Page 1247 - Week 05 - Tuesday, 24 April 1990
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do I hear stories that the videos are produced, copied and still freely available in other States and are not policed? I even hear of cases in which shipments are coming in from overseas. Do you really think that this will stop just because the ACT bans them?
I believe the whole issue of X-rated videos is on the agenda for the next Attorneys-General meeting, which is to be held sometime in June. Maybe it would have been more appropriate for this debate to take place after that meeting.
There are many arguments, some for and some against the banning of X-rated videos. The majority of arguments for banning have revolved around antisocial behaviour, especially, may I say, of males - not all males, of course, but a minority group of men. It has been suggested that the problem for women is not the pictures or the positions and the costumes in pornographic material, but the forces - economic, psychological and physical. It is not what a woman does but whether she does it because she likes it or because she is afraid to say no or because she has no choice.
Many of the problems that women face do not begin with pornography; they begin with powerlessness. Perhaps we should be looking at the reasons why, in so many instances, men have so much power and women have so little. Men used to get away with rape and assault charges by using excuses, such as women having low necklines, tight sweaters and short skirts, to get off the hook, blaming women for their inability to "control themselves". Statistics show that alcohol had been consumed by at least 40 per cent of rapists shortly before assaults. It is about time that these men accepted responsibility for their actions and accepted women as their equals.
Today women are becoming more involved in the production of X-rated videos. Although I do not promote the production of such videos, the involvement of women in their production will ensure that women are portrayed in a more balanced view. Videos will have more of a story-line, humour and show women expressing their own sexuality rather than being portrayed as playthings or, as some people say, hunks of meat. May I point out that only a couple of the women's organisations contacted me on this issue. When I asked them to send me information on the exploitation and degradation of women, they had none.
Now I am going to read over what Mr Moore said earlier, and that is that this Bill does nothing to redress the historical imbalance against women. I would like to quote from the recent report of the National Committee on Violence because I think it is important. It states:
The committee deplores sexism and the denigration of women. It feels, however, that values such as these, no less than other anti-social thoughts,
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