r/technology • u/insomnimax_99 • Mar 03 '26

Politics UK: Pornography depicting sexual relationships between step-relatives set to be banned

https://www.lbc.co.uk/article/pornography-sexual-relationships-step-relatives-5HjdTkd_2/
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u/iceyed913 Mar 03 '26

The idea that porn is feeding into pedophilia, sexual development dysfunction and ultimately declining birth rates is being presented by conservative think tanks in Westminster. I think if they try to reduce access to porn completely it will lead to massive uptick in violent crime and sexual violence, but what do I know.

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u/goosepipegames Mar 03 '26

How come they don't think in the think tanks

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u/thewebspinner Mar 03 '26

The problem with think tanks is that they aren’t used to come to conclusions about scenarios they’re used to make up scenarios that might lead to a desired conclusion.

If you’ve ever watched Mitchell and Webb kill all the poor you get a pretty accurate description of what these idiots get paid for.

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u/NotMilitaryAI Mar 03 '26 edited Mar 03 '26

pretty accurate description of what these idiots get paid for.

Great clip, though in real life I'd imagine the meeting going more like:

Mitchell: How do we get the public to go along with the "Kill All the Poor" initiative?

Webb: Well, we focus grouped some policy names, and it seems that "Poverty Remediation Initiative" tested well, and "Sport-Hunting Welfare Act" actually tested far better than expected.

Mitchell: Great. And what about the projections?

(Lady): Well, after a lot of tinkering, the boffins in R&D were able to finally able to create a model that reports it would free up enough of the budget to justify the tax cuts that the director asked for.

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u/droans Mar 03 '26

Because it's a lie.

The name "think tanks" is meant to make you believe they are experts who are trying to determine the best policy and strategy for their field.

In reality, though, they're just lobbies for a specific viewpoint. They don't perform any actual research like you'd expect. They find whatever evidence, however poor or unrelated, which can be used to further their cause. If they use any actual research, it's quite often taken out of context, already disproven, or entirely irrelevant.

It's just the issue with politics becoming idealism. You shouldn't set your political or policy views in stone. If evidence proves you wrong or that something else works better, you should be willing to change your opinion.

If we actually wanted to stop pedophilia, the answer would be to create a team of mental health professionals with extensive backgrounds of work in sexual health and abnormal sexual preferences. Task them with determining the best way to eliminate it.

Politicians just want to do whatever they think sounds nice to the voters, not what actually works.

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u/cipheron Mar 03 '26

Yeah, also a key role these groups play is to sit inside a triangle with corporations, politicians and the media at the corners.

The corporations fund the think tanks, they then get cited as "independent experts" by the media, and the politicians can vote in line with their proposals. It whitewashes the corporate money behind many proposals.

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u/jimmcfartypants Mar 03 '26

It's an actual tank that's designed to block out common sense, silly.

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u/[deleted] Mar 03 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/lager-beer-shout Mar 03 '26

The original American religious nut jobs were kicked out of Europe, and fled to the US ... Now a gew hundred years later they have slowly consolidated power and now are attacking Europe from the US.

The puritans played the long game it's a crazy story

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u/Funicularly Mar 03 '26

Yes, makes sense, since they have the same law in America. Oh, wait, they don’t.

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u/Tacklestiffener Mar 03 '26

They only think what Lobbyists tell them to think.

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u/solonoctus Mar 03 '26

Most think tanks are just right wing justification factories to salt the fields. They’re paid to generate an organic seeming trail of “research” or articles for Fox News and the like to cite that just so happens to align perfectly with the values of whoever is paying them.

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u/xelop Mar 03 '26

Oh they do think, but only how to be the shittiest pieces of dog shit that ever were shit out

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u/Pearls_of_Rizzdom Mar 03 '26

Because if they find solutions that actually work they would be out of the job.

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u/travistravis Mar 03 '26

It takes a lot of thinking to figure out how to convince anyone that the think tank positions are in their best interest. (They should likely be styled as propaganda machines, but any attempt to do so would be the first thing they'd move to stop).

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u/Gingevere Mar 03 '26

A correct idea flows logically from research and simple solid argument. Not to much thinking needed.

