Calico Rudasil is a feature columnist for Sssh.com, the award-winning porn site for women & couples. With over 18 years’ experience under her belt, writing about and for the adult entertainment industry, Calico qualifies as something of a Web Porn Dinosaur; similar to a tyrannosaurus, only with far more attractive arms and a less pronounced overbite.
As we all have different ideas of what constitutes a legitimate “service,” naturally we’re not all going to see eye to eye on the proper role of agencies and organizations tasked with providing services to the community.
In the minds of some folks, any service which doesn’t provide and distinct and obvious benefit to the community probably seems wasteful, even objectionable. Others have a more expansive idea of community service, covering a wide gamut of things ranging from mitigating the impact of poverty to helping people register to vote.
Me? When I can get it from a community service provider, I like a nice, kinky community newsletter.
These Are The People In Your Neighborhood….
Voices magazine, a free-to-residents publication serving the Greenway building in the Kirribilli public housing block in Mosman, Australia publishes “poems, essays and pictures by residents,” according to the Daily Telegraph. In a recent issue, a story called “A Pocket Full Of Posie” described “a number of sexual encounters in graphic detail.”
Apparently, the story tells the tale of an alcoholic, bisexual resident of the Greenway and several of his sexual encounters, including “an open-air encounter with a man and sex with a woman” which are related in “vivid language.”
Not too surprisingly, this particular entry in the magazine didn’t go over too well with some of its audience (which is comprised of the 309 residents of the Greenway building), people who apparently feel compelled to continue reading things which upset them, rather than just skipping over them and moving on to the community events calendar.
“Virtually everybody that I have spoken with is offended by the relevant article,” one resident said, without specifying how many people they’d polled.
The Greenway Tenants Group now finds itself groveling for forgiveness, issuing an apology to all the building’s residents. It’s really too bad the full text of the letter itself isn’t included in media reports about the situation, because I would love to see how the whole apology reads.
Maybe something like Dear residents: Sorry about the publication of a recent story in which a drunken resident of the building gets laid more often and in more interesting ways than the rest of you combined….
Look At This Way: At Least It’s Not ‘Piss Christ’
Artistic and literary creations are supposed to draw a reaction from those who view, read and experience them, so it’s actually a good sign for the story and its author that the reactions to the piece have been so strong. After all, “meh” is not the response any writer of erotic fiction wants their work to elicit.
Of course, when public funds are involved, the angst over controversial artistic expression takes on an added dimension, as a certain percentage of taxpayers are bound to freak out over their tax dollars being spent on publishing what they see as nothing more than a Penthouse Forum letter which has invaded their quaint community newsletter.
In this instance, Voices is printed using a $3000 grant from the Department of Family and Community Services (FACS) and the agency itself is among those none too happy with the situation.
“No other tenant group that we know of has ever included such material in a newsletter,” a FACS spokesperson noted. “Those responsible have advised FACS a letter of apology has been sent to tenants and all available copies of the newsletter have been withdrawn and destroyed.”
All available copies have been “withdrawn and destroyed”?
For fuck’s sake, it’s an erotic short story, not instructions for building a nuke in your kitchen. What’s next, house by house searches for any stray copies which may be lining residents’ cat litter boxes?
This Just In: There Are Other Reading Materials Available In Australia
There’s at least one person involved in the publication of Voices who doesn’t understand what all the hubbub is about, Voices editor Terry Kemp – who also happens to be the author of story in question.
“I think people should be open-minded enough to accept different views of reality,” Kemp said, sounding suspiciously thoughtful for someone at the heart of such a dumb controversy. “Why keep going on reading the story if it offends you?”
Good question, Terry.
It’s my understanding they do have things like libraries, bookstores, the internet and bathroom walls in Australia, so it’s not as though residents of the Greenway building have no choice but to read every last column-inch of Voices.
But hey – if you’re a fan of restricting what people can print in a publication backed by a whopping $3000 in government money, don’t fret; the Greenway Tenants Group assures us it has everything under control.
“You have our assurance that material used in any future production will be vetted more closely prior to printing,” the GTG wrote in its apology letter.
Ah yes; prior restraint; the cornerstone of any healthy democracy.
Calico Rudasil is a Sssh.com (@ssshforwomen) columnist and Sssh will be on Peeperz for fun times again in the near future, meanwhile why not check us out:
