Star attraction
By : Anna Kocinska
After years of existing in shadowy laws and absent enforcement, producers and distributors of pornography are finding themselves in the unwanted spotlight of parliamentary debate.
The Sejm is scheduled to debate on Feb. 16 whether to accept a total ban on pornography as voted in the Senate two weeks ago or revert to the original bill it passed in December 1999 and simply better define what specific types of pornography are illegal. In its first version of the bill, the Sejm introduced clauses to penalize hard-core porn producers and distributors, and proposed a clearer definition of the kinds of material that could be considered pornographic. Many interviewed for this article expected the body to go back to that version as opposed to blocking the distribution of all pornographic material outright.
"It's too early to say which option the Sejm is going to choose," said Antoni Szymanski, a Solidarity Election Action (AWS) deputy. "I would say that the Sejm's proposal of legal regulations could be more effective."
The approximately 200 sex shops, 30 porn magazine titles, handful of sex-toy makers and innumerable kiosks and video outlets currently distributing erotic material in Poland should seemingly be worried about what that parliamentary debate will yield. But representatives from companies distributing pornography said that a general lack of enforcement of existing laws leads them to believe that if Poland banned pornography completely, little would change in their day-to-day activities.
"The business will survive underground and nobody is going to eradicate it, ever," said the owner of one sex shop on ulica Pulawska. "The state won't get a penny out of it (from taxes) and someone else will make himself rich."
Pawel Siarkiewicz, owner of the International Fun Center (IFC), one of the leading domestic distributors of erotic lingerie, porn publications, cassettes and sex toys, said he was not worried that the law would be drastically changed to outlaw even soft porn.
"In my opinion, regulations proposed by the Senate (a total ban on pornography) are absurd as they are a practical return to the laws of '60s when anything that appeared to be pornographic was prohibited," Siarkiewicz said.
In just the latest incident since pornography became legal in 1969, the debate over what should be allowed is once again dividing Parliament and the nation. In a country in which more than 90% of the populace claims to be Catholic, erotic material tends to be seen as dirty and disruptive. Poles also widely believe that enforcement is lax.
In one of the more recent surveys done on the subject, in 1997, by pollster Osrodek Badania Opinii Publicznej (OBOP), more than 50% of respondents thought porn producers were not sufficiently prosecuted for the distribution of illegal hard-core material, such as sex with children or animals.
In spite of being hostile to the idea of many forms of pornography, many MPs interviewed for this article disagreed with the idea of an outright ban, saying that such a pervasive measure would be unenforceable. What many support is greater enforcement of existing laws and regulations that would remove the most offensive material as well as limiting where magazines can be distributed to keep them out of children's hands.
"The current law, which punishes those who present pornography to juveniles, is constantly broken," Szymanski said. "While children have too easy access to pornography, prosecutors explained that they cannot execute the law because they are unable to prove that the law was broken."
House divided
Even among their own ranks, the two governing coalition partners AWS and the Freedom Union (UW) are divided on what kinds of pornography should be illegal as well as what level of punishment should be meted out to those who break the law.
While even AWS MPs in the Sejm originally pushed for an outright ban, they later softened their stance and agreed to try to strengthen the existing code. They also came up with a definition for what types of material would be considered hard core and therefore illegal.
UW deputies didn't agree with the definition which banned the showing of genitals during sexual intercourse. But they preferred to support changes to the penal code and subsequently the hard-core definition in favor of complete censorship. At the same time, opposition Democratic Left Alliance (SLD) is against any changes to the current law.
The Sejm found a middle ground on the issue, but the Senate failed to follow suit. Instead, that body in January voted through a total ban, thus kicking the issue back to the Sejm for further debate. At this point, only 200 MPs out of the Sejm's 460 deputies are expected to support a complete ban.
"The ban would mean pushing this huge business to the gray area of the economy," said Edward Wende, a lawyer and UW deputy. "Execution of a total ban is unrealistic, such regulations are from the beginning doomed to failure."
At the center of the debate for most is the idea that pornography threatens to fray the moral fiber of Polish society, and that its availability has the potential to distort a child's development.
While the current law prohibits the public presentation of pornographic material, porn magazines are readily available at almost any kiosk or gas station and are often displayed openly.
"Pornography is forced on people who don't want to see it; for instance, when one goes shopping," Szymanski said. "So, despite appearances that democratic freedoms are respected, what such availability of pornography does is really violate the basic standards of a democratic state and of tolerance."
To stop the uncontrolled dissemination of pornography, legislators in the Sejm pushed for amending the penal code, which would in turn make displaying such material out in the open illegal. To do that, though, legislators had to first come up with a clear definition of what constitutes more general pornographic material. That has been difficult to do, and some lawyers believe that MPs will be continually frustrated in that effort.
"No penal code (in the world) has worked out a coherent, and at the same time, general definition of pornography," the UW's Wende said. "Any definition in this respect is dangerous."
Wende said the law should instead provide regulations that would simply restrict children's access to pornographic materials.
Porn entrepreneurs also said that the question is how the material is distributed, not whether it exists. "What the legislators are really so fussy about is kiosks and gas stations, where porn materials are so easily accessible," IFC's Siarkiewicz said. "So, let's limit the access to porn publications and the accessories to sex shops."
And while many interviewed disagreed with providing a strict definition as to what constitutes pornography, the lack of such phrasing is exactly what prevents the police and courts from getting unwanted magazines off the first row of newspaper racks.
"Right now, more than 100 motions annually against pornographers are discontinued because prosecutors argue that they have no sufficient (legal) definition to rely on," Szymanski said. "Despite appeals to the Justice Ministry to train prosecutors in executing the penal code, nothing has come out of it."
According to statistics provided by the Justice Ministry, in 1997 only five people were prosecuted for the distribution of pornography. In the first eight months of 1998, only two individuals were prosecuted.
Out in the open
While the more obscure businesses involved in pornography have said they were not unsettled by the debate, the obvious sex shops and video outlets are a little jittery. "If the trade of porn publications is prohibited, it would be the end of my business," an owner of a sex shop on ulica Pulawska, who didn't want to be named, said. "You can't possibly live on selling erotic toys and sexual devices."
While no government or independent body tracks how large the pornography industry is in Poland, the general impression is that the trade is growing, particularly in terms of publication sales.
For example, Siarkiewicz's IFC revenue has risen 20-25% a year for the last four year and now the company supplies 187 of the country's sex shops. He estimated that the number of sex shops alone has grown 25-30% since 1991. Siarkiewicz said he believed that porn publications and cassettes account for about 30% of pornography turnover.
Pornography entrepreneurs are willing to back the government's efforts to enforce existing laws, but they place the blame for the current lax environment squarely on the police and court's shoulders.
"Those who break the law could have been and should have been prosecuted because the law was clear about that," said Krzysztof Garwatowski, press spokesman of Pink Press, publisher of porn magazines. "And if it wasn't the case, it's due to the general condition of the judiciary system."
Pink Press, a somewhat unwanted child on the Polish press market, at least according to its spokesperson, publishes 11 hard-core titles in its line of Wamp magazines. The various publications' circulation ranges from 60,000 to 120,000 issues per month. In addition to the company's heterosexual publications, Pink Press publishes gay men's magazines and produces porn videos. Such publications are vital merchandise for the 200 sex shops in Poland.
The publications also sell well in kiosks, and newsstand owners don't hesitate to display them prominently. "I wish Nasz Dziennik (a rightist daily paper) would sell so well," said an attendant at a kiosk on plac Unii Lubelskiej.
