Holland, Germany, Italy, France, Scandinavia, Greece: hard-core is legal, and there is no (self)-censorship as there is in the US. One can say that just about the only thing which is illegal is kiddie-porn. (for instance, the laws in Holland are about to be changed, and there will be a 4 year maximum penalty on producing or distributing kiddie-porn.) And the age of consent in most countries is 16, which means that Traci Lords movies (which she made while 16-18 years of age) are NOT considered illegal, and are freely available.

This also means that most of the kinks which are deemed obscene in many communities in the US (and are therefore unobtainable due to self-censorship of the producers) are freely available in Continental Europe.

These include Bondage and/or S&M with hardcore sex, really hard S&M (whipping until bleeding, needles, that sort of thing), Bestiality (in 2 of the video rental places I frequent they have some bestiality movies, and these stores are not sleazy backstreet things either. They are the two biggest stores in town), Fisting, Golden showers, Brown showers (i.e., shit).

But as far as mail-order is concerned, this is generally NOT a very usual method of buying anything in Europe. And the same goes for porn: I know a few companies who sell videos and sextoys by mail order, but there is nothing comparable to for instance Excalibur (I know, someone sent me one of Excalibur's catalogs since I was curious).

In all states and territories, they are perfectly legal to own, so long as they have been classified by the Office of Film and Literature. I would imagine we have basically the same restrictions as the U.S. Nothing involving animals or children, no bondage with sex and no shit. The first two would be definitely illegal (and well so, IMHO), but the others may be due to our market being a macrocosm of the American one.

Now, as to the odd parts, they are illegal to sell commercially in all Australian states. They are legal to sell in the two territories, the Australian Capital Territory (ACT), and the Northern Territory (NT).

For those with an interest in localities, the ACT is located within New South Wales, halfway between Melbourne and Sydney, The NT is the top middle bit, with Ayers Rock and Alice Springs in it (no, not the actress).

Now, as we have free trade between states and territories here, this means that there is a thriving mail-order business from the two territories. The other thing we have of course, is a thriving not-quite-under-the-table business in videos at the Adult bookshops.

Most Melbourne (city) bookshops have a selection of videos, and most of those that do, have a bloody lot of them. Some shops are more subtle than others, and I won't go into anymore detail about them. I would assume it to be much the same in Sydney, and perhaps more under-the-table in other cities. The Vice squad know about this, and occasionally do raids, but more often seem to just leave it be.

There are also various swap-clubs and such, but I don't have any personal experience with them so I can't really comment.

1. Some material is obscene;
2. There is political merit in bringing charges;
3. A conviction is likely.

1. Having material that is sufficiently far from the norm that getting a jury to agree that it is obscene would be easy;
2. Having an aura of being a successful merchant of porn, rather than just someone unloading their collection;
3. The political climate and political pressures on the prosecutor.

We can't offer a formula for staying out of trouble. If you refuse to ship across state lines, you've eliminated one major source of grief, and if you only sell to San Francisco, Los Angeles, or New York, it is unlikely that busting a small-time operator on obscenity charges will be worth the trouble of the DA.

Best of luck.

Now on to the question of "verboten" materials that you mention. Those that you mentioned ARE exactly that, "verboten." If you were to just send them to a friend, no problem, unless the "friend objected, etc." However the minute you "sell them" then you stand a chance of being prosecuted. Stores don't always hire the smartest folks in the world and remember they are NOT involved in interstate transactions therefore they need only fear local police.

THE EXCEPTION: In Kentucky some poor folks found out that they COULD be part of a federal prosecution since they were named as "co-conspirators" in a federal indictment. After saying that they would NEVER settle they learned about the costs and the fact that if they were found guilty that the RICO act might be used to seize their stores... as was done to Ferris Alexander. (His case is still being worked on after the Supreme Court found that it was a violation of the 8th amendment to do so, however, no end is in sight).

If you ship between states then you are ripe for a federal bust, particularly since you probably don't have the 250,000 bucks (minimum) to defend yourself. Therefore you will make a plea bargain (or worse -- settle for a public defender!) to save yourself time and money. The feds get an easy conviction and they are happy and you are not. One other thing, if you decide to make copies (when you run out of your original stash) then copyright laws come into effect.

