Ms Naughty Porn for Women Blog

Following on from yesterday’s blacklist post…

Wikileaks went down yesterday but it’s back up again today. I’ve just spent a bit of time going through the list again and making a note of all the adult websites that I’ve heard of before, ones that feature consenting adults or are run by adult companies that I know.

The list contains 40 domains. The majority of them are hardcore sites, a lot in the reality style that I personally find offensive. That doesn’t make them illegal, however. The majority of paysites on the list contain warning pages or make use of ICRA/RTA codes.

Several of the URLs on the blacklist are simple adult linklists. There are 2 adult affiliate program domains, 3 swinger’s meeting sites and 2 BDSM sites (including Hogtied.com) which, according to our classification system, are considered to be “abhorrent.” Also listed is the Alt Sex Stories Text Repository. There were plenty of other domains that looked fine but I wasn’t game to double check them.

There’s also at least 18 gambling/poker domains on the list.

Interestingly, the oldest links – the ones at the bottom of the list – contain very few legitimate URLs (that is, the vast majority of domains listed under the June 1 2007 date ARE illegal CP or rape sites). As time goes on, however, mistakes and bad judgements creep in. It’s indicative of the ad-hoc, complaints based system, combined with an increasingly lazy or moralistic ACMA.

I was going to post my list, but then it occurred to me that it would make the government’s cover-up job a little easier if they knew what shouldn’t be on there. Conroy and the ACMA are claiming the list isn’t theirs, even if the official one resembles it an awful lot. It’s entirely possible that the 40 legitimate adult domains have been put there by an ISP. If that’s the case I’d like to see the government come out and explicitly say that those 40 adult domains are fine.

I don’t think that’s gonna happen.

This is the thing, there’s outrage aplenty over the dentist and the dog kennel, but we need to be outraged about the censorship regular porn sites too. Explicit sexual content featuring consenting adults should be considered protected speech in Australia, end of story.

If you want the list, email me – msnaughty AT msnaughty dot com

Two days ago I was complaining that the internet filter plan is sucking up my time. Damn, if that hasn’t been true today. At 11am the SMH revealed that the ACMA blacklist of “illegal” sites had been leaked on Wikileaks. Naturally I went straight there to check out what the government authority considers to be “prohibited content.”

As is to be expected, the list is a fairly abhorrent catalogue of child porn and rape sites – which is what Senator Stephen Conroy has been trumpeting about in his quest to censor the net.

Unfortunately the list also has more than its fair share of legitimate adult sites featuring consenting participants: Abby Winters, I Shot Myself, I Feel Myself, Girls Out West, The Hun, XTube and Redtube are all listed, along with Australian linklists like Danger Dave and even Whale Tails – a site that focuses on women wearing their g-strings above the waistline of their jeans. Shocking, no?

The list also contains the site of a dentist, a dog kennel facility, a school tuckshop and a website design company. Beyond that there are gambling and poker sites, euthanasia sites, gay dating sites and LibChrist.com – an online community for Christians who are into swinging and polyamorous lifestyles. Plus, of course, the anti-abortion site which was added after a single complaint by an anti-filter protester to see what would happen.

I checked carefully. None of my sites have been banned.

Yet.

Last week the ACMA was threatening $11,000 a day fines for publishing any URL that was on the blacklist. Even though nobody officially knew what was on the blacklist. Go figure.

Now they’re threatening the fine and 10 years jail to any Australian who publishes the Wikileaks link. Even though Conroy is saying that the list is a fake. If it’s a fake, why the threats?

I found myself feeling suddenly worried. I’ve been linking to Abby Winters and plenty of other blacklisted sites for years! How was I to know I was breaking the law? Thankfully, the fines only apply if your site is hosted in Australia. Thanks to the draconian laws of 2000, all of my hosting money is paid to US providers.

Indeed, it tends to prove how silly the whole idea of internet regulation is. Blogger, Facebook and millions of other sites do not come under the jurisdiction of our puny bunch of pollies. The internet is the world. It can’t (and it shouldn’t) be ruled by any one nation.

There is no constitutional guarantee to freedom of speech in Australia. Thus, it’s possible for the government to compile a secret list of sites deemed unacceptable based on single complaints from individuals. No review process, no appeal. And, until today, no idea what was banned.

