It’s still okay to kick guys in the crotch on British TV, just not in porn

LONDON, UK — It’s the end of an era for British porn.

Starting this week, online pornography produced in the UK — once a randy Wild West of images catering to myriad and specific tastes — must submit to official censorship.

Internet porn made and sold in the UK will now be reviewed by the British Board of Film Classification, the same agency that recently decided that a scene in the film “Paddington” showing a male character briefly in drag merited a PG rating for “mild sexual content.”

The change is the result of an amendment to the 2003 Communications Act that quietly took effect Monday after an announcement from the UK Department for Culture, Media and Sport last year.

The bland-sounding text closes a loophole through which Britain’s gimps, doms and urolagnists have happily galloped since hardcore pornography was legalized in the UK in 2000.

Subsequent laws referred only to material sold at licensed sex shops. Online smut flourished unchecked.

Last month, officials from the BBFC and the Authority for Television On Demand, an independent regulator, held a meeting in central London for the makers of adult films to explain the new law. (The law applies only to domestic films and websites; porn accessed from foreign sites is unaffected.)

In clip after clip, according to two people present at the meeting, regulators detailed exactly what flies in Britain’s new porn regime — which bodily fluids can be shown, for example, or how many hands can be inserted into a particular orifice at once.

But there are still a lot of questions about the new limits, and the logic behind them.

“Certain quarters of the industry are in panic mode at the moment in response to this, not knowing where they fit in terms of what’s acceptable, what’s legal and what the regulations are,” said Myles Jackman, a UK lawyer specializing in obscenity and pornography.

When it comes to porn — sex scenes in mainstream movies are a different story — the BBFC follows the UK Video Recordings Act’s requirement to consider “any harm that may be caused to potential viewers, or, through their behaviour, to society,” according to the BBFC website.

Depictions of rape and child abuse are forbidden. The BBFC also must ban anything prohibited under the UK’s Obscene Publications Act, such as urolagnia. (You are welcome to look that up.)

Media reports this week have trumpeted a long list of seemingly arbitrary sexual acts whose depictions were allegedly outlawed under the new legislation, such as spanking, female ejaculation and face-sitting.

On Wednesday, regulators clarified that such proclivities were not banned outright. Instead, inspectors with fascinating jobs will make case-by-case decisions on how hard the spank is, for example, or exactly where on the face one is sitting.

“It doesn’t mean that anybody who sits on somebody’s head or face is going to be prohibited,” said Pete Johnson, chief executive officer of ATVOD.

“It does mean that anybody who restricts breathing could be. If it’s done in such a way where it can lead to asphyxiation or death, [it could be.]”

For people whose livelihoods depend on porn, that ambiguity is frustrating.

Last week, Hampshire-based dominatrix Nikki Whiplash had seven live websites selling videos of sexual acts. This week she shuttered all but one, for fear of running afoul of the new regulations while she reviews her content.

“I’ve been pretty cautious in my approach,” said Whiplash, 35. “I’ve always been somebody who does everything by the book.”

The regulations effectively block certain types of porn, she said, particularly that with sadomasochistic or bondage overtones.

“I have — well, I had — a face-sitting website,” she said. “There is absolutely no way I can market a product which conforms with R18 [the BBFC regulation governing adult films] that people would actually pay money to see.”

The pranksters on “Jackass” can still be shown on UK TV kicking each other in the testicles, Whiplash pointed out, but she is no longer allowed to show films of herself doing the same to a man who has paid for it.

The BBFC notes on its website that “there is no direct cross over between the standards for sex works and those applied to non-pornographic films.”

Meanwhile, Whiplash said the only website of hers that remains live is also the only one showing hardcore pornography.

“The clothed lady sitting on the man’s head is banned, but me with two guys making them suck each other off and come on each other’s faces is ok?” she said. “It seems like there’s some flawed logic in this.”