France Fights TV Porn, Swedish Pol Hopes to Use it to Boost Fertility     9/11/2002
By Martha W. Kleder

France Fights TV Porn, Swedish Pol Hopes to it Use to Boost Fertility
By Martha W. Kleder

Two European nations, France and Sweden, which mainstreamed pornographic films on broadcast television and subscription cable, are now re-thinking that move.

France, which began airing hard-core pornography in 1984 on Canal Plus, that nation’s first subscription cable service, now has five broadcast, cable and satellite channels airing 103 X-rated movies per month. When pay-per-view is included, the count reaches 943 X-rated movies a month.

Along with the increase in easily available pornography, France has seen an increase in youth crime—particularly gang rapes of teen girls by teen boys. Psychologists are attributing the crimes, at least in part, to the viewing of pornography during children’s developmental years.

Concerns are nationwide and growing. A recent study by the TV watchdog group Conseil Superieur de L’Audiovisuel (CSA), published in Le Parisien, shows 76 percent of French women and 51 percent of French men say television has become too racy. And, 64 percent wanted both cable and non-cable television to stop airing X-rated movies altogether. Many of those films are violent as well as sexual.

The CSA recommended in July that the government ban X-rated films even from cable, noting that youths were easily bypassing the encryption codes and viewing unsuitable material. The government is responding to those calls.

“It would be simple to apply existing laws (to enforce a ban on television pornography) and that would let us avoid having youths find images on their screens that are upsetting and poisonous at an age when they are developing their sexual identities,” Christian Jacob, minister for family affairs in the French government, told Le Parisien.

France’s new center-right government made the issue a top priority following the June legislative elections, commissioning an in-depth study of the impact of sexualized television violence.

“Doctors, psychologists, teachers and educators, lawyers, judges, journalists, and, finally parents think that violent images remain too easily accessible and available on television,” Culture Minister Jean-Jacques Aillagon told the Associated Press.

“The government cannot remain indifferent to such a situation,” he added.

However, France’s television industry is fighting the move. Several cable outlets, particularly Canal Plus, are planning to not only continue, but increase their airing of X-rated movies in an effort to boost audience ratings.

PORNOGRAPHY TO BOOST THE BIRTH RATE?
That is the contention of Swedish politician Teres Kiroikli. The 35-year-old mother of three shocked members of her own Christian Democrat Party, by espousing an increase in the amount of broadcast pornography.

“I want erotica and porn on television every Saturday and all day,” she told the Associated Press. “Then people would feel like having more sex.”

Kiroikli, a board member of the Christian Democrat party’s women’s federation, made the suggestion as a way to curb the nation’s negative natural growth rate, which results from more deaths than births.

“I wanted to start a debate on how to get more children,” she said.

The suggestion has enraged members of her party just days before the September 15 national elections. The Christian Democrat party, one of four parties in the non-socialist bloc, is actively fighting pornography and has called for a ban in all media forms.

“This has nothing to do with our official platform,” Ulla-Britta Hagstroem, head of the party’s women’s federation, told the Associated Press. “This is totally against our policy.”

Kiroikli’s suggestion that lack of sex is at the heart of the nation’s population problem, rather than abortion, contraception, and the devaluation of traditional family structures, will come at a price.

“I know the party is mad at me because I go against the party platform,” Kiroikli said.

Hagstroem said that Kiroikli probably wouldn’t be re-elected to the board of the women’s federation. Along with that position, Kiroikli is a municipal councilor in the city of Skodvde, about 170 miles southwest of Stockholm.

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