New York, is a special case. Some years ago a federal judge was asked to enjoin the city from prosecuting stores. The lawyers for the stores pointed out that community standards were supposed to apply. Then they pointed out that after theatre at the entrance to the Lincoln tunnel there were prostitutes who were nude in the streets. Well it turned out that the judge had seen that, been there, and ruled that since the "community standards" were so lax that in New York county (Manhattan) nothing could be obscene except for kiddy porn. I don't know about S.F.

Final advice, trade to your hearts content. Sell, and while probably nothing will happen be prepared to face the worst, you never can tell when they will come swooping down.

The Act has two primary components.

First, producers of depictions of actual sexual conduct must maintain records on the performers' age, identity and other stage names. These recordkeeping requirements are quite onerous: every performer, every previously used alias, specific types of identifying documents, etc. The government has even gone so far as to mandate the indexing system to be used.

Second, all materials depicting actual sexual conduct must have a label indicating certain information, most notably the name of the custodian of records and the street address at which the records are kept. Depictions of actual sexual conduct shot before July 3, 1995, or depictions of wholly simulated sexual conduct (such as fetish or truly softcore tapes) are exempt from the requirements, but should carry a label making that clear.

By themselves, these regulations -- while intrusive, burdensome and expensive -- would be tolerable. They are not, after all, any more or less ludicrous than the thousands of dense regulations with which businesses of every stripe must comply.

Except that failing to comply with these regulations is a Felony.

If Fantastic Pictures fails to obtain the proper age records from the senior citizens in its next "Sugar Mommies" release, the responsible party may be sentenced to up to two years in prison for a first offense.

Creating kiddie porn is not the crime; failing to comply with the recordkeeping and labeling requirements is the crime.

The adult video industry does not seem to be blessed with a plethora of highly-organized, detail-obsessive clerks and paralegals. Clyde DeWitt spends part of his January 1996 AVN column detailing any number of violations which have recently crossed his desk.

And, as we all know, the Department of Justice is not going to be lax in its enforcement, or allow grace periods, or give fair warnings. Industry attorneys had to pull teeth just to get DOJ to stipulate the law's effective date!

What all of the above means is that prosecutors have a new weapon in their efforts to shut down law-abiding pornographers. One slip in recordkeeping or labeling (no matter how trivial) can lead to a bankrupting criminal suit and the threat of jail.

The initial challenge to the law has been lost. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled that the law passes initial constitutional muster. American Library Assoc. v. Reno, 33 F.3d 78 (D.C. Cir. 1994).

The next step in combating this law is to question its constitutionality as applied -- which means that some poor schmuck will have to be the first person charged with violating it.

I don't envy that trend setter.

In the mid 1980s, an anti-pornography initiative by the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office backfired (to put it mildly) -- the DA's prosecution of adult video producer Harold Freeman led to a California Supreme Court ruling which explicitly legalized non- obscene hard-core pornographic videos.

The state's anti-pimping law was changed in 1982 to mandate a minimum three-year sentence if a defendant were found guilty of "pandering," the legal term for a type of pimping. Sponsored by Democratic state senator David A. Roberti, the law was designed to reduce the street prostitution that plagued the senator's Hollywood district.

Although the law's undisputed intent was to combat streetwalking, the Los Angeles County DA's Office decided to use it in an admittedly novel manner. Pandering prosecutions were brought against several producers of hard-core pornographic videos.

The DA's legal theory was that the exchange of money for sex equaled prostitution, regardless of whether or not the sex acts were filmed. The DA's practical theory was that California would cease to be the world capital of blue movies if the very act of producing an adult video were criminalized.

The first person charged was Harold Freeman, a veteran producer of more than 100 adult videos. In September of 1983, the 47- year-old Freeman had shot the anal-themed "Caught From Behind, Part II" in Rancho Palos Verdes, a suburb south of Los Angeles. Freeman was charged with five counts of pandering, one count for each woman whom he paid to perform in the film. (Curiously, Freeman was not charged for paying the male performers.) In what would later become a crucial fact, Freeman was not charged with obscenity.

