<
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/mar/30/pirate-porn-and-candle-wax-review-of-australian-film-classification-recommends-end-to-ban-on-fetishes>
"Australia should ditch its censorship of certain fetishes and some instances
of violence in pornography, according to a review that could open the way to
everything from wax fetishes to pirate pornography.
On Wednesday the Albanese government released a review of the classification
system handed to the Morrison government three years ago, promising to
prioritise reforms to tackle in-game gambling.
Video games containing simulated gambling should be classified at least R18+,
which are restricted to adults, while games containing paid loot boxes should
be rated M, according to the communications minister, Michelle Rowland.
Rowland announced the commonwealth will seek agreement from the states and
territories for the new classifications but has so far not responded in detail
to the other recommendations of the report.
Neville Stevens, who completed the classification review in May 2020,
recommended that “in the films guidelines, the absolute prohibitions on legal
fetishes and violence (where violence is unrelated to sex) within the X18+
category should be removed.”
Australia has long refused to classify films combining sex and violence,
effectively banning films such as
Ken Park, Larry Clark’s tale of degraded
skatepark life, and pornography that depicts violence separate to sex.
The Reason party leader, Fiona Patten, raised the issue in 2010 when the Rudd
government proposed filtering the internet, complaining that even “mainstream
adult films” such as
Pirates II: Stagnetti’s Revenge had been banned because
of depictions of pirates having sword-fights.
The removal of the ban on fetishes was backed by the Classification Board, the
Eros Association and the Scarlet Alliance.
“Departmental research into attitudes towards refused classification content
shows that the community is unconcerned about depictions of most fetishes, as
long as there is consent, and no serious harm is inflicted,” the review found."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
