Below is an emailed response from the Convenor of the Nightclub Owners Forum to the Advertising Standards Bureau after they received two complaints in relation to a revolving advertising billboard.  The Billboard reads 'ALCOHOL DOES NOT CAUSE VIOLENCE’ on one side and 'BLAME AND PUNISH THE INDIVIDUAL' on the other side.  This Billboard previously had an ad on it for the Australian Sex Party without complaint.
The reply below is a refreshing reminder that individual responsibility should always be at the bottom of law and order issues. The Liberals have abrogated their long-held philosophy of 'individualism' by making laws such as a ban on swearing ....and now Peter Iwaniuk is reminding them in Victoria.

"I am formally responding to the two complaints received in relation to our revolving billboard in Richmond.

As I previously indicated the advertisement is part of a joint campaign by the Nightclub Owners Forum and the Australian Sex Party to dispel the widely accepted, simplistic and unquestioned belief that alcohol causes violence, which in turn is leading to ill informed policy by Governments and unfounded attacks against the hospitality industry by the tabloid media and other vested interests.

A relevant media release is attached as is an independent research paper supporting our stance and other relevant correspondence which can be passed onto the complainants. The Nightclub Owners Forum has also published its own comprehensive paper – Alcohol Does Not Cause or Fuel Violence – on its website:http://www.nightclubownersforum.com/adocacypapers.html

The Nightclub Owners Forum is very concerned that current policy on violence and alcohol is two dimensional.

Let’s start with the unarguable premise that the vast majority of people who consume alcohol (in any setting) do not become violent as a consequence. So quite clearly, it is simply false to state that alcohol causes violence.

Obviously some people who have consumed alcohol subsequently engage in violence or conversely some violent people may consume alcohol – this is simply a correlation of two events and not scientific evidence of cause.

You can then add many other dimensions, variables or correlations to this equation, ie people who may or may not have consumed alcohol may:

·         have a mental illness (mental illness rates are very high in Australia by international standards, as a rates of suicide as consequence)

·         have a childhood history of being a bully in school or other violent activities

·         have suffered a recent emotional event (eg a marital dispute, rejection by a boyfriend / girlfriend, loss of a job, etc, etc)

·         have consumed other illicit, prescription or recreation drugs

·         have grown up in disadvantaged circumstances (eg  a refugee from a war torn country, an abused child either in the home or by clergy, etc)

·         have a history of being involved in racial or religious conflict, or maybe from a racial or religious minority and subject to abuse

·         be associated with organised crime or gangs, or simply be predators seeking to benefit by assaulting and stealing from others

·         be participating in a footy trip, ‘mad Monday’, party bus or other social activity where it is or has been culturally acceptable to ‘muck up’

·         been exposed to excessive violence on television, movies, video games, etc which ironically is deemed to meet acceptable community standards

·         be a foreign tourist with different cultural attitudes to acceptable social behaviour or attitudes to women, for example

It is these, and other complex dimensions or variables which are the underlying causes or triggers of violence.

Please note that our campaign does not seek to further deregulate or promote the supply or consumption of alcohol – we recognise that misuse of alcohol has very serious health implications. We are on the public record for lobbying Governments to do more about addressing the cultural factors which lead to binge drinking. As such our campaign does not breach the Alcohol Beverages Advertising Code. Clearly the message on the billboard does not seek to promote any particular alcohol beverage or encourage people to consume more.

Our campaign is simply targeted at more informed research, better social policy and putting more onus on the individual for their own behaviour. We are finally seeing some evidence of acceptance of our stance in Victoria, where the State Government has recently introduced much tougher penalties for offensive and violent behaviour in and around licensed premises.

As such we are being successful in changing prevailing community attitudes towards a greater onus on the individual and personal responsibility, and there is likewise now evidence that assaults levels in late night entertainment precincts in Melbourne have recently declined significantly as a result. It is should be borne in mind in any event that less than 2% of all assaults in Victoria are associated in any way with late night entertainment precincts, so most violence occurs elsewhere and predominantly in the family home. Most experts in domestic violence, as we have quoted in our research paper, now strongly rebuff any notion that alcohol is the cause of, or an excuse for domestic violence, and likewise this is no longer a valid defence in Court.