After a six-day jury trial in Van Nuys Superior Court, Freeman was found guilty on all counts. The trial judge refused to sentence Freeman to the mandatory three years on the grounds that such a sentence would be cruel and unusual punishment. Instead, Freeman was sentenced to 90 days in jail, fined $10,000 and placed on five years probation. The conviction was affirmed by the California Court of Appeals (188 Cal. App. 3d 618, 233 Cal. Rptr. 510). Freeman's attorneys, Stuart Goldfarb and Dennis A. Fischer, filed a routine appeal to the California Supreme Court, very few of which are successful.

Then a miracle happened.

Four justices of the California Supreme Court decided the case was worthy of review. Briefs were submitted. Oral arguments held. And the California Supreme Court threw out Freeman's conviction and explicitly legalized non-obscene, hard-core pornography. People v. Freeman, 46 Cal. 3d 419, 758 P.2d 1128, 250 Cal. Rptr. 598.

The legality of paying performers to engage in sex acts on film is founded on two, independent theories, one grounded in state law, one in federal law.

State Law: The statutory definition of "pandering" contains the word "prostitution". The statutory definition of "prostitution" contains the word "lewd". The common law definition of "lewd" requires, in relevant part, that the sex act be engaged in "for the purpose of sexual arousal or gratification of the customer or of the prostitute."

But the performers testified at trial that they were not having sex for pleasure, they were doing it for the money. Ditto Freeman. Moving up the chain of definition, Freeman -- and all producers -- are not guilty of pandering, and all performers are not guilty of prostitution.

Federal Law: The Court made a number of points regarding Freeman's federal constitutional protections.

1. Non-obscene motion pictures are a form of artistic expression protected by the First Amendment.
2. Even if Freeman's actions fell within the definition of "pandering," he could not be prosecuted because his actions would be legal outside of the context of the adult video industry. In other words, a murder on film is illegal because murder is illegal _independent_ of the act of filming and paying the participants; the sex acts filmed by Freeman were considered illegal solely because he filmed and paid the actors. (In oral arguments, the deputy attorney general admitted that charges could not have been brought had the performers not been paid for their sex acts.)

The Powers That Be went apeshit over this ruling and appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court for a stay (a temporary suspension of the California Supreme Court's ruling). Not only did Justice Sandra Day O'Connor deny the stay, she said in no uncertain terms that the U.S. Supreme Court would not review the case.

Her orthodox reasoning: The U.S. Supreme Court can only rule on the federal law components of the decision; the definition of "lewd" is wholly a state question. Therefore, no action by the Court on the federal law component could effect the outcome of the case. The U.S. Supreme Court's opinion would be moot, an advisory opinion. And, since the day President Washington asked for one, the Court has refused to render advisory opinions.

Despite the ironclad logic of Justice O'Connor's decision, the California Attorney General's Office attempted three more times to obtain U.S. Supreme Court review. A petition was even submitted by the parents of deceased porn star Shauna Grant. Denied every time.

Today, the Freeman case is still good law in California. Pornography production in California has been so normalized that Ron Jeremy picks up his production permits at the same government office that certifies shoots for Disney.

The California adult video industry is not, however, immune from legal attack.

First and foremost, obscenity is still a crime, and the U.S. Supreme Court's "Miller test" for determining obscenity is so vague that no one knows for sure what's legal and what's not. One prosecutorial tactic is bankrupting defendants by bringing groundless obscenity charges, forcing them to incur legal fees.

Secondly, the California legislature could, theoretically, redefine "lewd", "prostitution" or "pandering" by deleting the pleasure requirement. This is unlikely, as redefining "lewd" would necessitate a wholesale redrafting of the Penal Code's sex offense statutes.

Finally, an overzealous prosecutor with a grudge against pornography will _always_ devise a stratagem to harass.

To counteract these threats, I recommend that adult video fans become members of legal groups which, directly or indirectly, help protect the adult video industry. Such groups include the Free Speech Coalition, the Cato Institute, People for the American Way and the ACLU. Membership fees are often nominal, so helping protect your right to adult videos might cost you $25.

