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Culture War Roundup for the week of November 9, 2026

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Last week, in its dogged commitment to a free and open internet, the UK has instituted a criminal prohibition on certain pornography in England and Wales. It is now a criminal offense to view or possess pornography that depicts "strangulation" including choking or "face sitting", incest including depictions of step siblings, and any depictions of underage roleplay. The penalty for viewing or possessing any of these categories is a prison sentence that ranges from 2-3 years. Publication of these materials has a punishment of up to 5 years in prison.

Before a conservative cheered the prohibition of pornographic materials as a buttress against the immorality of modernity I'd remind him it is worth keeping in mind the context. The UK has been on a tear the past couple decades when it comes to regulating the internet. These efforts did not go without results, culminating most recently in the Online Safety Act of 2023 which pushed an age-verification regime. The OSA is not limited to porn sites to ban minors, but also potentially hits app stores, vendors, payment intermediaries, and more that extends the tendrils of the state into the internet.

Feminists and Labour politicians who hate violence against women, think-of-the-children conservatives, Christian organizations, and Ofcom the regulatory agency which, surprisingly, tends to voice support for more regulations-- what do these constituencies all have in common? It's not the weirdest coalition to lock arms in solidarity, but it's strange bedfellows. Public choice theory stays winning. Many are saying.

I can't claim abstinence, but I am not a big fan of porn. I don't think productions involving toasters are a social good and children should not watch porn. However, what I suspect laws like this to be in practice is to function as a carve out for a censorious state with neurotic apparatchiks to punch up criminal charges whenever they feel like. The next time Tommy Robinson gets picked up for violence they can hit him with the lude pornography laws. There will be no reduction of Violence Against Women when so many report sexual choking as consensual and pleasurable.

If you peruse internet commentary on the Crime and Policing Act 2026 you will find a lot of people who agree with me. From reddit to X, everyone has criticisms that this is selective or ineffective. If you stopped there you wouldn't know that some surveys indicate the majority of Brits support the ban, if not the criminalization. To properly do this experiment Brits must go full bore with social taboos, reverse the sexual revolution, and enforce criminal statutes to that effect. Reinstitute sodomy laws. The cowards will never.

It is now a criminal offense to view or possess pornography that depicts "strangulation" including choking or "face sitting", incest including depictions of step siblings...

I'm not the first to note that it's pretty funny that watching two porn actors pretending to be adult step-siblings (not even blood relatives) is now illegal in the UK; meanwhile an outright majority of Pakistani Brits are married to their first cousins. A relative of mine teaches at a British school with a large Pakistani population, and he's told me that rates of deafness (because of consecutive generations of inbreeding) are through the roof.

Whenever I try to get an LLM to write me a cousin shipping fanfic (e.g. Jake x Rachel from Animorphs or Ben x Gwen from Ben 10) and it refuses, I like to point out that Muslims make up a third of the global population and are completely fine with marrying their cousins, then ask the AI if it's Islamophobic.

You should consider how productive it is to argue with / try to own something that is not sentient in any way. At the very least I would suggest* posting screenshots to your friends to win their hearts and minds.

You should consider how productive it is to argue with / try to own something that is not sentient in any way.

Yeah, but people argue with the average human being all the time. It's a multi-billion dollar industry.

At least I can appreciate self-gratification as a step up, however minor, from doing that.

It was actually a jailbreak attempt; I was trying to argue ChatGPT into writing the fic. Didn't work.

Unfortunately you have to use, god forbid, gork for that. Worked for me last time I tried unless Elon changed it up recently.

Based.

From an acquaintance who was a porn director in the 'good old days' before Onlyfans, the step-sibling stuff just became popular since it was maximal taboo for minimal actual requirements of the acting talent. It let you shoot essentially boring vanilla stuff and got the same niche bump that a lot more onerous stuff would do otherwise.

Yeah.

The stepcest stuff does literally nothing for me (but then again, I ONLY had younger brothers, and I never had a blended family with step-sisters to tempt me) but beyond the label its literally the same content in every other way.

