The province's rules on films including any graphic sexual content favour mass-market pornographers over sexual documentaries, sex education and women-firendly erotica
John Ince - Op-ed Vancouver Sun - Tuesday, December 20, 2003 p A13.

Gordon Campbell was elected on a promise to trim red tape and government waste. But he has left untouched a draconian system of media control that any Stalinist would admire.

I refer to the bizarre scheme governing the distribution and retail sale of sexual videos and DVDs in the province. Documentaries, educational films, feminist erotica and dreary pornography are all caught in the web of this system. To sell any video or DVD with any explicit sexual content is absolutely forbidden, unless a B.C. bureaucrat gives permission.

We already have federal criminal and customs laws that attack the nasty stuff like child pornography and violent sexual media. The B.C. government does not trust Canada's border guards or B.C.'s police officers to do their job. Victoria thinks one more layer of legislation and bureaucracy is required.

Nor does Victoria trust the people involved in the video and DVD business to follow provincial guidelines. In an extraordinary example of control-freak paternalism, Victoria requires that a government official view every single film, video, or DVD with sexual content, to ensure compliance with the often whimsical standards. Without an approval the material is illegal to sell.

Further, anyone who distributes or retails sexual videos and DVDs, including sexual documentaries, sex ed material and women-friendly erotica, requires a special and costly annual licence that bureaucrats have the discretion to refuse. And distributors must submit to demeaning criminal records checks to boot.

This system imposes high costs and cumbersome red tape that only businesses selling mass-market porn can endure. Tens of thousands of mass-market porn videos have been formally "approved" in this way.

But those selling specialized material with a limited market, such as sex educational films and sex-positive erotica, or foreign language material from Japan, Korea, India and elsewhere, cannot cope with such a system. The documentation, the delays, and the fees are prohibitive, so such material is rarely submitted for review and remains illegal to sell. The most puritanical censor could not have invented a more effective system.

The result is that British Columbians are denied access to a vast array of healthy, wholesome sexual media. For example, in the last five years there has been a renaissance in the production of artfully produced and highly informative sex instructional guides, with titles such as The Joy of Erotic Massage or The Erotic Guide to Sexual Fantasies for Lovers. Over 100 such titles have been produced. But thanks to the provincial government, you won't find them in video stores in B.C.

But go to your video store and you will see "BC Government Approved" stickers on porno videos with titles such as Filthy Little Whores and Demented Sex Acts. Our government formally approves a vast array of sleazy stuff yet prohibits the sale of wholesome sex ed and women-friendly erotica. This is a twisted system.

No similar system of "prior restraint" and licensing applies to sexual books, magazines, video games, internet sites or television shows. Similarly, no approval is required to sell a non-sexual video or DVD, such as a wrestling video showing grown men stomping on each other's heads, or a horror movie that drips with blood. Only sexual material in video or DVD requires prior approval. How arbitrary.

Our neighbours, Alberta and Washington, have no similar scheme. They know that criminal laws are entirely adequate to protect the public.

Why does such a stupid regime prevail here? Because two powerful interest groups profit from it.

The first is the mass-market pornography industry. The BC system helps keep out competition. A few large distributors have invested fortunes in complying with the red tape that small firms cannot meet. The B.C. system arbitrarily limits access to the market, much like a tariff. This is good for the porn firms that play the bureaucrats' game.

The other people who profit from the system are the well-paid bureaucrats who run it, with perks of considerable discretionary power and junkets to conferences. Their jobs depend on the weirdo system. They are effective advocates for the maintenance of the status quo, and the Minister in charge of them, Rich Coleman, continues to sing their tune.

Come on Mr. Premier, show us you really believe in the principles of free enterprise. Get the government out of the porno industry's bed. Put the sex bureaucrats out to pasture!

John Ince is author of The Politics of Lust, a lawyer, and the co-owner of the Kitsilano sex shop, The Art of Loving.