Adult clip platform iWantClips announced on 28 October that it would strip 17 fetish categories from UK access before 6 November 2026, the date new obscenity offences under the Crime and Policing Act 2026 come into force in England and Wales. The removal applies retroactively to content UK customers have already bought.
Why it matters to creators
This is the first concrete look at how a platform is interpreting a law that, until now, most creators have only seen described in general terms. iWantClips has done the compliance homework and published a list. Whatever you sell and wherever you sell it, that list is the clearest signal yet of where regulators and platforms are likely to draw the line — and it lands three days before the law takes effect.
What actually becomes illegal on 6 November
The Act creates new offences around possessing or publishing pornographic images that “explicitly and realistically depict” real people in three categories: strangulation or suffocation; penetrative sexual activity between people who appear to be related (including step- and foster-relationships where one party is, or is pretending to be, under 18); and sexual activity involving anyone who appears to be under 16. Government guidance is explicit that possession includes anything “kept on a device, in a personal account, or in cloud storage” — not just what is actively for sale.
Justice minister Alex Davies-Jones has framed the law as narrowly targeted, telling reporters it is “not about criminalising harmless sexual preferences,” while urging anyone holding covered material to delete it. Durham University law professor Clare McGlynn called the change a potential turning point, though she questioned, in comments to IBTimes UK, how quickly platforms and regulators will actually act on it.
What iWantClips is actually pulling
According to the company’s own announcement, reported by PinkNews, the categories being removed from UK storefronts include choking fantasy play, breath play fantasy, hand-over-mouth, face sitting, ass smothering, foot smothering, breast smothering, scissor hold, chest sitting, throat-busting fantasy, plastic fetish, trampling fantasy, and several face-sitting sub-variants. iWantClips says the move reflects the new legal requirement rather than a judgement on its performers’ content, but the practical effect is that UK-based creators lose that revenue from their stores entirely, and overseas creators lose UK customers’ access to it.
Note the scope here: several of the pulled categories (face sitting, chest sitting, trampling) are breath-restriction-adjacent rather than literal depictions of strangulation, which suggests iWantClips is applying the “suffocation” wording broadly and erring on the side of over-removal rather than risk a test case. Other platforms assessing their own catalogues are likely to make a similar call, so don’t assume a category survives just because it isn’t choking by name.
Penalties, and who is actually on the hook
Possessing covered images carries up to two years in prison for the strangulation/suffocation and relative-related categories, and up to three years where someone appears to be under 16. Publishing — which the guidance defines broadly as making an image available by any means, including uploading or posting — carries up to five years across all three categories. The guidance is written in terms of “a person,” so it applies to individuals, not specifically to platforms, though the breadth of “publishing” means anyone who uploads, hosts or shares covered content on their own account could be exposed, not only the platform hosting it.
This builds on, rather than replaces, what Nude Newz reported in October: that creators need to check their back catalogues before 6 November. What iWantClips has added is the first real-world evidence of exactly how granular platforms are being told, or choosing, to interpret “strangulation or suffocation” — useful detail if you’re trying to self-audit your own content against a law that otherwise reads in fairly abstract terms.
What to do now
- Search your own back catalogue, custom requests and clip store for strangulation, breath play, choking, degradation-adjacent smothering content, incest-themed role play, or age-play content where anyone could be read as under 16 or 18 — then remove or delist it before 6 November, even if it has already sold.
- Don’t assume a category is safe just because it isn’t literally “choking.” iWantClips’ own list shows platforms treating face-sitting, trampling and chest-sitting as caught by the suffocation wording.
- Check whether your platform (OnlyFans, Fansly, clip sites, custom-request marketplaces) has published its own compliance list yet. If not, ask your account manager directly rather than waiting to find out by having content pulled.
- Keep records of what you remove and when, in case a platform later asks you to demonstrate you acted before the deadline.
- If a chunk of your income has relied on now-restricted categories, start planning a content pivot now rather than after your earnings drop — plenty of creators have rebuilt income around entirely different niches when a category became unviable.
This is general information, not legal advice — speak to a solicitor about how the Crime and Policing Act 2026 applies to your specific content before 6 November.
