Culture warriors are going wild down under. Australian police raided the company that runs Abby Winters and other porn sites today. This Herald Sun story is asinine, lazy, biased journalism of the worst sort, but for now it’s the only news item on the raids available online.
Police raided a Melbourne porn business that makes up to $10 million a year from allegedly illegal activities.
Detectives raided five premises as part of Operation Refuge, seizing computers containing footage of women allegedly performing explicit sex acts, which are illegal to produce in Victoria.
They are also investigating allegations that some of the models on the porn company’s website are under age.
Yesterday’s raids came after the Herald Sun provided police with a dossier of information about the allegedly illegal porn G Media, and companies associated with it, have churned out in Melbourne since about 2000.
The company specialises in filming female teenage students and backpackers in Melbourne and has explicit photographs and videos of almost 1200 young women on its website, many listed as being aged 18 and 19.
Police have seen a copy of a driver’s licence of one G Media nude model, allegedly showing she was 17 when photographed. It is not known if Mr Hall knew of her age.
[G Media director Garion] Hall, 34, was released last night, but possibly faces charges of making objectionable films for gain, which carries a maximum jail term of two years.
Each of G Media’s 30 employees could also be charged with the same offence.
Abby Winters is a well-known brand in porn, but this article doesn’t even bother to identify the site. And despite this article’s repeated use of the word “explicit”, Abby Winters and other G Media sites feature much softer material than most internet pornsites. Masturbation videos and “lesbian” makeout scenes are about as hardcore as their content gets. Despite the one disgruntled ex-model quoted by the Herald Sun, the company has a reputation for respectful treatment of its models.
The Herald Sun ran a hatchet job on G Media in 2007. By contrast, the Village Voice celebrated Abby Winters last year for its rejection of mainstream porn industry aesthetics: Australian Girls with Pubic Hair Reclaim Amateur Porn, subtitled “Why AbbyWinters.com says yes to healthy bodies and no to boob jobs and six-inch heels”.
The Australian police and the Herald Sun should be ashamed of themselves.
UPDATE: The wonderfully titled blog Somebody Think of the Children! (“discussing censorship and moral panic in Australia”) has an article about the raid and a statement by Garion Hall.
