Page 1230 - Week 05 - Tuesday, 24 April 1990
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consensus between persons of known viewpoints was found to be lacking.
Beatrice Faust suggested that a solution to the problem might be to stop selecting committees who represent a variety of views and choose only people who have no particular investment in the problem except as an exercise in democratic process.
Dr Jocelynne Scutt, former deputy chairperson of the Law Reform Commission in Victoria and a noted feminist barrister, believes it is possible to take a human rights approach to the issue. In her submission to the Joint Select Committee on Video Materials, Dr Scutt states:
If you look at the definition of obscenity, which is the closest to pornography, what one finds is that in the law pornography tends to be defined as something that is of prurient interest or titillating or tantalising in a sexual manner. In terms of the pornography that I have seen, I am certainly not tantalised by it or titillated, and it is not of prurient interest to me. In fact it is quite the opposite. I think that it is subordinating to women, it is derogatory of women as human beings, and in the course of that it is actually derogatory of men also. Therefore, I do not think the current legal definitions of obscenity and pornography are of very much help at all. I think the preferable approach would be to insert in the Sex Discrimination Act at the Federal level and into State equal opportunity or anti-discrimination legislation, a definition of pornography which makes it very clear or explicit as to what the activity is that the community considers to be unacceptable.
She went on to offer her own definition, highlighting yet again the difficulty in reaching a form of words that all can agree on. Nevertheless, I endorse her attempt to find a regulatory base in antidiscrimination laws outside of repressive, unworkable and simplistic bans. (Extension of time granted)
The X-rated video industry is dominated by men who perpetrate images of submission and dominance. It is another manifestation of centuries of exclusion of women from explicit writing and painting. Do men fear that feminist-directed erotica will reveal some male taboos?
The advent of the video cassette recorder has allowed those who so choose to watch X-rated videos within their homes. Previously, these people may have frequented so-called "blue cinemas" to which young persons of impressionable age could not easily gain admission. The technology that has allowed this level of accessibility by the individual does not of itself have a moral value, and again I say that a simple ban on the videos themselves does not adequately
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