Hanging Separately In Australia
Word is that a tabloid in Australia (obviously not a publication that values any broad notion of press freedoms) has managed to stir up a massive set of police raids against the company that produces the AbbyWinters.com family of websites. Reports differ on whether computers and data were seized, but the owner of the company was arrested (no charges yet filed).
If you’re familiar with the photos from AbbyWinters.com (which was once, briefly, an advertiser on ErosBlog) your mind will be boggled by this development:
Australian sexual politics are notoriously primitive, true, but AbbyWinters.com is famous for making some of the classiest, prettiest soft-core porn [see note below] in the world. It’s hard to imagine the expenditure of serious law enforcement resources on this, even in a place where it’s illegal to make an “objectionable film“.
Note: I should expound on my carefully-considered use of the word “porn” in the preceding paragraph, because the company behind the Abby Winters websites is — though respected for the quality of their photos — in one sense a bit of a laughing-stock in the U.S. adult industry. In short, they are often mocked — in my view, deservedly so — for insisting somewhat shrilly that their products are not pornography. Indeed, their boilerplate affiliate-promotion agreement used to threaten in direst terms to terminate any affiliate who characterized their products as porn. From an objective standpoint, this is about as ludicrous as threatening to fire a used-car salesman if he should ever be so vulgar as to call an automobile a “car”. As the current story makes clear, the bizarrely hostile legal environment in Australia presumably goes a long way toward explaining these “it’s not porn, honest!” symptoms of schizophrenia.
I can muster nothing but astonished contempt for the Australian newspaper that “takes credit” for stirring up the raids. Although I understand that Australia does not share the much-besieged constitutional protections of press freedom we endeavor to enjoy here in the United States, I am further aware that newspapers throughout what was formerly called “The British Empire” nonetheless do treasure and profit from a fairly robust freedom of the press. For them to attack this very freedom in order to sell a few newspapers — when instead they should be doing everything they can to protect and extend it — strikes me as both hypocritical and shortsighted. Or even downright idiotic.
Thanks to Violet Blue for the links.
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Shorter URL for sharing: https://www.erosblog.com/?p=3509
I too was surprised to read about this. I am a fan of AbbyWinters.com because these girls and their pleasure seemed so real… I hope it all pans out in their favor.
Hi Bacchus
I’m… pretty sure that in the first year or so Abby herself (or at least the person who wrote as “Abby Winters”) was pretty up front in her forum posts that she was a pornographer and what she did was porn. She thought it was wishy-washy to say “good” stuff is “erotica” but bad stuff is porn. She was also pretty passionate about doing good, solid, aboveboard porn.
Around 2003-2004 used to email each other quite a lot and had some good conversations in email, and unless there’s been a lot of corporate drift since then I’d be surprised if the investigation turns up very much. That doesn’t mean they won’t since I don’t know, just that I’ll be very surprised if they do.
—
As for structural porn control in Australia, between initiatives to do things like blanket “nanny net” all internet traffic and all the hassle Tony Comstock when through trying to get one of his films (Damon and Hunter, I think) into an LGBT film festival, and the fact that it would be illegal for anyone actually in Australia to view anything from AbbyWinters it sounds like they interpret press freedom pretty differently. (In the sense that unlike the U.S. the don’t consider porn “protected expression”)
Anyway I’m sorry to hear they’re getting pulled through this wringer and I hope everything turns out well for them.
figleaf
It’ll end up like most of the “Scandals” we have here in Australia, the police will realise they are morons without a legal leg to stand on and release her without charge. still not fair though.
“Australian sexual politics are notoriously primitive”
I find that comment extremely offensive and unjustifiable. I am a long time reader of this blog, and while normally I am not partitularly patriotic, I feel disinclined to return to a site that is so needlessly and incorrectly bigoted.
Pornography is freely available to citizens over the age of 18, a law that is common worldwide, and our freedom of speech is no more inhibited than in any democratic society. Your comments would equate us with countries under dictatorship.