It cost Harold Freeman more than $300,000.

At first the women were all charged with prostitution and the men with pandering. While several of the women may have "woman-handled a couple members of the audience, no one was involved in any prostitution. So, because the DA didn't think he could get the original charges to stick, he turned around and indicted all the women, but Nina. with felony "lesbianism". Nina had only given a talk on how to make love to a woman while two of her friends demonstrated on each other.

The DA decided to single Nina out from the other women and indicted her as well as the men with pandering (even though he had dropped all prostitution charges). None of the charges made sense. It was all about local politics. The whole case was designed to send a strong message to Las Vegas hometown pornographers to tone down their business since Vegas was going family all the way. It took almost a year of fighting and a trip to the Nevada Supreme Court and over $100,000 before the women were allowed to plead guilty to a misdemeanor for their performances that night. they paid a $20,000 "contribution" to local Vegas charities instead of a "Fine". It took exactly one year from the time it started. Much of the money was raised outside the industry from fans, the swing community and the general public. Many people in the adult video industry were telling the women it was all their fault and that whatever they got they deserved.

Most of the women desperately wanted it to be over and were glad to accept a guilty plea to a relatively minor misdemeanor. The strain on all of them and their families was incredible. From the first phone call about the arrest to daily events unfolding, none of us knew what would come next. At first there were rumors of Feds behind everything and none of knew whether the next knock on the door would be the F.B.I. We'd wait weeks with nothing coming from the lawyers or DA's office, then suddenly a flurry of action and the women would have to jump, leaving work around the world to return to Vegas for another hearing. Several of them were mothers and worried about the possibility that social services might decide to take away their kids if there was too much publicity.

Two weeks later when Nina attempted to go to Canada for a series of personal appearances, Canada refused to let her in to work. She was told that the misdemeanor lewd performance charge that she pled guilty to would have been a felony in Canada and they didn't want HER KIND in that country. Well to make a long story short, she went anyway because she didn't want to stand-up her fans (lawyers advised her that as long as she didn't accept any $ for the appearances it would be OK).

A week later immigration caught up with her and she was held in the Winnipeg jail from Monday night until Thursday night before she was again sent home. She was firmly told that, although the women can request an exception in writing from Canadian officials, they are banned from entering that country for five years from the date they pled guilty.

Trying to sum up a year-long battle in a few short paragraphs means that there is much that I didn't cover here. I wrote about the case several times in Gauntlet, if you want to know more you might check out an old issue of the magazine. I know its hard to find but very interesting when you do.

However, the fact is that when the government decides to prosecute the filmmaker or manufacturer it is always on the losing side. A federal trial (and that is what most of them are) will cost from 250,000 to over 1 million bucks with no guarantee of the outcome. This is why so many folks make plea bargains, spend six months or so as a government guest and then we have the funny side of everything. Usually a large fine is levied against the corporation, but how do the figure the corporation will make the money to pay the fine? Not by making kids shows, but by making more of what they were just convicted of. So in effect the government becomes a partner in the porn business.

• 'the thumb must be visible'

• Number of fingers inserted is immaterial, provided all 5 digits do not disappear inside the plane of the lips or sphincter ring.

An interesting tidbit from Peter van Aarle: On some sets (usually when Bionca and Debi Diamond play together ;-) fisting still occurs, and IS still filmed, but the footage is never released for US versions anymore (but often still IS released in Euro versions).

So all films ARE by their very nature obscene, it is just that it has proven very hard to get convictions even in conservative communities where normal heterosexual sex is being shown.

However, let's take anal. That has NOT been quite as hard and indeed has been prosecuted successfully many times. The government even has one favorite witness who testifies at every one of their cases, about how he was traumatized by seeing shit on a dick coming out of an ass. Now while that isn't shown (the girls clean themselves out first) he testifies that NO ONE can be sure there isn't a "speck" of feces on a dick...and that if there is (which he always manages to find) then it is horrid, etc.

In real life, when we shoot bondage and we want things to get more heated, we turn off the cameras because there are no censors in our homes and we can do whatever we want, as long as it involves only consenting adults...

Film/Video