifying internet pornography under the standards of censorship which had previously only applied to films released in cinema or on DVD: this is the reason why most UK spanking producers either don’t offer DVDs or sell them semi secretly. I referred to this blog post, which carefully breaks down what material is and isn’t permitted. The list is seriously problematic:
Peeing and female ejaculation are lumped together into one category, with the same rules applying to urine and to female ejaculatory fluid. This just shows a lack of sex education on the part of the people responsible for this legislature, because these two things are entirely different. Both are still permitted as long as they aren’t done onto another person, or then consumed. Squirting during sex is alright if it is “brief” and “isolated.”
This is an enormous problem because squirting isn’t even something that you set out to do, necessarily. It’s part of some women’s physiological response to sexual stimulus. This is a rule that will only affect female-centric porn that features female performers genuinely enjoying themselves (I don’t know anyone who can fake squirt, personally). You can have a brief squirt here and there, but can’t intentionally do it on anyone. And peeing, which is a widely popular fetish, can only be done in isolation from other people. This affects some spanking videos. There’s a cross over between the wetting fetish and the spanking fetish, specifically for girls wetting themselves while being spanked. It’s something people are very divided on, but I personally think this is totally hot. The scenes where one wets oneself while over a lap being spanked are doubly prohibited.
There isn’t actually a health risk associated with any of this behavior, either, even if we’re talking about drinking pee. Although some people may find it gross (it’s not my thing, personally) it isn’t any more likely to spread disease than lots of other things that we are totally allowed to do in porn (like kissing or having sex). You can’t ban something because you think it’s gross.
Of course, any consumption of male ejaculation is entirely fine. I don’t even understand how this makes sense. I feel that it’s blatantly sexist, and is implying that male centric, heteronormative porn is acceptable and that female centric porn is “extreme” and therefore deserving of censorship. On a related note, facesitting has been forbidden. This is apparently because if you try this on your own at home, you might die by having the airway blocked.
Interestingly, throat fucking, which also can be potentially dangerous in terms of blocking the airway, is entirely acceptable. The act which shows male pleasure is allowed, but the one which shows female pleasure is banned. You however, aren’t allowed to tell someone to “gag on your cock” because it refers to blocking the airway, whether you are doing it or not. Gags in general, especially when associated with bondage are prohibited. Bondage as a whole is mostly against the law, especially when it isn’t explicitly part of a roleplay scenario. I get the impression that behind the scenes material and context building items like interviews and performer blog posts don’t count for demonstrating consent here, just explicitly defining it on camera, which makes fantasy based bondage scenes illegal.
Fisting has been entirely forbidden. You cannot insert five fingers past the first knuckle into someone’s body. Again, this is a popular feature in female centric porn, and there’s no evidence that it’s actually medically dangerous.
There are quite a few other things on the list, but this blog post will be infinitely long if I talk about all of them, so let me come to the most relevant: BDSM pain play is only permissible if it is “transient and trifling.” Like I said before, this means no marks and less visible severity of any kind. I don’t just mean spanking, I mean any kind of kinky shit that hurts someone.
The supposed reason for this and for most of the other regulations is someone might try to replicate this at home and cause harm or death. This is a strange argument. For one thing, you can watch depictions of lots of things that you really shouldn’t try to do yourself, like almost everything in every movie and TV show ever. For some reason, they seem to believe that the general public can grasp the idea that you shouldn’t replicate the things that you see in a standard film, but that people will do dangerous and harmful things if they replicate that which is presented in pornography. I feel that if this was the real concern, it should just suffice to add a little caption on the bottom of the screen that reads “professional fuckers on a closed set, do not try this at home.”
In a certain way, by saying this, the British government is making all pornographers de facto sex educators. If they truly believe that people will replicate what they see in porn, shouldn’t they be celebrating sex positive porn, female centric porn and consensual, safe kink porn? Instead, these are the sites that they are criminalizing. Porn which shows a man with a perfect dick fucking a girl with a perfect body in a scene where he never attempts to please her, she moans in a way which is obviously fake and he then pulls out and ejaculates all over her face is basically protected under this law. Nothing about this scene is “extreme.”
If porn is meant to be a guide to sexual practices, then these videos are shoving body negativity and sexism down our throats in a way that the damage, while not physical, would be far beyond transient and trifling. The sites that focus on the pleasure of people of all genders, on discovering who you are and loving it, on not being ashamed of your sexuality even if you’ve been taught that it’s wrong by society are the ones that are being targeted by these restrictions.
