Guinea pigs offer a view on sex and porn

Classification chiefs have ordered new research into on-screen sexual violence, following the controversy over so-called torture porn films including The Human Centipede II.

The British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) cut more than two and a half minutes from the film about an obsessed horror movie fan who staples people together for kicks.

Around the same time it banned another film – The Bunny Game – about a prostitute kidnapped and sexually abused by a trucker.

Both films have been shown to carefully selected focus groups as part of the research.

BBFC director David Cooke said: “What we’re doing is getting the public on a fairly in-depth basis to look at some of this difficult material in controlled circumstances so they do have debriefing or counselling available.”