About That Stuff Banned From UK Porn… It Seems It’s Super Popular In The UK

Last week we reported on a move by British censors to ban a number of acts from appearing in pornography shot in the UK. Well, it looks like the good people over at PornHub (link below) decided to take math to the hub, and discovered that a lot of that stuff that was banned is more popular in the UK than anywhere else in the world. 

The chart below depicts how much more popular all of these new porno no-no’s are in the United Kingdom when compared to the frequency with which they are searched in the rest of the world.

It seems as though these new restrictions specifically target BDSM-type and female-orgasm focused porn, which both appear to be UK favorites. Take for instance ‘caning’, (a technique used in BDSM in which the dominant repeatedly strikes the submissive with a long flexible cane) which is over 200% more popular as a search term in the United Kingdom than in the rest of the world. Other types of rougher sex play like spanking and whipping are 43% and 35% more likely to be searched in the UK than internationally, respectively.

It's interesting how that last paragraph gets to the underlying heart of what's at play here with these restrictions. There is a somewhat nefarious patriarchal force at play in banning these acts, particularly female ejaculation. Perhaps I and the good people over at the hub are reading into things too much, but facts are facts.

Some of the things that the UK censors have sought to ban like "Penetration by any object 'associated with violence'" and "Role-playing as non-adults," certainly seemed design to combat specific, potentially harmful acts. On the other hand, there is far too much subjectivity to banning things like "Physical or verbal abuse (regardless of if consensual)" and "Aggressive whipping." What's aggressive or abusive to one person may not be either to another, so it's going to be interesting to see how all of this plays out. 

Via PornHub