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on and off maybe does not set a precedent but if they managed to carry on for a while. Ofcon can be over ruled by the courts and that is where setting a precedent COULD help, as it wont be ofcon who decide to change it will be the courts that will make the difference. As for no other channel following their lead I think babestar went down the same sort of road. Yes ofcon fines them but without channels pushing it it will never be reviewed. The public need to be behind the channels though because ultimately the "public" is who ofcon are "protecting" we have to show that we want and are not going to be "depraved and corrupted" by naked girlies.

But R18 equivalent isn't illegal to broadcast, ofcon admit this. The only reason they prohibit broadcast is because they feel that current protection syestems are not good enough to protect harm to children. Your PIN number for your credit card, the one that Visa and Mastercard accept as good enough to protect against fraud, isn't good enough to protect six year old Little Johhny at 23:00 when he is tucked up in bed, from seeing porn!!!!

Now let's throw something else into the mix. After the watershed 18 rated material may be broadcast without encryption. So 'Taxi Zum Clo' with it's pissing (and would be cut at R18) and 'Dirty Pictures' with it's gay anal fisting (again cut at R18) would be perfectly legitimate to broadcast. Can ofcon seriously let us believe that the sex scenes in 9 Songs, Baise Moi, Intimacy, Rommance etc. when taken out of context, would not be seen at anything but hardcore porn? And yet they are 18 rated by the BBFC. Children simply do not have the ability to appreciate the context in which such scenes are presented and justified outside R18, thus to any child (or adult) this is R18 equivalent hardcore material.

If such hardcore scenes can `deprave and corrupt` our youth then ofcon were:

a) wrong in their decision to allow these to be shown, or
b) just wanted to maintain rights abuse of adult TV viewers, or
c) wanted to cripple adult TV services in the UK

The relevant European law is that nothing should be broadcast that adversely affects the moral development of minors. The protection of minors having been accomplished (by the same kind of steps as ofcon) there is (other than the obscenity laws) no restriction upon what consenting and informed adults elect to watch.

The BBFC is quite happy, apparently, to trust adults to purchase R18 DVDs and to take responsibility for keeping their contents away from the eyes of children. This is despite the fact that these are unencrypted and can be inserted into playback machines at any time of the day or night.

So why do ofcon insist that UK broadcasters, who can only accept orders from adults possessing those credit cards only issued to the over-18s, and have to confine their broadcasts to the hours after 22.00, and who encrypt their services which can only be unlocked by inserting a special PIN number, are limited to only showing the tamer class of content?

Is it me or is there something seriously fucking wrong here? British Case Law says that R18 hardcore porn is categorically not obscene, it does not possess the power to corrupt and deprave minors, it is not going to damage Little Johnny. R18 poses no serious threat to the under 18s, therefore the they need no unnecessary protection from it.

So no the public don't need to get behind the channels, the public needs to tell ofcon that they are a bunch of moronic cunts!!

Well said.