So much material there Ian. To focus on just one point, "protection against harm" is not a one way street.
In assessing this any reasonable regulator would take a balanced view and assess the risk of NOT permitting content to be broadcast.
Side effects of prohibition in some (but not all) men include depression, loss of motivation, anger, alcoholism, sleep disturbances, martial difficulties, affairs, divorce.
And thats apart from propping up the porn trade. Side effects of that are exposure to unregulated extreme foreign porn, normalisation of extreme degradation, more widespread and financially resilient import, distribution and retail networks.
This is what Ofcom encourages by banning strong material on TV, and it is hard to find anything in there that a responsible parent would want.
@eccles, couldn't agree more.
That's exactly the sort of "offensive and harmful material" OFCOM are supposed to be protecting the public from. As I've said many times already, R18-type porn has been vetted and censored to remove any potentially dangerous and/or obscene material. The 'generally accepted standard' BBFC Guidelines ban violence, degredation, fisting, urolagnia and many other things deemed 'dangerous' when coupled with explicit sexual material. Indeed, in my submission to the original OFCOM consultation I pointed out that things such as bestiality and under 18 porn were legal elsewhere and it was this very sort of offensive and harmful (illegal and obscene) material that OFCOM should be considering.
Clearly, OFCOM cannot be reasonable people because the High Court concluded that "Based on the available evidence a reasonable person would concluded that the material passed at R18 is an insignificant risk to children that may view it". That evidence came from over 30 child wellfare experts the BBFC thought would support their continued ban on explicit sex at R18 - it didn't. The fact is that millions of people view sexually explicit images every single day and have done for many years. If this type of material were harmful then a large proportion of people would be committing some pretty henious crimes. Clearly this isn't the case and, in fact, criminal statistics prove that non-users of porn are just as likely (if not moreso) to commit sexual offences than users of porn. Porn is no threat to decent society. In fact all evidence thus far seems to show that porn is key to helping people create a safe and decent society.
Censoring and banning potentially beneficial material is not helpful and may well be harmful to vulnerable people. OFCOM are possibly doing exactly what the law asks them to prevent - i.e. causing harm rather than preventing it - and all because they choose to believe they know better than the BBFC, 30+ child wellfare experts, the High Court and everyone else who knows, likes and regularly uses porn.
This is not OFCOM upholding the laws or protecting the vulnerable from harm. This is OFCOM forcing their own personal prudish morals on the general public because they can. They dont care what the general public want or find offensive or vice versa. The Mary Whitehouse brigade win again