The public perception is much different however. As a consequence of sensationalist reporting by the tabloid media, knee jerk reactions by Governments and a lack of willingness to commission independent research, the general public has a wide held belief that late night entertainment precincts are dangerous places to visit. Violent incidents, however, at night in Melbourne are few and far between, and many people who regularly patronise Melbourne’s vibrant nightlife or live in the CBD indicate they have never witnessed a serious incident.

All advertising and media campaigns seek to persuade people to buy a certain product or change their attitudes. Religious advertising is a classic case of the latter. Our media campaign is evidence based, seeks improved outcomes for the community, and dispel myths that unnecessarily and falsely create public fear, and is therefore socially responsible.

The nightclub industry would like all of its patrons to be well behaved, drink responsibly and enjoy the quality entertainment and facilities provided.

The Nightclub Owners Forum would prefer that this can be achieved in a cooperative manner between industry, Governments, the non Government sector and enforcement agencies. However, most of the latter have adopted an adversarial approach in recent years, and it has left up to the industry to provide the true facts. Our website for example is clear evidence of this. It is openly available to all members of the public.

I understand that you already have a photo the billboard which clearly shows our message but if you need more information please let me know. We do not use an advertising agency. The fact that only 2 complaints have been received to a billboard witnessed by many thousands of people each day would also suggest that the community accept the message that we are promoting.

Regards, Peter Iwaniuk Convenor Nightclub Owners Forum"

For further information on billboard advertising you can read the Eros Association (the national adult industry association) submission which was given to the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Social Policy and Legal Affairs Regulation of Billboard and Outdoor Advertising.  Click here to read it.

Opinion

Australia's classification system, the backbone to game censorship and Labor's proposed internet filter, is in the process of being overhauled. Throughout the decision making process we'll be running articles exposing just how bizarre the current system can be.

Here, Fiona Patten of the Australian Sex Party tells us what happens when you declare pornography on an Australian landing card and goes on to say how adult publishers can't even import their merchandise in order to edit it and have it classified anymore!

Many people would be aware of the fact that when you travel into Australia these days our nanny government wants to know what sort of porn you have been watching.

A few weeks ago I was pretty excited to be returning to Australia after a short US trip. Yes I was happy to be home but was very pleased that I would finally get to declare my porn at the border. You see, I had been at an adult industry conference and had a few sample DVDs in my bag ready for the customs 'show and tell'. Given that Customs are still using at least three different Incoming Passenger Cards to find out what you have, I was curious as to which one I would get. One asks, 'are you carrying any illegal pornography', another asks 'are you carrying any pornography' and the oldest one doesn't ask this question at all.

My card asked if I was carrying any 'goods that may be prohibited or subject to restrictions, such as medicines, steroids, firearms, weapons of any kind, illegal pornography or illicit drugs'?

The DVDs I had were 'vanilla' US porn. But because Australia's classification laws around the X rating are so strict (a 'dutch oven' is considered an offensive fetish and you can't say 'fuck you' - only 'fuck me') just about every film that is classified X18+ in Australia requires a few edits to make it legal. Without those edits it would become part of the Refused Classification classification and illegal porn under Customs regulations.

I showed the first customs official my Incoming Passenger Card with 'yes' ticked for question one and tried to show him my films but was quickly sent to another official. He checked my card and again I tried to show him my discs but was told to put them away for now. All of my bags were then X-rayed - why I'm not sure. Maybe they thought there was some sort of contagion attached to porn as well as salacious images. It seemed that they were also not allowed now to help me put my bags on the x-ray rollers or to take them off. Probably the contagion thing. Again I was asked about my answer to question one and again I tried to show the official my films but was asked to put them away and directed to a counter behind a screen.

Finally an officer wanted to see my porn. Well actually I don't think he did but it was his job. I placed the DVD boxes on the counter and the officer had a quick look at the back cover informing me that this was not what they were looking for. They were only interested in illegal pornography. With respect, I asked how would anyone know what illegal pornography was? He said that you could tell from the pictures on the back of the covers that these films were obviously legal. By this stage he was bright red and I got the feeling that he had not looked at porn with a woman before. He said that there was really no need to watch the films.

While everyone was very polite and professional, they certainly weren't comfortable. I felt a little sorry for the final Customs officer. He just didn't know where to look.

