In a perfect meeting of interests Abby and Sam get to nerd out about the effects of legal and digital censorship on erotic material. We trace the history of book banning in Australia up to the chilling effects of the current American SESTA/FOSTA laws on internet content. Turns out when the people making censorship decisions are overwhelmingly pale, male and stale, it isn’t just about sexy books but also ongoing censorship of minority groups. Who’d have guessed? 

Resources and further reading for nerdy sluts

On the history and ongoing impact of obscenity laws and censorship, where it comes from and who makes the decisions:

• Introducing Australia's Bibliography of Banned Books by Marita Bullock and Nicole Moore
• Sex Censorship: The Assumptions of Anti-Obscenity Laws and the Empirical Evidence, by Robert B Cairns, James CN Paul, and Julius WishnerMinnesota Law Review (1962).
• If not a fist, then what about a stump? Ableism and heteronormativity within Australia's porn regulations, by Ryan Thorneycroft, Porn Studies (2020), 7:2, p 152-1.

On modern censorship, sesta/fosta, sex work vs sex trafficking and algorithmic bias:

• Listen to the 'You're Wrong About' podcast episode on Human Trafficking, moral panic, and it's conflation with sex work here.
• Learn more about SESTA/FOSTA and it's impact on internet freedoms and modern censorship with this Electronic Frontiers Foundation Article
• Make sure you check out and support Salty, especially their report into algorithmic bias here.
• Check out the panel Sam organised on censorship and expression online- full of amazing badass speakers: Yassmin Abdel-Magied, Claire Fitzsimmons (founder of Salty), Lola Hunt (Sex Worker and cofounder of Assembly Four), and Celeste Carnegie (of Indigitek), watch it here.

Original artwork by Brady King and original music by Ankle Injuries ft. the sexy voice of Tace Kelly. https://soundcloud.com/ankleinjuries

Other intro music from: Yesterday's Secret by texasradiofish (c) copyright 2018 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial (3.0) license.

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