Page 3431 - Week 12 - Wednesday, 18 September 1991
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response to male fears aroused by the new model of sexuality claimed for women by feminism". In other words, males feel threatened and they respond with grotesque fantasy violence.
In another article in the same Weekend Australian headed "Bishops Object to Censorship Policy", Katherine Glascott notes an AAP report that the Victorian Attorney-General, Mr Kennan, has called for the introduction of a new film classification covering very violent films. Over 12 months ago, in June 1990, the former ACT Attorney-General, Bernard Collaery, raised the same issue at a meeting of censorship Ministers in Alice Springs. Mr Collaery called for the new subcategory in the R classification to be called RV. The message finally seems to be hitting home; it has just taken a long time.
Sadly, the bishops referred to in that article may have been misled into thinking that the Commonwealth-sponsored Australian Law Reform Commission report imposed the ACT's censorship policy. This is not the case. It arose, so I am informed, because the commission did not heed the advice of the ACT not to use the ACT form in its draft legislation.
In the Canberra Times, in an article headed "Federal Court Orders Film Censorship Board to Classify Adult Videos", Rod Campbell notes that a local mail-order video company has successfully challenged the Commonwealth on a classification issue. One wonders whether, in hindsight, the Commonwealth would want to reserve the classification power to itself and suffer this embarrassment, particularly as we are told so often that the adult or X-rated video issue is solely an ACT matter.
Other recommendations in the report include one that the possession of child pornography should be an offence, regardless of its intended use, and I very strongly agree with that recommendation; and that a child of or over the age of 15 should be held legally liable for attending the screening of an R-rated film or buying an R- or X-rated film. I believe that that is correct, because I think young adults of that age do know what they are doing. I have not had a chance to read all of the report, but I think it is worth reading.
Getting back to the X classification, I have received a lot of information both for banning X-rated videos and against banning them. A lot is said about men going out and raping after watching X-rated videos. I believe that rape is not about sex but about power and about men wanting to use power over women, and I spoke about this in one of my previous speeches. Rape and pornography are about the power of men and the powerlessness of women, and I will stick by that. In Apprenticeship in Liberty - Sex, Feminism and Sociobiology, Beatrice Faust says:
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