I mostly get the factor that tabooing something can in fact make it hotter, forbidden fruit and all that, but geez folks demand some quality.

In porn, you need some factors in place to make sex happen without much effort on the dude's part. Stepcest is pretty much perfect for that. You're in your house and whoa, there's a reproductive-aged woman that's been there for a while and you just now noticed it. Neat!

Yeah, I guess that's where the "help stepbro I'm stuck in the dryer" memes came from.

As stated that all felt alien to me. Hell, I'm also critical of the concept of "barely legal", although its a genius marketing term for "actually completely 100% legal and sexually mature but lets hint at it being a bit sketchy, for fun." Show me the "barely illegal" stuff where she's 17 years, 364 days, and 11 hours old and you're risking prosecution. Dare them to prove the sex happened at 11:58 p.m. and not 12:01 a.m..

(that is a joke, but it does highlight some of the absurdity of how that rule works).

And then the one that actually turns me off is the whole "daddy" roleplay. Look, I also see how girls with father issues are sexually appealing but holy cow call me something else, for the love of God.

Anyhow, the vast majority of porn that is produced these days (as far as I know, I don't look for it much) is just... not for me. I'm into boobs, ass, and dirty talk as much as the next cishet guy, but I've also had the experience of having lots of intimate sex with the same person, many times in a row and that is just way better. Good luck translating that concept to porno, though. "Your wife is sexually ravenous and demands you screw her for the 10th night in a row" probably not going to get as many hits as "barely legal step-sister comes home from cheer practice and catches you gooning to her photos."

I've heard that before, that they think it's an easy way to just add an extra tag. But doesn't it also detract? Like, a lot of people are going to be sketched out by that, even if it's just thrown in for a few lines. It seems like an extremely weird niche that for some reason they all went for.

You're a discerning person, you're on this website. Many people aren't discerning or tasteful at all, hardly even literate. I had an opportunity to gawk at the logs of some people's fantasies with AI, just randomly selected people.

There's a good deal of incest that emerges from the bottom-up, that's what they go looking for. Either it imprinted top down or it was always there. It's certainly organic now.

You're a discerning person, you're on this website.

I don't actually have anything to say here, but I couldn't not quote that. Sorry.

Is that something there's a link to, or was it privileged viewing?

Privileged viewing and I don't think we're supposed to post smut here anyway. Suffice to say it was extremely amateurish and sloppy (that is from the people involved).

I've heard that before, that they think it's an easy way to just add an extra tag. But doesn't it also detract? Like, a lot of people are going to be sketched out by that, even if it's just thrown in for a few lines. It seems like an extremely weird niche that for some reason they all went for.

Here's a hypothesis: People who get seriously into pornography get desensitized and so they have a tendency to get into weirder more taboo-violating stuff.

I continually hear claims of this but what's the actual mechanism of action?

Far as I'm aware this is just getting bolder/more honest about what one actually always liked rather than the feminist canard of "oh no how horrible, look at these domination scenes, man bad woman good".

At the end of the day, superstimulus gonna superstimulus.

If you're getting off on domination, you'll look at stuff that's more degrading than usual. This isn't that weird provided you're ignoring the complaints of those who share the submissive's gender.

If you're getting off on submission, you'll disappear into the Omegaverse. This isn't that weird provided you're ignoring the complaints of those who share the dominant's gender.

If you're getting off on inflation, DeviantArt has been there for like 20 years. This isn't that weird provided you're ignoring the complaints of those whose weight in pounds begins with the number 1.

If you're getting off on co-operation, there's always hentai (and, like, the actually good doujins). This isn't that weird provided you're ignoring the complaints of women and men who are incapable of anything resembling a healthy relationship, but it's hard to unpack at times because responses to criticism now needs to be gendered.

And so on and so forth.

I continually hear claims of this but what's the actual mechanism of action?

I have no idea what happens in the brain, but there really are a lot of anecdotal reports out there of desensitization. And given the natural instinct to seek variety, I can see how this could become a big problem for a lot of people.

