Three categories of ‘normalised’ porn are now banned in the UK
The UK’s new regulations around pornography have come into place, and three specific types have become illegal.
From Friday (6 November), porn depicting strangulation or suffocation, sex between people who are related or pretending to be related, or when somebody is pretending to be a child under 16, is now against the law.
It comes after the mounting pressure about the negative impact on women and girls led ministers to announce the new laws earlier this year.
Conservative peer Baroness Gabby Bertin made the recommendations in her review of pornography regulation, which was reported in 2025.
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When the ban was announced, Minister for Victims and Tackling Violence Against Women and Girls Alex Davies-Jones said: “This Government has a commitment to halve violence against women and girls in a decade. For many people, it is still easy to access harmful pornography online.
"From November 6, it will be illegal to possess or publish pornography showing strangulation or suffocation, sexual activity between certain relatives, or adults roleplaying as children under 16.”
She warned: “This isn’t about criminalising harmless sexual preferences. But porn can shape what people think a healthy relationship looks like, especially young people.
"Content that normalises, or even glorifies, violence against women is dangerous and can blur the line with what is acceptable in real life.”
And this has been reflected in the statistics, as a study by the Institute for Addressing Strangulation in 2024 found more than a third of 16 to 34-year-old adults had reported being strangled or choked at least once during consensual sex.
A survey by the same group last year also found that 43 per cent of 16 to 17-year-olds, who are sexually active, said they had been subjected to it.
Meanwhile, Lady Bertin’s report found that pornography of this kind can have ‘devastating’ real-world consequences, as well as highlighting ‘disturbing’ role-play, including incest and adults portraying children.
She outlined that in 2024, a worrying 4.1 billion videos viewed on Pornhub featured incest-related scenarios, as reported by Metro.
She also claimed that there had been a ‘total absence of government scrutiny’ of the pornography industry and that strangulation had ‘gone into the bloodstream’ of society and it should be ‘wiped out of the culture’.
Lady Bertin concluded: “It is very good news these offences will come into force, and not a moment too soon.
“This change in law alongside better enforcement and stronger regulation will send the unequivocal signal not only to the companies that host and facilitate porn but also to wider society that extreme and violent content that encourages real-life harm is not acceptable.”
From today, disobeying the ban, which is part of the Crime and Policing Act, is a criminal offence, with varying degrees of punishment.
As reported by The Independent, possessing or publishing porn that depicts strangulation or suffocation, or penetrative sex between relatives, will carry a penalty of up to two years’ imprisonment.
Additionally, the maximum sentence for possessing or publishing porn that depicts sexual activity involving a person who is, or is pretending to be, under 16 is three years’ imprisonment.
Topics: News, UK News, Crime, Sex and Relationships
Madison Burgess
