Buying porn by mail order...

[Lucifer Sam]

Hi Max

its not really illegal to buy porn over the net. The only illegal part is it being sent via the Royal Mail who are bound by the obscene publications act and thus are not allowed to deliver hardcore material in the UK. However as most sites operate outside of the UK and in which case the material if deemed acceptable under UK law, it can be bought and imported into the UK. The only problem is who delivers it to your door. At present we should be going into licensed shops to buy porn so as to prove we are adults but the daft thing is I can also order a pornographic dvd from abroad as well. As most sorting offices in this country are under-manned and extremely busy it is doubtful anyone in the Royal Mail would have the time to check what packages contain what and also it isn't in their remit to check the items either as that is for the customs and excise to do. Customs will not be bothered most of the time with mainstream porn as they will be busy checking for any material which contains footage of people committing crimes. They will however look for any items sent outside of the EU from time to time especially if it is obvious they contain videos or dvds as these may contain illegal material. Any proper porn seller will operate within the law anyway and will also be responsible as far as the items they sell. Otherwise they will surely face jail. I doubt very much you will have any problems whatsoever if you wish to buy some dvds over the internet. It is illegal in one way but also perfectly legal in another, it just depends on who delivers your parcel. Put it one way you won't be arrested for buying the latest Jenna Jameson or Angel Long dvd. The only thing that could possibly happen is it gets seized via customs on import duty not paid or your postman nicks it! I have bought loads of dvds from online sites and have never had a single problem yet - fingers crossed!

[Ned]

Well I hope so. I had a couple of R18s go missing in the post and the last thing I need is the cops kicking my door in.

[max_tranmere]

Thanks for all your comments, especially Lucifer Sam for his long bit of advice. I'm more informed now: basically I can buy it and there is not likely to be a problem, and I'm not really doing anything wrong. I've found the variety of movies available in licenced shops to be quite limited. If you look at how many films certain stars have made when you look in the 'actresses' section on here, it is vastly more than you will find available in shops. You might find three or four starring a particular girl when you go to a licenced shop, but she is shown as having made 60 or 80 when you read the list on here.

Wouldn't it be great if one day you had porn emporiums's - the equivilant of those huge Virgin or HMV record shops in the centre of major cities - where EVERYTHING is available. At present we only have these smallish porn outlets with only a small amount of the films that have been made, which feature well known stars, available. However, now I know the situation regarding the purchasing of porn over the Net, the range available to me is much greater, so cheers for all the info.

[Lucifer Sam]

Your welcome Max. I had the same problem myself when looking for titles in the licensed shops - just not enough selection which is understandable as they have to make sure they sell the things to earn a living. But online you can pretty much collect all the titles by your favourite artistes so to speak!

[Alex L]

In reply to Alice and to address Ned's concerns, the excellent article on Melonfarmers the link to which has already been given above by Jacques, covers all the various points. Ned certainly has nothing to worry about in purchasing R18 discs or indeed any of the non R18 discs available from the many reputable companies listed both here on this BGAFD forum or on the Melonfarmers site.

With regard to the suppliers position, for them to supply the UK market legally they need to be Non UK registered companies. The only other issue is that most of these companies use the Royal Mail to cover part or all of the delivery process. I am sure that there will be someone on here who knows more about this but I think that since the introduction of the R18, millions of discs will have been delivered without it being an issue with the Royal Mail. Most probably in the same way that HM customs allow the importation of non certificated material if the content conforms to the standards laid down for R18 certification. As the Customs standards have allowed them to confiscate imports at the lesser level of indecent rather than obscene it seems to follow that anything they now allow through is not even considered by them to be indecent and therefore would also not contravene the Royal Mail rules whereby they are not allowed to convey indecent items.

[Trumpton]

It's not illegal to own hardcore DVD's, mags, pics, etc. I hope this assists?

[peter@video-xtra.com]

It is illegal for UK suppliers to sell 18R or unclassified material except through licennsed sex shops. Very heavy penalties.

Consequently UK suppliers who are breaking the law by selling this material are doing so desperately trying not to be found out by the authorities. They are inevitably (if they have any sense at all) fly-by-night operators - literally!

Consequently they are also likely to be avoiding other legal obligations - like trading fairly, complying with copyright laws, etc.

Consequently you are very likely to receive illegally produced poor quality copies, rather than originals, or nothing at all, or any old junk.

To be safe, deal only with suppliers that are trading legally. In UK these are licensed sex shops ONLY. Otherwise buy from established overseas suppliers. UK Customs will not normally interfere with small imports for personal use and prices are likely to be far lower than most of the rip-off UK cowboys. US suppliers such as Jaded and Excalibur are huge organisations and 100% reliable, selling only original material. The producers receive their share and this helps them with producing more smut for us to enjoy. Illegal UK suppliers contribute nothing towards future productions, apart from perhaps their own ones.

The choice is yours though.

Good luck