Porn and Sex Law Timeline

This is UK focused, and I’m writing it because lots of younger people seem to have very little idea how recently a lot of what they take for granted as been legal or accepted.

Some of the dates will shock you. They shocked me, and I lived through most of them!

Context – age of consent for straight people was 16 right from the start.

1967

Abortion legalised

The Pill made widely available.

England & Wales – homosexual activity in private between men over 21 legalised.

Porn is illegal.

1980

Scotland legalises homosexual activity in private between men over 21.

Porn is illegal

1982

Northern Ireland legalises homosexual activity in private between men over 21

Porn is illegal

1994

Age of consent for gay men lowered to 18.

Porn is STILL illegal

2000

UK allows hard core porn to be sold.

Yep, up until then while it was legal to be a porn performer, everything else was effectively criminal. You couldn’t legally use the post to distribute, and you couldn’t sell retail.

Yes we made porn before this. But it really was an outlaws thing back then. Totally socially unacceptable. Total “proper career” killer.

AdultWork is created.

2001

Age of consent for gay men lowered to 16.

2005

Tube sites invented. Pirate porn eats the traditional porn industry.

2008

Extreme Pornography law enacted. Basically outlawing a lot of the harder fetishes and kinks.

2016

OnlyFans is founded. Creators are empowered (if they are willing to join the treadmill, and do the hustle).

2019

Crown Prosecution Service announce that they will not normally prosecute porn showing legal acts where no harm is done and the intended and likely actual audience is over 18. But still, anyone making content of that type certainly needs to know where the lines are.

2023

Nostr breaks out of alpha, death knell for platforms. (Written Feb 2023. Good prediction?)