On top of the Westminster ‘mass face-sit’ porn protest

On Friday, hundreds gathered to protest the recent amendments to the 2003 Communications Act banning sexual acts such as spanking, female ejaculation and face-sitting in UK online porn. The new regulations, which reflect the same rules governing the sale of DVDs in sex shops, were quietly put in place on December 2. But this didn't stop everyone from finding out. 

By the morning, over a thousand people had clicked attending on the Facebook event to protest via "mass face-sit" – though only a quarter of the amount actually turned up. Organisers intended to set a new Guinness World Record in the process, although the family book pretty quickly expressed their desire not to get involved.

"This affects all of us," organiser Charlotte Rose told Dazed. The former political activist, who won this year's Sex Worker of the Year award, began planning the protest when she first tweeted about the bans. "The government is taking our rights away without consent. We aren't even aware of what they are doing behind our backs until the laws are already in place."

Porn performers, BDSM fans, escorts and like-minded protesters alike flocked to Old Palace Yard in Westminster with banners and signs reading “Shame on you, we come too”, “Squirt doesn’t hurt” and “Urine for a shock if you expect us to stop!” 

Gimp masks, chains and fetish wear was, appropriately, the dress code of choice – but unusually for a London protest, there wasn’t a police officer in sight apart from the ones stationed outside Parliament as per usual. 

Before the planned mass face-sitting – although some couldn’t wait and kicked off swiftly on arrival – campaigners and protesters voiced differing opinions as to why they think the ban has been put in place.  

Before one protester gagged a friend with a ball gag, they told Dazed what they thought of the ban. "I think the law is absolutely horrendous," Sarah said. "I don’t know why they’ve chosen those particular acts. To me it seems just a way of controlling people."

Another protester, Karin, added: "It’s absolutely wrong to forbid people to do something which is not dangerous at all. I never saw anybody dying of facesitting."

"Patriarchy is alive and well," said porn performer Molly Malone. "Even the NHS website has plenty of useful information on ejaculate of both sorts that stipulates that it’s not urine." 

She added: "Every parent that’s been pissed on by their new born baby knows there’s very little that can go wrong. It’s subversive; it doesn’t support the hetero-normative matrix of dominant males with penises having sex with submissive females who own vaginas."

After an hour, Rose called for everyone to move to the front of the Houses of Parliament (and wave to any MPs looking on) for speeches made by campaigners. 

Anti-censorship CAAN campaigner Jane Fae warned of the heteronormativity that would saturate porn if the regulations stayed put. "It’s vanilla, normal, straight – it’s probably done in the dark," she argued. I expect it’s what Mr Cameron does."

Obscenity lawyer Myles Jackson took to the platform, preaching passionately on the civil rights fallout of the ban. "The implications for free speech and civil liberties are enormous,” he professed. “On top of that there is the fact that our sexual morality as a country, according to our establishment, is considered to be 15 or 20 years behind that of our general public. It is because of the people in the house behind you that we are here today."

"How on earth does anyone define aggressive whipping?" added Rose. "If I am whipping you with a smile on my face, do I look aggressive?" Then followed a rousing cheer of "What do we want!" "Facesitting!" "When do we want it?" "Now!" 

First to (officially) face-sit: a girl in a gimp mask who squatted on the face of another attendee decked out in strap-on gear. Only a few dozen ended up partaking in the fully-clothed assembly of simulateed cunnilingus as everybody sang Monty Python's "Sit On My Face"... Obviously. 

"Out of all the activities now banned, I wanted an activity that we could all participate in that would be most enjoyable to all," Charlotte told Dazed. "Despite female ejaculation being my favourite, we are also in public. Despite being porn lovers we still have decorum for public events so the facesitting will be clothed."

Not every member of the establishment is for censorship. Julian Huppert, the Lib Dem MP for Cambridge, has put forth a motion to re-debate the case (not that there was any debate in the first place).

“We shouldn’t just start imposing moral standards on what is viewable,” he told us. “There is a lot about this which doesn’t reflect a lot of rational decision making. What we shouldn’t do is censor other things just because polite society doesn’t like them.”

Hopefully Cameron and his cronies heard the Monty Python rendition, or the cold bums and crotches of Friday will have gone to waste – our porn-watching freedom will remain severely curtailed.