Couldn’t let the week go by without commenting on the ludicrous decision taken by the CRTC to approve porn station Northern Peaks, subject to the porn channel’s ability to find a carrier.
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Speaking as the author of two books on pornography and its impact (Pornography And The Sex Crisis Power Surge: Sex Violence and Pornography, both published by Second Story), I have to say this really sucks in more ways than one.
Let’s get over the jokes first – Canadian Beaver, Corner Ass, Northern Exposure, Mounties Mounting. Are we done? Now, can we get serious, because the hypocrisy is just too much to bear.
Just months ago, the feds tabled Bill C-10 which would withdraw tax credits from productions deemed offensive by… uh, we’re not sure – a couple of prudish Tory MP’s or their bureaucratic hacks, maybe. Cited specifically by supporters of the Bill is the Canadian film Young People Fucking, which was given tax credits and which these critics, without having seen it, deemed offensive. In fact, it’s a funny and tender treatment of young couples trying to get it on under differing circumstances. That’s offensive, and so-called adult entertainment is not?
Then we have the sickening circumstances of the feds hacking away at $50-million worth of programs designed to promote Canadian culture and art out side of Canada. A 60-page study by the Conference Board of Canada, working in collaboration with the federal government – its right hand plainly doesn’t know what the left hand’s doing – argues that culture generated $84.6 billion in economic benefits last year, or 7.4 per cent of gross domestic product. At a time when the feds should be promoting our artists, they’ve decided to boost the pornography sector, instead.
The fact that Northern Peaks has volunteered to deliver 50 percent home-grown product, featuring amateur performers only sinks the knife in deeper. Basically that means the CRTC’s turned pimp, promoting the recruitment of fresh female blood into the sex trade. These women have no idea what they’re getting into.
And all those jokes aside, exactly what constitutes indigenous pornography? Only French kissing allowed in Quebec? If you look at the American product, the Asian product, the European product, except for the language spoken there is no difference in the body language, the philosophical values (only sex matters), the narratives (girls go wild, no matter what) and how the performers have to look (breast implant providers are already salivating).
I know that pornography is readily available on the internet and that Canadians by the thousands click on every day. But that doesn’t mean we have to develop our own pornography industry.
And those of you culture haters, who want to slash programs that support artists, just remember – those people at the CRTC who made this moronic decisions are paid with your tax dollars.
