Weird politics of small boobs and bodily fluids

Two political websites crashed on Thursday for two very different reasons. Julia Gillard's baby, the My School website
- intended to increase the transparency and school shop-around factor
for parents - crashed according to the Deputy Prime Minister because
there were so many enthusiastic people "keen to jump on and to have a
look at their local school." The other, the Australian Sex Party
website, crashed, according to the party's leader, Fiona Patten, when
"thousands of people accessed information about the banning of female
ejaculation and small-breasted women in adult films and publications by
the Australian Classification Board." You couldn't make this stuff up.

The Australian Sex Party (ASP) drew attention to the issue on Wednesday with a press release claiming
that the Australian Classification Board is refusing to classify any
rudey films featuring women ejaculating. The ASP suggests that the
Board is banning these films on the grounds that these are depictions
of urination (I'm not kidding) and furthermore that the depiction of
female ejaculation is "abhorrent". Male ejaculations, they protest, are
still okay, resting in the nice wholesome but restricted category of
the X rating.

Outraged Ms Patten says the guiding
reason for the Board's tendency to refuse classification in the female
orgasm instance was that the Board's members
believed the science around female orgasm was dubious. She
counter-argued that "female ejaculation has now been described in
scientific literature as being as real as male ejaculation and women's
ejaculate is as different from urine, as men's is." Patten suggested
perhaps some biology lessons for the members were necessary to "bring
them up-to-date".

A spokeperson for the
Classification Board has told the National Times that all films are
classified on a case by case basis. Stating that the Film and Games
guidelines "do not specify female ejaculation . . . [but] do specify
that the fetish of 'golden showers' will be refused classification. And
that in the past "films that feature . . . 'golden showers' have been
Refused Classification by the Board." The board also maintains that its
Publications Guidelines do not specify breast size.

Now
before this all gets too uncomfortable, you begin to squirm in your
seat and close your web browser; or alternatively laugh the whole thing
off and confirm your ideas about the Sex Party as a fringe organisation
beating up an issue for publicity (although there you might have a
point), it might be worth noting that the censorship of films with
female ejaculation has had some precedent. The British Board of Film Classification
has repeatedly got into hot water by censoring films with female
ejaculation. The board's members do not believe that female ejaculation
is possible and therefore has classified it as urination. The British
board cut appropriate segments from films and also refused
classification, effectively banning others.

It
seems like climate change science and the science around female
ejaculation is, as our Opposition Leader Tony Abbott would say, far
from settled. Despite most female ejaculation in porn being faked, the
real thing is believed to exist. A recent New Scientist article
discusses the recent discoveries and theories in depth. Most of the
evidence therein points to this being a secretion not unlike male
ejaculate and certainly not wee.

It is yet to be
seen whether the Australian Classification Board is intending to
systematically refuse classification of either female ejaculation or
small breasts on the basis descibed by Patten. Or whether this whole
thing is indeed a beat up by the Sex Party to draw attention to one of
their main causes - classification and censorship.

But, I tell you what, it made some curious reading for a Thursday.

Comments section follows in the original article at
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/weird-politics-of-smal...