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I wanted to write a normal blog post about work, life, and being back in Alice so journos and reviewers reading this can ask me nice questions about my forthcoming novel, but I am too pissed off at the proposed internet censorship legislation right now, so excuse me while I have a little rant.

So why the hell should we trust the good Christian men who got all hot and bothered over Bill Henson's girls to judge between art, media, good porn, and inappropriate material? And that's before you start wondering what might happen if a more conservative government got their hands on the equipment, so to speak.

The Senate's nannyware has already blocked Senator Cory Bernardi from reading about himself in the gay press. That's political analysis in the gay press - not pornography, last I checked. Does this mean that if I mention lesbianism on this website my readers are going to be hunted down and branded? What about the inappropriate satirical suggestions I might be tempted to make about the bedroom lives of certain pollies in my horoscope column? Ooh dear Mr Conroy, I think Capricorns are going to have a rough time over the next few weeks…

And then I think about the queer kids growing up in conservative environments whose only source of support is online media. Blanket censorship could add to the rate of suicide of young GLBT people and take us back twenty years.

Conroy has said he wants to "protect Australian families and kids from some material that is currently on the net . . . such as child pornography and ultra-violent sites," but the leaked list of banned sites has popped up today and includes regular gay porn, straight porn sites, pro-euthanasia pages, fetish sites, and Youtube. Now Conroy is threatening to set the AFP on the brave whistleblowers at ACMA.

I am really finding this hard to stomach - as a consumer and as a producer of media. If parents don't want their kids stumbling across information about sex, sexuality, and gender then they can lock them in the online coal scuttle of existing nannyware. A generation before me fought against censorship with good reason, and we have a healthier media for it. I benefit as a writer and as a consumer.

And that is to say nothing of how much I benefit as a queer woman and a feminist. Thanks to previous battles won, we have been able to make the space to evolve autonomous porn within our communities without fear of imprisonment. I like good porn and fabulous queer cabaret. Okay, porn that exploits children makes me sick. But I think we can better avoid it by creating a society with a healthy attitude to sex than by driving the scum who produce kiddie porn further underground and simultaneously interfering with the good stuff. Less Dworkin and more McElroy please.

The whole proposal is technically stupid anyway. Their own trials in Tassie failed. Despite attempts to expand, they don't know how to deal with P2P where most porn is being traded. It will do nothing to attack the paedos who are producing this stuff either, just target the consumers. Like going after drug users instead of big-time dealers (sounds familiar). Plus I know privacy is supposed to be passé these days but this technology is allegedly going to enable the govt to read encrypted content. Say goodbye to online security.

It won't get through, and if it does it won't work. But please, just stop it anyway. There is a slim chance they could get this through without the Senate. So long and thanks for the democracy.

Trying to stop child abuse by censoring the internet is ridiculous. Then again, so is trying to stop child abuse by "suspending" the Racial Discrimination Act. And the ALP doesn't seem to have any problems with continuing the work of the Libs on either account. Apparently there's nothing like drumming up a paedo scare to get your agenda through.

I wouldn't trust any government to make judgements about what they consider appropriate sexual behaviour. Especially not one that only stopped legally discriminating against me last year (but still seems to think I'm a threat to the institution of marriage).

I'm not saying do nothing to stop child pornography. Do something about it. Teach children about their rights and teach everyone about the rights of children. Attack patriarchy, the institutions that protect rapists (like the Catholic church and the NRL), and the people who are making a profit out of exploiting children. Put sex offenders in targeted programs instead of cycling them through the prison system. Encourage kids to talk openly about healthy sexuality so they feel they can report when something happens to them. You don't get rid of the bad guys by burning books.

There, I said it. Will return with digestible anecdotes shortly.