Thanks for the congrats, icey ... If only I'd had someone to do it with ...

You case histories are very interesting. I do not have access to the law reports you cite, but I'm scouting round to get some background.

However, it seems to me, your concern is now about the commission of acts which are deemed illegal, rather than just the possession of extereme pornographic images. The Coney case and the AG's Reference, so far as I can see, have nothing to do with images of any kind, but are concerned with whether or not one can consent to being injured. And the answer appears to be, yes you can, unless the act causing the injury is illegal itself.

In the Brown case, Templeman LJ appears to confirm that sadomasochism is an illegal act. If that is so, then a masochist cannot give legal consent to a sadistic act against him.

S/M has always taken place and has always been an "underground" activity. If the law is as stated above, it will continue to be an undeground activity: but it won't stop. BDSM clubs will adopt a "front" - a fetish group, perhaps. If we had thought it was legal for a while in today's more enlightened society, we were wrong: society isn't more enlightened, it's more puritanical. The difference is, now society is focused against sexual deviancy where as before it was against moral corruption.