“Too Much Genital Detail”

A couple of weeks ago Hungry Beast on the ABC did a great job of exposing the insanity of Australia’s classification laws, focusing on the rule that forbids “too much genital detail” in photos of naked women in magazines. Essentially, the rule means that any glimpse of a woman’s inner labia is considered to be obscene and thus the mag has to be classified as “restricted” and be wrapped in plastic in some places.

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This rule has been in force for over ten years. The end result is that soft porn magazines like People and Penthouse regularly adjust photos of women’s genitalia with Photoshop, “healing” any stray pink bits to ensure the pussy looks “neat and tidy”.

Never mind that women’s pussies are rarely “neat and tidy” or that uneven or protruding inner labia are perfectly normal, our government ensures that the average person can’t see them in a unrestricted magazine. The result, of course, is that anyone looking at these pictures may develop a warped view of how women’s vulvas are supposed to look.

This issue last surfaced in 2001 when Australian Women’s Forum featured an article on labiaplasty and discussed the effects of airbrushed porn on women’s self esteem. It sought to include “before” and “after” photos revealing how the Photoshopping occurs… but then the Classification Board stepped in and ruled that the article contained “too much genital detail.” Even though the photos were absolutely relevant to the story.

I watched this and snarled, especially at the clueless representative of the Board who hedged and said had no real idea as to what met the guidelines and what didn’t. Of course, he was lying. He knows that pink bits are bad. That’s the way it’s been done for the last ten years. The publishing industry knows it and have adjusted their practices accordingly.

I’m hoping that this report helped to raise awareness among younger people about the nonsense that is our censorship system. Maybe this combined with the R-rated games issue and net filtering will get people finally thinking about why the government thinks adults are unable to deal with inner labia, or violent video games, or fetishes.