And for what? One little incident that will probably blow over in a short amount of time? Take a look in your own backyard Bacchus.
Well Erin, I have to defend Baccus’s statement as true, although the word primitive is obviously not meant to be taken literally. Perhaps “Australian politics are notorious among sex bloggers for being restrictive and brutal” would be more better, if he were more long winded.
In fact, as he pointed out (http://www.aust....html), it is not legal to produce pornography, although it is legal to own. That does not make Australia the only place in the world to persecute the prostitute and not the client, it is an old tradition.
Your freedom to listen is also inhibited. The notoriety he speaks of is likely the government firewalls that force Australians to be more creative to get porn on the internet. Although to be fair, it is a bitch laying all that cable out into the middle of the Pacific. Maybe they are just worried about optimally using limited bandwidth.
@Erin: I think that’s somewhat of an overreaction, obviously the sentence didn’t intend to equate Australia with a dictatorship. Nevertheless, sexual politics in Australia really are notoriously primitive (compared to other Western countries) – as you note yourself, pornography being available to citizens over 18 is common worldwide, but there are enough issues and incidents (the censoring of “Ibiza uncovered” and similar stuff in Quennsland, the notoriously “ashamed” way stuff like Playboy is sold, readers’ comments and attitudes in our youth and surf mags, the furor over topless bathing, the bans (sometimes still in place) of literature and movies deemed to offensive on grounds and involving laws that would arguably have no chance to pass in the UK, USA, or Europ, etc.), but I don’t think that’s such an offensive statement really (Australians being notoriously primitve when it comes to sex would be though, but even that is something I’ve heard often enough abroad).
Erin,
What about the recent attempts of the Australian government to filter (read “censor”) the internet?
Thanks everybody for listing some of the things that went into my shorthand remark. I’m kinda surprised anybody who would be reading this blog would be so offended by what strikes me as the plain and bald truth, but oh well.
Of course the U.S. is not stellar on these issues either — at least, not by comparison to some of the more civilized European jurisdictions.
I’m not offended by sex, Bacchus, I am offended by ignorace and personal attacks. Your language was extremely inflammatory and unfair. I’m not saying that Australia’s laws are perfect, but the light you’ve portrayed its citizens in is cruel.
I stated the truth as I see it. There is a basis for my opinion. I can see why you might not agree with me, but I remain puzzled by the amount of offense you seem to have taken.
You can’t understand how someone can be offended at your use of such a hugely judgement laden word like “primitive”? You’ve just portrayed an entire country as being inferior, ignorant and repressed.
You might do better to respond to the words I actually wrote. I called the sexual politics in Australia primitive, not the country or the people. And “inferior, ignorant and repressed” is not a phrase I wrote.
Chip on your shoulder, much?
Sadness. Until a recent income setback (happens to the best and the worst) I was a happy subscriber of Abby Winters’. I’ve got quite a bit of Chloe B content on my hard drive (she’s the exuberantly mammalian one third from the left). I’m not quite sure I’d purely slot their content as entirely soft-core, though. Some of their girl-girl and masturbation shoots were a delightfully long way from the Playboys I grew up with. In any case, I recently pointed to Abby Winters when asked at a dinner party as to why I paid for porn, when the internet offered so much for free. My answer: to patronize the production of content that I approve of. That’s the same reason I pay for music, film, and books after all, although I could easily pirate them as well. Hate to see them fall under the censor’s axe. Probably time to re-up my subscription.
The ‘primitive’ comment is a bit misleading. Australia is not as relaxed as some Western European countries, but is far more relaxed than the US.
Different states have different laws. Whilst in some states it is illegal to make or sell porn, the law is basically not enforced. There are sex shops everywhere selling material that is technically illegal.
Prostitution is legal in most parts of Australia, provided it takes place in a regulated fashion. Street prostitution is technically illegal, but again, is only selectively enforced. There are even specified zones in Melbourne where street prostitution can occur.
