So censorship has gone? Hustler magazine editor Jeff Zerbst discovers few people want to celebrate this new- found freedom of expression with him
“The cummulative (sic) effect is an important factor when a publication like Hustler is discussed.” (The censors)
“We agree.” (Hustler)
THE Weekly Mail &Guardian has invited me to celebrate the death of censorship in print. It was mentioned that this should be a light-hearted, witty piece since most of you readers will be on the beach.
I find this an odd notion — that people on the beach will be light-hearted and witty. I have always felt threatened and vulnerable on the beach, I am deeply fearful of ultraviolet rays, powerful tides and tanned people. I am only truly happy indoors and chained, with a long-haired goddess marking my pallid flesh with a horsewhip.
I am, however, trying to overcome my agoraphobia and liberate my psyche in more general terms. I am taking lessons in how to be a democrat at a Yeoville community centre. I am the only person in the class.
I was not always a trainee democrat, being the product of Wits University. There, when someone came to campus to say something unpopular, we shouted him down or prevented from speaking to him altogether.
Fortunately, a year ago, Tom Paine, Voltaire and Bertrand Russell appeared to me in a vision, They told me that the only workable society was one in which the widest possible range of ideas, sounds and images may be freely presented.
So I joined Hustler to fight for freedom. That battle is half won but, having cracked open the champagne to celebrate, I find few people want to take a sip. Half my acquaintances think the celebration is premature and the other half think freedom is actually a bad idea anyway.
The first group points out that Home Affairs Minister Mangosuthu Buthelezi said: “Never again in this country will anyone decide what other intelligent and rational beings may or may not read, watch or hear,” and then his Directorate of Publications banned the August, September, October, November and December editions of Hustler. So nothing is certain. The second group tells me there are many things which people shouldn’t see because they are harmful.
What reasons do my friends, other citizens and the censors have for wanting to keep censorship and to restrict sex magazines? Here’s a short list:
You are disgusting
Hustler is usually banned because it is “lewd, obscene, lust-provoking and depraved”. The censors use this terminology as though they are stating something which had been established scientifically.
They fail to realise that they are merely giving themselves a Hustler Rorschach every month and publishing the answers in full view of the public. If you think it’s ridiculous that repressed, puritanical and arguably disturbed individuals should be allowed to administer a Rorschach to themselves and legislate for the nation on the basis of their responses, then the joke is on you. You pay for the Rorschach tests!
During our appeal against the banning of the November Hustler, our disinguished senior counsels, Jeremy Gauntlet and Gilbert Marcus, pointed out to the Publications Appeal Board (PAB) that, absurdly, the state was legislating on a matter of taste.
Perhaps Paine, Voltaire and Russell visited the PAB during its deliberations, because it unbanned our magazine. Chairman Professor Dan Morkel declared that publications would now only be banned under “exceptional circumstances”.
An “exceptional circumstance” immediately arose. Our December edition was banned in Cape Town and only unbanned in Pretoria on a technicality. In his unbanning statement, Morkel — assuming the tone of an aggrieved headmaster addressing a recalcitrant fifth-former — said Hustler was “sailing as close to the wind as possible”.
So freedom was to be given only reluctantly and subjective (or subject-dependent) responses would still be a major determining factor.
Sufficient reason to keep the champagne bottle corked.
You cause harm
My feminist friends tell me that pornography entrenches male domination in society by presenting women as “playthings” and “sex objects”. Pornography, they claim, leads directly to rape.
It is hard to say exactly what evidence, and how much of it, would be required to establish a “unicausal” relationship between pornography and rape. As psychologist Brenda Lasersohn testified on Hustler’s behalf before the PAB, no study or set of studies has succeeded in establishing this.
She said alcohol was easily the most common factor in cases of domestic violence and rape. It seems to me obvious that, if alcohol is so important, feminists who are concerned about harm should spend most of their time lobbying against alcohol abuse. They should “out” people buying alcohol rather than porn readers.
Granted, they wouldn’t know which buyers of alcohol drank too much and were prone to becoming abusive, just as they couldn’t possibly know which disturbed porn readers were liable to force their fantasies on others. They would, therefore, have to harass everybody. One little doubts they’d do a good job.
I don’t dismiss everything the feminists say. The argument that sexy pictures “obectify” women is a brilliant philosophical point. Yes, it’s true, one can’t establish an I-thou relationship with a centrespread. Write that down in letters of fire and place it with pride alongside the theory of relativity. it is also dazzingly clear that model A compromises the privacy of citizens B, C, F and Z when she takes her clothers off for the camera. What one woman does, after all, she does for every woman. All men know sexy poses constitute invitations to all men to have sex with all women. That fact, and not her flat notes, is the real reason why Madonna should be jailed immediately.
