Will TVX go hardcore?

[Jimbo]

Now that UK censor laws have become somewhat relaxed, what are the chances of TVX and other uk porno channels going hardcore?

[Ned]

ZERO! The only reason video porn has become legal is because it's restricted to licensed sex shops, and then only after a court case where a judge showed sense!

You've more chance of William Hague growing hair than getting legal hardcore through a UK based satellite channel. That's not to say TVX et al won't push the envelope as much as they dare though.......

[Callipygea]

Give it time. I remember when Penthouse published the first picture showing pubic hair, from the side! A lot has happened since then, and it is very difficult to turn the clock back. Prosecuting porn-pushers no longer attracts much attention from the press, and it costs a lot to do. Choices have to be made with limited funds available, and, faced with the choice between reducing muggings and burglaries, and keeping smut at bay, the politicians will eventually plump for the former. (He says confidently.)

[Otis]

Thing is, you'll have to wait. The R18 thing was just the result of 30 years in which Britain and Ireland were the only non-theocratic First World countries that banned hardcore etc., and eventually it just got too absurd and the dam broke.

The big problem for politicians is that they tell the public one thing to make life easier for themselves (eg - porn is evil and we have to lock these bastards away/porn has something other than a name in common with child porn/snuff films are everywhere), then they find they've painted themselves into a corner. I'm sure that most people in the Home Office would love to be able to legalize hardcore in all its forms (whatever the arguments about "protecting children", I don't believe for instance that any Ministers would be shitting it for their own kids' safety just because it was legal to sign up to receive an encrypted broadcast of uncut "Fuck Truck" - everyone I know watched a porn film by the time they were 15 and the only effect it had on us was to make us wank even more than we did already). It'd make everything simpler for them - less precious money spunked on useless police activity, none of the admin headaches of prohibition. But they can't, cos British politicians have spent 30 years feeding us lies about porn, so if they change their tune now, all the dumb fucks who believed it will stop voting for them.

It's true - it wasn't Jack Straw who legalized hardcore, it was done in the courts: a few guys with the right lawyers chose to call the establishment's bluff on porn, and a sympathetic judge set the precedent (IIRC, Ann Widdecombe immediately stood up in the commons and laid into the government for letting it go through, saying "it could have been sex videos like this that led to the Jamie Bulger case"). Jack Straw went fucking mental, cos it was done behind his back. It's too late to change the law back now, cos that would make Britain look so stupid to every other country in the world it's not worth it, and besides, they no longer have a reason to ban porn - the streets of Britain arent suddenly full of mad rapists, so what's the excuse? Significantly, even the tories aren't making a fuss over R18 in the run-up to the election, so I guess they're hoping nobody noticed (like when they legalized hetero anal sex).

But because the R18 law went through against their will, the government would fight like dogs to stop any law deregulating uk satellite broadcasting. Our only hope is if European satellite porn firms win a retriction of trade case in the Euro courts and Britain's forced to legalise RDV, Red Hot Dutch, whatever, on a technicality. That would open the floodgates for TVX and TAC. But don't hold your breath. Even the US, home of "Rough Sex" and Max Hardcore only has softcore porn on cable.

[Matt]

TVX alread produces a lot of stuff in hardcore, it's just you don't see it. The same with TAC. Thing is, what do you really want?

A woman in a short skirt and revealing top is often far sexier to me then a naked girl, cos there's that suspense - that bit you don't see. If it's done right, 'softcore' (ie non penetration shots) can be far hornier then films in which you see every last graphic detail. The point I'm ssubmitting is that it isn't the frame by frame of the programme or film that gets us going, it's the way in which it's brought to us. I know of several of my favourite scenes and shows that have been broadcast on adult channels over the years that have been esciting simply because you now stuff is happening, though you can't see it. It adds something.

Now while a lot of stuff wuold benefit from the odd h/c shot, I'd suggest to you that as long as TVX and the like continue their "hidden hardcore" policy, they wont be going far wrong.

Ask yourself why FHM and Loaded are such popular mags when guys can just as easily go and buy Men Only or any of the top shelf publications. Yes, some actually do, but FHM remains popular. Why? Because of the tease factor. And that is something commonly overlooked in the whole h/c vs s/c debate as far as I can see.

[Ian P]

Russell Gay always insisted that Fiesta was the first UK men?s mag to publish pictures of pubic hair ? in 1969/70. Of course I can neither confirm nor deny this since, although I worked for him sometime around this time, I was rather fond of bustable combustibles and might have been looking at my own crotch at the time )

[Autolycus]

The answer is no as long as Richard Desmond owns the station. I worked there for two years and it was suggested as long ago as 96 that we should go hardcore but it was nixed by the lawyer Barbara Thomas.

Now that Desmond has bought the Express he has said that he wants to divest himself of his porn titles but NOT TVX which makes him money. Can't really see a newspaper baron owning a TV station that has hardcore material on it, can you?