Photo: Richard Gray
Savages' frontwoman Jenny Beth has written a lengthy and passion blog post against the UK government's new restrictions on porn - arguing that 'face-sitting and female ejaculation are the only female empowering acts' in pornography.
New regulations brought in seek to ban a range of acts from pornography made in the UK - including spanking, fisting, strangulation and urolagnia (peeing on someone) and anything that could be viewed as 'life threatening'.
Many are opposed to the news, culminating in a 'face-sitting' protest outside Parliament. Now, Jenny Beth has now spoken out against the new regulations on her Tumblr blog - arguing that the restrictions show clear and unfair inequality towards women. Read her statement in full below:
"Last week, UK government banned female ejaculation from pornographic movies, amongst a list of sexual acts the members of the cabinet deemed ‘life threatening’ or dangerous: Spanking… Caning… Aggressive whipping… Penetration by any object ‘associated with violence’… Physical or verbal abuse (regardless of if consensual)… Urolagnia… Female ejaculation… Strangulation… Facesitting… Fisting…"
"I felt personally offended when I heard the news. Why Female ejaculation? Why face-sitting? These are the two (if not the only) most female empowering acts you can encounter in porn movies. Female ejaculation is the only visual representation of women’s pleasure in movies. If female ejaculation is banned, why male ejaculation is still allowed? What is the difference?
"I am not raising the issue in total blind defence of pornography. For a start there isn’t just ONE pornography, there are many, and I don’t like all pornography. These laws, however, are not taking into account such differences. They wipe out an entire community of men and women who are working towards a genre of pornography that is more creative and more female orientated.
"I am not a pornography expert either, I talk from the perspective of a consumer ‘with a certain knowledge and curiosity about pornography’. There is an entire history of pornography I am not totally aware of, but I know a few things, I read about Vanessa Del Rio, Deep Throat, Sasha Grey, I know James Deen, Ovidie, Dana DeArmond, I wrote a song about Bella Dona and met her in LA… I am curious about the actors, male and female, I appreciate their sense of humour, their bravery, for most of them."
"But when an institution, being governmental or religious, starts to regulate sexual practices, or sexual fantasies, we know we have a problem in our society. Same when the Pope says it’s not okay to have sex with condoms, or to get married when you are gay. Members of the cabinet choosing sexist arbitrary rules to regulate the contempt of pornographic movies, it makes absolutely no sense to me. Even though spanking and face-sitting are not banned from our private lives - you won’t be arrested for sitting on your man’s face at home - the ban on porn movies sends a clear puritan message..
"And that’s it, I had enough of hearing a bunch of old pricks deciding for everyone what is right or what is wrong. The ban on female ejaculation is absolutely sexist, but it doesn’t concern women only. I don’t want any men, young or old, to think for one second that it is wrong, weird or shameful to ejaculate when you are a woman. I know porn isn't exactly concerned with sexual education, but we cannot deny the impact it has on our sexual lives. If we are not allowed to show the female orgasm on screen, we are taking one step back away from gender equality and sexual emancipation.
"Desire is a slippery thing, we have to try many things before we find what we like, and we’re not always gonna do the right thing. There’s not one single way forward, but only us can tell what is right and what is wrong for ourself."
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