Barry Streek
The Film and Publication Board took some “very, very difficult” decisions last year as it cleared a backlog of some 6 000 videos, many of them porn movies, to decide whether adults should be allowed to buy them, says its CEO Dr Nana Makaula.
It had to decide, for instance, whether adult choice meant that people could buy a video showing a woman putting a one litre bottle into her vagina or one which showed a couple involved in coprophilia. It also had to call in expert evidence to assess whether people engaged in “fisting” could be sold in adult shops, or if three men and a women involved in explicit sexual acts constituted gang rape.
What, I ask Makaula, is “coprophilia”, which both of us had difficulty in spelling before one of the officials looked the word up in the Chambers dictionary, which defines it as “morbid pleasure in dung or filth”.
Coprophilia involves a sexual act where one partner excretes on the other and then smears his or her faeces all over the partner. Yes, some couples apparently do this and they make movies about it and they make money out of it. Indeed, the board was informed that “it is nice and warm”!
Makaula says: “I learnt about it for the first time when I came here.”
Fisting involves inserting an entire arm into a woman’s vagina. Makaula says board members were concerned that such a video, even if acquired by a consenting adult, would encourage rapists, but the expert testified that fisting could only take place if the women was completely relaxed.
The board has to give a classification to every video that may sold, hired or shown in public, based on the premise that adults should be able to decide what they want to see or read.
So, an “A” classification means anyone can see the movie, while “PG” indicates “parental guidance”. A “13” means no child under the age of 13 may see the film, and so forth. A video which is given an “X18” restriction can only be sold to people over the age of 18 in adult shops, which have to be licenced by municipalities, although the board has a monitoring role.
A video with an “XX” classification cannot be sold or hired anywhere in South Africa. It is not an offence to possess an XX video, unless acquired in South Africa, and the board will not raid homes to find these videos, but they cannot be shown publicly.
The “very, very difficult” decision faced by the board last year was what classification to give explicitly pornographic films- soft porn or hard porn. Makaula says that, basically, “it is up to adults to decide what they want to see”, but the board gave 172 of the 6 000 videos XX ratings.
The board has developed guidelines, which are to be published this year. However, Makaula says any video involving child pornography is given an XX rating. For the board, a child is someone under the age of 18 or purporting to be under the age of 18.
Any movie involving bestiality is given an XX rating. “You cannot do anything with animals.” Any video depicting violence where there is clearly pain will also get an XX rating.
“Satellite” sexual pictures, where someone is tied up and whipped, will be given an X18 classification unless it is obvious that the victim is suffering real pain. Makaula interjects: “And they say they are turned on by that.”
Where it is evident that consent is involved, the board will generally give it an X18 classification. So, videos of women inserting bottles into their vaginas or couples engaged in fisting can be bought by people older than 18 from adult shops.
The board at first thought that a video of two men and a women urinating into each other’s mouths should be given an XX rating, but it was then pointed out that they had consented to perform the act and it was rated X18.
So, where did that leave coprophilia? It could be argued that consent was involved, but the board eventually decided on an XX rating. And, “Yes, we must watch it,” says Makaula.
The board has an annual budget of R3,3- million, 16 staff members and 28 part-time examiners. Most of the videos are examined by committees of examiners who make recommendations in terms of its guidelines.
Makaula only watches videos if she wants to check that the guidelines are being applied correctly or if there is one of those “very, very difficult” decisions to make. When I met her, she had four videos to check, two called Adult Cartoons.
“Our job is not so much censorship as classification. So many of the problems is the clashing of value systems.
“One of the worst videos was seeing an 82-year-old woman – you can’t call her a porn star – with a man in his 50s. She complains that her husband takes sleeping pills and she needs some help. I felt quite depressed and sad for the old woman, who was dressed in black underwear. We gave it X18, but it was sad and pathetic.”
There are also pregnant women who make porn movies, and big, flabby women who flatten so many men.
Makaula says that in the United States the porn movie industry is now bigger than the regular film industry and some stars are turning to pornography as they earn more money that way, but no one really knows the size of the South African market.
It is, however, clearly significant. It’s just as well the board under Makaula is monitoring it.