Female Ejaculation at the BBFC

Australian government censors are directing Customs officials to confiscate depictions of the female orgasm when it is accompanied with an ejaculation.

The Classification Board is also starting to classify films that feature female ejaculation as Refused Classification rather than X. Films that show both male and female ejaculation have routinely been given an X rating since 1983.

The new ruling follows a boom in the numbers of adult films featuring female ejaculation since the pioneering research of Professor Emeritus Beverly Whipple was published in her book The G Spot. Recent articles in the New Scientist and on Norman Swan's Health Report on ABC radio have raised public awareness of this largely hitherto unknown aspects of female orgasm.

The films are being banned (Refused Classification) on one of two grounds:

1. That the depictions are a form of urination which is banned under the label of golden showers in the Classification Guidelines or
2. Female ejaculation is an abhorrent depiction

Australian Sex Party convenor, Fiona Patten, said that the decision showed a lack of intellectual rigour and a lack of understanding of female sexuality on the part of Australia's censorship authorities. She said it appeared that some members on the Board did not believe the science around female orgasm.

Female ejaculation has now been described in scientific literature as being as real as male ejaculation and women's ejaculate is as different from urine, as men's is , she said. All women ejaculate at orgasm, in the same way that all men do. In some women, the amount is very small and not distinguishable from normal vaginal lubrication however some women can and do ejaculate large quantities of fluid and under great pressure.

Ms Patten said that some depictions of female orgasm could be faked and possibly showed an expulsion of water from the vagina, however there was nothing in the Guidelines to suggest banning depictions of douching – only urination.

These changes to what is now a Refused Classification depiction also affect the amount of material that will be black listed by Senator Conroy's proposed Internet filter. There are over one million sites featuring female ejaculation and for Australia to be banning depictions and discussion of this important issue, takes us back into the Victorian era where they didn't even believe that women could have orgasms , she said.

Britain's first female porn director, Anna Span has won a historic victory with the passing of her DVD, Women Love Porn which includes a woman clearly ejaculating.

On initial submission to the BBFC, the board asked for compulsory edits to remove the female ejaculation section, as they believed the woman to be urinating and argued therefore it fell foul of the Obscene Publications Act. Even though most countries worldwide which allow pornography, do not single out female as opposed to male, ejaculation for censoring, the BBFC historically do not believe in the phenomenon. They have refused to pass previous films such as Ben Dover's Squirt Queens in May 2001, saying that they had not received a convincing enough argument to support the existence of FE.

Determined to put the record straight, Anna Span presented the BBFC with irrefutable scientific evidence in support of model DJ's ability to squirt, as it is known in the adult industry. Anna says; I am really proud to have changed this outdated ruling and to have made a difference to women who experience this in their own lives throughout the UK. It was never fair that the BBFC dismissed their orgasms as urinary incontinence

Initially the BBFC stood their ground and refused to pass the film but when Anna pushed for a hearing with the Video Appeals Committee, they later backed down after taking legal advice. They say that their position remains fundamentally unchanged for future releases although it is difficult to see how they can argue against future claims for DVDs which contain FE, now that this precedent has been set.

It is particularly fitting that Women Love Porn should be so groundbreaking for women in the UK, as it is the result of a competition set by Anna Span to encourage new female directors into directing pornography. Five women won the opportunity to write and film a scene for the DVD, which includes the contentious FE scene Top Milf by director Paula Porn. The winner of the competition Katie Coxxx then went on to film a full DVD of her own titled Apocalypse Angels , also for Easy on the Eye Productions.

Women Love Porn will be released at Venus International Adult Trade Fair in Berlin on the 15th October 2009.

Offsite: Do the BBFC now recognise female ejaculation?

8th October 2009. See article from eyeforfilm.co.uk by John Ozimek

Female porn film-maker Anna Span announced triumphantly to the world that she had won a historic victory with the passing for viewing in the UK of her DVD, Women Love Porn which includes a woman clearly ejaculating .

This, she claimed, was as a result of scientific evidence that she had presented to the BBFC to the effect that female ejaculation is a real phenomenon - and wholly different in form and origin from urination.

