The debate about this proposal has been going on since 2005 and in 2007 we thought it was all over when ICANN formally rejected the application by the company ICM. Then, the proposal did not have the support of governments around the world or the adult industry. And that is important because an stld must have industry support. It didn't then and it doesn't now. But ICM knows that managing the .xxx domain is worth a fortune and they have spent a fortune lobbying for its introduction so they are not going to give up lightly.

I explain our reasons for opposing it in the letter below and in an earlier blog http://www.sexparty.org.au/index.php/blog/351-why-we-still-oppose-xxx-tld

.xxx is in no one's benefit except the sponsoring company ICM. It will not protect children, nor stop child pornography nor advance the adult industry.

Dear Mr Beckstrom,

Opposition to .XXX TLD Proposal

The Eros Association is the peak national organisation for the Australian Adult industry. We represent the majority of the Australian adult retail and on line industry and have done so since 1992.

I am writing to express our opposition to the introduction of the TLD XXX.

I attended the ICANN meeting in Wellington in 2006 and met with ICANN and GAC delegates to explain our opposition to the proposal. At that time we submitted letters from major on line businesses that also opposed the introduction of the new TLD

Our objections have not changed. There is no support from the Australian on line adult industry for the TLD XXX. I note that the ICM website states that they have support form the adult industry and free speech advocates. I am yet to find anyone.

We can see no benefit for the adult on line community or the community at large.

The industry is concerned about child protection and illegal material being made available on line but does not believe that the TLD XXX will address these issues in any way. There will still be plenty of adult material on the .com domain and frankly child pornographers are criminals and they will not be concerned about NOT using a .xxx domain.

We also have great concern about a non-adult industry body establishing and regulating “best practices” for the adult industry.

Even with the best intentions, deciding what is and what isn’t child pornography or illegal material at a global level, is almost impossible. In Australia for example the performer does not have to be under 18 but only needs to appear to be under 18 for the content to be deemed illegal. The importation of such content into Australia can attract a five year prison sentence.

From an Australian point of view, we anticipate that if the .XXX TLD was introduced it would receive a blanket ban under the government’s proposed mandatory internet filter. Under the proposal, sites which contravene Australia’s strict X film rating will be blocked by Australian ISPs. The proposed guidelines for .XXX content are in excess of the Australian standard so it will be logical for the Australian government to simply block all sites with that TLD - despite the fact that many of them will actually meet the Australian guidelines.

There is nothing in this proposed TLD for the Australian on line adult industry. In fact it could be extremely negative for us.

Please don’t hesitate to contact me if I can provide further information.

Sincerely,

Fiona Patten

Over the weekend we attended the Atheist Convention at the Melbourne Exhibition Centre. Given the overall level of awareness about our core issues – internet filter, religion in politics, censorship, sex education, and so forth – I was quite shocked by the number of people who hadn’t heard of us. I’d say that only 2 in 10 or so people who stopped to talk were familiar with the Party at all, and at least half of those who had heard of us knew little or nothing aside from the name and that we had run in Higgins and Bradfield.

While there were plenty of sceptics (at an atheist convention – go figure!), there were LOTS of tricky policy questions. I had several old socialists have a go regarding the ‘less taxes for small business’ platform. I told them it was an attempt to get a better balance, doing more to help the small business owners and employees that constitute the majority of Australian workers while working to ensure that big business is made to step up and pay their fair share in spite of political influence. There were even a few aggressive and borderline hostile responses (mostly on Saturday; by Sunday we had already spoken to most of the die-hards, and most of the traffic was the casual Sunday-only crowd who came mostly for Dawkins). By an overwhelming margin, the people who had a real problem were fixated on the name ‘Sex Party’, unsurprisingly.

On the flipside, our mere presence spoke volumes, given the highly-unlikely-to-be-repeated-anytime-soon nature of the event, and the near-universal lack of political presence although The Secular Party was there sharing a table with a few other groups. I didn’t really notice any dedicated party people manning the table and engaging with attendees. And for every naysayer, bad joke, and squeamish glance, we had multiple positive reactions. I’d say we went through well over 1000 brochures and postcards (not bad for a 2500-capacity event), signed up a few new members on the spot and managed to turn A LOT of initial scoffing and incredulity into interest and enthusiasm as we walked people through who we are and what we stand for. I only wish that we could have had another 2-3 eloquent bodies on hand; as you would have seen from the first photo in the blog you emailed through, the breaks were absolute chaos, and as talkative and engaged as the crowd was, we couldn’t possibly engage with everyone who came by to pick up a brochure or ask a question.

In terms of ongoing outreach, I believe Sarah has already passed along the details for the woman from Queensland Rationalists who was looking for a speaker, and we had some great chats with the folks from Exit International, who were open to keeping in touch and having an ongoing dialogue with us. I’ve got a stack of info and literature here from the other exhibiting groups, and will happily pass it along once I’ve had a chance to look through.

Cheers,

Rob R

Our first time out at Mardi Gras Fair Day last Sunday was a blast. Led by our dynamic candidate Miss Zahra Stardust and our amazing membership mistress Ms Rebecca our team of eager volunteers did a great job promoting the Party in the hot and sticky conditions. It was so busy we had to call out for back-up supplies of ASP postcards and stickers and by 5 o’clock we ran out of our popular “Vote 1 Sex” temporary tattoos. Thanks to all of our fabulous volunteers. Thanks also to our good friends at Calvista Australia who provided two very sexy hampers full of love toys for our stall raffle.