I can see how this could become a big problem for a lot of people.

How so? There's plenty of content out there, enough to arguably last more than a lifetime. If you want to model it as a drug, fine- most people drink, few become alcoholics, but those alcoholics can destroy themselves pretty dramatically. Sex is more of a prodrug, but the same thing applies.

But that's more of an addiction problem and less of a content problem (which is why GLP-1 agonists suggest effectiveness on those who are addicted to certain kinds of foods; it's a chemical castration, in a way).

I do (by extrapolation) understand the claim that "searching for variety ultimately means you end up jacking it to sexual domination of burning toddlers because nothing else will do", but the people/submissives who are doing that are primarily complaining because it is sexual domination, not because it involves burning toddlers [proof by revealed preference: the average submissive prefers policies that make this more likely, women vote for an increase in/protect sex criminals more than men do- and as such their claims of "caring about harm" range from simply unreliable to outright fabrication].

Burning toddlers are not really that interesting as sexual targets other than 'finally, something taboo again', so the people who prefer freedom-of-thought say 'Rule 34 pre-empts Rule 35; they'll get bored, it's only interesting to the degree that submissives are mad about it, getting off on domination is already about the social context'.

And yes, this "variety problem" applies to all sexualities [complaints about dominants are simply the loudest], and argued against the way you'd expect from the target. For instance, the kind of male teenager who reports being seduced by their female teacher [and those men who take that seriously] only do this when they feel they didn't earn/feel comfortable accepting that submission at their understanding of their own dominant sexuality at the time [and in instances where this seduction is not reported but discovered anyway, it is generally the dominant-sexuality parent, almost always the father, making the complaint "for his own good"]. [YouTube's continual recommendation of bodycam footage appears to pay dividends.]


I have no idea what happens in the brain, but there really are a lot of anecdotal reports out there of desensitization.

I think this is called "aging". It's happened to me as well over time- it's just that it requires more effort to blind your mind to stimuli you don't like.

I'd actually argue this explains most of the quest for more specific stimuli in the first place, since at that point you don't have to mentally block out the parts you don't like and there are more of the parts you like per second.

By contrast, the you of yesterday had better nerves/sensitivity, softer skin, improved circulation, and a higher sex drive, and those things are already doing a lot to naturally blind your mind to things you didn't like. As you lose those things, you have to actually focus, which is also why "gooning" is at its core a meditative practice to regain that state of blindness (and arguably more popular among those who have lost it, and just like age-related pattern baldness, will occur to some as early as their late teens).

How so? There's plenty of content out there, enough to arguably last more than a lifetime.

The risk is that the combination of the need for variety combined with desensitization will lead you towards things which are more and more taboo.

I think this is called "aging". It's happened to me as well over time- it's just that it requires more effort to blind your mind to stimuli you don't like.

I tend to disagree with this. A lot of people quit pornography and report that their sensitivity increases with time.

More comments

One theory I've heard is that "incest" is the only "normal" porn remaining, without other highly specific fetishes, so people looking for something "normal" search for "incest". No idea how true this is because I don't watch that kind of porn.

I watch porn with the sound off, typically, in which case step sibling stuff is just porn. In fact, it tends to be the most normal porn you can find: a hot young girl doing sexy things with a normal-ish looking guy.

When I was a youth and went on Literotica, I gravitated towards the "first time" tag because all the other tags were fucking weird. I didn't want werewolves or bdsm or slavery or raceplay, I just wanted two young people having sex. I didn't particularly fetishize the virginity loss portion of it, it just happened to be the one tag on the website where I could be fairly sure nothing bizarre and off putting would happen.

I think the percentage of people who really value the step-sibling thing is one group, but there's another group of consumers that can tolerate it, or who ignore it because they either watch without sound or they skip ahead past the "Oh my God mom and dad aren't home I can't believe you caught me masturbating!" script right to the ol' in-and-out part.

