Illegal Porn Business Booming In Australia

SYDNEY, Australia--According to an article in Australia's Sunday Age, the production and consumption of illegal and unclassified pornography is on the rise Down Under.

The investigative report estimated Australia's annual trade in illegal X-rated DVDs to be in the range of $300 million.

Although pornography is legal in most states, distributors are required to submit titles to official censors who classify each video and determine whether or not the item could be deemed obscene. (I don't mean to be trite, but how do I get that job?)

According to the report, criminal gangs are responsible for flooding the market with unregulated smut, some of which depicts images of rape, incest and underage sex. One catalog from a retailer in the Northern Territory promises "depraved content."

Federal Attorney General Philip Ruddock expressed concern at the relaxed attitude that many state governments were taking toward illegal and unclassified material.

"When the law specifically provides that material ought to be presented for classification, and it's not, the it is beyond doubt that people distributing that material are committing offenses," Ruddock said.

Why should we pay attention to stories like this, you ask? Well, for one thing, it illustrates the point that no matter how much a society tries to regulate sexuality it will always find a way to express itself. In fact, the more taboos we impose on sex, the uglier and more depraved that expression tends to become.