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Sex workers and campaigners have gathered in front of Parliament to protest against changes to pornography regulations.

Organiser Charlotte Rose called the restrictions "ludicrous" and said they were a threat to freedom of expression.

Protesters say the list of banned activities includes "face-sitting", and campaigners carried out a mass demonstration of this while singing the Monty Python song Sit On My Face.

"These activities were added to this list without the public being made aware," Charlotte Rose said. "They've done this without public knowledge and without public consent.

"There are activities on that list that may be deemed sexist, but it's not just about sexism, it's about censorship. What the Government is doing is taking our personal liberties away without our permissions."

The protest comes after the Government said a list of sex acts has been banned from online porn videos filmed in the UK, in a bid to crack down on "harmful" content.

A quiet change in legislation has ruled that paid-for online porn videos must now adhere to the same rules as content produced for sex shop-type videos.

It means acts that would not be classified as an R18 rating, in line with guidelines laid out by the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC), are prohibited.

The list of around 10 acts reportedly range from spanking to strangulation.

Critics argue the change not only damages the country's porn industry, with online viewers still able to access content banned in the UK by watching videos filmed abroad, but amounts to "arbitrary censorship".

The Audiovisual Media Services Regulation 2014 came into effect this month.

At first there were just a few protesters posing for photos

Mistress Absolute, 39, a professional dominatrix and fetish promoter, said the law was restrictive.

"I felt that this was the beginning of something to creep into my sexual freedom and sexual preferences."

This is a gateway to other laws being snuck in."

Her friend Neil Rushton, 33, a mature student, said: "They're very sexist laws. These are very geared towards women's enjoyment as opposed to men's."

The pair planned to take part in the mass face-sitting this afternoon.

There were some pretty funny placards

Justin Hancock, a sex educator who runs the website Bish UK, said: "Often the same filters that block these websites block my website, so I suffer from the same kind of censorship issues that the porn industry does.

"This particular regulation will not prevent one person from seeing any porn that they can't already see elsewhere anyway."

Them using the argument around sex and young people is completely specious.

"It's moralising. It's about saying as a society what kind of sex is okay."

Then more people turned up and they attempted to break a world record

Accompanied, of course, by a rousing chorus of the Monty Python classic

And, it being Christmas, Santa showed up to lend his support

Here's our guide to the new law, which includes a full list of all the activities that are now banned