Spanking porn is actually a very positive thing. It’s primarily made by a tight knit group of people who keep each other safe and who are passionate enough about sharing and celebrating their kink that they’re willing to dedicate their lives to it. The spanking community (both online and at parties) allows us to interact with performers and know that they truly enjoy what they do. You’re currently sitting wherever you are reading my blog about how I love what I do and how it fills my life with happiness and satisfaction in a way that no other profession could for me.
While there are certainly models who aren’t interested in spanking and just do a few shoots here and there for the money, they’re looked after, too, and the play is scaled to their tolerances. Limits are discussed. Safewords are in place. The play which is presented in spanking shoots is actually very safe: realistically, trying to replicate what you see in a film is likely not actually going to hurt someone because the majority of the Tops in spanking films are very skilled and watching them carefully can actually teach good technique. Of course we roleplay non-consensual scenarios, but I feel that this is the part which is inherently understood by the viewer. And if it isn’t, should we just be responsible for providing more context building materials outside of the actual scene instead of having the entire thing banned?
I’m not saying that the spanking industry is perfect. I have had bad experiences (one notable one) and so have other models that I know. But in general, it’s a healthy, positive community, and with the current louder voices in the scene emphasizing acceptance, safe play, negotiation, consent et cetera, it could only get even better. Unless, of course, you ban the entire thing.
I think it’s telling that when I get into arguments with people online in which I try to defend my experience as a spanking model as having been positive and explain that producing and participating in porn can be a really great experience for everyone involved, the response that I usually get is that it’s so nice for me that in my niche things are in such good shape, but that “real” porn is full of consent violations and ignored limits (I have absolutely no experience with mainstream B/G porn and I’m not agreeing with or supporting this statement, just repeating what was said to me on the internet). It’s funny that what I do isn’t even considered “real” porn by many, yet to the British government, it’s not just real, it’s “extreme.”
So, what’s the state of affairs for the UK based spanking producers? They’re faced with the calling to either relocate their studios, close up shop or fight back and do whatever they can. As far as I have been able to tell, none of the British spanking sites are going to stop production.
Paul told me about this law a couple of weeks ago, and was obviously extremely distressed about it. He asked me if I would be willing to take over legal ownership of Northern Spanking, making it a US based website instead of a UK one. In order to do this, Paul had to, on a legal level, give me every aspect of his company. Technically, I own it, and he now doesn’t have any source of income: that’s all, on paper, mine. Since, despite what you may have heard, I’m not a terrible person, I’m not going to really let this change anything. Everything about Northern will remain the same, until the site’s new design which has been in process for a while now is launched, that is. (I’m not going to run in and put stickers on everything.)
The process of transferring ownership to me was complicated, tedious, stressful and expensive, but it means that Northern is no longer at risk and that, most importantly, no one is going to arrest Paul. Doing this made me sad, though. It was bitter that Paul can’t own the thing that he has spent the better portion of my lifetime nurturing, and which he dedicates so much time, love, energy to. I know that he’s angry at the government for taking that away from him, and rightfully so. I wish I could be with him right now to offer him some comfort.
I learned that John Osborne who runs Triple A Spanking has done something similar: he announced on his blog that transferred ownership of his site to his US based partner, Sarah Gregory in what I can only assume is a similar arrangement. Not everyone has the privilege of having a trusted loved one in another country to whom they can transfer ownership of their site, however. When I was first asked for my thoughts on this on tumblr, a commenter asked why producers don’t just move to another country.
Moving yourself to another country is incredibly difficult. It means uprooting your entire life, putting a huge distance between you and your loved ones, leaving your home, selling or getting rid of most of your possessions because they’re too expensive and difficult to ship, selling your car or paying expensive fees to ship it, rehoming your pets or putting them through quarantine, going through a complicated legal process to get residency which is never easy and in fact can severely limit who can immigrate where and, if you’re leaving England, potentially giving up your right to free Health Care. I know all this because this is what Paul is going through right now.
When I first responded to that inquiry, I said that I didn’t think anyone would do that. It bothered me that people so callously threw this idea around online like it was the simplest thing in the world. “What? The law is infringing on your freedom and making it illegal for you to continue to earn your living? Just leave your entire life behind and start living somewhere else!” Moving to another country is a serious commitment, and I, wishfully, didn’t think that this was a situation so dire that it would cause people to have to do that.
