From 6 November, it becomes a criminal offence in England and Wales to publish or possess pornography depicting strangulation or suffocation, sex between people who are (or pretend to be) relatives, or an adult roleplaying as someone under 16. The offences, confirmed by the Ministry of Justice on 15 October, carry up to five years in prison for publishing and up to three years for possession, and they apply whether or not the person producing or sharing the content is based in the UK.
Why it matters to creators
These aren’t obscure categories. Choking and breathplay content, “daddy/daughter” or stepfamily roleplay dynamics, and schoolgirl or age-play scenarios are among the most commonly requested custom content and PPV themes on fan platforms. If you, your chatters or your agency have produced, sold or pinned any of it for fans who could be in England or Wales, you now have under two weeks to deal with it — not as a platform policy risk, but as a potential criminal one.
What exactly is banned
Justice minister Alex Davies-Jones set out three categories that become illegal to publish or possess from 6 November: pornography showing strangulation or suffocation; pornography showing penetrative sexual activity between people who are related, or who are depicted as pretending to be related (including step- and foster-relatives); and pornography in which an adult is depicted pretending to be under 16. Non-fatal strangulation is already a criminal offence on its own terms, but showing it on screen has not been — that changes on 6 November too.
According to reporting on the government’s announcement, publishing any of this material carries a maximum five-year sentence, while possession carries up to two years for the strangulation and incest categories and up to three years for age-play content (IBTimes UK). “Publishing” covers uploading, posting or otherwise making the material available online; “possession” can include material sitting on a phone, laptop or in cloud storage. Davies-Jones was blunt about the message: “If you’ve got this material, delete it. If you’re sharing it, stop” — adding that after 6 November, “it is criminal” (ITV News).
Where this came from
The new offences are amendments to the Crime and Policing Act, which received Royal Assent earlier this year, and they follow recommendations from the independent pornography review led by Baroness Gabby Bertin. That review, commissioned under the previous government and published in 2025, found depictions of choking “rife” on mainstream porn sites. Bertin called the commencement “not a moment too soon,” saying the change would “send the unequivocal signal” that “extreme and violent content that encourages real-life harm is not acceptable” (IBTimes UK). Durham University law professor Clare McGlynn, who was not involved in drafting the law, called it “a potential turning point,” while stressing it is “not about prosecuting individuals, but transforming the online pornographic landscape.”
This is the second tranche of Crime and Policing Act offences to hit the adult content world this year. We covered the first back in June, when new offences around screenshotting intimate content and AI “nudification” tools came into force on 29 June. Both sets of offences sit in the same piece of legislation, and both were built on the same underlying argument: that what’s illegal to do to someone offline shouldn’t become legal just because it happens on a screen.
The open questions
What’s genuinely unclear from the government’s own statements is how enforcement will work against creators or platforms based outside England and Wales whose content is nonetheless accessible to fans there. The offence is framed around publishing and possession rather than the location of the person who made the content, and campaigners including the End Violence Against Women Coalition have been pushing for the related but separate step of making this a “priority” category under the Online Safety Act — which would force platforms, not just individuals, to proactively keep it off their sites. Janaya Walker of the coalition has said the government “must now ensure the ban is effectively enforced,” which is itself an admission that enforcement mechanics haven’t been fully worked out (Irish Examiner). In practice, that means the safest assumption for anyone selling into the UK market is that geography won’t save you if the content itself is illegal.
It’s also worth noting this lands in the same fortnight as OnlyFans’ own rewritten terms, which take effect on 1 November and give the platform wider scope to suspend accounts over “reputational harm.” A creator whose back catalogue trips the new criminal offences could now be looking at both a platform suspension and a possible prosecution within the same week.
What to do now
- Audit your vault, pinned PPV, and any saved custom-content scripts for choking or breathplay content, stepfamily or “taboo relative” roleplay, and schoolgirl or other age-play scenarios — and delete anything that falls into those categories before 6 November.
- If you work with chatters or an agency, update their script banks and brief them this week: these requests need to be declined outright from 6 November, not just flagged for your approval.
- Don’t assume being based outside England and Wales protects you — the offence is tied to publication and possession, not the creator’s location, so if UK fans can access it, treat it as covered.
- Check your DMs and sexting logs too, not just your feed and vault — possession offences can apply to material stored privately, not just posted publicly.
- If any of this content is a meaningful part of your income, start shifting fans toward alternative content and messaging now, so you’re not managing a revenue cliff and a legal problem in the same week.
This is general information, not legal advice — speak to a qualified UK solicitor about your specific content and circumstances before 6 November.
