With many of our community members based in the UK, we felt it was important to provide you with information regarding the new bill which has recently been passed by the UK Government. Please remember that deviantART is based in the USA, and therefore falls under American law. This article is intended to provide a resource for those of you who may worry that you are going to be criminalised by the law changes.

There has been much debate and media hype with incorrect commentary regarding impending book burning, banning of pin-up style art and the like. We hope that this article puts things into perspective for you and provides you with the opportunity to open up debate at local constituency level, should you feel strongly enough.

Five years ago Jane Longhurst, a teacher from Brighton, was murdered. It emerged during the investigation into her death, that her killer had been compulsively accessing websites such as Club Dead and Rape Action, which contained images of necrophilia and women being violently abused. When Graham Coutts was jailed for life Jane Longhurst's mother began a campaign to ban the possession of such images.

In response so the campaign, The UK Government have introduced a Criminal Justice & Immigration Bill to criminalise the possession of adult, staged, consensual violent pornography with penalties of up to 3 years in prison. The bill is based on a joint Home Office/Scottish Executive consultation on the possession of extreme pornographic material undertaken in 2005/06, and though this bill is for England and Wales, the law in Scotland is likely to follow suit.

The law forms part of a new Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill and states that an image is pornographic “if it appears to have been produced solely or principally for the purpose of sexual arousal”. An “extreme image” is an image of any of the following -

(a) “an act which threatens or appears to threaten a person’s life;

(b) an act which results in or appears to result (or be likely to result) in serious injury to a person’s anus, breasts or genitals;

(c) an act which involves or appears to involve sexual interference with a human corpse;

(d) a person performing or appearing to perfom an act of intercourse or oral sex with an animal, where (in each case) any such act, person or animal depicted in the image is or appears to be real”.

The 1959 Obscene Publications Act (OPA) already imposes criminal liability on the publishers of material likely to deprave and corrupt. What is being outlawed here, for the first time is the possession of such images. Illegal images will include portrayals of acts which are not in themselves illegal, such as bondage sessions between consenting couples. While this law will remain, the new act is designed to reflect the realities of the internet age, when pornographic images may be hosted on websites outside the UK. This puts a clear shift in criminal responsibility from producer, to consumer.

"Explicit", "realistic", "threatening" and "serious" are hugely subjective terms, with different meanings to different people. Much of the pornography which circulates these days is of the S&M variety - images of people being tied up, spanked, tickled with feathers. For some, such images mean that the world is about to end. For others, it's the spice of life.

It's important to bear in mind that the key word here is "extreme", and whilst that too is subjective, it's ridiculous to consider that someone could be prosecuted for possessing an image of an individual who is consensually blindfolded and being tickled with feathers. This would result in large numbers of people being prosecuted who pose no threat to society, and in turn dilute the Sex Offenders Register, making it lose importance.

The main issue here is not whether violent and abusive behaviour is defensible. It is not -- everyone agrees. Rather, the issue is whether this proposal will criminalise non-abusive activities engaged in by consenting adults. It's a debate which surely will continue for some time and sadly, as in many cases people will not know if they are breaking the law (or not) until they have been through a trial.

The Dangerous Pictures chapter of the Criminal Justice and Immigration bill is now detailed online with explanatory notes.

I hope that this article has provided you with an insight into the potential implications, and that you are inspired to undertake some personal research this matter further, whilst avoiding the drama-mongering hype!