UK moves to criminalise porn depicting choking, incest and child role-play
From 6 November, possession and publication of online pornography showing strangulation, suffocation, incestuous sexual activity or adults role-playing as children under 16 will become illegal in England and Wales. The change brings the law closer to the reality of what is already widely available on major porn sites, where depictions of choking have been described as common enough to shape expectations about sex, consent and danger.
The new offences carry serious penalties. Publishing the prohibited material online, including uploading or otherwise making it available, can lead to a maximum of five years in prison. Possession offences are narrower but still severe: keeping banned images on a phone, computer or in cloud storage can now bring criminal liability. For images showing strangulation, suffocation or penetrative sexual activity between certain relatives, possession can carry up to two years in prison. Material depicting sexual activity involving someone pretending to be under 16 can carry up to three years.
A short legal change, yes. A public health signal, too.
A review that found choking content had become normalised
The move follows a government-commissioned review into porn regulation that found depictions of choking were “rife” on popular porn sites and had helped normalise the act among young people. Baroness Gabby Bertin, who led the review, pointed to an account of a 14-year-old boy asking a teacher how to choke girls during sex, an example that captured why the issue moved from online moderation into criminal law.
Her warning was direct: people imitating such behaviour may face devastating consequences. The concern is not abstract. Choking and suffocation can cause loss of consciousness, brain injury and death, and the presence of such acts in sexual content can blur the boundary between consensual adult sexual activity and violence. In practice, what appears on a screen can travel quickly into the scripts adolescents and young adults use to understand intimacy, power and acceptable conduct.
Baroness Bertin said the law would send an unequivocal signal to companies that host and facilitate porn, and to wider society, that extreme and violent content encouraging real-life harm is not acceptable. She also argued that the new offence was designed to “marry up” the law online and offline, closing the gap that allowed illegal real-world conduct to remain visually accessible on digital platforms.
What the new offences cover online and in storage
The legislation reaches beyond explicit acts of strangulation alone. It also covers sexual activity between people related by blood, as well as pornographic content involving adults role-playing as children under 16. The definition extends to step- and foster-relations when one person is pretending to be under 18, reflecting a legislative attempt to capture content that can sexualise minors or simulate child abuse even when no real child is involved.
Possession in this context is defined broadly. An image saved on a device, retained in cloud storage or otherwise stored for later access can still count. That scope matters because the circulation of extreme content often happens through saved clips, private folders and reposted files rather than public-facing websites alone. Criminalisation here is not limited to the original uploader; it reaches anyone who keeps the material after the law takes effect.
Justice minister Alex Davies-Jones framed the policy as a response to the way porn can shape ideas of a healthy relationship, especially for young people. Content that normalises or glorifies violence against women can blur the line with what is acceptable in real life, she said. Her language reflects a growing policy consensus: repeated exposure to violent sexual scripts can alter social expectations long before any formal legal or educational intervention takes hold.
Consent, coercion and the risk of imitation
The central health and safeguarding issue is consent. Non-fatal strangulation is already an offence when a person does not consent, but the depiction of it online had remained outside the criminal law until now. That gap allowed a dangerous contradiction to persist: the act itself was unlawful in real life, while graphic portrayals of it circulated in sexual content consumed by large audiences.
Baroness Bertin said porn showing strangulation had “absolutely” normalised this kind of sexual violence. She said the law change should begin to reverse that trend. Her comments reflect a broader concern about imitation, particularly when younger audiences encounter material that frames violence as ordinary, desirable or expected during sex. In a clinical sense, the danger lies not only in the immediate risk of injury but also in the social learning that can shape future behaviour.
This is where platform responsibility becomes central. A criminal statute can define the boundary, but it does not automatically remove material from circulation. If hosting services, moderators and regulators do not respond quickly, the same clips can continue to spread through reposting, mirrors and private sharing. Clare McGlynn, a law professor at Durham University, welcomed the laws taking full effect but questioned how swiftly tech companies and regulators would act to remove and prevent further dissemination.
Enforcement will test whether the law reaches beyond symbolism
McGlynn called the commencement of the laws a potential turning point and a line in the sand against the normalisation of sexually violent content in pornography. She stressed that the goal is not to prosecute individuals in large numbers, but to transform the online pornographic environment. That distinction matters for enforcement strategy: the law aims to change the behaviour of platforms and reshape what users can easily access, not simply to build a new volume of prosecutions.
The practical challenge is straightforward and difficult at the same time. If criminal offences are now on the books, regulators must decide how fast to pursue compliance, how aggressively to target repeat violators and how to treat material that is reuploaded under slightly altered labels. The question is whether the law can do more than punish after the fact. In online pornography, the real test is removal speed, platform accountability and whether violent sexual content becomes harder to find, harder to share and harder to normalise.
Davies-Jones put the warning bluntly: if people have the material, delete it; if they are sharing it, stop. After 6 November, she said, it becomes criminal. The next phase will reveal whether the new offences alter what is posted, what is kept and what young people encounter when porn is used as an informal guide to sex.