Porn in a Teacup

Porn in a teacup! Geddit? I like to think I have a vibrant future ahead of me writing headlines for The Sun, whose account of Elton John's 2005 nuptials - "Elton Takes David Up The Aisle" - remains my favourite headline of all time. Closely followed by the Daily Record's "I kicked burning terrorist so hard in balls that I tore a tendon in my foot". You just don't get that level of genius in the Australian media.

Sex! It's everywhere! And everyone is having it! Except, that is, for the clergy, the eunuchs and the dead. Although if the last decade or so has taught us anything, it's that only the latter two really seem to take this whole celibacy thing seriously. I've tried to pick up a eunuch and I tell you now, totally more trouble than its worth. Well, at least she said she was a eunuch... Actually, the more I think about it, the less sense that conversation made...

But! Some sex is more equal than other sex! At least that's what the catchily monikered OFLC (Office of Film and Literature Classification) seems to believe. They've managed to stray into quite interesting territory vis-a-vis the good sex/bad sex question recently, first with the purported and much publicised banning of pornography that depicts women with small breasts, and second with the potentially more interesting/concrete banning of scenes of female ejaculation.

The whole 'small breasts' shemozzle gained a massive amount of traction a couple of weeks back when the Australian Sex Party issued a press release on the banning of female ejaculation, which included the small breasts claim as an aside. While certainly exaggerated in the Twitter-driven frenzy that followed (Twitter leaping to premature conclusions. Who woulda thunk it?), there is no doubt that at certain times the OFLC has banned and attempted to ban pornography depicting women with A-cup breasts, when said depictions were intended to make the women appear underage. From what I can understand, the thoroughly reputable Hustler magazine 'Barely Legal' has spent much of its publishing life as exactly that.

But then there's this whole business of female ejaculation, a phenomenon which, I can assure you, definitely exists. Always surprising. But the good folks over at the OFLC are a little more sceptical, fuelled by a general mix of personal supposition  and a desire to further stigmatise female sexuality (THAT BE WITCHCRAFT!). Daniel Keogh - from everybody's favourite unwarranted whipping boy Hungry Beast - has covered the matter fairly comprehensively, suffice to say that the most telling quote comes from OFLC member Greg Scott, who says that board members “take each depiction on its individual merit, and then from... personal experience decide what the image is.” Uh-huh.

I mean, "personal experience"? Really? Doesn't anybody think that perhaps that's a standard that could be a little... I dunno, variable? Because I guarantee you, if you sat myself, Archbishop George Pell, my grandmother and free speech advocate Christopher Hitchens down in front of the offending video, Even More Intimate Moments, then, besides being the most horrendously awkward experience imaginable (OH GOD NANNA, I'M SO, SO SORRY!), we would probably also come to some wildly diverse conclusions as to the permissibility of the acts contained therein.

Often these sorts of decisions can seem a little academic in nature (have these people even heard of the Internet?), but I just feel that given Australia's seemingly imminent plunge into the heady waters of online censorship we perhaps need to start being a little more careful about how we decide what is and isn't normal (here's a list of media that has been banned since 2000). Because if the OFLC crew were to continue to restrict classification of depictions of female ejaculation under the pretense that it's 'golden shower' fetish porn and thus to be kept away from the seemingly delicate sensibilities of Australia's adult population, then it would be perfectly within the remit of the Government to place sites that host such content behind the filter, thereby effectively declaring a phenomenon experienced by perhaps 40% of the female population not to exist. How very Victorian of us.

Also, keep in mind that it is perfectly acceptable to show a man ejaculating in whatever way he sees fit. Hell, if he saw fit, he could get creative with it... If that's, uh, what buttered his muffin.

This is all hypothetical sure, and the Government will always be hard pressed to censor the myriad very, very simple ways of accessing Internet pornography that are enjoyed so many Australians, but still, the possibilities just worry me a bit, y'know? It could all be one opportunistic election promise away. Lest we forget, the children must be protected.

Ah well, I guess, when it comes down to it, I just really like the Internet. As it is. Even in all its messy, somewhat controversial, female ejaculant fuelled glory. But now, to take you out, here's the aforementioned Christopher Hitchens on the perils of censorship, saying it better than I ever could: