Saturday, I was surrounded by six officers, two watching me as the four others went page by page through my books looking for pornographic images and other evidence I was a sexual predator. How did this happen? I said a word which Canada Customs considers dirty: Manga.
As soon as I declared that I had some of the japanese inspired comic books called manga, a Custom’s officer said, “That’s the stuff from Japan; there is some really obscene and filthy stuff.” No, I pointed out, these was printed in America and very mainstream. As more and more officers were called in, the six manga books I had were examined in detail.
They were looking, they told me, for pornographic, obscene and adult material. “The age rating is on the back of each book.” (each manga book has ratings like 13+ or 15+ - mine were 13+).
I was informed that I could have put different covers on or done anything else I could to get the pornography in and that if I spoke anymore, the books would be seized. So I stood there and watched my previously new books get examined page by page, thumbed through and pressed open because it was assumed if I read manga, that I was a sex offender. That sounds like a joke doesn’t it.
Except the exact same phrase “That stuff from Japan...
” was used two weeks earlier on my last trip through Customs and my manga examined for the same reason; because Japanese manga is “really filthy stuff.” The reason I was so heavily raided this time, I found out afterward, was one of the manga titles had the word “boy” in the title, which “alerted” them to pedophile materials. Huh?
Can someone please go get my next issue of the romance manga Tokyo Boys and Girls from the US? I’m too scared. What I did know was that Canada Customs officers have a 20 year history of targeting and labeling “obscene” anything either with gay or lesbian content or simply owned by gays and lesbians.
This is because the rules for what is “obscene” are so broad that they can fit almost any preconceived perception of a Canadian Custom’s official (under 1993 bill C-128 which includes not only anything perceived as “sexual” to those 18 or under, including kissing, but anything, including what is NOT in the picture/book, which is considered “harmful” to society: age of sexual consent in Canada is 14) . Canada customs has traditionally removed materials going to gay owners or stores and held them to a personal scrutiny, which is why for 10 years no one really cared if gay or lesbians were having books seized, until one week April 23 in 1993 when the Customs Agents, instead of separating the books to gay stores, went through the entire book stock and suddenly everyone from Christian book stores to Universities found notices that they had books seized for being “obscene”. What?
Censorship! Canada briefly became outraged, Customs officials went back to targeting gays and lesbians and the media and outrage abated. Gay activism magazines such as On Our Backs and The Advocate have been seized, also HIV safety information sent up to gay stores during the 80’s along with hundreds of titles including the following classics and books of interest (but only if sent to gay bookstores or owners): Salome by Oscar Wilde, The Satanic Verses, Straight Heart’s Delight by Allen Ginsberg, Naked Lunch by Burroughs, Joy of Gay Sex, Joy of Lesbian Sex, Querella by Jean Genet, Women on Top (listed as Child Pornography also with the RCMP), Discontent: New Gay Writers, Lesbian Erotica, Nikola: Bride of Bigfoot (seized for a “lesbian encounter” description).
They also confiscated a box of piercing jewelry that was going to a gay piercing store and the famous work “The History of Underground Comics” for “promoting bestiality” (there is an spoof Mickey Mouse who drinks, smokes and has sex). Amazon.com even has it's own list page: Books seized by Canada Customs In 2004 a BC judge established that over 70% of all detentions by Canadian Customs are lesbian and gay materials and is “clearly targeting the gay community.
” (seizures helped close the only lesbian bookshop in Victoria) The Canada Customs has no independent commission, no self regulation body and no one who oversees it. In 2000 Canada Customs was found to be unfairly targeting gays and lesbians in a systematic and corrupt way, and was given a “stern warning” but was noted in 2003 that so far Canada customs had done “nothing” to correct itself. I found out about Custom’s non-regulated practices when I earlier witnessed (while waiting to pay GST on books) an older male Canadian Customs official (named Gary), after being informed of the age and mentally challenged status of a 15 year old girl, take her off for personal questioning.
He did so after repeatedly refusing her legal guardian to accompany her before beginning to question her about her sexual history and relationships. When I called to report this I found that the person I was to report the behavior to was..
.Gary, the same guy who initiated it. What I did not know on Saturday, was the Canada Customs has targeted manga for obscenity and child pornography prosecution, having charged a man in Edmonton six months ago for bringing in lolicon (sexual themed books of adults with young girls).