Over in the cargo side of the airport new operating rules within Customs (suddenly adopted only weeks ago) have thrown the viability of classifying the bulk of X-rated films into chaos. Customs now maintain that the industry cannot import a film or publication that 'may' be Refused Classification. As stated earlier, most publications and almost all films need to be modified to meet the stringent Australian classification guidelines. For the past 30 years this has meant that bona fide operators have had to bring in a master tape or disk from overseas which is modified, then submitted and classified and then duplicated from. Now Customs are saying that even a master disk has to be classified to bring it in but you cannot classify the film if you do not have a copy of it in the country!

It's the new Catch 22 at Customs that is about to stop all classifications of adult films in the country.
But do I reckon it will stop the sale of over four million films a year? Not likely. They just won't be classified anymore.

So they won't let a bona fide operator who has been doing the right thing for 30 years bring in one US X-rated film to be edited for classification and yet by simply looking at the back of the box they were able to say that my three films for OK. I could have been bringing them in as masters for someone else. They wouldn't have known. It's a nonsense. Customs are saying that they are simply applying the letter of the Classification Act to their regulations and to a degree they are right. It's not their fault entirely. Part of the blame for this ridiculous commercial situation is that the Classification Act is totally broken and largely irrelevant to the changed technological situation as totally out of step with world community standards these days.

What Customs should be doing at point of entry is asking people if they have any child pornography and leave it at that. Everyone knows what that is. No one knows what illegal pornography is. And at a commercial level they should allow companies to import one unclassified film for the purposes of getting it classified. It's just logic and common sense really.

Fiona Patten is CEO of Australia's peak adult industry group the Eros Association and President of the Australian Sex Party

Source: Technology and Games

What's erotic about the Yarralumla Brickworks?

Plenty, if you take a closer look at this photo.

The Brickworks was originally opened in the early 1900s to make the bricks for many of Canberra's first buildings.

But it has also been host to a photo shoot with a difference.

On a Month of Sundays with Ginger Gorman we discovered the story behind this shoot.

Robbie Swan, coordinator of the Eros Association dropped into the studio to fill us in.

Click here for interview

(Photo: courtesy of Bodypolitics)

Source: Month of Sundays with Ginger Gorman

Over the last few years we've seen various attempts by governments to censor and control the Internet. China has sort to stop criticism of its policies and to suppress the views of dissidents by controlling internet information at its cyber borders and employing large numbers of people to spy on its citizens' internet activity. Australia has set up a regulatory scheme which includes a black list of sites that are either X rated or Refused Classification.

There are other ways that governments use to censor the internet including the provision of extreme penalties for viewing certain types of material. In Iran for example, you can be executed for getting around government filters and under some circumstances, just watching porn.

However all these attempts to censor the internet tend to come from governments - and occasionally morals groups who push governments. Censorship of the internet hardly ever comes from the internet industry itself, for obvious reasons. Last week that all changed. In what must rank as one of the most stupid and transparently self-serving decisions on the internet thus far, the international organisation charged with creating and regulating internet domain names, the International Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), approved a new .XXX domain (TLD) for adult and sexually explicit sites.

ICANN claims to be 'a not-for-profit public-benefit corporation with participants from all over the world dedicated to keeping the Internet secure, stable and interoperable. It promotes competition and develops policy on the Internet's unique identifiers'. In arriving at their decision, ICANN ignored the advice of its Government Advisory Council (GAC) which included government representatives from over 50 countries, including Australia. In a letter to ICAAN last October, Communications Minister, Stephen Conroy, told them that there was a "lack of identified public benefit" in the proposal and that there was a "history of governmental concern about the public policy implications of .XXX".

ICANN also ignored the advice of peak adult industry groups from around the world including the US Free Speech Coalition and Australia's Eros Association. Given that the new domain was being created for the exclusive use of these businesses, the decision to go against their wishes was truly bizarre. Incredibly, they also ignored most of the religious groups who had lodged submissions with them. In fact, the .xxx debate has probably been the only online issue that government, adult industry and religious groups have all agreed upon.

In arriving at its decision, ICANN relied almost exclusively on the advice of the business group who were lobbying to set up the new domain - interestingly enough, a non-adult industry company called ICM Registry. Clearly ICM stands to make a lot of money from the deal.

