The ABC’s Hungry Beast recently conducted an extensive interview with the Australian Classification Board’s Greg Scott about the censorship of the female anatomy, in particular the vagina. It’s part of a story on Labiaplasty. I suggest you watch it below and read the complete transcript here (as well as check out interviews with a doctor and soft porn graphic artist here).
When shown images of female genitalia, it’s no surprise that Mr Scott is unable a lot of the time to give a definite and clear response as to whether the image would be banned. It’s another case of the ACB’s lack of clear guidelines resulting in some pretty inconsistent decision making. Mr Scott even acknowledges the fact:
Hungry Beast: I guess just a clear explanation of what genital detail means? Cos while I mean, there’s clear guidelines for you guys some of the words used are quite vague-
Greg Scott: Yeah yeah, well they’re vague for us too sometimes.
And don’t we know it.
Check out the blog of Hungry Beast reporter Kirsten Drysdale for some further insight.
19 comments
TB says:
Mar 5, 2010
While I still find myself unsure about Hungry Beast as a show, I will give them credit where it’s due. It’s high time the broader public learned just how flawed our classification system is. These people are given the power to swing the almighty banhammer and even they admit their guidelines are too vague.
Matthew says:
Mar 5, 2010
Actually I didn’t know that the rules in regard in R18+ magazines had changed in 1999. I suppose the removal of pubic hair on models as a whole is partly to blame for this, but the Classification Board’s rules are bloody stupid.
I’ve posed the question before to those who want R18+ magazines banned; how in hell are young people supposed to know what female genitalia is supposed to look like? The only way I knew was via a copy of “The Girls of Penthouse” circa 1990, when I was a teen.
Prior to that, I had no real idea what female genitalia looked like. None. I knew there was a hole somewhere in that pubic hair in the photos I had seen in my sex education and I ad seen the way it was clinically drawn in text books.
Seriously, we aren’t giving people the right idea about sex and the female body 20 years after I had to fumble through it. It’s complete nonsense. Not only that other western countries don’t have to put up with this crap. Not how the majority of sex censorship in this country is obsessed with the female form. That’s odd.
Tezz says:
Mar 6, 2010
the internet says hello.
me says:
Mar 7, 2010
It is absolutely OFFENSIVE that censors can declare that certain women’s anatomy is not to be depicted. This is as disgusting as descrimination by race, it’s just that it is applied to individuals rather than groups.
A situation where people (or their minders) cannot accept women for what they are, is a denial of humanity. How are people meant to cope with other real people? The next stage of this enforced infantilism might as well be to outlaw sex altogether.
Give me a real woman any day! And incidentally, they usually have pubic hair, also natural and human.
Mr Scott’s arguments are ridiculous. He tries to discriminate between the photos on the basis of pose, when clearly all the poses are the same (I actually thought they’d just supered in the genitals on the same set of legs at first!). The only difference is that some of the bigger thighs than the others!
He also says that people can learn about what their own (or others’) genitalia may look like from the internet rather than magazines, but how likely is THAT if his lot censor and filter the internet, lest someone see what half of humanity has between its legs?
The whole sick stupid fear and hatred of sex and genitalia is fear and hatred of ourselves.
It has been said that true obscenity is what denies life, and this censorship is ITSELF obscene and life-denying.
Australia: Small breasts and “outies” (and any intelligence) prohibited?
Simon Rumble says:
Mar 7, 2010
(Hungry Beast’s OpenID login doesn’t work, so I’ll comment here.)
The last point in Kirsten’s post, where the censors claim that something else in the depiction must have caused the rating, is easily tested. Get two identical pictures, airbrush one and not the other, submit each for classification (perhaps as posters to not arouse suspicion).
WSN Editor says:
Mar 8, 2010
Congratulations to Mr Scott for at least attempting to answer. The only problem I see is that that photoshopped image give a false representation of women’s bodies. I’m sure we don’t do this to men’s penises. Don’t airbrush the labia!
f says:
Mar 9, 2010
giving out false anatomy of women labia and creating an unrealistic standart lying about reality?
It is no different then if they were checking drawings since they are fake.
European says:
Mar 11, 2010
I’ve posed the question before to those who want R18+ magazines banned; how in hell are young people supposed to know what female genitalia is supposed to look like?
In most countries in Europe we don’t even have age limits to buy Playboy. And our Playboy magazines are pretty explicit.
Scandinavian says:
Mar 12, 2010
They actually censor inner labia in Australia ?
They actually, really consider women’s inner labia to be so foul that they would censor it?
That is just sick !
I wonder how women feel, having idiots like that walk about, wantonly declaring parts of their bodies to be “wrong”.
no wonder people have body issues.
AileenWuornosistoolazytologin says:
Mar 14, 2010
“I’ve posed the question before to those who want R18+ magazines banned; how in hell are young people supposed to know what female genitalia is supposed to look like?”
Uh, maybe education, maybe learning to treat womyn like human beings and maybe pornographic materials aren’t a good place to learn about womyn?