The problem is, that since non of the customs officers I have encounter have any real idea about manga, all have viewed with suspicion, as an international artist found out when they were questioned for having “too many art books.” I also wonder if officials will know the difference between lolicon and Lolita babywear. One is about sex with underage kids and the other is a style of clothing celebrating Edwardian childrens fashions which started in 2002 in Japan.
The lesbian themed classic and multi award winning Kamikaze Girls is about a butch biker girl who falls for and comes to respect a Lolita girl (and yes, I brought that over from the states along with the girl manga magazine Shojo Beat which has advertisements for shops selling Lolita and babywear inside – that, thankfully they did not search page by page). Linda was convinced the books were not taken away because the people examining them didn’t realize they were all same-sex themed because for those unused to manga, boys and girls often look the same. I buy gender bender/same sex romance manga books for enjoyment (maybe the links to Yuri manga on the side of the blog gave it away).
And I am not ashamed of it, no matter how much they want to treat me like a sex offender. I buy them because thanks to the FCC and Canadian puritism I cannot find light reading which reflects the life of me and my friends. A typical alternative romance manga plot goes something like: Boy falls in love with beautiful boy who turns out to be a girl dressed as a boy who is trying to get a different boy (who is also a girl) to fall in love with her.
By the time the first boy figures this out, he has fallen in love with another boy and concludes, what’s more important, love or society? Canada customs rules mean that “Romeo and Juliet” cannot be brought into Canada (sexual themes in under 15 year olds) yet we all know that the heterosexual assumptions in the mind of the customs officials mean that in the same way most people think Pride Parades are about group sex, most officials assume if a lesbian is interested in something with gay/lesbian themes, then it is likely pornographic. DMP, who publishes the gay themed award winning series Antique Bakery won’t sell same-sex themed books or adult comics in Canada because their distributor Diamond, doesn’t want their other shipments of comics and manga seized (including when Canada Customs held a X-men comic shipment on the belief that X-men meant X-rated!
). I will continue buying DMP books and I will continue bringing them across the border because I refuse to act as if I am ashamed (oh I feel ashamed and violated when they search me, accuse me of lying, of trying to sneak in pornographic materials, debate if I am a sexual offender and then let me go with the attitude of “we’ll be watching you”), over something I have no need to be ashamed of. The issue is in their head, not mine, and if I won’t give in to the dozens of different groups and societal pressures to try to put me back in the closet then I sure am not going to give in to Canada Customs.
Welcome to the Gulag! posted by Elizabeth McClung at 10:49 AM 20 comments links to this post signed legislation which gives the FCC a ten-fold increase in individual fines jumping from $32,500 to $325,000 for programming that “exceeds the bounds of decency.” The FCC defines indecency as “language or material that, in context, depicts or describes, in terms patently offensive as measured by contemporary community standards for the broadcast medium.
” Indecency, to the FCC, is whatever the five individuals who review the cases determine is offensive to the community. Does that include being gay? Yes it does.
In communications to radio and TV stations the FCC has outlined what it considers “indecent” between the hours of 6:00 am and 10:00 pm which includes: “References to oral or non-heterosexual sex are typically found to be "patently offensive." “non-clinical references to gay or lesbian sex.” The problem is: who is determining what is “indecent” and why does that matter.
In 2000 the FCC received 350 complaints which resulted in fines of $48,000. In 2004 the FCC received 1.3 million complaints resulting in fines of $3.
6 million. Excluding the Janet Jackson episode 99.9% of the 2004 complaints were made by one organization: The Parents Television Council.
The PTC is a religious oriented organization promoting “family values” which is clearly stated in their annual Best/Worst lists in which Joan of Arcadia and 7th Heaven are the best shows (and everything tens of millions of people like are the worst). The PTC ignores the tools already in place for adults to choose what their children/teens/selves may want to watch from show ratings to the show blocking V-chip. The PTC feel the best plan to protect children is to eliminate certain types of programs, and more specifically promote a Christian oriented world message: that teens shouldn’t have sex, and neither should anyone else.
As you scratch your head in puzzlement, (teens not having sex?), take a look again at the reasons why the family show Everwood gets the number 1 worst TV show spot for 2003-2004. It is because a) The father who is a Doctor in the show gives birth control pills to a teen who asks for them and b) A character gets an abortion : “Everwood's reckless messages about sex without consequences are expressly targeted to impressionable teens.
