ON Bookworld’s website, you can find My first cupcake decorating book, Children’s book of art and Children’s book of mythical beasts. But until recently, other beasts lurked among the titles hosted by the online book seller, the rebranded version of Borders.

Hundreds of titles appeared under the heading, Incest, titles far too explicit, not to mention disturbing, to be mentioned here.

Incest is a criminal act of abuse against children. About one-in-four is a victim of child sexual abuse. Yet companies are profiting from selling incest-themed fiction, supporting the views of abusers or potential abusers that it is acceptable to have sex with (i.e. rape) children.

Bookworld says it is working on solutions to monitor content more closely.

‘‘We agree with you that these titles should not be on sale and are very grateful that we have been made aware of them so that we can remove them from the site and ensure none like them will be available on Bookworld in the future,’’ said Bookworld’s Kim Noble.

While their prompt response is welcome, didn’t one staffer notice the titles and ask questions? And while Bookworld says it didn’t market the titles, surely carrying them at all achieves the same thing?

Why no audit checks of the data feeds they were channeling through their site? Why effectively traffick contraband materials without checking they weren’t breaching Australian laws?

It is just the latest example of the mainstreaming of child sexual assault material.

The Federal Government has established a royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse. There are various other state and internal inquiries. Rightly so. The issue is a blight on our nation and everything must be done to stop it. But while millions are spent on these inquiries, we live in a culture which sends messages that child abuse is sexy. There’s no inquiry into the permission-giving drivers which encourage and enable the sexual abuse of children.

Like teen-themed sex toys which eroticised sex with girls advertised through Condom Kingdom; or a Melbourne sex store advertising a ‘‘back to school’’ sale complete with school uniforms, blackboards and apples for the teacher.

Amazon also lists incest titles. Last year, a global campaign forced a recall of A paedophile’s guide to love and pleasure.

Then there’s porn in the corner store. Pictures include one of a girl (allegedly over 18 but posed as a child, which is illegal) on a bed in bobby sox and pigtails, holding a hand puppet.

For years, child development advocates have called for action, sending multiple copies of illegal titles to the Classification Board. Board chief Donald McDonald has written hundreds of ‘‘please explain’’ letters to porn distributors but none bother replying. The board’s annual reports bear that out, documenting ‘‘no reply received’’.

The system is broken. Jeff Sparrow’s new book, Money Shot, reveals the contempt porn profiteers have for the system. Those in the industry say the risks of getting caught aren’t that great. Sparrow writes: ‘‘The adult industry of Australia was almost entirely outside the legal system . . . the remote possibility of a fine was like the spectre of shoplifting, an annoyance that just went with the trade.’’

Why haven’t state and federal attorneys-general, who are responsible for classifications, done anything to intervene?

Melbourne author Jayneen Saunders wrote Some Secrets Should Never Be Kept about helping children stay safe from child sexual abuse, but she has struggled to get a publisher and has been prevented from reading from the book at public places such as libraries, because of the nature of the content.

Yet, mainstream companies can profit from trading in products encouraging child sexual assault.

All these permission-giving examples undermine child protection. The idea it is acceptable to fantasise about children is given the tick by those who profit from trading in such fantasies.

If we are serious about addressing child sexual assault, when are governments going to address the culture which fuels and feeds it?

Despite the fact the system is stuffed, the Australian Law Reform Commission has endorsed selfregulation.

There are endless complaints about all the above and more, but the system doesn’t change.

I’ll vote for whoever decides to take this seriously.

Published in the Sunday Herald Sun March 3 2013

How Bookworld profited from intra-familial child sexual abuse

*Trigger warning – child sexual abuse, incest*

We’ve just campaigned against Condom Kingdom selling products that eroticise sex with underage girls and therefore, paedophilia. But Condom Kingdom isn’t the only retailer providing masturbatory material for sexual predators. Bookworld – formerly known as Borders – has been selling multiple titles eroticising incest.

Recently one of our supporters alerted us to a book they had come across on Bookworld’s website, entitled ‘Tina sits on Daddy’s face’.

Bookworld is the rebranded online version of what used to be Borders bookstores. After searching the website more thoroughly, we found hundreds of titles under the heading ‘incest’, including:

• Double teamed by Daddy and Uncle
• Daddy takes my virginity
• First time with my twin brothers
• F*cking my black Daddy
• Daddy’s naughty girls get what they deserve
• Breaking in the babysitter

Below is our complaint to the Classifications Branch of the Attorney-General’s department about Bookworld’s trading in and profiting from incest titles. Be warned, the content is distressing. The good news is that Bookworld has now withdrawn these titles from sale.

Caitlin Roper, our State Coordinator for Western Australia, wrote to the Classifications Branch of the Attorney-General’s department to inquire as to why novels promoting intra-familial child sexual abuse, a serious crime, were allowed to be sold:

These ‘incest fantasy’ titles typically involve an older male family member, typically a father, engaging in sexual acts with a daughter, characterized as young, innocent virgins. Incest is a serious and criminal act of abuse against children. An estimated one in four children is a victim of Child Sexual Abuse, with a significant number being abused by a family member, often a father or brother.