Still though, it fucking pisses me off how fucking inconsistent with this shit they are. How the fuck did this government get in? Oh wait, they were the lesser of two evils.
European says:
Mar 23, 2010
It’s clear enough to me that this ill-conceived government policy is discriminatory against women with anything other than picture perfect, child-like genitalia. While it’s unlikely that many women will base their judgement on magazines like this, you can be sure that many/most men do. I would not be surprised if this policy generates serious mental trauma “down under”.
Anonymous says:
Apr 1, 2010
>Womyn.
Stopped reading right there. The moment THAT term comes into play is when all your arguments go down the drain.
Allan Burn says:
May 4, 2010
This sort of censorship has can a very damaging effect on woman.
Since many of the magazines are busy trying to keep the censors happy, they deliberately choose models with small and neat labia, which is not too visible and “offensive”. As a result, it has created a fashion, which has, as a consequence, lead a lot of woman to have unnecessary surgery.
So the censors are, by their actions promoting plastic surgery.
Erin says:
May 15, 2010
As a woman and a bisexual woman i feel really strongly about this as i have had first hand experience with how damaging this can be on how woman feel about their bodies. When i started sleeping with women i realised how uncomfortable they were with their anatomy because of the depictions they come face to face with in daily life.
When women are seeing these pictures and the anatomy looks like designer vagina’s they start to worry about why theirs don’t look like that and it can damage their own sexual self esteem.
They don’t realise that before airbrushing a lot of these women would’ve looked like them.
I also know there is a lot of talk about whats a “right” vagina and whats a “wrong” vagina and whether people have “innies” or “outties” and i think all this stems from these sorts of photographs.
All vagina’s are normal no matter what they look like, sure some people may have preferences but my school of thought on that is if you don’t like it don’t look at it! Because someone out there will think that women is beautiful even when she isn’t airbrushed.
James says:
May 27, 2010
>>Womyn
Agreed, the first instance of this term being used resulted in me failing to take the author seriously.
‘Man’ was originally designated as a gender neutral term for a human being, with ‘werman’ and ‘wifman’ being the masculine and feminine versions of this word (Old Germanic)
Over time, the ‘were’ was dropped out of linguistic evolution but the ‘wif’ was kept. Given the twists and turns the English language has miraculously taken over its long and colorful history, I have no doubt that this had ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with overarching misogynistic conspiracy, but was just a thing of chance.
Ironically, to change “man” into “myn” you are only removing the term “human” from the word, not the masculine connotation which in this context is already absent from the linguistic structure.
Ergo, the word “womyn” as an alternative to “woman” is about as ill-conceived as the very censorship policies this article was set up to criticise. Way to score an own goal.
On a more relevant note, this video was very moving and im surprised its taken me this long to find it. Thanks for sharing!
phil says:
Sep 20, 2010
Wow, no wonder this is such a confusing issue. The guy being interviewed is completely clueless as to what can be approved. What a drip.
Overall this is so disturbing. What on earth is wrong with our bodies? Nothing!
damien says:
Nov 7, 2010
Why is it that penis’s (both erect and flaccid) can get shown on PG, yet vagina’s or labia majora’s can’t even be shown with a R rating. It’s no wonder women in Australia have hangups about their bodies. It’s because we bow to the femininazi’s and tell all women that their beavers are evil.
NudeMuse says:
Dec 28, 2010
I think it is very wrong to censor the human body. Any censorship of the human body sends a clear signal that our bodies (the very thing we live in our entire life) is wrong.
No bureaucrat or government body can tell me or anyone else for that matter, that their bodies are vile, disgusting or wrong. If it is law, then it is an unjust law and must be changed or removed.
As a photographer who specialises in photographing the nude, I know the power of letting people see how beautiful they are, just by being themselves. No matter their size, race, age (or even labia size), everyone is beautiful and everyone is perfect as they were born.
We are in the 21st century, but still feels like the 1800′s so many ways for women’s issues. Then there is the whole “women can’t be without their tops in public like men can” issue. Apparently just being a woman is obscene in the eyes of the law, censorship boards and their ilk.
Matt says:
May 17, 2011
Typical of women, venting their insecurities onto their society and crying oppression. If censorship laws state that the inner labia is too much to show in MA15+ then women with larger labia will of course have more difficulty in showing the same depicted poses. There should be more mediums for people to see what a vagina really looks like agreed, but don’t expect to look like a model in a magazine, whether it’s a porn or fashion mag. I certainly wouldn’t expect people to listen to me whinge about not having a six pack or foot long penis. These magazines show us fantasy, and I’m sorry girls but for many men a neat vagina is ideal, of course we won’t turn away from one with more protrusion but small labia/clitoris look nicer. This is like listening to a fat person complain about not seeing fat people in modelling shoots and blaming censorship for it. I hope the Australian censorship board change many things about their prehistoric standards, but I don’t want to see fat people or ugly genitals in my porn. Good day!