back to article Tory peers to protect kids from anuses

Lord Mandelson's Digital Economy Bill, we're told, is about "equipping the UK to compete and lead in the global digital economy". If two Conservative peers get their way though, its also about censoring breasts, buttocks and anuses. One section of the Bill sets up a compulsory age classification system for video games, in part …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Title

    Or are they trying to kill the bill? It's not an uncommon practice to tack stuff onto a bill on it's progress through the houses in order to get people to vote against the bill in order to prevent the amendments becoming law.

    Just a thought.

  2. Winkypop Silver badge
    FAIL

    Right up the old Khyber Pass

    Have they been playing some nasty Sims mod?

  3. Robert Carnegie Silver badge

    To be passed by the censor, I hope

    This seems to mean that certain material will be scrutinised by the censor more - at the publisher's expense, I suppose - but probably will be approved if it's legitimate.

    I remember in early adolescence I was very interested to get hold of classical or Renaissance art that portrayed the nude female figure - probably the same motive that created the originals, but with a lesser outlay. It probably didn't damage anything but my sense of proper geometric perspective. Yes, that and, um, certain pages of mail order catalogues. All of it educational, up to a point.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Coat

    So...

    No more Party Political Broadcasts then!

  5. Evil_Trev
    Joke

    Darn them

    I've just done a freeware naked toffs with bladder and bowel problems go foxhunting with pit bull terriers game for kids, I was hoping the 'sporting' theme would let it slip past the net....

    Foiled again!

    1. Hermes Conran
      Troll

      Never mind,

      You could try turning it into an iPhone app,

  6. Paul Smith
    Coat

    do they specify...

    Do the good Lords specify the gender of the breasts to be considered? We wouldn't want our old Tarzan movies, or anything Schwarzenegger has ever appeared in to be considered extreme porn. Perhaps the honourable gentlemen could give us some indication of how much needs to be covered to remain safe? Just the niple? Neck to Knee? Naturally, breast feeding is a no-no.

    Mines the one that left the country.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Would you let your wife or your servant...?

    I can remember a peer some decades ago, enquiring into (pre-internet) porn. He concluded among other things that a large part of political opposition to pornography, was too often based on making sure the lower classes didn't practice what their betters got up to habitually. He found himself unable to define pornography within the framework of a free society, and since then neither has anyone else, other than it's usually anything that other people do that someone in power doesn't like (or doesn't want his voters to find out about).

    We laugh these days at the Lady Chatterley trials - back then they weren't funny. Neither is the modern equivalent.

    These days, it's high time we had laws to protect our kids from slimy unelected politicians with narrow minds and private agendas.

  8. Tony Hoyle

    So...

    A 'family' newspaper is OK to have photos of unclothed women every day, but a cartoon version of such warrants a rating just in case someone under 18 sees it.

    We're not *quite* like america yet - porn capital of the world that almost ground to a halt because someone showed half a breast on TV... but we're sure trying to head in that direction.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Aha!

    I think the game concerned is "Call to civic duty" where the player begins serving as a secretary working as a spouse of an MP in their office and then works their way up through various departments to becoming a full MP in their own right.

    The various states of undress are required parts of the game, happening in various stages throughout.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Coat

    @Winkypop

    "Have they been playing some nasty Sims mod?"

    Nah; Grant Theft Arsehole.

  11. Vladimir Plouzhnikov

    Can you imagine?

    No pictures of half-naked Putin on horseback in the papers anymore!

    Russian propaganda stopped in its tracks.

  12. Tanuki
    Go

    What about depictions of animals' buttocks?

    This puts a whole new gloss on the expression "anally retentive".

  13. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    Excellent use of the word "excretion" there

    after all, nobody wants to see people breathing or sweating.

    Down with this sort of flith!

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Headmaster

      Re: the AC before

      so on a strict reading of the amendents, 'watersport' videos are evil but 'scat' flicks are fine as they involve defecation not exrection. Guess we know the type of exercise video's they like to play for Mrs Palm and her daugthers.

  14. lukewarmdog
    Megaphone

    Good

    The ban on showing digital representations of arses coupled with the analogue switchoff should immediately get the BBC Parliament channel closed down.

  15. Number6

    Missed the headline

    Surely the headline should have been "Tory peers to protect kids from arseholes"?

  16. Anonymous Coward
    Paris Hilton

    Why not just come out and say it?

    They're looking for every combination and permutation to ban the goat pic without naming it.

  17. Paul_Murphy
    Paris Hilton

    How is this ever going to work?

    The scope of possibilites available to a games/graphic designer means that if they want to do something 'suggestive' they will find a way.

    Aside from that what's the problem with basic biological functions, or will it be illegal to piss and poo? let alone other bodily functions..

    This does not sound like an adult discussion, but more like some school kids who have been sniggering when someone said 'willy'.

