Adult World News

The text of a new amendment to the Canadian Broadcasting Act demanding a set percentage of Canadian content on platforms available nationwide definitely also applies to adult content, according to regulatory experts.

The amendment, Bill C-11, fails to clarify exactly how the Canadianness of a porn scene or piece of OnlyFans content should be determined. The bill has already passed in the House of Commons, and moves to the Senate.

The bill required that the likes of Netflix, YouTube and even Instagram will soon be forced to subject their content to Canada's famously onerous strictures on Canadian content.

Peter Menzies, a former Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) vice chair who now opposes the bill -- has asserted that online porn will almost certainly fall within the bill's purview:

The final decision regarding who's in and who's out is to be made in a future CRTC hearing, but it's difficult to imagine Commissioners giving Pornhub and its many hours of user-generated content an exemption.

The CRTC has previously regulated erotic channels broadcast in Canada, including XXX Action Clips and the gay-oriented Maleflixxx, to ensure that at least 35% of their adult content was Canadian, or the equivalent of 8.5 hours of Canadian porn per day.

Under the current mandatory system for TV, content creators must file detailed budgets with the CRTC to prove minimum quotas of Canadian actors, Canadian crew and even the quantity of production costs that were verifiably spent in Canada.

A legislative debate about lowering the age of legal majority in Japan has quickly devolved into a sensationalist campaign about adult performers aged 18-19. It has now morphed into a proposed new law under which anyone who signs a contract to appear in pornographic productions could void that contract at any time for any reason.

Japanese newspaper The Mainichi published a lengthy account allegedly based on two anonymous women's experiences of abuse in the Japanese adult industry.

The report did not identify any specific companies or directors behind the accounts of labor and sexual abuses but it does seem have spurred a group of lawmakers into pushing for some proposals that would make it impossible for the adult trade to continue.

The newspaper then extolled the bill proposed by a bipartisan group of lawmakers which not only allows people who agree to appear in pornographic content to terminate their contracts, but also requires video vendors in such cases to recover the products and delete the footage. Mainichi explained that this novel law also mandates that a month must pass between the signing of the contract and the filming of the video, and four months between the filming of the video and its public release.

The original debate concerned amending a law lowering the age of majority by extending additional contract protections specifically to adult performers under 20 years of age. The lawmakers came up with the bill after Japan lowered the age of adulthood in April, making it no longer possible for 18- and 19-year-olds to cancel contracts to which they have agreed.

United Sex Workers are crowd-funding to launch legal challenges against strip club bans across the UK, starting with a judicial review against Edinburgh City Council. We desperately need your help 203 any contributions you can offer will help us fight to keep our livelihoods afloat and our workplaces open.

Strip club bans violate workers' rights at a time of severe economic crisis. They form part of a wider attempt by the state to oppress precarious workers and dictate what women and other minorities can do with their bodies.

We **cannot** stop this without you, so please donate and share!

Background:

On the 31st March 2022, Edinburgh City Council voted in favor of a nil-cap on Sexual Entertainment Venue (known as SEVs) licenses - effectively shutting all Edinburgh strip clubs as of April 2023 and forbidding any new ones to open. The consequences of this for workers, including strippers, bar staff, and security, will be devasting.

This nil-cap is a result of one of the several SEV consultations that have taken place across the UK where workers' voices have been completely ignored. It leaves hundreds of precarious workers unemployed during a time of unprecedented financial insecurity and rising living costs.

Nil-caps are plainly unlawful as they discriminate against women and other marginalised groups, such as people with disabilities and migrants, who make up the majority of strippers. If Councils continue to adopt them, the consequences for workers across the UK will be devastating.

We have a legal team in place to challenge the nil-cap's compatibility with the Equality Act 2010 and are confident we will win. But we need your help!

Spanish sex workers and adult industry figures are sounding the alarm about a proposed new law, supported by politicians from both the ruling and opposition parties, aiming to outlaw all forms of paid sex work -- including commercial pornography.

Last week, the ruling Spanish Socialist Workers' Party, known as PSOE, introduced a proposal for an "abolitionist law against sexual exploitation," something that had been included in the party's platform.

Prominent politicians within PSOE have taken up the abolition of sex work as their personal cause. These include the party's General Vice-Secretary Adriana Lastra, who last month took to the press to promote a change in the Spanish penal code to mandate up to three years of jail time for anyone paying for sex.

The proposed legislation would revive the crimes of "proxenetism," meaning pimping or pandering, and "tercería locativa " or brothel keeping. Both were removed from the penal code in 1995 by a previous Socialist administration.

Noted Swedish-Spanish adult filmmaker, producer and studio owner Erika Lust took to Twitter today to sound the alarm about the impending government attempt to ban all sex work, including adult performance. Lust tweeted:

This International Sex Workers Day, I want to take the opportunity to express my unconditional support to all sex performers currently based in Spain, where the government is once again threatening their safety with prohibitionist bills that claim to 'protect their rights'.

