Pornography that depicts strangulation, suffocation or incest will be illegal to publish in the United Kingdom from early November, the government has confirmed, completing a package of restrictions first recommended by an independent review of the pornography industry.
The new criminal offences, created through the government’s flagship crime legislation and switched on by commencement regulations, apply to anyone who publishes or distributes the material in the UK — including commercial producers, so-called tube sites that host user uploads, and social platforms that allow adult content. Ministers framed the move as closing a gap between what is already a serious criminal offence in real life and what remains freely available online.
What the new rules cover
Two categories of content are targeted.
- Strangulation and suffocation: depictions of choking, throttling, airway restriction or smothering presented in a pornographic context. Campaigners have long argued that this material is among the most widely promoted on mainstream tube sites, often tagged in ways that surface it to first-time visitors.
- Incest: pornographic depictions of sexual activity between family members. The government has indicated the offence is intended to capture content built around family framing and role-play, not only material involving actual relatives — a category that has become one of the most searched genres on major platforms over the past decade.
The offences sit alongside the existing law on extreme pornography under the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008, which criminalises possession of material depicting acts that threaten a person’s life or risk serious injury to the genitals, as well as bestiality and necrophilia. Prosecutors have historically treated choking content inconsistently under that framework, and the new provisions are designed to remove ambiguity by naming strangulation explicitly.
Where the policy came from
The ban traces directly to the independent review of pornography led by Conservative peer Baroness Gabby Bertin, commissioned by the previous government and published in early 2025 under the current one. The review concluded that content showing strangulation had been normalised at scale and recommended an outright ban on its publication, along with restrictions on incest-themed material and tighter rules on content that simulates participants who appear to be under 18.
Bertin’s central argument was about sequencing: non-fatal strangulation was made a standalone criminal offence in England and Wales by the Domestic Abuse Act 2021, which came into force in 2022, after evidence that it is a strong predictor of later homicide in abusive relationships. Yet depictions of the same act remained a mass-market pornographic genre. The review called that inconsistency indefensible.
Clinicians have reinforced the medical case. Strangulation can cause loss of consciousness within seconds, and repeated pressure on the neck has been linked to stroke, brain injury and delayed death — injuries that frequently leave no external mark. Researchers studying young adults in the UK and Australia have reported that a substantial share of under-35s have experienced choking during sex, often without discussing it first.
The government’s review and supporting documents are available through gov.uk.
Enforcement and penalties
Publication offences of this kind are enforced by police and the Crown Prosecution Service rather than by a regulator, and ministers have said the strangulation offence carries a custodial maximum — explanatory material accompanying the legislation pointed to a term of up to two years for publishers. Prosecutions of overseas-based sites remain legally difficult, which is why officials expect practical compliance to come through a second route.
That route is the Online Safety Act. Ofcom already requires services that host pornography to operate “highly effective” age assurance, a duty that took effect in July 2025 and reshaped access to large adult sites in the UK. The regulator also polices illegal content duties, meaning platforms that fail to remove newly criminalised material risk enforcement action, fines of up to 10 per cent of global revenue, and in extreme cases business disruption measures that cut off payment providers or internet access.
In practice, the most likely outcome is pre-emptive geo-restriction: large platforms stripping the affected tags and categories for UK users rather than risking liability. Smaller and offshore sites are expected to be slower to comply, and some may simply ignore the rules.
Support and criticism
Domestic abuse charities and bereaved families who campaigned for the change have welcomed the timetable, arguing that commercial platforms had years to act voluntarily and did not. Several police leaders have also backed the measure, citing a rise in cases where defendants claimed consensual “rough sex” after a death or serious injury.
Opposition comes from two directions. Civil liberties groups and some legal academics question how clearly the offences are drawn — particularly around incest-themed fiction involving adult actors with no biological relationship — and warn that vague definitions invite overblocking of lawful material, including sex education and harm-reduction content. Performer organisations have argued that criminalising depictions pushes production toward unregulated corners of the internet where consent and safety standards are weaker.
Others note the enforcement gap. Age verification has already driven measurable traffic toward VPNs and smaller unmoderated sites, and critics say a publication ban may repeat that pattern without changing what determined users can find.
What happens next
Guidance for prosecutors and for platforms is expected around commencement, and Ofcom has signalled it will fold the new illegal-content categories into its existing supervisory work with the largest adult services. Ministers have said further measures from the Bertin review — including proposals on content depicting apparent minors and on transparency from pornography companies — remain under consideration.
The broader test will be whether criminal liability changes behaviour at the platform level. The UK has become one of the more aggressive jurisdictions in regulating online content, a trend visible across technology policy and in how companies now ration and monitor digital tools internally, from corporate AI spending controls to compliance-driven product changes that have unsettled technology markets. For now, the immediate consequence is narrower: from early November, publishing choking or incest pornography to a UK audience becomes a crime.