    This is just sillly and seems like an excuse to watse a lot of peoples time.

    ttfn

    So, no PH in cartoon form then? just the real thing?

  18. mhoulden
    Paris Hilton

    No Backsides?

    What are politicians going to talk out of then?

  19. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Up

    If we banned all the arses...

    ...Parliament would be empty.

  20. Bassey

    Good show

    So films like Slumdog millionaire, depicting the genital torture of a young boy, the bludgeoning to death of a mother in front of her very young children and the deliberate blinding of kids as young as seven or eight is fine - give it a fifteen certificate.

    But when it comes to the sight of a breast or someone peeing - then we really need to act to protect people.

    Absolute fucking muppets the lot of them. It reminds me of the brilliant line at the end of South Park : The Movie where, just in case anyone had missed the entire point of the film, a character utters "It's okay to show despicable acts of deplorable violence - just so long as nobody utters any naughty words".

    1. elderlybloke
      Unhappy

      Dear Bassey-Good show--#

      Please don't associate the Muppets with politicians.

      Kermit and mates were nice people (or Puppets)

  21. Neil Kay
    Coat

    Seems appropriate...

    ...considering many believe Mandelson to be the biggest anus in UK politics.

    I'm sure I had an invite to a party hosted by David Geffen in one of my pockets..? Nope, just this loan application form.

  22. bertie bassett

    MP's and aresholes

    Obviously not notices that we've all got one, even those of a female persuasion.

  23. Psymon
    WTF?

    I no longer own a TV

    ...so I may be more aware of of commercials when I do occasionally see them round at friends houses, but I'm suprised that nobody has picked up on the miriad of buttocks that are flashed at us ALL DAY in shampoo ads?

    Ban buttocks? Really?

    Next we'll be seeing legislation damanding the return of skirting on furniture. We can't have tables and chairs flirtaciously flashing their legs!

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: I no longer own a TV...

      This will not affect the shampoo ads. It's the real poo ads they're out to get.

  24. SlabMan

    Deep packet inspection

    All your torrents will now be subjected to an automated buttock probe and breast inspection

  25. Anonymous Coward
    Coffee/keyboard

    My lords play all sorts of games

    At Eton, Harrow, Charterhouse, et al....Plenty of strange goings on in the dorms....buttocks to the fore and all that. Perhaps they are playing public school games, us mere mortals (rif raf) are not party to?

  26. Mike Moyle

    Hurrm-m-m...

    "Those exemptions do not apply, however, when the work depicts to any great extent 'mutilation or torture of, or other acts of gross violence towards, humans or animals'. "

    So, no Bible games, then...?

  27. frank ly

    I can understand their concern.............

    .......since when I was a child, my mother made me wear a blindfold whenever I did pee-pee or poo-poo. I still have that reticence and cannot open my eyes from start to finish until my body is safely tucked away and covered again.

    The idea of seeing someone else's body fills me with horror and disgust. They are protecting us all.

  28. Colin Wilson

    we need a goatse icon !

    now !

  29. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Ban Mirrors...

    when I was a kid, I once stood on one to examine my own anus.

  30. Big-nosed Pengie

    Religion?

    My religion requires me to worship breasts, buttocks and anuses. Does that make me exempt?

    "Row, row row your boat

    Gently down the stream.

    Belts off, trousers down

    Isn't life a scream?"

  31. Graham Marsden
    WTF?

    We're not sure what...

    ... Lords Howard and de Mauley have been playing to warrant their concerns.

    I think they've been playing silly buggers!

  32. David S 1
    Megaphone

    Responsibility

    So, rather than putting the onus on parents to supervise their children appropriately, the bill aims to take the anus away from games manufacturers! It seems to me to be arse about tit.

  33. Anonymous Coward
    Alert

    An example of what will be forbidden.

    *

    Rendered less amusing as "The post is required, and must contain letters."

  34. Alex 32
    Grenade

    Rusty Trumbone

    ... great ...

    So all the shower and bathroom glossys that you can get from Jewsons when you were a kid would be banned?

    I truly weep for the younger generation that will be brought up in an archaic prudish Britain. more laughing from our relaxed neighbours across the pond and channel..

    FTW

  35. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    so

    in two year we've gone from banning "extreme" porn, to giving cartoons rights, to banning virtual buttocks. That's the superhero league fucked then.

    So after buttocks what's next?

  36. Kirstian K
    Thumb Up

    Have you every noticed

    That a pickure of a thumb looks just like a....

    Johnson

  37. David Hicks
    Unhappy

    No musical exemption for arses?

    So I should give up trying to sell my "Fart Hero" idea to Activision?

  38. Graham Bartlett
    Joke

    Acronyms

    I look forward to the new game category of First Pisson Shitter...

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