So why is it such a bad idea to have a particular domain set up exclusively for adult material? Well the religious groups reckoned that if all porn was under one domain name it would be much easier for kids to access it. They just needed to type in virtually any word and the .XXX suffix and there'd be a website for it. Stockings.xxx for nylon fetishists, tickling.xxx for orgasmic laughter and wet.xxx for water sports. They argued that the weirdest sex would now be just a click away when kids typed in fur.xxx or food.xxx - although in my opinion, priest.xxx would probably scoop the pool.

The adult industry's submissions were all about the potential use of the new domain as a tool for censorship. The Eros Association's CEO Fiona Patten argued that with all adult sites safely corralled under the .xxx domain, it would be a simple thing for Communications Minister, Stephen Conroy, to then include all .xxx sites in the government's new internet filter. If adult sites still maintained a .com or a .net address, the government could easily legislate to force all adult sites to .XXX or face penalties. She said that the adult industry was already the canary in the coalmine when it came to content censorship but that the same was true for 'administrative censorship'. "This could represent the beginning of a fragmentation of the Internet and it sets a very dangerous precedent. When industries or special groups have a domain name forced upon them by ICANN, against their better judgement, you know that there is a political agenda at work. How long will it be before all media groups will be expected to register under a .med domain or political groups under .pol", she said?

The popular uprisings in the Middle East have relied heavily on the Internet and both temporary and permanent websites to gain traction and disseminate information. The necessity for some of these sites to 'hide' on the Internet and remain inconspicuous is obvious. "If ICANN starts forcing new domains on particular organisations and industries it leaves the path wide open for dictators, theocracies and even some democracies to start using them for censorship and manipulation" she said.

ICANN not only created a new precedent by creating a domain for an industry group who didn't want it, more importantly, they have introduced content controls for the first time. Mostly they are about child pornography. Not too many people would have a problem with this. However when you realise what's involved in regulating this, did ICAAN investigate whether the new domain registrant was up to the task? Probably not. For a start, people who run serious child porn networks on the internet will not go anywhere near an adult domain let alone use the world wide web. It's a no-brainer. Here in Australia we think we know what child porn is but around the world its not so cut and dry. The age of consent in Europe fluctuates between 13 in Spain, 14 in most Baltic and Slavic states and 18 in the UK. In Germany they differentiate between child porn (under 14years) and 'youth porn' (between 14 and 18). In Australia a charge around child porn can be prosecuted even if the actor or model is 25 years old. They just have to 'appear to be under 18'. How is the new domain registrant going to be able to regulate all this and what do they do if they do with transgressors?

How this will work in Australia has not even been considered. Our X 18+ classification is probably the most restricted anywhere in the world. You can say 'f**k me' in this classification but if you say 'f**k you' with any degree of feeling, the film immediately goes into the Refused Classification category. It can't go into the R18+ classification because of the explicit sex but 'assaultative language', as its known in the game, is not permissible in our X rating. Neither are most fetishes which can be sex in gumboots ('rubberist' fetish) and even toe-sucking ('offensive fetish') under the right conditions. Ninety per cent of what Europeans and Americans would call 'XXX' rated material becomes RC material here. Under Conroy's filtering plans, all RC material will be denied to Australian consumers so under these conditions the new .XXX domain will be subject to bans as soon as it comes online.

The Free Speech Coalition's (FSC), Dianne Duke, said the ICANN Board had dangerously undervalued the input from governments worldwide. "Worse, they have disregarded overwhelming outpouring of opposition from the adult entertainment industry - the supposed sponsorship community - dismissing the interests of free speech on the internet", she said.

FSC Board Chair, Jeffrey Douglas, also commented, saying, "Until now we have been forced to work within the constraints of the ICANN process. FSC is now free to explore all options and we intend to do just that with input from, and in the interest of our members. We will help the industry fully understand the risks and ramifications of participating in .XXX."

ICANN has been debating this issue for seven years now and has taken numerous votes on it - all of which failed to get up. It will be interesting to see how the most contentious domain of them all is travelling 12 months on.

Robbie Swan is a member of the Eros Association.

Source: Technology and Games