I was not correct, as Sarah Bright of Spanking Sarah and English Spankers (among other sites) announced that she and her partner, Mr. Stern will be relocating their family to Spain to avoid persecution, a piece of news that solidified the seriousness of this situation for me. I simultaneously think it isn’t fair for people to suggest that producers should simply move away and feel that it’s perfectly understandable to want to live your life, especially a family life (as Sarah describes in her post) away from this stressful situation.
Pandora Blake has declared that she’s staying put, and she’s staying very on top of things, giving us information on how to file a complaint against the ATVOD and encouraging people to join her at a protest against the policies next week. Dreams of Spanking will continue to operate in the UK.
Nimue Allen of Nimue’s World has posted about the issue as well, and, as far as I can tell, intends to stand her ground and continue to operate her site from England. Hywel Phillips of Restrained Elegance, explained in a blog post that his studios are already legally based in the US and that he isn’t sure how the censorship will affect him, but that he doesn’t want to have to leave his home country. I don’t know what several other producers plan to do or not do, but it’s vital that all of them have our support.
What can you do?
If you live in the UK you can write to your MP protesting the censorship.
No matter where you live, you can sign this petition.
If you live in the UK you can also sign this one, and, most importantly, the official petition.
Donate to Backlash UK, a sexual liberties lobby group which has set up a legal fund to assist producers if they are targeted, and who is campaigning against the policy.
If you’re local to London or able to travel there, attend a protest outside of Parliament.
Consider getting a month’s membership to one of the sites affected by the censorship.
Please remember:
If you live in the UK, it is NOT illegal for you to join spanking sites, purchase spanking content or posses this content. As a consumer, you are not at risk: only producers are.
I don’t even feel up to leaving the sign-off heart on this post. There’s nothing that I heart about this.
I’m going to reasume my narrative tomorrow (I have my next post written, too) but I’ve decided I’m going to share this here. I wrote this post on tumblr, in response to a fellow tumblr user who posted a piece of original writing content talking about how sad the lives of people who make pornography are and expressing a lot of judgements that are based on facts that just aren’t true.
I don’t often respond to poking like that with a rant. In fact, I basically forced myself not to get involved in the comment threads on several posts on similar topics recently because I knew that I’d get impassioned and angry and get less work done because I’ll be constantly refreshing the thread. But this one just got me between the ribs and I HAD to write this. It just happened.
Because this is a repost from a different forum, it’s much more generically written than my usual prose. There’s no cast page on my tumblr. There’s no expectation that people who read it when it’s been reblogged will even have any idea who I am. So I sound a little different than I usually do here. It’s still me, though.
Posting here will also allow people who aren’t tumblr users to comment on this post if they want to.
Today was the third time recently that I saw a post that was made by someone who was involved in a porn sharing community but was not involved in the professional production of pornography who had negative things to say about people who create porn.
While I don’t do traditional pornography, I personally identify spanking videos, bondage pictures, other fetish films and even a lot of the more erotic art nudes that I do as porn. It’s explicit. It’s designed to make you horny. A lot of people don’t want to admit that, but I don’t mind saying so. Porn doesn’t have to be a bad word. Porn can, and probably should be, happily produced, positive, artistic stuff that makes you want to touch yourself.
I love making porn. I want to clear up some myths about it for you:
- I don’t do porn because I have to. I chose to out of my free will.
- I have an amazing education. The details of this aren’t important to this argument, nor do they need to be public knowledge, and I’m not going to tell you how smart I think I am, because no one wants to hear that, but I have a very respectable degree from an excellent school. I choose to do porn in addition to working freelance in a creative field. This combination makes me happy. I’m not an anomaly here. I actually know more girls who do porn that have degrees than who don’t.This is what we chose to do with our lives for our happiness.
- I’ve never met someone who felt that they had to engage in this profession, or even who didn’t enjoy what they did. I’ve met people who stopped having fun with it and so they quit, but I’ve never met someone who felt “stuck” doing this. The number of people with “regular jobs” who hate what they do but feel that they are stuck in it and can’t change their lives is pretty high.
- I really enjoy the people and companies that I work with. While I sometimes work with producers who aren’t respectful or enjoyable to work with, there’s enough work out there that I just stop working with them and find other people who I do like.
- I have fun at my job. Sure, there’s a TON of real work that goes into making videos. A lot of days I sit at home answering email for 8 hours. Other days I have traveling hell. Other days I’m tired and cranky and have my period and don’t want to get pretty and naked, but that’s my job so I do it. That’s because this is my job. Jobs are never always fun. But I can safely say that some of the most enjoyable moments of my ENTIRE LIFE have involved filming spanking videos, and I met several of my best friends, play partners and the man I’m in love withthrough this job.
