About 10 years ago I had purchased a box full of mens magazines, which included some Canadian versions of Hustler.
To my disbelief, through some of the Canada porn there were pictures and even spots in articles that were censored with black spots. It was obvious that these were added during the printing process & not afterward. What gives? I know they don’t have the First Amendment up there, but that was over the edge. What I don’t understand is that not all of the Canadian magazines were censored. Why? Do certian Provences have their own laws regarding smut?
Oh dear. The Canadian history on pornography is a long and bitter one. In 1992, R v. Butler was decided unanimously by the Canadian Supreme Court. Donald Butler owned a porn shop which was raided in 1987 under Canada’s 1959 obscenity laws. Butler argued that his right to free expression under Canada’s 1982 Charter of Rights and Freedoms was violated by the raid and the law. The Court, under the Charter’s section 15 (an ERA-type provision), “violent, degrading and/or dehumanizing” pornography violates women’s right to equality. The decision read in part, “…if true equality between male and female is to be achieved, we cannot ignore the threat to equality resulting from exposure to…violent and degrading materials. materials portraying women as a class worthy of sexual exploitation and abuse have a negative impact on the individual’s sense of self-worth and acceptance.” The Court divided pornography into three types and devised a three-part test for obscenity, both of which used terms like “degrading” and “dehumanizing” without defining them. The Court’s definition of obscenity is largely drawn from the work of Andrea Dworkin and Catharine MacKinnon, two of the most extreme anti-porn “feminists” ever produced.
Also in this mix is Canadian Customs, which is empowered to seize materials at the border if believed to be obscene under this definition. Customs over the years has seized a lot of material, notably a lot of gay and lesbian material, regardless of actual sexual content. Sometimes agents will seize shipments based on nothing but the title without even examining the material. My personal favorite atrocity was the seizure of a book called “Hot, Hotter, Hottest.” Turned out to be a cookbook focusing on exotic peppers. Customs, ironically, has also seized the works of Dworkin and MacKinnon on more than one occasion. A gay and lesbian bookstore called Little Sisters sued Customs in the early 90s, claiming that its practice of seizing and often destroying shipments was illegal under the Charter. Late last year the case was argued before the Supreme Court, and I haven’t yet heard that there has been a decision.
Anyway, to finally answer your actual question, many non-Canadian publishers will self-censor because of the huge problems in getting sexual material past Customs without its being seized for months and years at a time.
My description of the cases and events obviously is very truncated. An escellent book on the subject is Restricted Entry: Censorship on Trial by Janine Fuller and Stuart Blackley. It was published in 1995 and includes information through August of that year. As of that date the case had been heard in the trial court but no decision had been rendered.
Canadian Smut, eh? Is that on Global or CBC?