Page 3692 - Week 14 - Wednesday, 9 December 1992
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MR HUMPHRIES: You might get a prize, yes. Any guesses? No guesses? You could not imagine it. There are probably too many for you to guess amongst; so that is why you cannot make a guess. It was Fred Daly, a distinguished former parliamentarian, a Minister in the Whitlam Government. He spoke those words, Madam Speaker, for the mainstream of the Labor movement in this country because he knows that that is what most Australians want. That is what Australians want to see - an industry which is contained and restricted, rather than one which flourishes as it does in the Australian Capital Territory. I am not prepared to continue to tolerate that industry and I wish that those opposite were honest enough to admit to themselves that it should not be tolerated any longer either.
MS SZUTY (11.32): Madam Speaker, I will not be supporting Mr Stevenson's amendment Bill, for many of the reasons that have been expressed in the past when Mr Stevenson has attempted to have the ACT Legislative Assembly pass these same amendments. I feel that Mr Stevenson is misfocusing his energies in attempting to impose the prohibition of X-rated videos. What appears to me to be happening with Mr Stevenson's constant referral to a ban on X-rated videos is an attempt to confuse the real issues of violence in our society and its use against women, with depictions of sexuality and sensuality.
In his speech introducing this amendment Bill Mr Stevenson referred to the work of an American psychologist who claimed that most of his sex offender clients were exposed to massive quantities of pornographic material and that this had desensitised them to the crimes they subsequently committed. But what comes first? Problems with relationships and power or pornographic material? We have not been provided with enough quantifiable data to understand what type of material we are discussing in this example.
Another notable American psychiatrist, Bernard Zilbergeld, in his book Men and Sex, which is based on his counselling of men with sexual problems, claims that the model of sex we see portrayed in pornography is the one that is prevalent in our society but that in reality the model does not exist. In another publication quoted by Dr Zilbergeld, Pornography and Sexual Deviance by Michael Goldstein and Harold Cant, it is pointed out that erotic literature and films are often the only media through which the roles of men and women in sexual relationships, as well as what they refer to as the mechanics of sex, are gained by many men. Many women also, no doubt, receive some of their own sexual education from these materials.
An Australian psychiatrist, Dr Bruce Chenoweth, who works with sex offenders in Newcastle, in a recent address to a sex therapists conference in Sydney, outlined his thesis that universally, at some level, there is male resentment of women that is pervasive in our culture. Dr Chenoweth went on to say that this resentment can be dealt with responsibly or irresponsibly, but his work has led him to believe that it is a deep-seated societal problem. So, what part does pornography play in the actions of sexual offenders? A recent article in the Green Left Weekly on the issue of pornography quite rightly points out that Robin Morgan's thesis - that says that pornography is the theory, rape is the practice - does not explain why the vast majority of men who view pornographic material do not rape, while many men who do rape do so with no reference to pornography.
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