Pornography (non violent, sexually explicit media) gets a lot of bad press. From the religious right to the feminist left; from George Bush to the Taliban; and from Liberal to Labor party. In fact, their opposition to pornography is conspicuously one of the few things they all have in common.
And yet pornography sales continue to grow (the U.S. porn industry makes more money than Hollywood) and enough civil libertarians speak out in the west, to stop producers from being executed. Sadly, in China and many Islamic countries, porn producers are still stoned to death or shot alongside adulterous women and political dissidents.
Porn is in the vanguard of the fight against all forms of official censorship and the free world owes the much maligned porno producer a huge debt of gratitude. Most people will know of the canary in the coalmine and how this innocuous little bird was often sacrificed to save the lives of miners and ultimately, the profitability of the coalmine and the success of the entire industrial revolution. Porn is the canary in the dark tunnel of censorship.
In the world of political and social debate, pornography (non violent, sexually explicit depictions or descriptions) is always the first casualty of official censorship. When governments, social groups, political parties, corporations, dictators, committees, religions, trade unions or any other organised group of people start calling for the banning of pornography, you can be sure that it is the thin end of the wedge and that the canary is starting to teeter.
The official repression of free speech and non-violent ideology is most visible in countries like Iran, China, Burma and Indonesia. All of these countries prosecute pornography more vigorously and openly than any other form of speech or expression. Then, under the smokescreen of moral piety, ‘decency' and paternalism they start censoring other forms of free speech and expression, including political dissent. In fact they often equate political dissent with pornography.
For many people who produce and distribute pornography its not just about entertainment or profit. It's an expression of dissent. Dissent about the moral and ethical structures that are being unfairly legislated on people and dissent about what follows from the demonization of basic bodily functions and basic human natures. Sexually explicit descriptions and images challenge the moral status quo by making public what is legislated as ‘private'. Those who make or distribute pornography challenge government and/or religious authority by claiming that adults have a right to sexual free speech just as surely as Tibetans or the Burmese challenge their government to political free speech.
The paternalistic censorship of sex by those in positions of power has been going on for a very long time. Generally it's OK for rulers or lawmakers to see the material that is being censored because they are more intelligent and capable of dispassionate judgement than the masses - or so they say! The legislators even appoint commoners in some countries to form censorship boards to view sexual material and strangely enough these people don't become serial killers or rapists either. Ditto police, magistrates, customs officers and forensic psychologists - just the seething masses it seems.
Throughout the world sex is censored before all other forms of expression. It is placed in the top three categories of even the most censorial countries. For example, after direct criticism of the state, the Chinese government censors sex from the Internet at the same rate as it does for posts that concern Falun Gung or Tibet.
However its not just communist states or theocracies that are so extreme. In the 1950s the expression of sex and sexuality in the US was severely censored with strict moral codes developed for TV, comics and films. This episode in world censorship still affects Australia today and most other western democracies. In a salutary lesson for all students of history, what followed from this successful prosecution of sex was an attack by J.Edgar Hoover on seditious speech in general and in particular that of suspected Communists and their sympathisers.
Thankfully at the same time, U.S. Supreme Court Judge Felix Frankfurter overruled an earlier judgement that material could simply be prohibited on the grounds that it was said to be ‘a harm to minors'. In his now famous judgement he said that this level of justification would "reduce the adult population of Michigan to reading only what is fit for children"'. An even more remarkable comment on the freedom of speech came from a county judge in Philadelphia, Curtis Bok, in the 1940s. At issue this time were a variety of literary works, including James T. Farrell's ‘Studs Lonigan' trilogy and William Faulkner's Sanctuary and Wild Palms. The judge quite rightly dismissed the obscenity charges on these works and at the same time gave a detailed, scholarly history of censorship from ancient times. His critique of the 1930s ‘harm to minors' test was unrestrained. In his judgement he said that the test rendered any book unsafe because there would always be some moron who could tune the listings in a seed catalogue into a sexual fantasy.
It may well be that the current U.S. Federal court is now trying to roll back Frankfurter's rulings but this time around the Internet. The popular adult company Evil Angel and its owner John Stagliano, have been recently hit by the Bus administration with a variety of obscenity charges stemming from the supply of adult films via the post. More frighteningly, they have also been charged with using an interactive computer service to display an obscene movie trailer in a manner available to a person under 18 years of age. The latter charge has never been seen before and the prosecution comes under a section of the Communications Act of 1934 that has been previously used to prosecute phone sex message services. If successful, this landmark case will make it an offence to use the Internet to transmit anything that is ‘not suitable for to a person under 18 years of age'. The investigation was conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Adult Obscenity Squad - which sounds like something the Taliban would convene.
If this case is successful, where will the line be drawn about what is not suitable for a minor on the Internet? Political and social issues will fall like dominoes unless the sex case is fought and won first of all. We are looking at a similar thing here in Australia as the Rudd government pushes ahead with a ban on X rated, non-violent erotica on the Internet via compulsory filtering. Communications Minister Stephen Conroy has raised the dead hand of J Edgar Hoover and the 1950s morality of the US by suggesting a ban on all other material that could be deemed "inappropriate to minors". Do we have a modern Felix Frankfurter on the High Court in Australia to counter this?