Right now this list is used by ISPs for optional filters and by workplaces. Senator Conroy’s plan is to use it as the base for the mandatory nationwide filter. If it goes ahead, no Australian will be able to access Abby Winters, or the Whale Tale site, or even find out about Christian swingers (which, you’ve got to admit, is a pretty amusing site that NEEDS to be seen). It’s patently obvious how much of an imposition this will be on freedom of speech. The list already contains legal sites. What’s to stop the government from secretly adding anything else that irks them?

And there’s more than a touch of Room 101 in the blustering threats of prison and fines for linking to the list. Where is the harm in looking at a list of URLs? Certainly, the majority of them lead to highly offensive or illegal CP sites, but I’m a grown, thinking woman. I calmly and sensibly went through that list to see what was included. I did not click any of the illegal links – I know better than that. I’m sure most people do.

So why is some beaurocrat more morally able to look at this list of links than me? Who decides?

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Who watches the watchmen?

I’ve been following this issue all day. It’s been a fascinating example of why the internet is so powerful, and why governments want to clamp down on its use. Within hours, thousands of people in Australia and around the world knew that our government is not being honest with us. We Tweeted about it, blogged it, talked about it, considered options. When the story appeared in our major online newspapers, about 99% of comments were anti-filter. A huge groundswell of opposition to the filter made itself known – and the government has been scrambling and lying to protect its position.

This is our revolution. We’ve got to protect it, or the bastards will snatch it away forever.

By the way, if you want to look up the blacklist for yourself, type “Wikileaks” or “ACMA blacklist txt” into Google.

There. I didn’t link to it.

Edit: Just have to add this pic, thanks to Overclockers.

Another edit: If you can get to Canberra this weekend, attend the March In March anti censorship protest.

You may have noticed that the blog has been scarce with posts recently. That’s because I took another week off, relaxing and trying to recover from a bad RSI attack. The house I stayed in only had dialup, which decreased my computer use substantially – and a lovely thing it was too.

Now I’m home again and over the last couple of days have been sucked into the usual round of news-reading, Twitter feeds and trying not to procrastinate. And, fuck, if it isn’t depressing.

I came back feeling motivated and creative, but in the last few days I’ve felt overwhelmed and pessimistic. A lot of this is thanks to the ongoing bullshit that is the Australian plans for a mandatory internet filter. In the last few days it’s emerged that the “watchdog” is happy to blackban political sites on the say-so of a single person. The people who want the filter are still telling the same lies and it seems that everyday punters continue to believe the nonsense.

And then I find that Britain, Germany and a bunch of other countries are all planning their own filters citing Australia as some kind of magical filter paradise.

Friends, the seige of the free internet has begun. The politicians have realised that the internet has given us POWER. We’re able to make decisions, to muster support and to make our voices heard without the mainstream media getting in our way. We’re mobilising. We’re active. And we’re fucking powerful. They’re going to do their best to try and stop us, and they’re going to use porn and “the children” as their excuse.

That’s the other depressing thing. I keep seeing so many news items about porn lately and it’s always reported in a negative fashion. Porn is the great, amorphous enemy, despoiling lives hither and yon. Never mind that religion does far more damage in the world, it’s our clits and cocks that are the problem!

These are big issues and I want to wave the flag and encourage the fight… but, damn, if it isn’t draining and very, very difficult to be involved. And it makes it hard to do my everyday work, because I’m always spending brainpower thinking about how to argue against the filter and its supporters. At the same time, I feel the future looming like a black thundercloud. We’ve had a wonderful twenty years but now the fight for online freedom is about to begin in earnest.

I do hope the other free countries of the world are watching what goes down here in Oz with regards to the filter, because if it goes ahead it will be like a big green light to other repressive governments.

Once again I’ve got a bunch of things to write about and I’m just going to be lazy and bung them all into one post with a nice sexy pic to make it a bit more fun.

First – they’re about to release the rejiggered Joy Of Sex. The New York Times has a great article about how the book has aged and it goes into some interesting detail about how some parts of the book weren’t very female-friendly.

