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This article references rape and image-based abuse.
With any luck, you’ve never heard of – let alone searched for – so-called ‘incest porn’ or ‘semen-defaced images’. But trust me, they exist – and thanks to the tireless efforts of survivors, campaigners, and legal experts, they will soon be illegal.
Last night (23 February), the government quietly announced the banning of so-called ‘incest porn’, ‘semen-defaced images’, and screenshotting temporary intimate images without consent, via a series of amendments to the Crime and Policing Bill. This follows a series of new laws covering online safety, including the banning of ‘strangulation porn’, requiring age-verification for pornography sites, and introducing 48-hour take-down orders for tech companies hosting illegal intimate images – all of which Glamour has covered extensively.
While it’s fair to say the government hasn’t exactly been shouting about these new proposals (a spokesperson told Glamour there is no official press release due to the sensitive nature of the proposals), they represent a shift in how we use the internet and how the content we consume online can impact us in the real world. Here, we break down what the new laws actually mean, how they will affect you, and crucially, whether they will actually make a difference.
1. Incest porn
What is it?
Incest porn refers to any sexualised content, or porn, depicting sexual activity between family members. And yes, this includes scenarios involving stepfamily members, which invariably involve ‘step’ fathers or ‘step’ brothers engaged in sexual acts with younger-looking women, often dressed to appear as girlish as possible. At the time of writing (24 Feb), a cursory search for ‘incest porn’ on Google – which I do not recommend – brings up results for sites with the following brags:
Family sex and incest porn in this category dedicated to perverse and taboo practices with the family, daddy, daughter, sister, mom.
Taboo porn tube focused on most popular family porn like brother and sister, mom and son, or daughter and daddy.
And perhaps most concerningly:
Watch featured forced and extreme sex scenes, unconsensual and group fucking.
The last example, by the way, is an example of rape porn – or pornography depicting unconsensual sex – which has been illegal since 2015 in England and Wales (since 2010 in Scotland). Glamour has reached out to Google for comment.
As Professor Clare McGlynn, a leading legal expert on violence against women and girls, wrote in 2025, “Porn consumed by millions necessarily shapes our social environment, and in turn our attitudes and sexual practices,” adding, “The prevalence of incest-themed content matters, as it normalises and legitimises ideas of sexual activity between family members – particularly involving young girls.”
She also points out that 500,000 children in England and Wales are sexually abused each year: “These are predominantly girls, with (step)fathers accounting for up to half of the perpetrators.”
What’s changing?
It will soon be a crime to possess, share, or publish pornography depicting sexual activity between family members. This will be listed as a priority offence under the Online Safety Act, which means tech platforms must proactively take steps to remove this material before it is even accessed – the same way they must with online material relating to terrorism, selling weapons, and child sexual abuse.
Those who are convicted of possessing incest porn face a maximum of two years in prison, while those found to be sharing it face a maximum sentence of five years.
Professor Clare McGlynn tells Glamour, “For too long, nobody has wanted to talk about the reality of what was on mainstream porn sites. This is beginning to change, and this new law could be a game-changer. But, it will only be the case if there is greater awareness about this change, and if it is enforced.
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