There’s never been a ‘furore’ about topless bathing. The practice isn’t as widespread as on the beaches of the Greek Islands or France, but you do see it occur without controversy. The media likes to find dial-a-quote conservatives who froth at the mouth about these things. These people represent about 0.01% of the population.
The internet filteriing is of some concern. At this point, the government has claimed that such filtering would only relate to illegal sexual acts (such as bestiality, or child pornography). Even still, public opinion is not on the side of the government on this issue, and it may not actually get up.
Where Australia is arguably ‘primitive’ is probably in how some sub-groups view and treat women. We’ve had some recent controversy about footballers involved in sexual assaults, or in group sex acts that are bordering on illegality in terms of the consent of the females involved. None of this warrants the entire country being characterised as ‘primitive’, however. Remember, Australia is a very big country, and most people live in the big cities which are as sexually relaxed as pretty much any other country in the world.
THR, thanks for that input. The picture from the other side of a big ocean is necessarily going to be painted with a broad brush, and I do appreciate your more detailed description of the situation on the ground.
I obviously need to repeat, though, that I didn’t level the word “primitive” at Australia or its people. I was thinking of the repeated censorship efforts and very repressive (in theory, if not in practice) anti-porn laws when I spoke of primitive sexual politics. We’ve got a lot of these primitive sexual politics in the U.S., too. I’m envious of the countries that manage a more relaxed attitude.
Well, since Erin is ripping open this can of worms, I’m going to dig right in, unless Bacchus feeds the comment bunny (which I half expect).
It is true that people were still being given jail sentences for homosexuality in Australia as late as 1985. (To be sure, the highest Australian court then was still the UK Privy Council, but they were only enforcing laws passed by Australians.)
It is true that the White Australia policy continued until 1973, and that even in the 1980s restoring that policy was a publicly declared goal of the opposition party. The policy of Mandatory Detention continues today, such as the recently resolved detention of Iraqi refugees in Nauru.
It is true that aborigines did not have universal suffrage until 1962, and until 1984 it was illegal to encourage them to vote.
Bacchus spends half his time on this blog ranting about encroachments by the US government on personal freedoms, both legal and illegal. Perhaps instead of putting words in his mouth you could tell some of us why the politics of social freedom in Australia seems so parallel to our own, but frankly pretty far behind (more primitive, if you will). Or perhaps the bunny is hungry.
Bleys, that’s civil enough to escape moderation, but in parts strays a bit far from the sexual politics that were the topic of my apparently controversial remark. This would strike me as a bizarrely inappropriate place to discuss Australia’s overall level of social or political development, but as long as folks can keep it civil, I guess it’s fair game.
As an Australian, I think that THR’s summary is good. We do have some unnecessary laws that are widely disregarded, or just occasionally, used as a pretext in pursuit of some other goal (which I’m sure will prove to be the case here – they weren’t paying taxes or something). In this area the law is far behind society, which really doesn’t care – except for the loony fringe.
signed, A happily primitive Aussie. Now, where’s my beer?
btw, on the subject of homosexuality, Australia has a particular cultural issue here, emerging out of the past where the population was highly weighted toward both males and criminals, where the was a particularly strong association between criminal nature and homosexuality (or at least, it was so perceived). This is the primary explanation for why Australia’s attitudes towards gays lag behind it’s generally accepting stance on everything else. (except aborigines, but that’s also linked to the convict cringe, I think)
And while I’m on a roll ;-), a joke I’ve heard several times:
There were these 3 blokes who got together in a bar in Singapore, an Frenchman, and Italian, and an Australian. After a while, the subject got around to who was a better performer in bed.
“Well”, says the Frenchman, “After we’ve had sex, I massage my girl all over, and it’s so good, she floats 3 inches over the bed.”
