![This image was submitted by Jason C. Woodson, who’s also its creator. The artwork is part of a series called Bound (You Felons On Trial). I’ll leave analysis of the image itself in Jason’s words alone:
Bound (You Felons On Trial) was created in response to the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008, a bill introduced [in Britain] to ban extreme forms of pornography. In an article published on the Index for Censorship website, lawyer John Lovatt advised that There are many books it would be safer to mutilate—or destroy altogether.
The idea of consenting adults burning books in their backyards to avoid an intrusive State was alarming to me. As a gay artist whose work is often sexual in nature and could be seen by some as of an obscene character as described under Section 63 of the Act, I was reminded of a poem by Walt Whitman. Entitled You Felons on Trial, it asks, Who am I too that I am not on trial or in prison?
Many classes of people, such as the BDSM community, will be affected by this legislation. That’s why I chose to photograph a male nude in a BDSM act. The images are defaced but hidden inside them run lines from Whitman’s work, ending with the last line of the poem: And henceforth I will not deny them—for how can I deny myself?
I’ve discussed §63 before. At best misguided and at worst malicious, the law criminalizes possession of sexual depictions the State finds objectionable. It is not hyperbole to explain that under this legislation, you are subject to pain of criminal prosecution even if someone else sends you the objectionable material.
Laws like this, frequently lobbied for by pro-censorship groups euphemistically calling themselves anti-pornography feminists (or, more frighteningly, anti-trafficking), are a clear and present danger to the citizenry—to you. They represent a (barely) pseudo-fascist moralism borne of the same virulent disease as rampant nationalism or religious doctrine, and corrupt the humanity of government with a two-faced appeal to an individual’s most humane ability: empathy. A form of security theater, it takes advantage of a demanding and ignorant public by using the lowest common denominator of reason and behavior to craft law and policy—but the lowest common denominator does not make for sound law.
Sexuality is a frequent scapegoat in attempts to justify power-grabbing laws, and you need to be concerned about that regardless of your sexuality or place of residence. Australia has recently seen the creation of a literal secret government Internet blacklist whose scope, according to the Sydney Morning Herald, “had been rapidly expanded from child porn to other material including political discussions.” Since it’s all on one list, I guess the Australian government considers child pornography and political discussion to be the same thing.
Americans enjoy precious First Amendment protection, but the anti-porn pseudo-fascist moralists are batting for the same pro-censorship team as the RIAA, who have recently introduced the Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act (COICA). A copy-cat law, COICA would mandate government-decreed Internet censorship of any site found to be infringing record and movie industry copyrights. Since copyright infringement is a relatively unpopular cause, mark my words: child porn will be a future excuse.
-maymay](https://web.archive.org/web/20101218133054im_/http://29.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lcmzjr5eqv1qzs83zo1_r10_500.jpg)
This image was submitted by Jason C. Woodson, who’s also its creator. The artwork is part of a series called Bound (You Felons On Trial). I’ll leave analysis of the image itself in Jason’s words alone:
Bound (You Felons On Trial) was created in response to the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008, a bill introduced [in Britain] to ban extreme forms of pornography. In an article published on the Index for Censorship website, lawyer John Lovatt advised that
There are many books it would be safer to mutilate—or destroy altogether.The idea of consenting adults burning books in their backyards to avoid an intrusive State was alarming to me. As a gay artist whose work is often sexual in nature and could be seen by some as of an obscene character as described under Section 63 of the Act, I was reminded of a poem by Walt Whitman. Entitled You Felons on Trial, it asks,
Who am I too that I am not on trial or in prison?Many classes of people, such as the BDSM community, will be affected by this legislation. That’s why I chose to photograph a male nude in a BDSM act. The images are defaced but hidden inside them run lines from Whitman’s work, ending with the last line of the poem:
And henceforth I will not deny them—for how can I deny myself?
I’ve discussed §63 before. At best misguided and at worst malicious, the law criminalizes possession of sexual depictions the State finds objectionable. It is not hyperbole to explain that under this legislation, you are subject to pain of criminal prosecution even if someone else sends you the objectionable material.
Laws like this, frequently lobbied for by pro-censorship groups euphemistically calling themselves anti-pornography feminists (or, more frighteningly, anti-trafficking), are a clear and present danger to the citizenry—to you. They represent a (barely) pseudo-fascist moralism borne of the same virulent disease as rampant nationalism or religious doctrine, and corrupt the humanity of government with a two-faced appeal to an individual’s most humane ability: empathy. A form of security theater, it takes advantage of a demanding and ignorant public by using the lowest common denominator of reason and behavior to craft law and policy—but the lowest common denominator does not make for sound law.
Sexuality is a frequent scapegoat in attempts to justify power-grabbing laws, and you need to be concerned about that regardless of your sexuality or place of residence. Australia has recently seen the creation of a literal secret government Internet blacklist whose scope, according to the Sydney Morning Herald, “had been rapidly expanded from child porn to other material including political discussions.” Since it’s all on one list, I guess the Australian government considers child pornography and political discussion to be the same thing.
Americans enjoy precious First Amendment protection, but the anti-porn pseudo-fascist moralists are batting for the same pro-censorship team as the RIAA, who have recently introduced the Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act (COICA). A copy-cat law, COICA would mandate government-decreed Internet censorship of any site found to be infringing record and movie industry copyrights. Since copyright infringement is a relatively unpopular cause, mark my words: child porn will be a future excuse.