This distinction is important, as according to the BBFC, depiction of urination in a sexual context (also known as urolagnia) is illegal under UK obscenity law - and they will not pass films for viewing that contain such material.

So the obvious conclusion must be: the BBFC now recognise female ejaculation.

Not so, according to a spokeswoman for the BBFC. She explained: In this particular work, there was so little focus on urolagnia, that the BBFC took legal advice and the advice was that taking the work as a whole there was no realistic prospect of a successful prosecution under the Obscene Publications Act and therefore the BBFC passed the work. However, were the focus on urolagnia to be more significant in other works, they would require cuts.

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Comment: Sexuality, as defined by censors

9th October 2009. See article from guardian.co.uk by Kristina Lloyd

Span's partial victory, achieved after she presented the board with a wealth of scientific evidence, is of interest to more than a handful of enthusiasts. Here, the issue is not simply about women being able to gush without blushing, an aspect of female sexuality is being defined by an argument between censors and pornographers. But are they the most appropriate stakeholders for female sexuality? The BBFC's ban colludes with the cultural default of viewing female sexuality as intangible and precious, as if the enigma of woman was something beyond the reach of science.

The irony is that Span has fought for the right to show authentic representations of the female experience in an industry famed for its fakery - horribly apt for a culture where female sexuality has been increasingly pornified , and where sexualities that don't fit this model are swamped and sidelined. Authenticity is less important than acceptability, and what has become increasingly acceptable in the rise of raunch culture are exhibitionist sexualities. With the vogue for burlesque, lap-dancing and pole-dancing, not to mention the glut of memoirs from sex workers and strippers, the meaning of the word sexuality , when applied to women, has become so corrupted it's practically a fancy way of saying sexiness .

The adult industry needs to acknowledge female desire - the satisfaction of it, not merely demonstrations of it for the satisfaction of male desire - and Span's positioning of women as consumers rather than product is radically different. But have general understandings of female sexuality become so distorted that it's possible for censors to reject authenticity in pornography on the grounds it must be bogus? Many complain that teenage lads gain their sexual knowledge from pornography. It's troubling when the BBFC seems to learn the same way.

Update: Evidence of Unwarranted Censorship

13th October 2009. Based on article from annaspansdiary.com

Regarding the proof we supplied - we sent the BBFC the book The Human Female Prostrate by Milan Zaviacic professor of pathology for forensic medicine at the Comenius University Bratislava Slovak Republic (Slovakia). Zaviacic is the world leader in the medical examination for the existence of female ejaculation. He has written over 500 essays on the subject in various worldwide scientific publications. He has won many international awards from the scientific community for his work. This book is based on his finding from research conducted from over 20 years' studies focussed on female ejaculation and the female prostrate.

I also enclosed The Female Prostrate Revisited: Perineal Ultrasound and Biochemical Studies of Female Ejaculate by Wimpissinger, MD FEBU, Karl Stifter, PhD, Wolfgang Grin, MD and Walter Stackl, MD.

Another, more recent article from this month's New Scientist magazine was sent to the BBFC as well. It included numerous personal affirmations from readers, which follow the article too.

All three documents provided clear, conclusive evidence of women's ability to ejaculate.

I also enclosed a declaration from the two performers involved in this particular scene that both agree that this was a case of female ejaculation - and not urination - which they have also witnessed in their time. The production staff also concurred.

On top of all this we asked DJ - the model in question - to provide a sample which was tested under regulated circumstances and the test came back as definitely NOT urine. We have a certificate for this, hence our claim for irrefutability.

Offsite: Fluid Sexuality: Female Ejaculation and Censorship in the UK

16th October 2009. See article from carnalnation.com by John Ozimek

If women believe—as very many women do—that they are capable of ejaculating, then where is the public interest in denying its existence?

Which brings us back once more to the BBFC and what looks to be an increasingly dishonest position. First, they claim that they have no view—but in fact, by taking this stance, yet simultaneously claiming that they have never seen squirting—only urination—they are inevitably going to censor almost all images of this nature.

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