UK lawmakers call for adult camming ban

Shortly after bans on certain pornographic content took effect in the UK, some lawmakers are calling for further restrictions.

On Nov. 6, possessing and publishing explicit content depicting strangulation/suffocation, incest (including fake incest), and people under 16, or pretending to be, became criminal offenses.

Days later, on Nov. 10, a cross-party group called the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Commercial Sexual Exploitation published a report called “Only Exploitation,” which calls for a step further: criminalizing online platforms profiting from commercial live streaming of pornography and other sex work. (A government spokesperson told The Mirror that it’s reviewing the law on prostitution.)

The report claims that “visitors to webcamming platforms are no longer just pornography viewers; they become, in effect, pornography directors.” It also contends that camming/livestreaming harms women and girls through sexual coercion and exploitation, security and privacy risks, perpetuates violent attitudes, and normalizes sexual exploitation. The report includes quotes from interviews with APPG and research such as one paper on webcam sex platform competition and another on Romanian women’s experiences camming.

“The webcamming trade acts as a magnet for exploiters,” Tonia Antoniazzi MP and Tracy Gilbert MP stated in the report’s foreword.

The report claims that “visitors to webcamming platforms are no longer just pornography viewers; they become, in effect, pornography directors.”

However, Dr Carolina Are, digital criminologist at the London School of Economics and Political Science, told Mashable that the report doesn’t consider that people can do sex work voluntarily. “It effectively likens sex work to exploitation, which is a known trope in anti-sex work campaigning,” she said.

The experiences narrated by participants are horrific and show how these platforms can be used for exploitation, Are continued, adding however that the report as a whole seems to blame the job for exploitation, when exploitation is done by perpetrators. It’s enabled by stigmatisation against sex workers that doesn’t encourage reporting, and by a tech infrastructure and governance that’s for profit, and not for people.

The report also calls on the UK to outlaw “e-pimping,” or individuals who facilitate and profit from another person performing on livestream, and that the country recognize e-pimping as human trafficking. It refers to “OnlyFans managers” as “e-pimps” and cites the BBC’s recent investigation into how such managers and “agents” take advantage of models by controlling their earnings, as well as other journalistic reports.

Are said the investigations are reputable, but are used sensationally. Meanwhile, she pointed out that research shows that many people choose to do digital sex work for reasons ranging from personal preference to the fact that much of sex work, including camming, can be done from home (which suits immunocompromised people, people with disabilities, caretakers, or those otherwise not suited for a 9-5).

Digital sex work has also been found to reduce violence against sex workers — “an opportunity this report seems to ignore,” Are stated.

“This isn’t just about criminalising the imaginations and exploration of consenting adults but also sweeping the rug from under so many sex workers whose livelihoods and safety depend on these sites.”

Porn filmmaker and performer Vex Ashley told Mashable, “We’re seeing an unprecedented rollback of our sexual freedoms and lives online. This isn’t just about criminalising the imaginations and exploration of consenting adults but also sweeping the rug from under so many sex workers whose livelihoods and safety depend on these sites.”

Additionally, the group’s report recommends enabling the withdrawal of consent with the distribution of pre-recorded porn, as well as allowing law enforcement to access all content hosted and streamed by porn sites.

“The withdrawal of consent part of the recommendations is important, and so is the recognition of exploitation for those who extort and abuse cammers,” Are said. “But giving platforms and the police more surveillance power against an over-policed, over-censored and over-surveilled user base is concerning.”

Removing a source of income from marginalized people doesn’t protect them, she said, also pointing out that the report doesn’t touch on poverty, which is one of the main drivers of sex work. “So this report is removing a source of income for the same women that it claims to protect,” she said, “potentially pushing them into more underground work where they may be more exposed to physical violence.”

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