Australia Sex Party to start in Melbourne
Sex party set to heat up Australian politics
SYDNEY (AFP) – Australia is about to get a new entry into national politics -- a party devoted to sex.
The brains behind the Australian Sex Party, which will be launched in Melbourne on Thursday, believe that politics has become too stuffy and conservative Down Under.
Describing itself as "serious about sex" the party sees itself as a political response to the sexual needs of Australians in the face of moral campaigners and prudish politicians.
Party convenor Fiona Patten, who is head of the national adult retail and entertainment lobby group the Eros Association, said the trigger had been the government's decision to place a mandatory filter on the Internet.
Under the plan, designed to shield children from online porn and violence, Internet service providers will have to filter out pornography and other material deemed inappropriate in their feeds to houses and schools.
Users wanting access to uncensored material would have to opt out of the service, the government said when it announced the plan in January.
Patten was scathing of the move, which she said would damage the porn industry, arguing that material that was deemed acceptable 20 years ago would now be banned.
"This filter actually blacklists any adult site so it means that material which is absolutely legal for an adult to buy in a newsagency in Australia, they will be prohibited from viewing it online," Patten told AFP on Monday.
To counter what she termed the conservative, Christian politicians behind such legislation in Australia, Patten said the industry had determined: "If we can't beat them, join them."
"We want to be in there putting the position which I think is probably (that held by) the majority of Australians, that, yes, by all means protect children, but do not in that way reduce the Internet to a G-rated Internet," she said.
G-rated films in Australia are approved for all audiences.
Commenting on a recent case where a company was forced to remove billboard ads for a medication promising "longer lasting sex" because of a large number of complaints, she said an "absolute fear of the word sex" had developed.
"And it's just crazy," Patten said. "Sex is as natural to us as food. It's a necessary part of our lives."
And politics, she might add.
