This article is more than 1 year old

Aussie censor balks at bijou boobs

Gets confused about other female bits also

The proposed Australian Government clampdown on smut just got a whole lot broader, as news emerged of a ban on small breasts and female ejaculation in adult material.

The end result of this widening of the censor’s net could be the addition of millions of websites to the internet filter now being proposed.

Breasts came under the spotlight a year ago, as Senators Barnaby Joyce and Guy Barnett commenced a campaign against publicly available porn. Rounding up magazines from corner shops and filling stations, Senator Joyce claimed that publications featuring small-breasted women were encouraging paedophilia.

The result of this campaign is now visible in the decisions being made by the Australian Classification Board, which is beginning to apply RC (refused classification) categories to such material, as opposed to the previous X-rating. According to Fiona Patten, Convenor of the Australian Sex Party: "We are starting to see depictions of women in their late 20s being banned because they have an A cup size.

"It may be an unintended consequence of the Senator’s actions but they are largely responsible for the sharp increase in breast size in Australian adult magazines of late."

Mainstream companies such as Larry Flint’s Hustler produce some of the publications that have been banned. These companies are regulated by the FBI to ensure that only adult performers are featured in their publications.

At the same time, the Australian Sex Party claims, Federal government censors are directing Customs officials to confiscate depictions of the female orgasm when it is accompanied with an ejaculation, as the Classification Board is also starting to classify films that feature female ejaculation as RC. Films that show both male and female ejaculation have routinely been given an X rating since 1983.

The new ruling follows a boom in the numbers of adult films featuring female ejaculation since the pioneering research of Professor Emeritus Beverly Whipple was published in her book The G Spot.

The films are being banned on one of two grounds:

1) That the depictions are a form of urination which is banned under the label of ‘golden showers’ in the Classification Guidelines or

2) Female ejaculation is an ‘abhorrent’ depiction

However, as Ms Patten points out, one of the objections raised the Board is that film performers have been faking the production of ejaculate: this suggests that they are trying to both have their cake and eat it on this issue, since if the liquid in question is fake, there is no policy requiring the censorship of douching or enemas.

In terms of impact on the net, The Australian Sex Party (ASP) suggests the impact could be enormous, as not only are banned sites to be blocked – but also sites that link to banned sites are also in line for blocking. The ASP argue: "There are over one million sites featuring female ejaculation and for Australia to be banning depictions and discussion of this important issue, takes us back into the Victorian era where they didn’t even believe that women could have orgasms."

Both issues have featured recently in Europe. Back in November 2008, Hustler Europe filed a constitutional complaint against a section of German law that criminalises sales and distribution of content depicting "adult actors who show a youthful appearance".

Meanwhile, the question of female ejaculation continues to be hotly debated in the UK, as film director Anna Span claims that the BBFC have now acknowledged its existence, whilst the BBFC continues to deny they have done any such thing.

And back in Australia, so great was the outrage over the Classification Board's actions that the ASP website went down under the weight of traffic. ®

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