Oh look it’s the big fat gay herring…

Oh dear, so it looks like the Criminal Justice Bill  has been passed after all then. This is the bill that inter alia criminalises the possession of “extreme pornography”. Which is defined as…

An act which threatens or appears to threaten a person’s life.

An act which results in or appears to result in serious injury to a person’s anus, breasts or genitals.

An act which involves or appears to involve sexual interference with a human corpse.

A person performing or appearing to perform an act of intercourse or oral sex with an animal.”

Now we could debate until the end of time the rights and wrongs of this, and quite frankly I’m not that interested in doing it because it just descends to pantomime level very quickly.  Basically it’s one of those arguments (like the trans wars) where both sides hold opposing views and are very unlikely to ever meet in the middle. So the ‘debate’ is completely pointless. And I think I’ve made it clear where I stand already.

No what I’m interested in is the tactics being used by some sections of the anti lobby to advance their arguments. Firstly Backlash - the main opposition (you can find them by putting Backlash into google) seem terribly keen to stress how much women oppose the bill, and have gone so far as to solicit stories from women who oppose the bill (though if you look at the site, there aren’t that many). And they have a spokeswoman called Deborah Hyde. We know nothing about Ms Hyde, we don’t even know if she’s actually a member of Backlash, because they don’t say. But you get the drift - men looking at pictures of women being tortured  and getting off on it is um - a bit icky. But women doing it - that’s all right then!

However this isn’t enough to get the trendy liberal folks’ sympathy is it - I mean it’s only women, and that’s sooooo unfashionable. So predictably what we get dragged out next is - it’s a gay rights issue.

All together now:

Oh no it isn’t!

Now mysteriously Backlash seem to have removed from their website their previous allegation that the Criminal Justice Bill will ’stigmatise gay men and lesbians’. Good, because it’s a bunch of crap. Though they are still claiming that ‘bedrooms will be bugged’. Really?

However over at The Burning Times I read this comment by an opponent of the bill.

” I would say the government is actually, for once, attempting to take seriously the death of a woman at the hands of a man, and the concerns of her grieving mother, and to do something to prevent similar deaths. [Debs' comment]

The police have already indicated that this is unlikely; instead, they’re talking about Operation Spanner again, and sending off every signal that they’re going to go after gay men rather than take away porn from heterosexuals.”

Really that’s fascinating isn’t it? How have the police indicated this exactly? Have they issued a public statement? Yes it’s the big fat gay herring!

“Operation Spanner” was a case in which a number of gay male sado masochists were charged with assault. The police were able to do this because - you might think stoopidly - the gay men filmed the activities going on so that there was evidence. The gay men claimed that because they had consented to the activities there was no assault.   The case went to court as R v Brown in which it was established that consent was not a defence to the infliction of any injury which was more than ‘transient and trifling’.

Now please note this does not apply just to sado masochistic sex. Nor does it only apply to gay men.  It applies to any situation where one person assaults another person which does not come under the category of lawful exceptions (such as surgery, licensed boxing, licensed tattoing and ear piercing etc). As I’ve indicated below, there are good reasons for not changing the law here. Mainly that if the law was changed it would make domestic violence cases almost impossible to prosecute. A defendant would be able to claim that the injuries were inflicted consensually as part of rough sex - think how hard it is to prove marital rape, if you want a comparison.

Hard cases make bad law. If this proves anything, it is that if you are committing an unlawful act it’s not a good idea to film yourself and provide evidence. The truth is that quite frankly, an assault committed consensually is unlikely to result in a prosecution because no one will complain.  Burglary is illegal - do you know anyone whose house has been burgled where the culprit has actually been caught?

But of course if you say ‘this affects gay people’ the sensitive liberal nerve starts twitching. Oh noes it’s homophobic! Well no it bleeding well isn’t. Let us consider what happens if  a gay man or lesbian is parked illegally and gets a parking ticket. Does this mean parking tickets are ‘homophobic’ FFS?. No - it’s the law stooopid! The Spanner defendants would have been just as guilty if they were heterosexual.

Similarly to claim that this law will affect gay men and lesbians disproportionately is just not true. That would only be the case if ALL gay men and lesbians practised BDSM. And last time I checked that wasn’t the case. As far as I know it’s no more than the percentage of heterosexual people who practise BDSM.  What is anti gay and lesbian, in my not so humble opinion as a lesbian, is to go round implying that because  I am a lesbian I automatically have common cause with the defendants in Operation Spanner. I can honestly say that in my entire life I have never nailed anyone’s penis to a board.

Now if the police are homophobic it is of course open to them to use ANY law unfairly by targeting gay men and lesbians. Just as it is open to them to use ANY law in a racist manner by targeting BME people. “Stop and search” being the classic example. The answer to this is to challenge homophobia and racism in the police force. Not to stop having laws.

But there is no evidence that police are going to use the new law to target gay men in any case as far as I can see. Indeed if ‘hundreds of thousands’ of people are going to be arrested as Deborah Hyde claims, they must surely arrest some straight people?

If a law is drafted that affects everybody, it will inevitably affect gay men and lesbians as part of the general population. Trying to claim that it will affect them disproportionately when there’s no evidence that it will to gain the sympathy of trendy liberals is homophobic in itself. Because it is (straight people mostly)  using the very real issues of homophobia in a misleading way for their own ends. Which is in itself likely to stigmatise gay men and lesbians further by presenting a misleading image of them to the general public. Well as a lesbian I need that as much as a big fat gay herring needs a bicycle.