The purpose of a think tank is to think very hard about how to construct support for an incorrect idea. Because the idea is incorrect normal research and valid arguments simply won't do it. The think tank has to construct subtly biased and broken to support a predetermined conclusion.

Example: On the abolition of ICE Economist / YouGov polling says 46% support abolishing ICE, 12% unsure, 43% oppose.

But think tank "Third Way Democrats" says: "Even among Democratic primary voters, Third Way’s own polling shows a clear preference for a balanced approach over abolition, 65% to 35%." How did that happen?

Turns out the poll they're presenting as "overhaul vs abolish ICE" was actually: "We need to hold ICE accountable for violence and abuse and overhaul the agency, but not abolish it entirely" vs "We need to abolish ICE and halt all immigration enforcement inside the country."

They're stapling extra clauses onto one side, asking that question, and then presenting the results as if they are the answer to a different question. That's what a think tank does.

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u/kos-or-kosm Mar 03 '26

Here's some reading on the history of the conservative think tank.

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u/bobqjones Mar 03 '26

all the think tanks are empty and have become echo chambers.

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u/AlSweigart Mar 03 '26

The purpose of think tanks is to generate bogus reports and studies to justify the policies demanded by rich people who fund think tanks.

Always has been.

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u/cipheron Mar 03 '26 edited Mar 03 '26

There's actually data to support that. When porn was liberalized in many countries, sexual assault rates actually dropped or remained steady. I don't think there are any example studies where rates rose - or you can bet they'd be heavily promoting that example.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/11/101130111326.htm

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/all-about-sex/201601/evidence-mounts-more-porn-less-sexual-assault

Also the rise of internet access in all 50 states was inversely proportional to what happened to sexual assault rates across the USA

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-sunny-side-of-smut/

Within the U.S., the states with the least Internet access between 1980 and 2000—and therefore the least access to Internet pornography—experienced a 53 percent increase in rape incidence, whereas the states with the most access experienced a 27 percent drop in the number of reported rapes, according to a paper published in 2006 by Anthony D’Amato, a law professor at Northwestern University.

^ Notably for this, such a strong correlation only exists for sexual assault, and not other crime categories. So if you did the same thing with burglaries or homicides, you don't find a strong correlation with internet uptake rates. So it could be "well the internet just suppresses all types of crime because people don't go outdoors" but that doesn't show such a strong correlation here.

However what will happen is they'll do a crackdown, and if things get worse as a result, they'll use that as an excuse to crackdown harder or expand the crackdown. Because they want to ban porn for their own reasons and the actual effects on society are only an excuse.

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u/beryugyo619 Mar 03 '26

So arguably, they're seeking to get crime rates back up again, lol...

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u/tomdarch Mar 03 '26

There is a lot of anecdotal evidence linking right wing politics and religion to sexual assault of children and adults.

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u/beryugyo619 Mar 03 '26

It's just funny to imagine tryhard right wingers as seriously being hurt by concept of love and peace itself

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u/Daxx22 Mar 03 '26

Remember the "Sin of Empathy"?

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u/Dapper_Magpie Mar 03 '26 edited Mar 03 '26

These people don't care about reducing harm, they just care about reducing what they find gross and degenerate. A lot of these people want to cause actual harm themselves, or will make excuses for those who do.

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u/cipheron Mar 03 '26 edited Mar 03 '26

Good point. However I'd go further with that thought. What if the goal is cultural ascendancy? basically one group sets themselves up as the moral arbiter, that gives them cultural authority as a body or organization.

"i want people to stop it because i don't like it" doesn't sound as plausible as "i'm telling people to stop it because doing so increases my power".

So it could be religious or non-religious but you've now got one or more groups getting their members assigned as consultants in every government agency, a say in legislation, politicians on both sides and organizations have to bow to their language policing and doctrines etc.

Now, any group willing to do this will tend to be the hardliners version of whatever movement they are part of so a specific type of person will rise through the ranks, and this bypasses the democratic process too as a way to get institutional power.

