Important Update, 01/02/10: The Classification Board has confirmed that a person’s appearance is used when they determine the apparent age of a model. The ACB’s Director refused to comment on specifics about breast size. Read more.

The Australian Classification Board (ACB) has responded to accusations by The Australian Sex Party that material with depictions of women with small breasts has been banned. A spokesperson for the ACB told me today that publications which contain offensive depictions or descriptions of persons who are or appear to be persons under the age of 18 (whether they are engaged in sexual activity or not) must be classified RC.

They said the Board classifies publications on a case by case basis, in accordance with the Guidelines for the Classification of Publications, the Code and the Classification Act and that the Publications Guidelines do not specify breast size.

Female Ejaculation Bans

In response to accusations that films containing female ejaculation would now be banned, the spokesperson said the Film and Games guidelines do not specify female ejaculation, but it does specify that the fetish of ‘golden showers’ will be Refused Classification and have been in the past.

The ACB is yet to answer followup questions about whether it considers female ejaculation to be a golden shower.

The ACB said they do not and could not direct Customs and Border Protection officers to confiscate any material and that Customs and Border Protection have advised that they will only seize material that is Refused Classification or would be Refused Classification if it were to be classified.

What’s Been Banned

Fiona Patten from the Australian Sex Party (ASP) said she attended a ACB training session late last year where they showed examples of publications that had been Refused Classification due to the size of the woman’s breasts.

‘That information is not provided to the applicant when their publication is Refused Classification. When a publication classification is revoked sometimes a little more information is provided’ she said.

According to Patten some of the titles banned included Barely Legal (Hustler), Finally Legal and Purely 18.

‘The general comments on the publications mentioned were that the model appeared under 18′ she said.

However, the titles mentioned are all regulated and records of each model’s age are required to be kept by 18 U.S.C. 2257 and 28 C.F.R. part 75. These regulations are enforced by the FBI.

The ACB’s database of banned publications contains four references of banned copies of Barely Legal, one of Finally Legal, and two of Purely 18.

UPDATE 29/01/10 12:19PM: Fiona Patten has provided additional comment:

“I would like to clarify a few points. In the last 18 months the Classification Board has revoked over 30 serial classifications for a range of reasons, one major one being that the models appear to be under 18. These revoked classifications do not appear on the classification database.”

“Late last year I attended a classification publications training session with three adult magazine distributors and one publisher. We were shown a range of images and the notes made by the board were read out. The underdeveloped nature of the model’s breasts was cited as a reason for the image to be refused classification numerous times.“

Patten also added that the four companies that attended the meeting with her have now drastically reassessed the publications that they will import or publish.

“All the publications that have been refused classification adhere to the very strict US laws that enforce model age verification in adult publications and films. These laws are upheld by the FBI. There is no chance that any of the models were under 18.”