If Dr. Comfort was a man before his time, he was nonetheless still a man, and his book was written from a man’s perspective.

“He had a section on tactful ways to take a woman’s virginity,” Ms. Quilliam said. “He had a section called ‘frigidity.’ I’m sure he was a lovely man, but he said that most men, given a young and attractive partner, can always get it up — it’s only when a woman lets herself go that he has a problem. And you’re going, ‘No, no, no!’ But that is what it was like then.”

Meanwhile, I’ve discovered a new French-language site that is pitching itself as porn for women called Second Sexe. Unfortunately I can’t read it so I’m not sure what the deal is, but it’s inspired this article at The Observers. Naturally I had to leave a long comment.

The Porn for Women book keeps raising its determined little head, popping up in everyone’s Christmas wish lists and consequently setting off my Google alerts something awful. I did find this post at Jossip which questions the whole thing:

But what is this Porn for Women meme, where the joke is that the guys aren’t naked, they’re just helping out around the house and acting like gentlemen?

Is the implication that women are turned on by thoughtful gestures? Sure, that’s one way of looking at it. Another way is that it’s funny to imagine women thinking about porn, and ha-ha, I bet when they think of erotica they just imagine a man dusting! Get it? Because women don’t think about dirty things like sexy or objectifying men.

OK so now it’s time to get into “ooh that pisses me off” territory.

Indonesia has recently passed their “anti porn” law which effectively criminalises anything remotely sexual. It was fully backed by the Islamic heavies in that country who are pretty keen on turning Indonesia (and the region) into a theocracy. And then you get this: Indonesian clerics take child brides, back anti-porn bill. The guy has married a 12 year old and thumbs his nose at secular law that says she must be at least 16.

What a beautiful religion Islam is.

And while I’m bashing religion, the Catholics have weighed into the Australian internet filter debate, with a council of bishops happily supporting the idea. Somebody Think of the Children blog has a good post on the topic. One bishop has said that censoring the net is fine because it will bring it into line with all the other censorship we have. Here’s most of my comment in response to this argument:

My personal view is that Australia’s existing system of classification needs to be thoroughly overhauled to reflect the community standards of 21st century Australia: namely that Aussies like porn, that it doesn’t cause societal or personal harm and that consensual sexually explicit content should be legal to view no matter what media it comes in.

I would argue that, as it stands, the OFLC already tramples on our right to freedom of speech thanks to its ability to ban films by refusing classification. The classification system should be voluntary as it is in the US.

Essentially, it should not be up to the government or the OFLC to decide what I as an adult can view.

That should be the answer to the “bringing into line” argument – although I realise it may be considered a little too “out there” for some.

But if you think the current classification system is working, consider how the films of Tony Comstock were banned while other films like Destricted made it through because they were more “serious”.

Do we really think the people at the OFLC are representing society’s interests? What are they protecting us from?

We don’t need to bring the internet into line with current restrictions on freedom of speech because those restrictions in and of themselves should not exist in the first place.

I’ve been keeping fairy close track of No Clean Feed movement in the last few weeks. It’s so nice to connect with other Aussies who are opposed to censorship and moral panic. It seems the clean feed has created a space for better public dialogue about where we’re going with censorship in this country. And now some people are questioning the way child porn is increasingly used as an excuse to trample on our rights, in the same way that the spectre of “terrorism” is used.

I hope we can make a difference.




Today I’m feeling optimistic about the future of the internet in Australia. Grassroots group GetUp has finally launched a campaign against the clean feed. They’ve already collected 32,000 signatures in a little over 24 hours and the comments are running hot on their site. Apparently they’ve had more emails requesting a campaign on this issue than anything else.

There are now protests planned on December 14 in a number of capital cities.

The SMH has thankfully publicised the latest bit of opposition with this article published today. It’s nice to see reporting that doesn’t follow the standard pro-censorship line, and they’re actually putting the boot into the government quite a bit, possibly because Senator Conroy and his lackeys won’t speak to the media or anyone about this issue.

The Opposition and the Greens have said they will oppose the plan in the Senate. I suspect, though, that Nick Xenophon, the rogue independent, is a conservative who will vote with the government. A government, by the way, that’s not supposed to be this conservative, dammit.

