TONY PALMER
Someone pointed out to me last week that among the underground newspapers of which I had almost reverentially spoken, there was one that was actually being prosecuted under the 1954 Obscenity Act, and that this was hardly a recommendation for the general public to rush out.and buy it. Leaving aside the inadequacy of the conclusion, it is true that Oz, the Australian satirical journal, is being prosecuted for one particular' issue which had been guest edited by schoolchil- dren. The fact was widely reported in the press, but not the circumstances which accompanied it. Sensing the absurdity of the occasion, the editors of Oz had sent frilly pink cards to their friends inviting them all to a fancy dress party at 2 pm on/1 October at Marylebone magistrates court—which, by chance, happened to be the time and place of the preliminary police hearing. The police were not amused. The magistrates first ordered that the gallery be cleared of repre- sentatives of the underground press, saying that they lacked 'sufficient credentials'. Among the eight removed, four were mem- bers of the National Union of Journalists, six had university degrees and one a doc- torate of philosophy. The magistrates, as is the way with magistrates, were unwilling to disclose their 'credentials'. Anderson, Dennis and Neville, the defendants, arrived dressed up as schoolboys.
The police were further amazed at the arrival of some of the schoolchildren respons- ible for the 'obscene magazine, especially as three months of investigation by Scotland Yard's obscenity squad had totally failed to trace any one of the 'wanted' schoolchildren. The children waved at the officer in charge, one Detective Inspector Luff, in friendly re-, cognition. Luff declared that if Anderson, Dennis and Neville were let out on bail, they would persist in 'corrupting and depraving minors'. The children waved again. David Offenbach, the defence solicitor, argued that there really was no case to answer because not one person had been brought before the court who had been depraved or cor- rupted. Even Detective Inspector Luff when crossexamined admitted that he 'wasn't sure' whether this schoolkids' magazine had affected him or not. Eventually, the defen- dants were released on bail of £100 each and now await trial by jury. But as Abbie Hoffman stingingly pointed out during the Chicago conspiracy trial, will it be a jury of peers as the law requires, or will it be a jury who, at the sound of words they prob- ably use daily in colloquial speech without offence or embarrassment, will, during an 'obscenity' trial, assume a moral rectitude not exemplified in their own behaviour?
Another underground PhD to come rol- licking into view is the authoress Germaine Greer. The publication of her new book The Female Eunuch (MacGibbon and Kee 45s) has given journalists an opportunity to rattle those fearful words 'Women's Libera- tion' yet again. Probably the inclusion by Miss Greer of such a fashionable phrase has been the main reason for the sale of the book to the United States for $100,000. My wife has recently returned from the States where she was on a promotional tour for her own book. She tells me that on almost every radio or TV show on which she appeared, she was forced to discuss Women's Lib. One radio programme confined itself to the sub- ject from seven in the evening until two the following morning. Ironically Dr Greer's narcissistic book will contribute little to the debate. Upon most of the organised feminist groups, she heaps scorn. 'There is no great coherence in their theory and no particular imagination of efficiency in their methods', she writes. Emancipation, she argues, will not come about through simple-minded de- mends like equal pay or equal rights but through women themselves recognising that individuality does not mean imitation; that to be free as a woman does not mean doing a man's job for a man's pay, but understand- ing that a woman's role is complementary to that of a man and has different capabilities.
Prison was a central theme at the Danish Sex Fair earlier this year—the same that Mary Whitehouse had been sent to by World in Action but refused to visit on the grounds that it might corrupt her. One of the exhibits called jokingly the 'Marquis de Sade Show' consisted of plastic dummies holding whips and leather belts, thrashing a semi-naked servant girl being held down on the kitchen table. The exhibit was surrounded with iron bars and looked suspiciously like the prison which Mary Wollstonecroft had in mind. One's only reaction was to laugh at this absurd representation of overground sex, epitomised in the kind of master-servant re- lationship about which Dr Greer is particu- larly sharp. From the viewpoint of an under- ground groupie (which she was), such man- woman behaviour is pathetic because it is irrelevant. Sex, if that is what it is, is readilY available in the underground for those in need and does not have to be bought at a Sex Fair. Notions such as 'obscene' are re- dundant. From the viewpoint of a lecturer in English at Warwick University (which she is), such pornography is historically justi- fiable and will not be cured by Scotland Yard's obscenity squad.
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