| At this stage, petitions and writing to your MP are not likely to be effective. It is far more effective to write to the consultation and/or send them your answers to the consultation questions. The response form with the questions can be found as a Word file at the link at the bottom of this post.
For those interested in writing letters, I have on my weblog constructed three blogs that explain why writing a letter is likely to be very effective, the sorts of points that your letter needs to answer (including the most relevant of the consultation questions), and finally my own letter to the consultation on the possession of extreme pornography.
A very important point that I learned when campaigning against the Licensing Act 2004:
Letter writing campaigns are much more effective if the letters are all different and personal to the senders, rather than form letters copied from a single source
Therefore, everyone should have a go at writing their own letters, although they should try to include the main points that I have tried to highlight, plus any others that they feel should be included after having read the consultation paper (or after having read my long letter). These consultation papers are written by professionals and letters that are based on erroneous assumptions about the content of the consultation paper (such as might be gained from the media reporting of it) might conceivably be ignored. Stick to the facts that we know.
In brief, it seems that consultation papers receive maybe 30 responses from the general public at the most (this one may receive double that, not inculding our own efforts, due to the large amount of publicity). most of the responses usually come from other interested groups such as police forces, law professionals and NGOs. These responses usually number between 20 and 80. 150 letters and/or answers to the consultation questions from BDSMers should be more than enough to swing the findings of the consultation in our favour.
Here are the blogs:
The letter I have sent to the consultation, based on as complete a rebuttal as I can contrive of the position of the consultation paper
http://www.informedconsent.co.uk/weblogs/Snowdro...
How to write a shorter letter to the consultation:
http://www.informedconsent.co.uk/weblogs/Snowdro...
And why it is very important that as many of us as possible write letters and respond to the consultation paper questions:
http://www.informedconsent.co.uk/weblogs/Snowdro...
For any who haven't seen it, the consultation paper itself is available as a .pdf file here:
http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/inside/consults/cur...
I hope that this is helpful to people who are determined to have a say on this issue.
Ta,
SnowdropExplodes | 
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