Pandora is a friend of mine, and I was absolutely devastated to see the effects these laws were having on her business, her passion project, and her mental health. I can but imagine the ripples of disturbance the laws have caused in the lives of other UK online pornographers. This act of sexual censorship (an act that is feared by many to be just the beginning of something worse) is not only draconian and silly; it’s also dehumanizing and criminalizing the people who put their heart and soul in the content they create.
I’ve been called brave a couple of times for taking my first caning on camera. To be honest, I didn’t feel brave. Looking back on it, I wasn’t even scared. I was doing what I felt was needed for a cause I believe in. All the people who partook in the sponsored caning were doing so because they were defending a cause they believe in.
Born Out of Fear and Shame
I believe that these laws are not only restrictive of creative freedom and sexual expression; they also have the potential to be damaging on a greater scale. People have looked to porn to find evidence that they are not alone in their sexuality. That what they desire, that what they are does not make them weird or a freak. They’re looking for a sign that they’re OK. To not only find no content that displays alternative sexualities, but an active ban on specific sexual acts can never lead to anything good.
Not only that, but small business owners (and yes, I am talking about the pornographers) are now deleting content, transferring their domains to overseas servers, or terminating their websites. These laws cause unemployment. No matter what you think of the porn industry, these are people who lose the work they not only spend great amounts of time creating, but also great amounts of time defending.These are people who used the money they earned in their job to pay bills just like people with more traditional jobs.
Fear and shame are not acceptable forms of education regardless of who you are trying to educate. Censorship is born out of fear and shame. It is born out of a reluctance to educate from a place of truth and a desire to hide information that needs to be heard. It is a fear that should this information become widespread, should people be educated from a place of truth, the world will somehow suffer from it instead of being in a better place. If censorship is the answer (as erotica author and activist Zak Jane Keir once put it) it was a stupid question to begin with.
And because I (and Pandora, Nimue, Ariel Anderssen, Alex Reynolds, Rosie Bottomley, and the other people involved in the sponsored caning – and I suspect many others around the world) believe 100% in that statement, I took five cane strokes to the ass for the world to see. It was my statement of intent, my confirmation that I will help in any way I can to stop this censorship before it goes any further.
It hurt, sure. However, cane welts and the pain they cause are temporary. These laws, their effects, and possible new and even more restrictive laws in the future may be permanent. And at the end of the day, that’s way more terrifying than the prospect of a cold caning.