I am frequently impressed with the subtlety of feminist arguments, such as the following from Feminism Unmodified: “If pornography is an act of male supremacy, its harm is the harm of male supremacy made difficult to see because of its pervasiveness, potency and success in making the world a pornographic place … To the extent pornography succeeds in constructing social reality, it becomes invisible as harm.”
This is tantamount to saying: “If you don’t see the world like us feminists see it, you are not seeing it properly.”
We are clearly dealing with a highly developed and subtle form of discourse here, and pornographers will have to be on their toes in future if they’re to counter these adroit feminist expositions.
You hurt my feelings
Hustler struck a major blow in the United States when it won a supreme court appeal against a parody being declared libellous. Hustler had published a Campari advert parody which suggested that Reverend Jerry Falwell’s first sexual experience was in an outhouse with his mother. The court ruling established that no public figure was entitled to punitive damages because his feelings had been hurt.
This legal principle is not recognised here. Two interdicts have been granted against Hustler because people said their dignity was impaired.
In the first case, six celebrities felt wounded because we offered them big money to take their clothes off. Later Constand Viljoen objected to a parody which suggested, tongue in cheek, that he found Hustler stimulating.
The first case caused a minor sensation, with the Sunday Times suggesting that our publisher be jailed! So much for freedom of speech!
Western democracies have a long-standing history of satire. Public figures in this country are not used to being mercilessly ribbed, but they must learn. The first law of becoming a public figure is the following: “Thou shalt develop a thick skin.”
You attack a protected species
Voltaire said: “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” He did not add, “provided it is politically correct and it hurts nobody’s feelings”. We, however, are developing a culture of over-sensitivity which threatens to undermine the very principle of free expression.
In October, Hustler published an article by two leaders of an organisation who argued that gay people should not be allowed to marry or adopt children. Outright magazine editor Madeleine Rose contacted The Equality Foundation about drafting a complaint and instituted a petition aimed at getting the ANC “to stop this form of discrimination”.
This reaction underpins the view expounded by inquisitors throughout history: “If someone says something which offends you, and which you are sure is wrong, then shut him up and make sure he can never say it again.”
In a democratic society, where the free exchange of ideas is welcomed, it is the responsibility of spokesmen to respond to critical articles in a cool, analytical way. One should not bleat: “My group is a protected species — how dare you tell such evil lies about us!” Rather, you identify the “evil lies”.
Jim Peron of Esteem magazine chose this approach. He penned a lengthy response to the article which we published virtually in full. Peron did the democratically correct thing and, I think, did it very well.
The policy of shutting people up can backfire. As gay libertarian Jonathan Rauch argues: “Homosexuals, like all minorities, stand to lose far more than they win from measures regulating knowledge or debate. Today, true, regulators may take gay people’s side. But the wheel will turn and the majority will reassert itself and, when the inquisitorial machinery is turned against them, homosexuals will rue the day they helped set it up.”
Gay people should not express indignation when ideas they consider pathetic, hateful and obviously false are expressed. They should, rather, be pleased such arguments have been expressed openly and not in dark corners, and are thus subject to a democratic test. If the arguments are clearly false, they should have no problem pulling them apart and winning the debate. If the arguments they counter are transparently ridiculous and morally unworthy, they cannot bring anything but shame upon those who expressed them.
If Rose and like-minded people have their way, the principle of equality will become a means of censoring opinions and stunting free expression. Equality should rather mean that nobody gets special treatment.
Drawing the lines
The task group currently framing our new publications legislation must draw lines and decide on the limits of liberty.
My view is that freedom of expression must be limited as little as possible.
Everything which is not criminal, does not advocate violence or treason and does not exploit children or animals must be permitted.
I am therefore against child pornography, bestiality and depicting sex in conjunction with violence.
I also believe that censors are obsolete. I believe that only the Constitutional Court should be allowed to ban a publication, and it should only do so in truly exceptional circumstances.
I reject the idea that self-regulation would be best for the industry. Such a system would create an internal inquisition and would cause major rifts.
The task group might attempt to restrict certain magazines to sex shops only. Hustler would emphatically oppose such an attempt.
Sex-mag readers are normal people with normal tastes and have a right to buy our magazine in the same place they buy their other reading matter.
If our proposals to the task group are implemented, then there will be reason to open champagne and celebrate.
In the meantime I will attend democracy classes and try to stop hating people who want to prevent me and my associates from expressing ourselves.
And our readers from wanking in peace.