- I make enough money to support myself, pay off my student loans, save some and occasionally do or get nice things that I don’t need. Having a life that I enjoy and that lets me do those things seems pretty damn ideal.
- I don’t lead a double life. My family (both of origin and the family I’ve chosen for myself) know what I do. I had a wonderful relationship with my eldest brother until he passed away, and continue to have one with my other brother and he’s no less successful at his life because his baby sister takes her clothes off on the internet for living. My mother and I are currently having the most positive relationship that we’ve ever had in my entire life (since she’s emotionally unstable for reasons unrelated to my pornography). I don’t have a dad. I’m pretty sure that’s not why I do porn, though.
- Being poly, I have two stable and loving relationships with men that I adore and respect and who reciprocate those feelings. Neither of these relationships has been negatively affected in the tiniest bit by my internet nudity. Like I said above, I met one of my partners through the industry.
- I’m a very ambitious person. I work hard and I am constantly continuing to educate myself. Part of my ambition is to be a happy person, and my job helps me to fulfill that goal.
- People often say that girls who do porn have no self respect. I beg to differ on this. It takes a TREMENDOUS amount of self respect, positive self image, confidence and even amore propre to be sufficiently comfortable with yourself to get undressed in front of a crew of people, put yourself into a vulnerable position (in my case, getting hit with stuff, in other cases, engaging in sexual intercourse or indulging another fetish) and have the poise to perform, roleplay and do your appropriate part. When I was younger, I was ashamed of myself. I was ashamed of my sexuality, my fetish, my body, my desires. I couldn’t stand anyone else knowing about these things, seeing my body, being intimate with me. I do porn because I love myself. Because my body, my fetish and my sexuality are beautiful and I want to share these things with others.
- Porn, especially fetish porn, is actually important. Fetish porn allows people to realize that they aren’t the only people who are interested in what they are, to visualize their fantasies when they can’t connect with people in their personal lives and to be validated that what they like is okay. Despite how deeply involved I am in the creation of porn, I’m still a consumer of spanking pornography. I have subscriptions to five sites, and I watch them for my personal enjoyment, especially when I am unable to play for periods of time. There are lots of people for whom videos are the only way that they interact with their fetish. This is very important to them. Even when it’s not something so near and dear to someone’s heart, porn makes people happy. It doesn’t save anyone’s life. This is true. Neither does art. Neither does working in sales. Neither does designing roller coasters. The amount of people I know whose jobs are actually “necessary” when you really get down to it can be counted on the fingers of one hand. I have a job that makes other people AND me happy. That’s a win.
- In the past twelve months, I traveled to over fifteen cities in three countries, had “perfect attendance” at the complete roster of national spanking parties and got to visit tons and tons of my friends who live all around the world. I choose my own hours and often do my administrative work from my bed, while wearing a t-shirt and panties and dancing in place to Joy Division. This lifestyle suits me far better than sitting at a desk all day.
- Just because you watched a documentary about porn doesn’t mean that you know more about it than people who do this for a living. I watched a documentary about being transgendered. This doesn’t mean that I can go up to a transperson and tell them how they feel. If I did that, I’d hope I’d get punched in the teeth. Furthermore, I bet I could make a documentary about your life that makes you look exploited and unhappy if it served my purposes.
- Doing porn doesn’t make me a loser. It doesn’t make me a failure. It makes me a happy, independent woman who respects herself, supports herself and has adventures. Fuck yes.
Porn is valid. It isn’t disgusting. I’m not disgusting. I’m not a fuck up. Neither are my friends.
If you do porn and you aren’t happy with your life, feel free to call me out and tell me about how your experience is different than mine. Then stop doing porn and find something that does make you happy. Just like if sitting at your desk all day doesn’t make you happy you should stop sitting at your desk and do something else.
Oh, Hai!
Alex
Los Angeles, California, United States
First and foremost, I’m a girl who loves being spanked. It’s at the very center of my being. I’m also a professional spanking model, which means I get to do what I love for my job. I’m twenty six years old, and currently located in Los Angeles when I’m not traveling around on my adventures. My vanilla interests include poetry, film history, academia, Pokemon, indie music, baby animals, baking and cooking, collecting vintage clothes and lots of cuddling.
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