Author: Nick
Backlash submits written evidence to Home Affairs Committee Inquiry on Prostitution
Backlash has submitted expert evidence as part of a wide-ranging evidence base to the Home Affairs select committee’s inquiry into prostitution. Here is an excerpt: Our position is that criminal sanctions relating to consenting adult sexual activity should be lifted. This includes sexual activities that take place as part of a …read more →
Chris Ashford on the popper ban in the Guardian
The forthcoming ban on so-called ‘legal highs’ and its impact on minority communities seems to be passing almost without notice, and only ceremonial opposition in Parliament. Chris Ashford offers an important corrective in the Guardian. He explains how merely sharing amongst friends and partners a drug that poses no harm to the vast majority of users could see …read more →
Frankie Mullin on sex work and gentrification – 30th January
Frankie Mullin is one of the most informed and prolific journalists writing about sexuality in the UK today. In her work for Vice, the Independent, and the Guardian, she has challenged media myths around porn addiction and casual sex, and given a voice to sex workers and victims of sexual …read more →
Protest Outside Parliament
Myles Jackman, Backlash legal adviser will speak at tomorrow’s protest against sex censorship: It’s a whole year since the London face-sitting porn protest, organised by sex worker activist Charlotte Rose, made global news. The protest was held in response to a new law, AVMS 2014, which heavily restricted which porn …read more →
Millian Liberalism and Extreme Pornography
My article, just published online by the American Journal of Political Science, argues that the ‘extreme pornography’ ban violates liberal tenets of free expression and privacy. I draw a parallel between what we might call a ‘traditional’ Millian defence of liberal rights and contemporary queer accounts of the value of …read more →
THE MORAL PANIC ART CLUB @ LADA, Hackney Wick from 3 Nov
A THREE PART WORKSHOP ON MORAL PANICS, CENSORSHIP AND THE CULTURAL VALUE OF PORN Presented and facilitated by Itziar Bilbao Urrutia, visual artist, pornographer and adult content producer and activist for Backlash UK: I have the pleasure to invite you to my forthcoming talks The Moral panic Art Club, at …read more →
Origin Story – How Myles Jackman became Obscenity Lawyer
Edward Docx has written a significant account of Myles Jackman’s life and career for the Guardian newspaper. Myles Jackman is a pro bono legal adviser to Backlash. Docx’s story includes an account of the Simon Walsh trial. Walsh’s acquittal represented a powerful challenge to the extreme pornography ban and the …read more →
Myles Jackman: Don’t criminalise the selfie-generation
Cross-posted from Myles Jackman By criminalising young people between the ages of sixteen and eighteen, our political and justice systems show how disconnected they are from technological change and social values, which is especially worrying so close to an election where politicians have been exploiting selfie culture. After an NSPCC …read more →
Guardian: Sexting could see teenagers branded as sex offenders
Damien Gayle covers Backlash’s warning that ‘criminalising 16- to 18-year-olds for sending explicit pictures to one another shows how disconnected the political establishment is from changes to technology and social values’. Read his article here
Major political parties fail to halt mass criminalisation of young people
Civil liberties campaign opposes labelling teen ‘sexters’ as sex offenders A politically charged moral panic over young people’s attitudes to sexuality is leading to Internet censorship and the labelling of ordinary young people as sex offenders, civil liberties campaign Backlash warns today. Backlash will campaign for a change in the …read more →