Uh... hold up. So you're not young anymore, and you're not worried about getting caught, you just... enjoy watching porn with the sound off? That's the first time I've heard of this particular fetish... You might be unusual in your tastes. (Not that there's anything wrong with that, just saying...)

I don't find the audio quality to generally add to the experience, normally it's distracting and disgusting and takes me out of it. Not that I don't enjoy female copulatory vocalization, on my phone I have audio messages that partners recorded for me that I quite enjoy. But normally, when I'm viewing pornography I find that the over-done bad acting of the fake orgasms really turns me off rather than on, and I have no use for most of the scripted additions. I suppose there probably exists porn to my audio tastes, but it's not tagged as such or I never figured out how to find it and I've never dedicated the time to doing so, the tags are typically referring to the visual rather than the audio.

I enjoy the visuals, but typically the voice acting just takes me out of the whole thing, as I realize that I don't actually want to be there doing this with this woman. A silent naked woman I can imagine as my perfect partner, as the smart classmate or colleague of mine, as a vivacious and intelligent young thing that just happens to be a total whore for me. When she starts talking, I realize it's a porn star, doing a porn, and I don't find that all that interesting. Either she lacks believable enthusiasm, or she says stupid or corny things, and I'm just not into it. And I never really want to hear the man say anything, I can't remember that ever adding to my experience.

I'm sure if I dug around I'd find porn made to my specifications, but I don't really dedicate much time to this search and I'm not fluent in porn tags.

In fairness, porn stars are selected for attractiveness and ability in the bedroom. They are not selected for acting ability, except in so far as faking an orgasm is a kind of acting. In porn with any kind of story, I imagine some people find the dialogue-heavy parts immersion-breaking.

Not a porn consumer but I suspect that most viewers are, uh, not paying attention to those parts.

Grist for the mill for my conspiracy theory that China is pushing incest porn as part of a broader effort to promote dysgenic behaviour in the West.

I agree! Or at least, I think it's plausable. I wish there was a way we could find more evidence. Maybe someday soon we can use AI to analyze every single porn video to find where the incest stuff was coming from?

Not that niche. Incest is surprisingly popular; tons of harem Visual Novels include a sister option. And you also see it all the time in anime like Oreimo. The demand is there.

On the other hand, I definitely avoid clicking on any video with "step" on the title; it's just weird.

Surely, you mean a roommate option? The older roommate, the younger roommate and the landlady, to be precise.

Well, it depends. If it's a Western VN, it's funded by Patreon subscriptions, so yes. If it's a Japanese VN, it's usually released as a full game on a catalog, so no; you get to see your imouto in all her glory.

You fucking wimp, mentioning Oriemo instead of Yosuga no Sora a show where the main guy actually fucks his actually blood related fraternal twin sister

For what it's worth, I'm a staunch defender of Oreimo because I think it's funny and artistically interesting. BUT I'm still disgusted by actual incest, or any sort of incest porn.

Bro turns down a stunning selection of beautiful women so that he can date his sister for a bit, then dumps her so that they can lead a normal life.

Fucking coward. Manami is best girl. She said everything that needed to be said. With her fists.

The Western adult Visual Novel community tried to go the step-sibling route, but Patreon put a stop to that. So now the new convention is that your mom is a "landlady" and your sisters are "roommates". Unfortunately, this leads to ridiculous writing; why is the MC so distraught by the possibility of sleeping with his roommate?

Sometimes an anonymous evil hacker who is totally not the dev will release a patch that restores the incest, too bad the poor innocent dev cannot do anything about that.

As someone who has slept with a roommate, it's a terrible idea for many obvious reason.

As someone who has moved in with the woman I was sleeping with, it's a great idea for many obvious reasons.

It is plausible that the order matters.

From an acquaintance who was a porn director

Does he have any juicy stories? Has he ever been intimate with any famous names?

Honestly he was kind of a filmnerd and talked a lot more about cameras and shooting angles and stuff. Think he just kinda fell ass-backwards into it and was less degenerate than most other people around at that point.

He did know a lot about escort rates so I assume he must have slept with some of the talent