Opposition To The Clean Feed Grows

Today I’m feeling optimistic about the future of the internet in Australia. Grassroots group GetUp has finally launched a campaign against the clean feed. They’ve already collected 32,000 signatures in a little over 24 hours and the comments are running hot on their site. Apparently they’ve had more emails requesting a campaign on this issue than anything else. There are now protests planned on December 14 in a number of Read More …

At Last: The Sex Party

Good news: the folks at the Eros Association have decided to get serious and form a political party. They’re launching the Australian Sex Party at Sexpo in Melbourne on Thursday and are hoping to round up the 500 members required to make it officially recognised by the legal system. They’re aiming to put censorship onto the agenda, but they also want to talk about sex education, abortion, contraception, gender issues Read More …

Australian Porn, Censorship And Statistics Roundup

I’ve accumulated a number of interesting links regarding Australian censorship, statistics and hot websites so I thought I’d cheat and just whack them all in one post. Firstly, Catharine Lumby, one of the authors of The Porn Report, has given a fascinating talk about the history of censorship and porn to the Sydney Institute. You can find a video of the event here. While despairingly contemplating the state of Australia Read More …

More On Australian Women, Porn and Sex

Just wanted to add a further post about the recent survey of the sex lives of Australian women (previous post here) News.com.au has an article unfortunately titled “The sad sexual secrets of women” which is rather misleading since the survey has plenty of positive aspects to it, including an increase in masturbation, a desire for more consideration from male partners and a general urge to explore one’s sexuality. I wanted Read More …

This Is Post 701: Aussie Chicks Like Porn

Another day, another book, another news item and survey that says that women like porn. A book called The Sex Lives of Australian Women says that 1 in 4 Aussie chicks will look at porn at least once a month. The book is based on a survey of 2000 self-selected internet participants. Naturally, I’m not surprised at this 1-in-4 statistic, which seems to be the similar to the 27-30% figure Read More …

A New Wave Erotica Film From Australia

A couple of years ago Anna Brownfield made waves when her film The Money Shot won numerous awards at the Melbourne Underground Film Festival. When the ABC show Mondo Thingo decided to do a piece on “chick porn” they interviewed Anna as the local representative of the porn for women movement.* Now Anna is about to release her first full-on porn film called The Band. Set in the grungy Melbourne Read More …

ISP Filtering: Australians Don’t Want It

The Australian government seems determined to go ahead with plans to filter the internet at ISP level, making people “opt in” if they want to see adult sites. While the story itself is distinctly biased, the 51 comments listed after it cheered me up immensely. About 95% of them are against ISP filtering, and all make the point that parents shouldn’t expect the government to do their job for them. Read More …

More Censorship In Australia

We may have a new government but it looks like they’re going to be just as painfully conservative in some areas as the last lot. On New Year’s Eve (nice sneaky date for it) the communications minister Stephen Conroy announced a plan to filter internet content at the ISP level. This despite the fact that every computer-savvy person knows it just won’t work. Complaints that the plan was repressing free Read More …

Censoring And Spying In Australia

There’s been a landslide of depressing things happening here in Australia with regards to censorship and privacy issues. Depressing News Story 1: Australian police can now tap phones and monitor emails for 45 days if they suspect a person is “believed to be connected with child pornography.” I don’t think there’s a lot of checks and balances on this legislation so basically they can say that anyone is involved without Read More …

More Calls For Censorship In Australia

It’s depressing, but not surprising. The Australian government’s plan to prevent aborigines in remote communities from accessing porn has sparked calls for more censorship. Mr Anderson said that by banning pornography flowing into NT Aboriginal communities, the Howard Government had effectively conceded there was a link between watching the material and acting in dysfunctional ways. “I think what comes out of this is we are now conceding that there’s a Read More …

Proposed Ban On Aborigines Watching X-Rated Porn

I can’t believe that’s the title of this post. The Howard government has announced an “emergency” plan to deal with widespread child abuse among aboriginal communities, especially in the Northern Territory. Beyond banning alcohol and resuming control of communities and land, the government plans to ban X-rated porn. More information here. While I’m all for preventing child abuse (isn’t everyone?), I feel the need to stand up and say that Read More …