Peers vote to ban pornography depicting sex acts between stepfamily members

[SerendipityJane]

Explains why I slept so well last night.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2026/apr/10/porngraphy-depicting-sex-acts-between-stepfamily-members-banned-in-uk

Age of consent = 16
School leaving age = 18.
There's the basis of a defence right there.

This issue clearly hasn't been thought through at all.

I would love to see that argued in court. I would genuinely go and watch in person

School uniform has been a legitimate (if a bit icky imo) fetish for many many years and I'm fairly sure it's not associated with paedophilia, rather sub dom type interest.

Age for pornography is 18 though, right? Images of a 17 yr old are child sexual abuse images. The law is an adult pretending to be under 18, not under 16. A young looking woman in pigtails and a school uniform sitting in a pink bedroom doing homework with teddies sitting on their single bed is fairly obviously not acting out an 18 yr old just about to leave school.

Says you. Given a good lawyer what will the jury think?

This is my objection to this proposal. I am not saying I approve of this kind of porn, what I am saying is that I cannot see how it can be enforced.

Or stepfathers watching it thinking about their stepdaughters…

Because it’s just as often based on that scenario… so yeah, might not be a top priority but it’s pretty grim.

My understanding is that the enforcement will be more about the distribution of it (e.g. Pornhub) than the actors / makers themselves for this reason

No. But I suppose you're on a break from peace talks in Islamabad to hop on MN.

i do wonder if anyone from mi5 to the cia to nsa etc do that . high profile summit discussions etc then hop on mumsnet for 5 mins to debate socks ?

Just go ahead and ban all porn please.

one question is how this appies to written erotica stories eg the site literotica etc ?

Unfortunately the emphasis was on stepdaughter, not siblings. That's the issue with this type of porn.

I always saw it as the age at which teenage boys become sexually interested in their peers. That stays in their brain even after they age.

For those asking "what's the point?" - this isn't just some weird niche thing like you might expect. A staggering proportion of online pornography adopts a "step-incest" storyline. Quite why this is so popular is utterly beyond me (beyond "a lot of men are simply sick"), but it seems to me the "step-sister", "step-father" thing is there to skirt incest rules, just as the portrayal of very young-looking 18-year-olds is there to skirt age rules. The long-term effect will surely be to normalise incest amongst literally millions of pornography viewers, and this really does need countering.

Exactly this. I’m not a regular viewer of porn. I have had a look and also at erotic stories. The most viewed all appear to be this step incest. I cannot understand how someone would find this a turn on. It’s very worrying and young minds are wired by what they are watching.

Noone is trying to stop you fantasising about your adult stepbrothers if that's what gets you off, but I think the wider issue of sexualising family relationships is a huge risk for children more and more since we are in the Internet age and men are so fucking gross and have no boundaries

I think its a way for the govenment to actually ban internet porn in the UK without actually doing it, as they havnt actually told porn sites how to adapt these changes, all the main sites will just block access from the UK, forcing most users to use a VPN or go on the dark web which is even more dangerous, give this a year or so and it will be reversed as its going to be very hard to police, and the dangers of using the dark web are much more dangerous than just allowing adults access to porn.

It doesn't force anyone to use VPN or go on the dark net to get their rocks off about their stepdaughters, and even if it did mean that some people did that, it's not a reason to leave it as a fckn free for all.

Just ban all pornography. Job done.

What's the justification not to?