The reception we received was so encouraging, thank you Sydney, even if we were playing to a mainly partisan crowd. It is so important to keep the messages about our intelligent and relevant sex and gender focussed policies in the minds of our key constituents. Likewise it is important to the success of the Sex Party that our supporters spread the word to their friends, families and colleagues. We will be fielding candidates for Senate in Federal Election later this year and we need your vote. We can’t do it without you.

Fiona's note - special thanks to Rebecca and Graeme for organising a great stand and even having a little craft afternoon on Saturday.

Last night I took part in the ACT Rotary Great Debate. The subject was the Media is to Blame. I was on the negative with ABC sports reporter Tim Gavel and Paddy Gourley a columnist on the Public Sector. The other team was Katy Gallagher ACT Deputy Chief Minister, David Pembroke from Content Group and Jack Waterford Editor at Large for the Canberra Times. It was an entertaining evening but oddly enough I was unusually nervous. I am not sure why maybe it was because my father, uncle and old Engish teacher were in the audience. Below is my contribution to the debate.

The Media Is to Blame…..

The greatest thing that the late Qld Premier Joh Bjelke Petersen ever said was that holding a media conference was like ‘feeding the chooks’. Like a mighty Zen aphorism, the Basho of the North still reaches out to us even in death and tonight the ‘suchness’ of his words will smash the logic of our opponents into tiny pieces.

Indeed the chook run is a powerful metaphor which well describes the Australian media landscape. The handful of grain thrown into the chook yard each morning is like the clutch of stories that comes through the fax machine in a thousand newsrooms around the country each day. The first thing it reveals is the pecking order. The News Ltd chooks will look for the scandalous grain, the Fairfax media will look for the intelligent grain and the women’s magazines will go for the gossipy grain. They’ll all process it through their gut and eventually publish it as either eggs or poo. And you’ll probably get one egg a day but half a dozen poos.

In the context of the debate here tonight though, that ‘the media is to blame’, the chooks are merely doing what their biology tells them to do. They are innocent and ignorant scavengers scratching around on the floor of life just trying to survive… pushing out mostly crap but with the occasional egg. Like chooks, the media have very small brains. With exception of course of my esteemed team mate, the fine Rhode Island Red, Tim Gavel. So like a criminal pleading not guilty on the grounds of insanity, editors, producers and reporters can’t really be blamed for their actions. So, who do you blame?

You blame the hand that throws the grain. Politicians! They’re to blame. Not only do they choose the quality and type of grain to toss into the run each day but they build and design the bloody chook runs! They control the breeding programs.

As the head of the adult industry’s national association, I’m forever fending off accusations that adult media (porn) is to blame for the moral decay of modern society. Bare breasts and buttocks in magazines and movies are allegedly causing mental disorders, incurable addictions and all sorts of bad hair styles. Depictions of big breasted and surgically augmented models are said to give young women unrealistic role models that cause them to be fixated on their body size and become obese or anorexic.. as each issue demands. But just scratch the surface a little and you find that the adult media chooks are simply moving to their political masters like all the other media chooks.

Over the last few years more and more depictions of small-breasted women have been banned as the moral panic around the serious issue of child porn grows. During Senate Estimates last November, the Classification Board was regaled by Senator Bananaby Joyce and Senator Guy Barnett for allowing adult women with A cupped breasts to appear in erotic magazines. They feared that readers would fantasise about them being under 18. Penthouse and Playboy editors have been castigated for ages for the airbrushed genitalia of their models giving the lie that all women look the same down there. But for nearly 10 years now government censors in this country have demanded this barbie style touch up under threat of official bans. The once great women’s magazine, Australian Women’s Forum, dared the censors in 2001 by publishing a photographic list of realistic vaginas and that was the last issue they ever published. Gone. Headless chooks. And for everyone else it was back to the unrealistic, mass produced, plastic-moulded Barbies.

X rated DVDs, the most popular form of adult media are said to contain unrealistic depictions of mindless, mechanical sex that causes their viewers to want the same. But check out the legislative parameters around the muff media and we see that politicians have their finger in the porno pie as well. By law, you can say ‘fuck me’ in an X rated film but you can’t say ‘fuck you’! That’s called assaultative language and its banned. You can’t show someone committing even a minor crime in an X rated film and neither can you show a fight of any kind. Try making a creative movie without any of these dramatic developments and its no wonder the X rated genre struggles to get past its ‘pizza boy’ delivery reputation. The X rated version of Russell Crowes’ Gladiator originally featured chariot races, gladiator battles and even lions. It all ended on the floor after the censors had finished with it and we were left with sweaty men randomly bursting into bedrooms and throwing their togas off. Add to that its absolute illegality outside the bawdy borders of the ACT and you can see how hard it is to make sexual media into a meaningful and interesting medium.

In the Victorian era it was the French postcard, in the 1930s it was Hollywood movies and in the 1950s it was rock and roll music - a media form in its own right. Every new form of media was said to carry the seeds of moral decay and the end of decency and decorum. It was the media that was to blame and not those who sought to repress and control it. But somehow we’ve survived the battering ram of page three girls and defamatory headlines. The nightly assaults of Naomi Robson and Ray Martin and now it’s the new media - social networking sites and the internet are to blame. And Senator Conroy’s mandatory filter is yet another attempt by a politician to apportion blame. The chooks are blameless. Its what they’re fed and how they’re bred that counts.

In fact , in this new era of Ministerial accountability, clearly the blame is not with the media at all but with the Minister for Media our very own Communications Minister, Senator Stephen Conroy.