“Huh”, says the Italian, “that’s nothing. After we’ve had sex, I lick my girl all over, and she gets 12 inches above the bed.”
“Oh, that’s nothing”, says the Australian. “After we’ve had sex, I wipe my dick on the curtain, and my sheila hits the roof!”
I wanted to come in and say that yes, the legal situation regarding censorship in this country is primitive (in terms of being outdated) and in no way reflects what the majority of people believe. Recent research has found that about 70% of people think X-rated videos should be legal and the Porn Report’s statistics on the number of people who watch internet porn show that the vast majority of people here don’t have a problem with it.
Australians are far less religious than Americans and I would also say less prudish on the whole but our laws are stuck in the Victorian age.
A recent legal challenge to the classification laws by Adultshop.com failed in 2007 thanks to a skewed trial and a very conservative judge. I don’t know if we’ll ever get this changed.
So on this topic I have no misplaced patriotism at all. Australia often makes me want to beat my head against the wall and this issue is no exception.
“There’s never been a ‘furore’ about topless bathing. The practice isn’t as widespread as on the beaches of the Greek Islands or France, but you do see it occur without controversy. The media likes to find dial-a-quote conservatives who froth at the mouth about these things. These people represent about 0.01% of the population.”
That’s a bit misleading, most of the controversies were about allowing topless bathing and not about existing “topless beaches” (in itself something you don’t find in Europe, where every beach is a topless beach). I certainly remember several instances where far more than just 0.01% of the population were involved, but it’s just one example.
Not to get too academic here, but the tension between discipline and leisure, resp. a very British or Victorian public morale and law system and the far more hedonistic population is pretty much one of the widely accepted characteristics of Australian society, so I don’t think the description is all that offensive.
Anyway,I suppose the mere fact that this issue can generate so much controversy here just shows that the initial statement contained some truth and I think it’s important to keep in mind that it was about laws and not people (and in this regard the States are far more liberal too, one might have an argument if it were about people, but it isn’t).
Australia has a very unique culture, while many ‘ocker’ Australians would glady bash anyone they thought was a ‘poof’, I’d say the vast majority of Ozzie blokes wouldn’t take too much encouraging to slip on a dress for the right kind of party, myself included. HMAS Sydney (a well-known Australian light cruiser) is sometimes referred to as the HMAS Mardi Gra because of, well, I don’t think I need to say, in fact since 1992 it has been against the law to discrimnate against or prevent the entry of a homosexual into the Australian Defense Force, although there have been document cases of discrimination against some personnel.
As the great firewall of Australia, I’ve been watching it’s development closely, being active in local politics, a computer geek, and a computer tech working for a state school where we are expected to keep as much stuff out of kid’s computers as possbile (we block what we find, but acknowledge it’s an unending battle). Senator Stephen Conroy, the lead ‘architect’ (he would shame any trained person of that description) of the firewall is a known religious conservative, and only given the portfolio he has (Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy) because he asked for it and noone else cared about it. Incidentally, he was born in England and immigrated to Australia at the age of ten, at which time he was enrolled in a Catholic school.
He’s hated by members of his own party for his pig-headed obsession with filtering the internet, a project which his advisors would have told him not to get involved in, if he hadn’t chosen people who would tell him what he wanted to hear, as it’s a pet project. Other party members think he’s an idiot, and wasting everyone’s time. As you would expect, filtering the internet is well nigh impossible (ref China, Iran, etc and their failures to control online communications), and the tests they’ve been running have proven that. Noone has heard of the whole project for months now, which is a Very Good Thing.
We also recently had a scandal when someone complained that nude photos taken by a well-known photographer of young teens were pornographic. The pictures were taken with parental consent and the artist’s work sells for high prices, at this gallery showing however police confiscated all the framed pictures to check for indecent content. All were later returned with an admission that none were pornographic.
