'Sleazy Michael' wins obscenity trial over fisting DVDs

ONE of the biggest obscenity cases since the landmark Oz trial has ended with the acquittal of 'Sleazy' Michael Peacock, a gay escort, who was accused of distributing DVDs that contained footage that would "deprave and corrupt" viewers.
 
The films included scenes of gay fisting, 'watersports' (sex acts involving urine) and BDSM (including bondage, whipping and torture). In one scene a man was apparently punched in the testicles. Peacock's solicitor, Myles Jackman, wrote on his Obscenitylawyer blog that the trial would "ultimately clarify the law on the representation" of such acts.
 
In the end the jury took just a few minutes to clear Peacock after a four-day trial, much to the delight of online campaigners who live blogged the trial on twitter using the hashtag #obscenitytrial.
 
Dr Brooke Magnanti, the author of the Belle Du Jour books, said she was surprised to realise that she was a friend of the defendant, who she described as "an escort who goes by the handle 'Sleazy Michael'". He is a former railway worker who came out as gay in his mid-40s and immediately began working as an escort.
 
On her Sexonomics-uk blog, Magnanti wrote that the acquittal was likely to be "a great relief to my publisher, given that I've written about more than a few of these so-called 'obscene' acts (in chick-lit bestsellers no less)."
 
She also noted that all the sex acts featured on the DVDs were legal. "No one was disputing the legality of consenting to being fisted or punched in the balls," she explained. "It was more the question of who might see it happening."
 
New Statesman legal correspondent David Allen Green noted the irony of the fact that the jury "had to watch the DVDs as part of their compulsory jury service and not be depraved or corrupted in the process". 
 
Writing on Politics.co.uk, Jane Fae says the impact of the decision could be "seismic" and and lead to the abolition of obscenity laws. She says "various bodies - not least the British Board of Film Classification – now need to digest this result."