Ms Naughty looks at porn for women, feminism and sex in general
“Censorship is telling a man he can’t have a steak just because a baby can’t chew it.” – Mark Twain We’re into the… let me think… fourth year of plans to introduce a mandatory internet filter in Australia and now it seems the UK conservatives want a piece of the censorial goodness. The British government is going to start talks with ISPs to discuss creating an “opt-in” version of the Read More …
[flashvideo file=video/fionapatten.flv /] In 2000, the Howard government seriously considered introducing a new law that would have essentially made explicit porn movies legal in Australia. The Non Violent Erotica (NVE) classification was to replace the existing X classification. Explicit films rated X are illegal to sell in all Australian states (though it’s not illegal to own them). The NVE classification was a handy way of liberalising erotic material in one Read More …
History Eraser Buttonemski* [AVS/MFL] | MySpace Video Fresh from saving us all from “spams and scams coming through the portal“, Minister for Communications Senator Conroy has come up with another brilliant idea to save the kiddies from all the horrors of the internet. A nice shiny red browser button. Based on the Adobe Air platform, the security device, notionally referred to as a “big red button” will either occupy the Read More …
In June 2009 the officers of Australian sex positive adult company Abby Winters was raided by police. In January 2010 Garion Hall was charged with “producing an objectionable film” and also 2 counts of child porn. The case has finally gone to court and G Media, the company that runs Abby Winters, has been fined $6000 after Hall pleaded guilty to the objectionable film charge. The CP charges were dropped, Read More …
The Examiner reports that a conservative “family” group operating on the campus of Princeton University has created a petition protesting against a planned lecture by Tristan Taormino on feminist porn. Tristan is due to speak tomorrow at the campus. Her presentation is called “My Life As a Feminist Pornographer” and will feature clips from her films. According to the Examiner, The Anscombe Society is a student organization at Princeton University Read More …
Today I was reading about the formation of the Parents Music Resource Center (PMRC) – the group headed by Tipper Gore responsible for creating the “Parental Advisory Explicit Lyrics” sticker. Given the current climate of censorship it’s always useful to go back and look at previous moral crusades. And, perhaps unsurprisingly, it all sounds very familiar. In 1985 Tipper Gore decided that somebody had to think of the children after Read More …
A couple of weeks ago Hungry Beast on the ABC did a great job of exposing the insanity of Australia’s classification laws, focusing on the rule that forbids “too much genital detail” in photos of naked women in magazines. Essentially, the rule means that any glimpse of a woman’s inner labia is considered to be obscene and thus the mag has to be classified as “restricted” and be wrapped in Read More …
Not long after I posted about the Australian Sex Party’s press release that the Classification Board were now banning depictions of women with too-small breasts, my friend Michael Meloni wrote something similar on his blog Somebody Think of the Children. His post ended up on social networking site Reddit and from there it went beserk, ending up on hundreds of blogs, The Register, Jezebel, Encore, Crikey and the Sydney Morning Read More …
The Australian Sex Party has released a statement on their site about the new bans on female ejaculation films (my original post is here). Turns out that squirting is not the only natural aspect of female sexuality that the Classification Board deems obscene. Now small boobs are in the firing line. The Board has also started to ban depictions of small-breasted women in adult publications and films. This is in Read More …
I’ve received a circular from the Eros Association, the advocacy group for the Australian adult industry. Thanks to shit stirring by a fundamentalist Christian group, the rules have been tightened as to what adult films can be imported into Australia. The Classification Board has explicitly stated that films featuring female ejaculation will now be seized and considered RC – refused classification. Effectively banned. This also means that female ejaculation sites Read More …
SPOILER ALERT: Warning! This post is about the film Avatar and may contain spoilers. Stop reading now if you haven’t seen it. Also, stop reading now if your find the idea of alien nipples or hair sex disturbing. I finally saw James Cameron’s Avatar yesterday and I quite liked it. The visual imagery was stunning but I found the plot a little derivative and unoriginal. Where Titanic made me cry Read More …
The mandatory internet filter has been on the cards for nearly two years now but I must admit I honestly didn’t think it would get off the ground. The whole idea is manifestly flawed and technically unfeasable and I foolishly thought that Senator Conroy would have to bow to common sense in the end. Alas, no. Religious zealotry tends to flush away all common sense and thus it is that Read More …
Scanning in old photos a few weeks ago I came across the pics we took at the Sydney performance of Annie Sprinkle’s Post Porn Modernist in 1996. Annie positively insisted that the audience took photos of the show so these blurry images are the result of our participation. I’ve also still got one of the rice-filled shakers we used to create a wall of sound during Annie’s orgasmic meditation. This Read More …
In Berlin last year I had the honour of meeting Jennifer Lyon Bell, an American filmmaker with a compelling vision for erotic film. Her film Matinee is a gorgeous work of art, well written, masterfully acted and beautifully filmed. It is a wonderful addition to the growing canon of well-made, female-focused erotic films and I consider it to be part of the new wave of sex-positive movies that are forging Read More …
The other day I visited one of the local video rental shops, a store I haven’t been to in a while. Imagine my surprise when I discovered Michael Winterbottom’s 9 Songs sitting unabashedly on the drama shelves. This is a small town, after all, and sexually explicit “art films” are a bit thin on the ground. I haven’t had a chance to see Shortbus, Destricted or any of those other Read More …