” This denial of teen sexuality is THE main concern of the conservative Christian groups that send their complaints through the PTC. And the FCC agrees. In a 2003 letter from the FCC commissioner to the PTC, Christian Coalition, Concerned Women for America, Culture and Family Institute Family Research Council the commissioner Kevin Martin outlined a plan which, with the cooperation of the Christian right, would stop broadcasters even creating certain themed material: “Classifying each indecent utterance as a separate violation could result in significantly higher fines for many complaints.
Congressional action raising the statutory limit of each indecency fine also would help. Together, these steps could create a sufficient disincentive to violating our indecency regulations that broadcasters would vigilantly monitor their programming and emphasize to their on-air talent that indecent material is not to be tolerated.” Yesterday, all the aims of that plan had been achieved.
Three months ago the FCC gave a fine to the show Without a Trace for showing a teenage girl in bra and panties in a flashback scene about a rape during a teen sex party. The fine for the single episode was $3.6 million, bigger than the collective FCC fines from 1990-2003.
The FCC stated reason for the fine: it showed "teenage boys and girls participating in a sexual orgy." The FCC fined every CBS station the maximum in order to obtain the fine. Under the new law, enacted yesterday, a similar fine for a single TV episode could be over $35 million.
Many large media corporations have already signed private agreements with the FCC in order to reduce or minimize potential fines. Many of these agreements give the FCC the right to arbitrate to programmers what is and is not allowed, along with provisions that if the FCC determines something to be indecent, that employees involved would be suspended or terminated. Since the PTC claimed victory for Will and Grace going off the air, with the current fines and hovering threats it is clear that we won’t be seeing LGBT people in positive, openly sexual roles in US non-cable programming anytime soon, as has already been seen with all major networks refusing to show ads of gay couples welcomed at UCC churches.
It is interesting to note that while two guys kissing generates FCC complaints, the annual episodes of lesbian or bisexual crazy killers do not. It seems that misrepresenting LGBT people as mentally deranged criminals is not offensive to the public while them leading normal sexual lives is. But this is not to say that the FCC ruling will not, with their obsession on teen abstinence, have a direct impact on my life.
Besides the repeated studies showing the dangers of abstinence only programs (“Abstinence-only programs provide these youth with no information, other than abstinence, regarding how to protect themselves from pregnancy, HIV, and other STIs.”), and that the results are the same or worse than classic sexual education programs, the Christians march on in their odd belief that total and complete ignorance will prevent teens from having sex. Personally, I went to the most conservative religious high school ever which not only required abstinence but had adult constant monitoring of students.
Students were still having sex (in fact at graduation over 10% of the girls were secretly pregnant). The US has the highest teen pregnancy rate in the Western World which includes 34% of women getting pregnant before 20. In an 8 year study 61% of those who pledged and still intended to maintain abstinence to “True Love Waits” had sex before marriage.
Yet the solution for the PTC (and FCC) is to educate by NOT show teens having sex (and LGBT teens having sexual lives at all) and to try and force out shows that show birth control and abortion? Last week Linda’s brother told us the new “rules” he had decided concerning access to our nieces and nephews. We are allowed to visit them now as they are babies but once they reach a “certain age” (age 4?
Age 5?), we can no longer visit them together; gifts must come only from Aunt Linda (as there will be no Aunt Beth) and a parent will accompany Linda at all times when she is with the children. I will only be referred to as “her friend” or at most “roommate.
” These rules are to “protect” the children from having to know about what a lesbian is. And yes, he is a Christian. Painful, particularly as we moved continents to be more active in the lives of our nieces and nephews.
But I already don’t see my blood related nephew, primarily because, as his evangelical mother states, “I don’t want him to grow up in a world where he knows what “lesbian” means.” Is it hard to be treated like sexual criminals by family members with children? Yes.
The Christian right, joined by the FCC is trying to make my sister-in-law’s dream come true. How opposing something that can be educated with one sentence (“some people are attracted to people of the opposite sex like mommy and daddy, and some of the same sex like Aunt Linda and Aunt Beth”) is now part of a public policy of broadcast “indecency” is beyond depressing. Worse, is this Christian need to try and create a cultural world where, instead of teens learning how to make choices and become adults, their choices are smothered through ignorance.
I want better media representation than that for me, for Linda and for my nieces and nephews. posted by Elizabeth McClung at 2:21 PM Saturday, I was surrounded by six officers, two watching me as the four others went page by page through my books looking for pornographic images and other evidence I was a sexual predator.
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