Ok.. so last week another sex shop in Sydney was raided and copped a big fine for selling X rated videos. This sucks. We have some really weird laws on porn here in Oz and these sex shop raids are the result.
Here's how it works -
First some history - we have states and territories here in Oz. The states govern themselves (much like states in the US) but the territories are under federal control and have very limited self government. I think places like District of Columbia work the same way in the US.
Its illegal to sell X rated material in any state in Australia. That's only movies. Toys, mags and other adult stuff is OK. It is legal to sell X rated material in the territories (ACT/NT) because they aren't states (go figure). This is why most of the big operators run from Canberra and Darwin.
However, since it really hurts no one, the police turn a blind eye (except in election years) so most adult shops in Sydney carry movies. The problem this causes is that a bunch of businesses take advantage and run their operations from Sydney (or other state capital) using a P.O. Box in the ACT as a front - the mail just re-directs to their real warehouse somewhere else. So rather than stock a few movies for their walk in customers they run a major mail order business. Since they are operating illegally there is no regulation of what they sell, unlike the legitimate places in the territories which are government licensed. This means that some of them stock titles that would be refused classification. They also pirate most of their stock. This puts pressure on the legitimate businesses as they can offer more extreme and cheaper stuff. As the police turn a blind eye to the whole business these places are free to get away with it.
Of course in election years or whenever someone needs a publicity stunt (this week it was to distract attention from the state of the roads), they raid some obvious places (city sex shops) who have a bunch of probably legitimate stuff confiscated and cop a fine. The big warehouses aren't obvious and wouldn't be such a good photo op so they get left alone.
Sad isn't it.
All they have to do to fix it is to legalise X rates sales nationwide and suddenly the police can act and close down those operating illegally without hurting the legitimate businesses that don't hurt anyone. Of course this will never happen as the moral minority kicks up such a stink whenever someone suggests it and most porn consumers are too embarrassed to speak out about it.
I thought it was funny when the ACT was given self government (making it almost a state). The first thing the new government tried to do was shut down the adult businesses until they discovered that X-rated movies accounted for something like 40% of their income...
