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Culture War Roundup for the week of November 9, 2026

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Oh no, that's covered big time.

penetrative sexual activity between people who a reasonable person would think are related, or pretending to be related, in a certain way. This includes depictions of close familial relatives such as father and daughter or brother and sister, and certain step and foster relationships where one person is, or is pretending to be, under 18

This is from the government's guidance page. From the statute:

It is an offence for a person (P) to be in possession of an image if—

(a)the image is pornographic, within the meaning of section 63, (b)the image portrays, in an explicit and realistic way, a person

(A) sexually penetrating— >(i)the vagina or anus of another person (B) with a part of A’s body or anything else, or (ii)B’s mouth with A’s penis, (c)a reasonable person looking at the image would think that A and B were real, and (d)a reasonable person— (i)looking at the image, and >(ii)taking into account any sound or information associated with the image, would think what is set out in subsection (2) or (3).

(2)That A and B were related, or pretending to be related, such that A was related to B as parent, grandparent, child, grandchild, brother, sister, half-brother, half-sister, uncle, aunt, nephew or niece.

(3)That— (a)A and B were related or had been related, or were pretending to be related or to have been related, such that A was or had been related to B as step-parent, step-child, stepbrother, stepsister, foster parent or foster child, and (b)at least one of A and B was, or was pretending to be, under 18.

I hadn't actually read the text of the law, just articles on its passage, thanks for your diligence here.

That certainly confirms the step porn is only banned if they're pretending to be under 18 - but the lack of clarity seems to be the "reasonable person" definition of under 18 right? Especially if one of the performers is pretending to be a step relation in clothing teen coded, that is a bit of a minefield. That bar makes a lot of the fauxcest stuff ambiguous, and it could be up to a dice roll of your peers (who apparently majority support the law as per your initial link) on if you get on the sex offender list for viewing content on the front page of the most popular porn websites. Furthermore, as I understand it the definition of possession/viewing/distributing material is based upon the precedent of child abuse material and extremely tight, where cached data or a video shared in a folder/message group you have access to could be counted.