I think the governments of the Western world will be watching what happens here quite closely. I don’t doubt that most of them are salivating at the thought of getting their mitts on the internet and stopping the free flow of ideas. “Protecting the children” gives them the perfect excuse. If we Aussies can successfully stop this through people power, it will send an important message.

We are the People’s Republic of the Internet and you mess with us at your peril!

I left a long comment on one of the blogs at GetUp and I want to repost it here.

I’m going to come in and make the point that people are afraid to make: why should the government have the right to stop us from viewing adult material?

Yes folks, I’m talking porn. NO, not child porn – that’s just the straw man thrown up to distract people from the fact of censorship. I’m talking about the legal adult material that is enjoyed by up to 70% of Australian adults.

The internet has allowed adults to enjoy sexually explicit material without the board of classification poking its nose in or giving its stamp of approval. The world hasn’t come to an end because people have been able to watch porn in the privacy of their own homes. Australians have been able to make their own decisions about what they want to watch without outside forces imposing their morals. This is a GOOD thing.

And the internet has provided the opportunity to create and access adult material that is sex positive, queer and female-friendly, inclusive, realistic and non-exploitative.

So yes, aside from all the perfectly good reasons for opposing the mandatory filter, we should be standing up for our right as adults to choose what content we wish to see – and that includes websites/movies etc dealing with sex in an explicit way.

Australians are, on the whole, pretty open minded about sex but we won’t speak up for ourselves on this topic. This has allowed the prudes and religious groups to lobby loudly and impose their morals on everyone else.

And we should be asking ourselves: why do we get so upset about sex but not bat an eyelid when it comes to violence? Why is sex so rigidly controlled by governments and the church?

Obviously children should not be exposed to inappropriate material. That’s what Net Nanny is for. That’s what “parenting” is supposed to be about. But the internet shouldn’t have to be reduced to to the level of a five year old in the interests of protecting children.

So I’ve mentioned the elephant in the room but it needs to be said. If you take porn off Australians, they’re gonna be very, very cross. And we should stand up and say that.

I’ve accumulated a number of interesting links regarding Australian censorship, statistics and hot websites so I thought I’d cheat and just whack them all in one post.

Firstly, Catharine Lumby, one of the authors of The Porn Report, has given a fascinating talk about the history of censorship and porn to the Sydney Institute. You can find a video of the event here.

While despairingly contemplating the state of Australia when it comes to censorship and moral panic, I found Somebody Think Of The Children, an excellent pro-free speech blog. Writer Mike Meloni casts a wide net. At the moment he’s discussing the crazy censorship of computer games and the looming threat of government ISP filtering. Worth checking out.

While the politicians and conservatives outdo each other to protect us from ourselves, a poll reveals – once again – that Aussies love their porn. A Newspoll survey found that 70% of Australians want bans on X rated films overturned. This figure rises to 82% of 18-24 year olds. Interestingly, 80% of people with children are in favour of legalisation compared to 69% of those without. I’m wondering if priests were included in the latter group.

Meanwhile, Sexpo has just finished in Sydney, attracting 50,000 or so visitors. The organisers say nobody is shocked by it anymore, Australians are really relaxed about sex.

Given this information, I’m now speculating on the previously mentioned plan to place mandatory filters on ISPs to block porn. I’ve seen a suggestion that this scheme will be even worse than first thought. The plan is that if you want to look at porn, you give your name to the government to “opt out.” That’s unappealing enough, but what if the “unfiltered” feed only allows access to very small number Australian R-rated sex sites pre-approved by the OFLC?

Cue the revolution, perhaps? Because I think if you do try and take away unfettered internet porn from Australians, they’re not going to be as apathetic as they have been in the past. Either that or I’m moving to Amsterdam. Perhaps both.

So, here’s a couple of examples of sites that don’t have the government’s tick of approval and may be filtered out.

Fancies and Fuckeries blog offers the personal musings of a rather sexy Melbourne guy plus plenty of cock pics. The author starred in Anna Brownfield’s upcoming erotica film The Band and he also does a bit of nude modelling on the side. Nice.

He led me to Aaryon, a truly delightful nude art photography site. There’s not a lot of info about who’s behind it, but the pics are glorious.

