Clair Lewis

Banning "Extreme Pornography" will Cause Deaths

Clair Lewis, a 35-year-old who describes herself as "single mother, disabled activist and romantic, loving sadist", explains how banning "extreme porn" will not save lives but instead lead to needless deaths.

I am 35, and considered a woman by society.

I have three children who are very well loved. We live in a flat on a council estate in Manchester.

I am a single parent.

I am a disabled person.

I am known as a disability rights activist both locally, nationally and to some extent internationally - fighting abuse is my trade.

I have penned articles that have been published both here and in other countries about human rights abuses and human Bioethics - in papers ranging from radical grassroots press, to Academic Journals in Australia, alongside leading academics in this field.

The Lords have heard from me before on issues relating to human rights: equality in embryology and most pertinently the Assisted Suicide Bill and matters relating to human genetics.

I have performed many times for paying audiences, playing music and also doing inclusive drawing.

I have been arrested and released without charge, having crawled under parliament gates to distract police from standing on a disabled colleague who could not get up anyway. We achieved our aim of the Incapacity Bill changes we wanted that day.

I have been in an abusive relationship and gained my independence and survived.

I firmly agree that images of nonconsensual activities which involve violence should be criminalised, preferably with a view to arresting those who commit violent crimes.

However, the new legislation, if it goes through unaltered, will recreate me as a criminal, because I view images of consenting acts that under the new bill might be seen as violent pornography.I also photograph the results of acts of loving sensation play, because the partners who enjoy them want to see.

I am in several relationships which include an element of loving sensation play, some of it severe enough to cause welcomed temporary damage. I have relationships with people who enjoy to be spanked or caned. Those people range from the ages 24 to 64. One of them is a single parent herself. One of them is a well-respected senior white collar worker. None of them have ever commited a crime in their life and have only ever done good in the world. All of them are sane, intelligent people who know what they enjoy in life and do nothing to influence anyone else's enjoyment of it.

I own canes, whips and other equipment, and I have never committted an act of non-consensual violence or sex, or any other related crime. The only crimes I have ever commited were in full view of attending police on non-violent demonstrations of protest and have never resulted in prosecution.

Under this new legislation, the souveniers of what for us are deeply loving acts of sensation play may well become illegal. Already, because I am an activist, I have stopped keeping such images.

More worrying by far is that, under this new legislation, the books, manuals, websites and photographs we dominants use as learning tools may be criminalised.

It is rare for serious accidents to occur amongst consenting adults who research what they are doing - and the government is taking away our ability to do that research. The demonisation of sadomasochism leads to people being too afraid to be part of our community and play safely. Most sadomasochism-related deaths are suffered by people who are engaging in unsafe activities on their own due to fear of stigma. It is very likely that the next largest group of accidents occurs to people who do not get the information they need to engage in sadomasochism as safely as possible.

To criminalise images of consensual sensation play and other BDSM with the idea that it will reduce abuse is absurd. What it *will* do is put people with sadomasochistic interests at greater risk, push more of them into hiding, and ultimately cause further shameful deaths. I for one am not looking forward to the photographic educational information that I rely on being suddenly restricted; still less am I looking forward to hearing of the next preventable death. But if these proposals are allowed to go through, it will be just a matter of time.

There is hardly an adult in this country who has not engaged in some form of kinky activity at some point, such as spanking or tying their partner up. There seems no logical reason to prevent the free flow of information to help keep this majority safe.

I urge everyone who can to write to their Lords and think up what else we can do to preserve freedom of information.

I urge the Lords to consider the safety of people who, regardess of whether the legislation goes through unaltered, will continue to enjoy sensation play anyway. If we restrict images of consensual acts, we immediately and drastically restrict the sources of information that novices can learn from.

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