The publication and sale of incest themed erotic fiction in mainstream bookstores gives credibility to the idea among abusers that sex with children is permissible, or that children want, like and deserve to be abused- even that behind each innocent, young child lies a filthy whore waiting to be broken in.

According to the Classifications Act 1995, the Classification Board only classifies ‘submittable publications’ that are likely to be classified RC, are likely to cause offence to a reasonable adult, or are unsuitable for a minor to see or read. As well as promoting criminal behavior, I believe these books meet all three criteria and like pornographic magazines that depict children or appear to depict children, should be refused classification.

The Classifications Branch responded yesterday, advising that Bookworld would remove the titles (click image to enlarge):

We are relieved to hear that Bookworld has removed these titles. However we do have to wonder how it came to be sold in the first place. Bookworld ‘appreciated being advised’ – they didn’t know they were selling pseudo incest child pornography?

Caitlin was recently interviewed on RTR fm about Condom Kingdom, Bookworld and illegal pseudo child pornography sold in service stations and corner stores. Listen here:

http://www.rtrfm.com.au/restream/20981

As published on Collective Shout

Film depicting extreme sexual violence now banned

On September 14, Collective Shout made a submission to the Classification Review Board, calling for a review of the Classification Board’s April decision to grant the film an R18+ rating.

We described scenes of extreme sexual violence against a child and against women.

“A Serbian Film contains depictions of a man raping his five year old son; of a man beheading a woman while raping her and of an adolescent girl smilingly encouraging a man to hit a woman while the woman performs oral sex on him. The film clearly exceeds the classification guidelines for R18+ films and should have been Refused Classification.”

We also said it was beyond comprehension that such a film -which we hear is now doing the rounds of schools on USB sticks – could be approved for local video stores. Crikey website editor Luke Buckmaster described the film as “morally irredeemable”.

The Classification Review Board met yesterday and overturned the original ruling.

Naturally Accent films, the Australian distributor is not happy about the reversal, inferring on twitter that the decision was a denial of democratic freedom.

Apparently democratic freedom should allow images of child sexual assault and the torture and decapitation of women, available at your local DVD outlet.

While we do of course welcome the Review Board’s decision, we can’t help but ask: what was the Board thinking in to allow it to go through in the first place?

The Classification system is in need of an overhaul, as we’ve argued in two recent submissions, including this one to the current Australian Law Reform Commission review.

 For a copy of our submission email admin@collectiveshout.org

Collective Shout makes a case for change that puts women and girls ahead of corporate profits

Here’s two recent submissions (here and here) Collective Shout made to Federal Government inquiries into outdoor advertising and to an examination of the classification system.

On April 4 I appeared before the House Standing Committee on Social Policy and Legal Affairs and gave verbal evidence, which can be found here. Yesterday I appeared (via teleconference) at the second inquiry and will provide a link when it’s up.

House Standing Committee on Social Policy and Legal Affairs Inquiry into the regulation of billboard and outdoor advertising

Collective Shout is critical of the self‐regulatory system and believes the advertising industry has used self‐regulation to its commercial advantage, to the detriment of the community, and women and girls in particular. The self‐regulation model enables the advertising industry to be seen to be responsible and to avoid real scrutiny of its long history of irresponsible and profit‐driven behaviour.

We have identified a range of inadequacies in the current system, including a weak code of ethics, the voluntary nature of the code, lack of pre-vetting, the Advertising Standards Board’s lack of power to order removal of advertisements, inadequate monitoring, de-sensitisation of panel members, little to no consultation with child development experts, and no meaningful penalties to provide any real incentive for advertisers to change their behaviour…

It is our view that the colonisation of public space with objectified and sexualised images of women and girls, together with the lack of action by regulatory bodies except in a minority of cases, conditions many people to seeing sexist advertising as acceptable, or as ‘just the way things are’. At a time when hyper-sexual imagery is increasing, regulatory bodies need to be given more powers to deal with this problem, not fewer.

We also wish to highlight the fact that sexualised representations of women and girls displayed in a workplace constitute sexual harassment under anti‐discrimination law.1 But the open display of similar objectified and sexualised images of women in the public domain is exempt from sexual harassment laws. If this material has been ruled inappropriate for workplaces or schools, why is it considered acceptable as the ‘wallpaper’ of the public domain, where we have no choice but to view it?

The proliferation and globalisation of sexual imagery is of serious concern. Pornographic representations of women in the public space have become normative. There is a growing body of research globally that demonstrates the detrimental effect of these representations, especially on children and young people. The Australian Psychological Society told the Senate Committee Inquiry into the sexualisation of children in 2008, “the values implicit in sexualised images are that physical appearance and beauty are intrinsic to self esteem and social worth, and that sexual attractiveness is a part of childhood experience… Girls learn to see and think of their bodies as objects of others’ desire, to be looked at and evaluated for its appearance.” In addition, advertising plays a crucial part in socialising men and boys to see the sexual objectification of women and girls as normal…Read the full submission here. It’s no. 43.  (I also recommend The Castan Centre’s submission no. 40 and Julie Gale, Kids Free to Be Kids, no. 44)

Submission to the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee Inquiry into the Australian film and literature classification scheme

 Read full submission here.