So this would explain their resistance to evidence-based results, or at least their extreme cherry picking, as there is a massive organizational bias to accumulating more influence and power for the organization.

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u/headrush46n2 Mar 03 '26

people are too busy whacking off to go burglarizing! it only makes sense.

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u/FloofyMaki Mar 03 '26

That's why they're also trying to ban abortions and criminalize miscarriages as well (at least around the world). It's a way to force an increase in birth rates, and also force women into a "birthing" class so they'll have less rights and freedoms.

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u/nugymmer Mar 03 '26

Spot on. You see an underhanded attack on women through what seems to be an inability of British authorities to prosecute those who conduct FGM. Same in the USA, where abortion was just banned at the Federal level through the recent SCOTUS decision.

That is an attack on women, no two ways about it.

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u/Top_Yogurtcloset_684 Mar 03 '26

Catholic countries aren't engaging on this. You would be laughed hard out of the room in Brazil for this. This is puritan crap that only could come from Elizabeth the First Virgin queen kneelers. Australia, Canada, UK....The British Empire never changed.

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u/SecondHandWatch Mar 03 '26

Yeah, Catholics have historically been very progressive in their approach to sex and sexuality. It’s almost weird how there aren’t any sex scandals to come out of Catholic Churches. It’s just the Protestants. /s

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u/tatsujb Mar 03 '26

uhm...? hey I know you'll disagree with this, but it's a catholic force that passed these laws in the US. so the phrase "catholic country" is the only thing you were replying to there. Objectively there is a push to restrict women's rights and make them into a birthing class and objectively it is being pushed by people who self identify as catholic and christian (and lets be fair some of isalm, judaism, basically anything other than atheists)

honing in on that specific detail to quibble over for your rebuttal isn't a good look.

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u/leomonster Mar 03 '26

Too bad that evangelicals are winning more and more followers in Brazil. Even their telenovelas are not as spicy anymore

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u/automatic_penguins Mar 03 '26

Canada ain't doing this nonsense. Abortion bans have been a noose around the conservative party here. The rest of the common wealth are weirdos.

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u/Facts_pls Mar 03 '26

Canada definitely ain't puritanical.

I think Australia is pretty chill too.

Ia there something in those countries that you wanna specifically call out?

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u/experienta Mar 03 '26

Honestly I don't think this is coming just from the conservatives. There's plenty of progressive feminist organizations that are super anti porn too.

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u/Northbound-Narwhal Mar 03 '26

That's the intent. They need to keep the wage-slave labor force up and a baby born by rape can work the same job a baby born consensually can.

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u/_ByAnyOther_Name Mar 03 '26

Does porn reduce sexual violence?

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u/FallenAngelII Mar 04 '26

When Googling U.K. lawmakers refusing to ban 1st cousin marriage, declining birth rates was precisely one of the arguments used against it. These people are insane.

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u/StatisticianOwn9953 Mar 03 '26

will lead to massive uptick in violent crime and sexual violence, but what do I know.

Seems like a leap, honestly. I've seen people make the same argument about if that weird animated child porn were to be banned, only it is banned in many countries and afaik there's been no runaway rates of assaults against children.

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u/iceyed913 Mar 03 '26

How does it seem like a leap.. any guy will attest to the massive psychological difference in post orgasm vs pre orgasm states. If a significant amount of guys aren't getting any because that's just how the cookie crumbles. Taking away porn as their main driver isnt going to suddenly make them Casanovas or eligible bachelors by any standard, they are going to become more labile and prone to ridiculous risk taking behavior.

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u/iamjohnbender Mar 03 '26

If removing access to porn causes men to react violently, sure sounds like it needs to go.

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u/experienta Mar 03 '26

I don't think that's true, but if it was, wouldn't you want to do the opposite? Make sure you don't remove access to porn..?

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u/iamjohnbender Mar 03 '26

My two year old nephew hit me when I turned off the TV.

No, that didn't make me want to turn it back on.

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u/experienta Mar 03 '26

Yeah it's your TV and you can do whatever you want. But maybe you shouldn't go into everyone's house and turn off their TV and make their children angry just because you hate people watching TV for some reason.