After the Frankfurter decision, the US Supreme Court found in another sex case (US vs. Roth) that obscenity was outside the jurisdiction of the First Amendment and therefore not to be considered in ‘free speech' cases. This meant that a government did not have to satisfy the "clear and present danger" test that applied when ordinary political speech was suppressed or banned.
During this time comic books also faced increased and stricter censorship. This historic push, which still influences anti-porn campaigners today, started with a book written by Dr. Frederick Wertham called, The Seduction of the Innocent. Amongst other unproven claims, he stated that comics helped reinforce, and possibly even produced reading disorders; that youths with reading disorders had a noticeably higher chance of becoming delinquents; and that comics were the sole reason for any type of unusual sexual acts in children. Again, he claimed to have collaboration from juvenile sex offenders eager to agree with him.
He asserted that the difference between comics and pornography for adults, was that one was meant to attract perverts, the other (comics) was meant to create them. To back this up pointed to alleged homo-eroticism between Batman and Robin. "Robin is a handsome boy, usually showing his uniform with bare legs. He is buoyant with energy and devoted to nothing on earth or interplanetary space as much as to Bruce Wayne. He often stands with legs spread, the genital region discreetly evident".
Like so many of these untested and lunatic statements from morals campaigners masquerading as social scientists, Wertham's ravings resulted in the introduction of the Comics Code Authority (CCA). The CCA imposed draconian restrictions on the editorial content of all comic books. While of course banning all depictions of sex they also included ‘nudity in any form' and ‘indecent or undue exposure'. Ditto ‘suggestive and salacious illustration' or even ‘suggestive posture'. "All characters shall be depicted in dress reasonably acceptable to society. Females shall be drawn realistically without exaggeration of any physical qualities. The treatment of love-romance stories shall emphasize the value of the home and the sanctity of marriage. Passion or romantic interest shall never be treated in such a way as to stimulate the lower and baser emotions. Policemen, judges, government officials, and respected institutions shall never be presented in such a way as to create disrespect for established authority. In every instance good shall triumph over evil and the criminal punished for his misdeeds. Ridicule or attack on any religious or racial group is never permissible."
The late 50s and 60's saw the advent of TV and again sexual depictions were the first to go followed quickly by almost all depictions of ethnic minorities and anti US content. Sex was not allowed to be implied, even between a married couple. For example, the sexual relationship between Rob and Laura Petrie in The Dick Van Dyke Show during the mid-60s, always showed the bedroom as one with two neat single beds. Language which described bodily functions and sexual activity or even profane sacred words was excluded from broadcast discourse.
While debate did happen about the censorship of TV and films and there was a considerable relaxation in a number of areas in the early 1970s, sex remained banned almost completely. There was some reprieve for sex in Australia at this time, with the TV shows Number 96 and The Box as obvious examples. Although try showing Number 96 in the same time slot today with full frontal nudity! Organised religious groups will generate hundreds of letters in a coordinated response that frightens TV executives and causes them to lose sight of the far greater viewing audience.
The furore around the Big Brother Uncut shows of a couple of years ago, led directly to the Howard government's Online Content Services Bill which targeted only sex in broadcast media in Australia and was all about material that was unsuitable for children. More recently, a TV ad for nicotine patches that featured a pole dancer has become the most complained about ad of the year. The ad portrayed the said pole dancer as also being a mother and having a happy nuclear family life. The ad suggested that a woman could be sexual and a mother at the same time. Currently the advertising standards tribunal is contemplating what to do about the religious complaints. If these complaints are taken seriously then they raise the question of what other jobs are women not suited to and should not be included in advertising?
The infamous Janet Jackson breast episode which saw TV companies in the U.S. fined ($550,000) for the millisecond exposure of part of one breast was disturbing in the extreme in that no one complained about the thousands of hours worth of murder and serious assault that was airing on other networks at the time.
Somehow we need to get a government's censorship record to feature more strongly at election time. In 1994 a Princeton academic and his team, Sydney Head et al, published a book called Broadcasting in America. In it he pointed out that "the control of media and media content is also related to the type of government in power within a particular country." They identified four types of governmental philosophy related to the issue of censorship; authoritarian, paternalistic, pluralistic and permissive. Of the four types, they said, "the first two are more inclined to exercise censorship because they assume they know what is best for citizens. Anything that challenges this exclusive view must be banned or excluded."
Under this model we would rate the Queensland government as authoritarian; other state governments as paternalistic; the federal government as pluralistic (but bordering on paternalistic when it comes to interest), while the ACT could be said to be permissive.
The time has come for the world's adult retail and entertainment industry to unite at a global level to present a global response to governments. The banning of pornography (non violent, sexually explicit depictions or descriptions) in the US and Australia has many parallels with the banning of political and social information in Iran and China. The adult industry needs to share its political and business agendas with those who want to develop adult businesses in other countries but it also has a responsibility and a duty to share its resources and intelligence with dissenting groups in totalitarian states who have no freedom of speech at all.
Robbie Swan is a lobbyist for Australia's adult retail industry.