The European Sex Worker Alliance (ESWA) is circulating a petition in solidarity with Swedish sex worker activists fighting a politically motivated attempt to require mandatory jail time for their clients.

In a letter to the Swedish Parliament published in English and Sweden, the ESWA addressed the upcoming May 31 vote on a proposal to increase the minimum punishment for the purchase of sexual services from a fine to a prison sentence.

The group urged Swedish politicians who are threatening the livelihoods of the country's sex workers to listen to sex workers, to consider current, as well as upcoming, research on the matter and to take into account the countless recommendations from organizations, including the sex worker-led organization Red Umbrella Sweden, to start committing to supporting a legal framework for people working in the sex trade, that protects and affirms those individuals' human rights.

The letter reads:

It has come to our attention that there will be a vote on the 31st of May on a proposal to increase the minimum punishment for the purchase of sexual services from a fine to a prison sentence. 

Sex workers in Sweden, as in many countries in Europe and globally, are amongst the most marginalised and discriminated against members of society, and experience high levels of violence and human rights violations.

We urge you to listen to sex workers, to consider current, as well as upcoming, research on the matter, and to take into account the countless recommendations from organisations, including the sex worker-led organisation Red Umbrella Sweden, to start committing to supporting a legal framework for people working in the sex trade, that protects and affirms those individuals’ human rights.

We are deeply concerned that research indicates that the current Swedish government’s "pursuit of sex buyers and combatting sex trafficking functions as punitive and racialised policing, targeting people in the sex trade and resulting in forced evictions, deportations, and police harassment. This increases their vulnerability for violence and experiences of stigma".

It is also very alarming to hear that the Swedish government is positioning themselves to support this, when there are many recommendations that Sweden should be adapting the approach and policy making regarding sex work and people in the sex trade. From WHO, Amnesty International, UNAIDS, ILGA Europe, ESWA, NSWP, La Strada International, the Global Alliance Against Traffic In Women, TGEU and independent researchers, there is a clear recommendation to decriminalise sex work, because of the negative effects of any form of criminalisation of sex workers and their environments. The European Convention on Human Rights recognises, under Article 11, the fundamental right to form and to join trade unions, making unionisation an established right that applies across the member states of the Council of Europe.

The Council of Europe is the Europe-wide (beyond the EU) organisation most well known for running the European Court of Human Rights.

Now the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe issued a resolution urging European nations to mandate online filters for pornographic materials on all devices, to be systematically activated in public spaces, such as schools, libraries and youth clubs.

The parliamentarians expressed deep concern at:

The unprecedented exposure of children to pornographic imagery, which is detrimental to their psychological and physical development. This exposure brings increased risks of harmful gender stereotyping, addiction to pornography and early, unhealthy sex.

The parliamentarians didn't offer any definitions of what they consider unhealthy sex or pornographic materials, nor did they explain how these mandatory filters would be coded and by whom.

The  Council's statement nvites member states to examine the existing means and provisions to combat children's exposure to pornographic content and address the gaps in relevant legislation and practice with a view to better protecting children. It calls for relevant legislation to ensure that both dedicated websites hosting adult content and mainstream and social media which include adult content, are obliged to use age verification tools.

\The resolution also advocates the introduction of an alert button or similar solutions for children to report accidental access to pornographic content, and envisages follow-up actions, such as warnings or penalties for relevant websites.

Utah's Westminster College is offering a porn class where students will watch pornographic films together. The College said the class allows students to analyze social issues . The class, is titled Film 300O Porn and the class information says that hardcore pornography is more popular than Sunday night American football. The description states:

Hard core pornography is as American as apple pie and more popular than Sunday night football. Our approach to this billion-dollar industry is as both a cultural phenomenon that reflects and reinforces sexual inequalities (but holds the potential to challenge sexual and gender norms) and as an art form that requires serious contemplation.

We will watch pornographic films together and discuss the sexualization of race, class, and gender and as an experimental, radical art form.

Edinburgh's moralist councillors have voted to ban lap dancing clubs. The city's regulatory committee voted to ban sexual entertainment clubs in the city from April next year by a majority of five to four.

Councillor Cameron Rose claimed that the Scottish government's policy of preventing violence against women and girls gave a national definition which included commercial sexual exploitation, defined as lap and pole-dancing as well as stripping.

Performers and managers from Edinburgh clubs gave evidence at the online meeting. Alexis, who has worked as a dancer for 15 years, said she was proud of her job and did not want to find another job because being a performer did not fit into the committee's moral values. (We are) educated women making educated decisions about what's best for our lives , she said.

United Voices of the World, a union representing exotic performers, said it would go to court in a bid to overturn the decision, and said it would request a judicial review.

Danielle Worden, legal case worker for the union, said:

The union is extremely disappointed that the council has chosen to disregard its legal obligations and the relevant evidence by adopting a policy that discriminates against women.

Not only does this violate the Equality Act 2010, it is an act of cruelty to remove the livelihoods of hundreds of workers as we enter the worst economic crisis since the 1970s.