The Australian government seems determined to go ahead with plans to filter the internet at ISP level, making people “opt in” if they want to see adult sites.

While the story itself is distinctly biased, the 51 comments listed after it cheered me up immensely. About 95% of them are against ISP filtering, and all make the point that parents shouldn’t expect the government to do their job for them.

It includes this amusing exchange:

DavidLastName: Im sick and tired of wading through a simple limewire download and gettin porn. Get rid of this garbage.

BlzBob: LIMEWIRE? If you allow your children to enter the the local strip joint to get a glass of water, don’t expect the strippers to put some clothes on while they are there.

Classic.

This month’s feature at For The Girls is about cybersex. It’s a fairly general article that looks at the appeal of one handed typing and discusses some of the negative issues like whether it constitutes cheating.

The article proved difficult to research thanks to the bazillion Christian-based sites out there raving about the terrible dangers of cybersex and how it’s always “addictive” and ruins relationships.

I spent over an hour trying to find reliable statistics about how many people on average were engaging in cybersex. What should have been a relatively simple bit of research was hugely complicated thanks to the plethora of conservative-based sites pushing their own agenda about “addiction.” A lot of them were happily throwing statistics around that I was unable to use thanks to the taint of bias.

In the end I resorted to search strings like “cybersex statistics -christian -addiction -addict -danger” just to try and find some stats I could quote. It was the same when I was trying to hunt down an expert to discuss the issues: there’s a lot of talking heads out there who aren’t terribly balanced when it comes to sex or porn.

I wasn’t trying to write a pro-cybersex article. I may have my own biases but when writing a feature I do like to at least aim for a balanced presentation of the issues. And this may be why I was feeling so frustrated. The Christians and the conservatives have put a lot of effort into flooding the internet with sites about “the dangers of cybersex/porn addiction” and unfortunately the sheer number of them seem to be pushing out alternative voices.

And it’s worrying that the stuff they are pushing is so extreme: ALL cybersex is bad, ALL porn is addictive and exploitative. These sites don’t hesitate to misuse surveys or statistics to get their point across. And it means that someone who may be struggling with bad habits in relation to cybersex or porn use (and I don’t deny that this happens to some people) will only encounter the extremist Christian message on this topic.

Google doesn’t have a filter for bias but sometimes I wish they did.

Three cheers for 16 year old Tom Wood who, in half an hour, proved that the new Australian government-approved porn filter isn’t worth the smear on an IT expert’s underpants.

He’s shown that spending $84 million on compulsory net filtering software is a complete waste of money because teenagers know how to get around that kind of thing. If they want to look at porn, they will.

But what I’m really impressed about are his comments calling for a sensible, education-based approach:

“Filtering pornography is going to play a part but the main things that need to be done are collaboration with kids, because the problems that we have are directly affecting kids, not adults, and unless you speak to them quite a lot you’re not going to do anything with any effect,” he said.

“What really needs to happen is a lot of research done with kids and then education, compulsory in all levels of schooling, and awareness-raising for adults so we can get a more holistic approach and it’ll be a lot more effective all over.”

I’ve spent a bit of time mulling over this interview between Susie Bright and author Debbie Nathan (thanks to Violet Blue for the link). They discuss sex panics and censorship and Debbie bravely puts the question out there about whether there’s as much child pornography as popular belief (and the government) suggests.

It’s a question worth asking given that child abuse is being used to justify attacks on civil rights and censorship. I think it’s timely given what’s happening here in Australia with the government banning aborigines from accessing porn, linking it to child abuse in remote indigenous communities.

Unfortunately people who only see things in black and white won’t see Nathan’s point. Questioning government statistics and the way the law deals with child pornography does not equal denial or support of the problem, which does exist. She’s simply suggesting that perhaps things need to be a little more transparent, especially when it’s being used to restrict freedom of speech or people’s rights.

They also discuss thought crime and porn “addiction.” It really is a good read.

I should add, I’ve hesitated about writing this post, because I needed to discuss the dreaded “CP.” But then I was considering how this is the excuse being used to harass the US porn industry via the 2257 laws – and to censor adult entertainment in Australia. Everything is connected. “Thinking of the children” is often the cry of censors and prudes.