I have just sent the following letter to my MP (a Conservative - that is why the references to the Conservative Party are in there): 
I am writing to you today to ask you (a) whether you supported the recent introduction of a ban on violent or so-called "extreme" pornography, and (b) whether the Conservative party have any intention in defending the freedom of speech of pornographers?
The law was promoted by the efforts of the mother of Ms. Jane Longhurst, a woman who was murdered by someone who the courts have found to have been addicted to violent and hardcore pornography.
But it seems to defy common sense by making an idol of the pornography of which it seems to want to ban. According to Hansard, Frans van der Hulst, the owner of the Dutch website which Longhurst's killer used, rightly said: "I've read all the criticism but I'm doing nothing illegal. I don't feel responsible for what happened to Jane Longhurst. The only person responsible is Graham Coutts."
What Parliament have done is introduce yet another 'thought crime'. There are already numerous laws on the books which, if enforced, would lead to an equitable situation. If the pornography produced infringes on the legal rights of a person - eg. it contains images of young children who cannot give consent to sexual acts or it contains depictions of an actual act of violence against a person (so called rape porn or snuff movies), then it is perfectly right to push to have the producer of the pornography tried for the reality of his production, not the depiction. Much modern pornography contains depictions of woman dressed as schoolgirls. We prosecute the production if they are schoolgirls, not simply if they pretend to be. Reality is what matters, not fantasy - although that law is obviously not applicable in Westminster.
To ban pornography that contains consensual acts between adults, however extreme or distasteful the general moral appetite may find them, is an infringement on the moral rights to free speech and free conscience (I do not know whether it infringes the flimsy free speech rights in the European Convention - it certainly does infringe on any meaningful conception of freedom of speech).
I am writing to you to represent the views of the people who cannot speak because of the attitudes of modern society. I frequently write material for comedic websites, generally under pseudonyms, that makes fun of the various fetishists and slightly off-the-wall creeps that lurk around on the Internet. Their idea of sexual fun runs the gamut, from folks who enjoy wearing Disneyland-style animal costumes through to people with "humiliation" fetishes - even people who fantasise about being cooked and eaten by their partner. I find all of this stuff harmless, consensual fun. The people who do it are ordinary people - they work at ordinary jobs, attended ordinary schools and universities, watch ordinary television shows and drink ordinary tea. They may have extreme tastes in the bedroom, but they are not bad people. They may have odd kinks and off-the-wall fantasies, but mostly they remain just that - fantasies. When they become reality, the moral and legal sphere have every right to consider them, but just as the State doesn't demand lists of books that one has borrowed from the library, it shouldn't demand censure of the fantasies inside one's mind - or the pornographic constructions that represent those fantasies. We should have laws against acts and not ideas. Pornography and sex is a world of ideas, which is why it is such a rich source of humour - while the brutal reality of rape and abuse are very rarely, if ever, funny.
Mr. Coutts' has had his come-uppance. He has, presumably, been convicted of murder and gone to prison for it - I would hope that he does not come out for a very, very long time. But, this new law will not stop future Graham Coutts. If someone is in such a psychological state - whether induced by extreme pornography or not - that they would kill their girlfriend in a brutal sexual act, no laws against it are going to stop them. Instead, it's simply satiated a "moral panic" while ignoring the actual reality - that passing a law will not change anything except our liberties.
The United States under the current Bush administration's justice department, has already gone down the road of a supposedly moral censorship regime. Owners of adult websites - commercial and otherwise - are already facing federal government "shakedowns", and are having to implement impractical and expensive systems because of the redefinition of the word "amateur". Despite the fact that more and more soldiers are coming back in coffins or without limbs, it's the Internet fetishists that are the problem. You would think that the War on Terror - now the War on Moist Objects at Airports - may interest the FBI more than a few electronic fetishists, but apparently not.
It seems strangely acceptable in this 'postmodern' climate though, that even as soldiers in the Coalition in Iraq are killing innocent people and raping fourteen year old Iraqi girls, the mere "depiction" is seen as the problem and not the actual reality.
Why has the humble Opposition not made any noise of protest to the ideas behind Vernon Coaker's statement? "The vast majority of people find these forms of violent and extreme pornography deeply abhorrent". It does not matter whether 1% of 99% of people believe it to be abhorrent, that is not reason enough to take away the free speech rights of even the tiniest minority.
Since the Conservatives have been toying with the idea of switching to the image of a tree as their new party logo, perhaps both you and your fellow Opposition politicians may wish to think of the meaning behind Jefferson's words: "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."
The Internet has been, for the last decade and a half, the only tree of liberty left in an increasingly authoritarian world. Clean it of it's blood and gore and you clean it of it's liberty.
