'SURFEIT OF SALACITY’

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32493, 31 December 1970, Page 17

'SURFEIT OF SALACITY’

(By

IAIN MACDONALD)

After a three-year forced diet of pornography and erotica, Mr L. G. H. Sinclair complains of suffering from a “surfeit of salacity.” Mr Sinclair, a former Auckland magistrate, recently retired as chairman of the Indecent Publications Tribunal.

The tribunal—a group of five citizens who decide what their fellow citizens may or may not legally read —will be six years old in January. Since its inception the tribunal has dealt with 255 cases (and Mr Sinclair has had a hand in 172 of these). Of those 255 cases, 104 publications were simply classified as indecent and 82 as not indecent. A further 52 were ruled as indecent for persons under 18, five for persons under 17, five fori persons under 16 and one for those aged under 20. In addition to these, five publications were restricted in their sale or distribution to students and other specialists. With disarming frankness, Mr Sinclair describes himself as “the product of a pretty strict upbringing by Victorian parents. And perhaps I’m a bit of an old square.” Such self - deprecation apart, he sticks staunchly to his belief that society should have its literature censored. And he is equally convinced that the Indecent Publications Tribunal is made up of men (and one woman) whose decisions probably reflect the majority of right-minded and reasonably broadminded members of the community. Mr Sinclair says that he does not consider himself a man of letters—it was his legal background that qualified him for the chairmanship. But his fellow members are academics and librarians. And they are, he says, as liberal as they are learned. DISAGREEMENTS The other members of the tribunal have, in fact, sometimes been too liberal for their chairman. On several occasions he has been the odd-man-out in trying to give the thumbs-down to some publication. One of these

was the much-publicised novel “Portnoy’s Complaint.”

"I realised that it was a book with a serious message underlying all the masturbatory stuff, but 1 wasn’t very happy about it,” he recalls. Mr Sinclair answers questions about censorship readily and candidly, occassionally pausing to shape his statements with magisterial clarity. I Here are some of those questions and his answers: Q. As you gave your services to the Indecent Publications Tribunal, presumably you agree with the principle of censorship? A. Yes, I most certainly do. There is a modem point of

view that favours the abolition of censorship in all its forms, literary, stage and screen. But I personally feel that we should lower these barriers as slowly as possible.

Q. What qualities, then, do you think a man should have to enable him to decide what his fellow men should or should not read? A. I feel that the Indecent Publications Act of 1963 is an honest and sensible attempt to create a tribunal which is so representative of public opinion as to be able to reflect such opinion in its decisions. DANISH EXPERIENCE Q. Advocates of censorship often claim that there is- a relationship between pornography and sexual

crime. But many reputable authorities reject the theory. And in Denmark there has actually been a 70 per cent drop in sex crime since erotic and pornographic literature became freely available. How do you feel about that? A. I personally have no evidence one way or the other on that particular issue. However, leaving aside the sex aspect, it cannot be said that violence in the community especially where young people are concerned is not affected by the sort of horror and violence depicted in some so-called comic strips and in the wrong sort of film and television productions. Q. But would you be prepared to accept the evidence from Denmark of the nonrelationship between pornography and sex crime?

A. If that is the evidence I would be prepared to believe that sex crime has been reduced in Denmark as a result of the more ready availability of pornography. I think that it is a question of how different people gain sexual satisfaction. Some are prepared to resort to violence to get it while others might be satisfied by reading about sex or seeing it on a screen. Q. So you would -agree that pornography and erotica might, in certain circumstances, even have some therapeutic value? A. Yes, possibly. But I feel that the disadvantages would greatly outweigh the advantages. Here I feel bound to add that I find it very difficult to shrug off the influences of my own upbringing. SEX EDUCATION Q. Presumably, you are not wholly opposed to a fairly strict upbringing for children these days? A. I don’t think it wholly a bad thing. At the same time, I believe most deeply in the need for proper sex education for children at school or elsewhere by properly qualified counsellors. But I do not believe in sex education through pornography. Q. In interpreting the Indecent Publications Act, has the tribunal been as liberal as possible? A. I believe that it has been as realistic as possible in making its decisions. The overriding consideration is that a publication shall not be injurious to the public good. The act requires the tribunal to decide whether a publication displays an honest purpose and an honest thread of thought or whether its content is merely camouflage designed to make acceptable any indecent portions. It should also be remembered that the tribunal must not classify as indecent any publication which could be considered to be in the interests of the arts, literature, science or learning. Having regard to all these criteria, I think that the tribunal has usually made sensible decisions.

Q. Do members of the tribunal ever clash violently with other members during discussion of a case? A. I would describe our discussions as extremely candid but temperate. As you know, I have myself at times dissented from the majority vote. But it was all done very amicably. In fact, we all had a very happy working relationship. “VERY SHOCKED” Q. As a veteran magistrate you must surely have seen so much of the unsavoury side of real life as to be unshockable by vicarious experience through books?

A. No, my work with the tribunal proved to me that I was far from being

unshockable. I was at times very shocked by the depravity of some of the material that came before us.

Q. Among these books that shocked you. were there any that the tribunal passed for general sale? A. 1 was a bit shocked by “Portnoy’s Complaint,” and that was not classified as ; indecent. But in the main the books I found most distasteful were those which were in fact finally classified as indecent.

Q. What aspects of your work for the tribunal did you find most difficult?

A. At times I felt somewhat handicapped by the sort of life I was obliged to lead as a magistrate. The life of any judicial officer is rather restricted because he has to perform a judicial function in society. Because of this I could not rove around and get in touch with the community as much as I would have wished. I would have liked to have more directly sounded-out public opinion on what was acceptable and what was not. In this respect, my fellow members on the tribunal who were teachers and librarians were probably better equipped than I to handle that part of the job. PUBLIC’S VIEW Q. Do you think that most members of the public fully understand the function of the Indecent Publications Tribunal?

A. I can immediately think of one important point that many people fail to understand. This is that the tribunal can deal only with material that is actually submitted to it: By the Comptroller of Customs, the Minister of Justice or by a private citizen. Some people accuse the tribunal of failing in its duty by allowing such-and-such a book to remain at large in the community. The answer to that, in most cases, is that the book in question has never been referred to the tribunal. Q. Now that you have retired from the tribunal are you glad of a respite from erotic literature?

A. Indeed I am. My own tastes don’t run at all in that direction. I’ve read enough salacious literature during the last three years to last me several lifetimes. —(Copyright “New Zealand Herald.”)