268 THE NEW ZEALAND GAZETTE No. 7

Decision No. 938
Reference No. Ind. 37/79
Decision of the Indecent Publications Tribunal

IN the matter of the Indecent Publications Act 1963, and in the matter of an application by the Comptroller of Customs in respect of the publications:

In Touch, Vol. 1, No. 11 and 12 (August and September 1974), published by In Touch Inc.

BEFORE THE INDECENT PUBLICATIONS TRIBUNAL

Messrs L. M. Greig (Chairman), Mrs L. Edmond, and Mrs H. B. Dick.

Hearing: 4 September 1979.
Appearances: Mr P. E. LeLoir for Comptroller of Customs.

Decision

These two magazines published in the U.S.A. are dated, respectively, August and September 1974.

They define themselves as "celebrating gay awareness".

They each comprise articles of general interest and of particular interest to homosexuals. There are included some photographs of naked male figures.

The magazine is aimed at adult homosexuals. The content of each magazine is restrained without explicit sexual descriptions. The Tribunal does not find any overt encouragement of illegal homosexuality.

These magazines are to be distinguished from In Touch for Men (Decision 919) and do not in the Tribunal's view depict or deal with matters of sex or crime in a manner that is injurious to the public good or that is offensive to current community standards in this area.

The Tribunal classifies each issue as not indecent.

Dated at Wellington this 21st day of December 1979.
LAURENCE M. GREIG.

Decision No. 937
Reference No. Ind. 28/79 – 36/79
Decision of the Indecent Publications Tribunal

IN the matter of the Indecent Publications Act 1963, and in the matter of an application by the Comptroller of Customs in respect of the publications:

Cream, Horny, Throb, Stiff, Cinema and the Nude, published by Top Sellers Ltd.;
Local Colour, published by Potz Press;
Mod World No. 1, published by Bedtime Book Co. Australia;
Show, Vol. 2, No. 1, published by Show Enterprises Inc.;
Private Collection, Vol. 4, No. 1, published by Jermoss Ltd.

BEFORE THE INDECENT PUBLICATIONS TRIBUNAL

Messrs L. M. Greig (Chairman), Mrs L. Edmond, and Mrs H. B. Dick.

Hearing: 4 September 1979.
Appearances: Mr P. E. LeLoir for Comptroller of Customs.

Decision

The first eight publications listed above (Reference No. Ind. 28/79 – 35/79 inclusive) are all picture books and are considered to be distasteful and ugly appealing only to prurience. They are entirely without literary merit and have no redeeming features among their collection of sexual photographs, captions, and text.

The Tribunal classifies each of these eight publications as indecent.

Private Collection, Vol. 4, No. 1, Jermoss Ltd., London:
While this magazine leans heavily towards the sexual, there is a balance with general—though somewhat lightweight—articles.

The Tribunal classifies this magazine as indecent in the hands of persons under the age of 18 years.

Dated at Wellington this 21st day of December 1979.
LAURENCE M. GREIG.

Decision No. 933
Reference No. 22/79, 23/79, and 24/79
Decision of the Indecent Publications Tribunal

IN the matter of the Indecent Publications Act 1963, and in the matter of an application by the Comptroller of Customs in respect of the publications:

First and Second John Willie Bondage Photo Book, published by London Enterprises Ltd., Ind. 24/79;
Bizarre Comix, Vol. 9 and Vol. 10, published by Belier Press Inc., Ind. 22/79;
Sweeter Gwen and the Return of Gwendoline, published by Belier Press Inc., Ind. 23/79.

BEFORE THE INDECENT PUBLICATIONS TRIBUNAL

Messrs L. M. Greig (Chairman), Mrs L. Edmond, and Mrs H. B. Dick.

Hearing: 4 September 1979.
Appearances: Mr P. E. LeLoir for Comptroller of Customs.

Decision

All these collections of photographs and cartoon strips are in what the publishers call the bondage genre. That is, they depict women gagged and tied in a variety of helpless and humiliating positions. The purpose of the author, photographer, or cartoonist is, according to an afterword to The Second John Willie Bondage Book, to show women "completely unable to resist or act, even if they wanted to, which was not always the case". The subjects are naked or scantily and seductively dressed. The text in the collections of photographs is slight and is made up of eulogies of John Willie, the creator of the series, and letters, signed with initials, from men who share his fetish. The 2 volumes contain 160 and 175 photographs respectively.

The other three magazines show drawings based on Willie's photographs. Sweeter Gwen is a comic strip skit on his series Sweet Gwendoline and the two Bizarre Comix magazines are reproductions of comic strip series originally published in the Fifties by admirers of Willie. All names used, including Willie's are pseudonyms. The drawings are crudely distorted and clearly have only one purpose, to depict as wide a range as possible of acts of violence and opportunities for such acts. An introduction to Volume 9 of Bizarre Comix remarks that the greatest interest in one of the sequences is that it illustrates mechanically operated—as opposed to electrically driven—machinery for torture.

The motive for all these publications is to excite a perverse—and indeed perverted—sexual interest through fantasies of sexual violence. Although the editors and publishers write of "bondage literature" as though it is a serious genre, it is obvious that there is a particularly vicious kind of depravity in arousing fantasies that depend on the violation of human beings reduced to the level of objects. The Tribunal finds all five magazines indecent.

Dated at Wellington this 21st day of December 1979.
LAURENCE M. GREIG.

Decision No. 935
Reference No. Ind. 19/79 – 21/79
Decision of the Indecent Publications Tribunal

IN the matter of the Indecent Publications Act 1963, and in the matter of an application by the Comptroller of Customs in respect of the publications:

The Complete Guide to Growing Marijuana—The Culture and Management of Hemp, published by Wild and Woolley Pty. Ltd.;
High Time Encyclopaedia of Recreational Drugs, published by Stonehill Publishing Co.;
Stone Age Winter 78, No. 1, published by Stone Age Corporation.

BEFORE THE INDECENT PUBLICATIONS TRIBUNAL

Messrs L. M. Greig (Chairman), Mrs L. Edmond, and Mrs H. B. Dick.

Hearing: 28 August 1979.
Appearances: Mr P. E. LeLoir for Comptroller of Customs.

Decision

The first of these publications was commercially imported and comes before us on a disputed seizure. It is a republication of two monographs published in 1866 and 1893 for apparently serious purposes at that time.