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Welcome to CAANs fourth newsletter and things have clicked on a notch as the Extreme Porn law went live on the 26th January.
Thanks to everyone who supported the CAAN demo on the 25th of January in Parliament Square...despite the rain and the cold we had a good turn out.
Ben Westwood joined us as did Paul Stag (Mr Leather UK) and we were much heartened to greet veteran campaigner Peter Tatchell.
Despite the law now having commenced we are still campaigning....Martin Salter MP for Reading West may think that just because it's “now the law of the land” we should put up and shut up... but thats not how a democracy works and bad law should never be 'just accepted'. The odious Salter's most recent comments came about in response to a very balanced article in GetReading...the first time the Salter/Longhurst bandwagon had been put on the back foot in their local press.
Salter's outpourings resulted in CAAN considering the implications of putting up an electoral candidate against Salter...unfortunately he has declared he will be standing down at the next election. We hope that all the letters and emails CAAN supporters have sent over the last few months might have gone some way to letting him know just how unpopular he has become. But what a shame we won't get a chance to see him actually lose his seat!Blogs and press
There have been some cracking blogs mentioning the extreme porn law and/or CAAN and a fair amount of press. You can catch up via the CAAN facebook group or on the seenoevil wiki which has a fairly comprehensive list of online articles going back several years.
I will however give special mention to:-
Penny Red's International Fetish Day blog. Penny describes herself as "A socialist, feminist, deviant, reprobate, queer, addict, literature student, journalist and sometime blogger."
Pandora Blake is a submissive model and well known on the British Spanking scene and wrote a blog about attending the demo.
The Heresiarch needs no introduction he writes a blinding blog and if you don't read it...you should start. He sums up with “I don't think I've personally seen the sort of material this law was aimed at, at least if it really does catch only the truly extreme and repulsively violent as the government claimed. Nor, being naturally of a squeamish disposition, would I want to. But I struggle to see why my personal taste boundaries should legally be enforced on anyone else. That may just be because I'm not a politician.”CAAN's Porn Collection
Due to recent changes in the law (…come on keep up at the back.) CAAN is no longer collecting pornographic images. The collection is now in the safe hands of CAAN Scotland who are deciding what use they would like to make of it. If they decide to expand the collection we'll let you know.
We would like to point out that we are also no longer accepting email attachments, so if you have something you need to send as attachment please give us advance warning.Mind your backs…more laws coming in…
The Scottish Porn law
CAAN Scotland is quickly gaining momentum in protesting against the extreme pornography law in Holyrood.
COMMUNICATION
Following an article in the Scotsman where CAAN Scotland was the sole voice speaking out against the upcoming law, we have opened communications with the Sexual Offenses Team dealing with the law in the Scottish Parliament. Hopefully we will be entering into talks with them next month, so keep those letters and emails coming! You can email them at: criminaljusticeandlicensingbill@scotland.gsi.gov.uk CAAN Scotland is also producing a flyer for massive distribution by the end of the month. If you would like some flyers to hand out at your place of business, club, pub, information centre, university or even on the street, please get in contact with us and we'll post some to you when they're ready. We want these to be everywhere! Donations for the purpose of printing gladly accepted.
CAMPAIGN
CAAN Scotland is also starting a SEND A KINKY BOOK TO AN MSP campaign. If they're going to ban us from consensual acts, they may as well know what it is that we do. Kenny MacAskill has been sent a copy of "When Someone You Love is Kinky", and we have a number of copies of "Dances with Werewolves" that we will be sending to MSPs and other people of interest in Scottish Parliament. If you would like to send a kinky book to an MSP, most websites have several titles available, and some may even qualify for free shipping. Keep in mind that your name and address woud probably appear on the invoice slip inside, though you can also send the books yourself. Send your kinky books to: MSP [name here], Scottish Parliament, Edinburgh, EH99 1SP or Sexual Offenses Team, Scottish Government, Criminal Justice and Licensing Division, Room GW.15, St. Andrew's House, Regent Road, Edinburgh, EH1 3DG
Make sure to send a personal note with the book, saying "Before you ban consensual acts between adults, perhaps you should know what it is you're banning."
CALL FOR ARTISTS
CAAN Scotland is also interested in hearing from artists who would like to get involved with protesting against the law. Whatever your medium is, we're interested to see what your response is. Please get in contact with us to find out how you can help by doing what you do best: art.
HOW EVERYONE CAN HELP
Everyone in Scotland should write to their MSPs, both constituency and regional. You can find out who your MSPs are on writetothem.com or at the Scottish Parliament .
You can also visit your MSP's constituency surgery. Details on where and when your MSP's surgery is can be found on their contact details on the Scottish government's website (listed above), or on their personal webpage. Tell them you don't want consensual acts banned. Ask them what their stance is on the law, and try to engage them in debate.
Everyone in the UK can write to contact address (same email as above) with your views on the law. Tell them you support CAAN and you do not want consensual acts banned. Every letter counts!
