Steve Sweet is off the obscenity hook. A British Columbia court judge acquitted him of all twenty charges stemming from his December arrest on obscenity charges over a series of fetish vignettes distributed on and offline.
Judge R.R. Low said the Sweet defense's presentation of several "mainstream" books and videos with themes at least as graphic, sexual, and violent as his adult BDSM vignettes, "coupled with their widespread availability, satisfies me that Canadians, for better or worse, tolerate other Canadians viewing explicit sexual activity coupled with graphic violence which is more or less indistinguishable from the eleven videos."
Sweet himself did not testify during his trial, according to the Low opinion's recap, but his attorney Paul Kent-Snowsell had previously told AVNOnline.com the defense planned to show both mainstream materials such as American Psycho, I Spit on Your Grave, Rape Me, and Portrait of a Serial Killer, as well as certain computer materials, to support the defense's contention that Sweet's adult videos were not quite as full of unacceptable material as the prosecution had alleged.
Sweet was arrested with three others in December, and computer equipment, files, and videotapes were seized. He was charged under a portion of Canadian law that bans combining explicit sex with violence and cruelty. The prosecution made its case in just over a week beginning in mid-February, while the defense took about three weeks to make theirs, which even used a live Internet presentation with a computer setup in the courtroom.
Ray said he agreed with a defense medical expert that "consensual BDSM is part of normal and acceptable adult sexual behavior, and…viewing material similar to the (11 videos) is a normal and appropriate part of that sexual behavior" Ray also agreed with a defense police expert, in this case a retired Vancouver police investigator, that BDSM practices similar to those portrayed in the Sweet vignettes were carried on regularly in certain public venues.
"These venues are well known to the police who take no interest in preventing these public activities from taking place," Ray wrote. "These public venues are easily accessible by any adult with sufficient financial means to attend an ordinary movie theater. These public venues are available throughout Canada and are widely advertised in the public domain…(The) evidence of tolerance coupled with the evidence (in the trial) leaves me with a reasonable doubt that the contemporary Canadian community would not tolerate other Canadians viewing the (Sweet vignettes) on the bases that harm would flow from watching (them)."
