AUSTRALIA—Really, how low can the Australian Customs Service get? According to news from the Eros Association, it has set a new benchmark for the importation of adult films into Australia by confiscating two recent titles from the United States that feature vertically challenged people.
Midget Mania, Volumes 7 and 8 were confiscated by Customs agents in Brisbane last month, which after 28 days has yet to return the videos to their owners despite protestations from the importers. Customs are not required to give any explanation for their seizure of goods, but it is widely understood that they are now treating the dwarf genre in the same way they do depictions of female ejaculation, which officially represents an ‘offensive fetish’ and is therefore tagged with an RC (Refused Classification) label, which in Australia is a distribution kiss of death.
Eros Association CEO Fiona Patten said the new ruling was discriminatory to short-statured people and quite possibly offended the Federal Discrimination Act.
“One of the main hallmarks of adult films has been the fact that everyone and anyone can get a go,” she said. “Black or white, fat or thin, short or tall, unlike Hollywood, everyone is celebrated for their own unique talents and styles. It appears that Customs are trying to insinuate that when a large male adult actor has sex with a female dwarf or midget, that there is an element of coercion involved because of the size difference. If they have other reasons, they should let industry know instead of shrouding these decisions in secrecy."
Patten added that in the same way Customs has misunderstood female ejaculation to be a form of urolagnia—a paraphilia in which sexual excitement is associated with the sight or thought of urine or urination—Customs officers are desperately in need of biology lessons and a reality check on the dwarf issue.
“Large numbers of dwarfs and midgets are happily married to persons of normal height around the world,” she said. “They even have children together."
Customs, she argued, has apparently become the arbiter and enforcer of the Classification Act and is now stopping all imported adult films from overseas that they believe could possibly be Refused Classification if submitted. However, in taking on that role, Customs is not only acting in an arbitrary manner, but is also denying Australian distributors the chance to edit a film to meet Australian standards. Likewise, when applied to magazines, distributors are denied the right to post-print modify in order to get a classification.
“This is often the same material that is quite legal to possess in Australia and legal to be delivered by Telstra onto your computer,” said Patten.
Customs is also routinely ‘red-lining’ all shipments of adult material and spending many hours watching porn on the docks and looking at adult magazines under magnifying glasses, claimed Patten, who added that the time spent represents a complete waste of taxpayer money. Furthermore, she claimed, Customs officers are there to stop drugs, weapons and exotic organisms at our borders and not to try and set the moral tone of the nation.
“We call on the Minister to put in place a moratorium on seizures of adult material (unless child pornography is suspected) while the Australian Law Reform Commission review of the Classification Act is being completed,” she said. “The convergence of media has meant that Customs are now prosecuting people for importing material via a boat or a plane that is perfectly legal to import on a telephone line.”
For more information about the Eros Association, visit here.