If you would like to distribute flyers, submit art to be used by CAAN for promotional material, or would just like to help anyway you can, please contact us at c-a-an@live.co.uk Attention: ScotlandCartoon Porn
This is the next step down the slippery slope of draconian legislation and outlaws cartoon images of children. ( a child being an individual under 18 years)
Before you have a knee jerk reaction to the word 'children' please give a thought to the implications and general farcical nature of this law.
Whilst CAAN are not at this time actively campaigning on this law we acknowledge that looking at cartoons is something many adults do, it is entirely fictional and therefore there is no issue of consent and give our wholehearted support to the Comic Book Alliance who are bringing together comic book Writers, Artists, Publishers, Distributors, Retailers and, of course, fans against this legislation.Prostitution
Another another website we came accross this month is x:talk. The project is a space to organise and empower workers in the sex industry and to encourage critical interventions around the issues of migration, gender and labour. The project is endorsed by the IUSW and the site is well written and incredibly informative.Liberty Convention
The Convention on Modern Liberty is taking place on the 28th February at a number of locations across the UK. The London Event has plenty of well known speakers (as you would expect for £35 a ticket). But for those of us out in the sticks the events are free…CAAN are running an afternoon discussion session at the Manchester venue and Backlash's Alex Dymock and El Reg's John Ozimek are taking part in a morning session at the Cambridge event on “Internet Censorship in the UK: Why, how, and by whom?“
Its sad to see the convention is very light on the sexual liberty front: hopefully our involvement and that of Backlash will go some way to start to remedy that and get a positive view of sexuality onto the mainstream agenda.Upcoming
The Girls Aloud Obscenity trial kicks off on or abouts the 16th march. This is the first obscenity trial based on (written) internet content and could have severe repercussions for written fantasy. There hasn't, as far as we know, been an obscenity trial in respect of written material for 20 years (the last one was Lord Hunger…which failed)…the last successful prosecution of written material was the Little Red School Book nearly forty years ago.
The story in question is no more horrific than many other works of fantasy and fiction (though not as well written as many).
We are looking for someone local to the court who fancies nipping along and letting us have email feedback at the end of each day. Final mish mash
Whilst we are mentioning other organisations worthy of your support we have had a sign up from FACT (Freedom Against Censorship Thailand).The Thailand block list is understood to include hundreds of YouTube videos (including Hillary Clinton's campaign videos) as well as blogs, cartoons, Charlie Chaplin videos and an article in the Economist magazine banned for criticising the Thai king.
FACT say they welcome all CAAN friends to consider signing FACT's petition:
Whilst you are in the mood for petition signing, someone has started a petition on the No10 site. Whilst we don't officially condone this sort of madcap behaviour we would ask that now its there….can you go and sign it. We highly suspect that when it closes we'll all get an email from the government that reads 'thankyou for your opinion, we were listening but we are right and you are wrong so piss off' (I paraphrase a little…just a little)!
The petition reads “We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to Amend s63 of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act so as to explicitly target images of sexual abuse and to prevent the persecution of consenting adults, whether gay or straight, whose sex life involves consensual activity such as bondage, discipline, sadomasochism or role-playing.”
Oh…and before you put your lid on your hypothetical pen… we send this newsletter out as widely as we can and are happy for people to forward to interested parties. If you have received it and are not yet signed up to the CAAN statement please give it some consideration. Only your name will appear on the supporters list and unless you have a very rare name you can always blame your sign up on the other 132 people with the same name as you on google.
Please send your full name, your email address (for confirmation purposes), your organsiation if applicable (and we'll check you have authority to sign up on their behalf) and your nationality or country of residence (whichever is closest to the UK or part thereof).
Or click on this link and do it the easy way.
STOP PRESS ++ STOP PRESS ++ STOP PRESS ++ STOP PRESS ++ STOP PRESS ++ STOP PRESS ++ STOP PRESS ++ STOP PRESS ++ STOP PRESS ++ STOP PRESS ++ STOP PRESS Consent 2009
We started this newsletter by reminding you all that CAAN is not going away. One of the places we aren't going away (so to speak) will be at a Conference to be held in early Spring in London. Details slightly sketchy so far, but if you pencil into your diaries 2 May, we are hoping to put together an event that will be about celebrating Adult Consensuality (as well as allowing a lot of people to stand up and debate and swap ideas about how to campaign).
Oh. And we might even run to an after-Conference party.
If you're interested in helping – or would just like your name down for further details when there are some, drop us a mail at the usual address: info@caan.org.uk
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As ever can we remind you that if you would like the 'proper' version of this newsletter sent directly to you by email (its prettier and has more pictures and links)you can always ask to go on the CAAN mailing list.
| 16 Feb 09, 11:02 PM verte UK(E), 8 yrs |
I am probably in Scotland on 2nd May.  "Well-behaved women rarely make history" Edited 16 Feb 09, 11:03 PM by verte |