I’d say, overall, we’re not doing too bady. There are some things we’re lagging behind on, another unenforced law in Queensland, a very populous north-eastern state that is often quite conservative, bans abortion, yet this procedure is administered by publicly funded doctors. We do however have very flexible and sensitive age of consent laws, if the judge determines that there was no abuse of power and both partners were willing, there is very wide leeway for him to throw a case out, with partners two or even three years in age difference (ie 15 and 18) being let go without charges, or not even being charged in the first place.
You’re coming along America, but I’m afraid we’re leading the way in a few small areas. We’re still having trouble with same-sex marriages though :(
Ok, here is what I hope is a fair question, and I ask with total respect and no sarcasm whatsoever.
Several of our Australian friends have said things, like Justin above…. “You’re coming along America, but I’m afraid we’re leading the way in a few small areas”. Ok, I’ll grant that, but I wonder…. if AbbyWinters.com was a site produced and hosted in the US, run in exactly the same way with exactly the same content, would this have happened here?
It’s entirely like the same thing would happen anywhere else. All countries have their conservative crazies that like to be offended over things and stir up trouble. It doesn’t necessarily mean they get their way, or that their opinion is shared by the majority. It will be interesting to follow this story and see what happens. In all likeliness it will all blow over.
Spent much time in northern Europe, knittedgoat?
I ask because you’re just not correct. Something like this — with porn as tame as the Abby Winters stuff — simply could not happen in much of modern Europe.
What I mean alex99a, is that some societies are relaxed in some areas, and other societies are relaxed in other areas.
As to if the site was run and hosted in the US, perhaps that depends on which city and state the servers are in. Australia’s state’s laws are mostly the same on this kind of thing, our commonwealth government (the federal level) has a much more direct role in lawmaking, and our laws are much more uniform than those in the US.
Can you tell me that a site like AbbyWinters.com would get the same treatment if it was hosted in Utah, as if it was hosted in California?
And as knittedgoat mentioned, sometimes conservatives get their knickers in a knot, demand police action, the police raid someone, seize some stuff, and then it all quietly gets returned with no charges laid after the newspapers get their story, the church group gets their righteous indignation, the politician gets his votes, etc.
Hi… finally, the perfect place for me to talk about the AW thing.
Like you, I was approached by them for advertising and PR some time ago. I cracked up about a “yoga class” pictorial they did, which I featured on my blog. I asked if I could talk to someone, a fun interview, like I’ve done with other producers/directors. I like to find people to talk to in the Biz who do something different, creative, etc.
Anyway, to my surprise, I found that they were really nervous about talking to me about anything, at all. Did not want any sort of public profile, no matter how positive or engaging. And that whole thing about how it wasn’t “porn” and how very strict they were on that subject.
I know that they people running it couldn’t possibly be lighthearted young models, such as their subjects are. Their caution made me wonder… what have they experienced at the hands of Aus. law before? I knew that was the rubbing point. I have been unable to show my scholarly.. and I mean it, it’s frickin’ scholarly… film presentations on the history of pornography, in Australia, under ANY circumstances, because of their “obscenity” laws. I faced the same laws in Britain, for example, but when the BritishFilm Institute invited me, the doors opened. In Australia, no way.
Now I have read the local laws in Victoria they’re charged with and what I wanna know is damn, how could they have thought they could operate in that town? I mean they’re horrendous, absurd, right out of the Puritan’s Bible, but what a risk to run a scene there. Esp. if you didn’t build any political capital, any comraderie, just hiding instead. It was so risky. Well, I’m sure there are many elements we’re completely unaware of.
Hi, Susie! Yeah, I was pretty surprised when they bought advertising here, given that Erosblog is a notorious hive of porn and villainy. But I love their product, so I was delighted to promote them for as long as that lasted.
This latest setback really does explain a lot about their hinky attitude, but I think you’re right about the need to build political capital. I would say that approach has served Kink.com well when they’ve come under fire in San Francisco. Having people willing to go to bat for you when the muckrakers attack is invaluable.