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To be or not to be – that is the question, adult content in Ukraine

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May 2015. In the premises of the National Television and Radio Broadcasting Council of Ukraine business representatives signed the Memorandum on protecting minors while providing broadcast services.
It would seem, here it is a starting point! In a couple of weeks they will monitor adult channels that provided all the required documents, meet the requirements of the European legislation, open to the Ukrainian audience; i.e. will show how to legalize this kind of content and to attract additional treasury revenues; they will prove that our country is really longing for Europe, where the main indicator is the people needs, where a citizen himself decides what to watch and what to pay for.
Late June 2015. But things aren’t moving. The monitoring is carried out. It is very good. But the main issue remains unsettled, i.e. what is good and what is bad (in terms of what erotica is, and how not to mix it up with pornography). Without this understanding, any monitoring will remain a purely subjective evaluation of the administration.
So, the effective Law on Protection of Public Morals states:
(Article 1)
• pornography is a vulgar and naturalistic, cynical, obscene fixation of sexual acts, autotelic and intentional demonstration of genitals, unethical scenes of sexual intercourse, sexual inversions and slices of life that do not meet moral criteria, harming human honor and dignity and encouraging undignified instincts;
• erotic products are any tangible objects, items; printed and audio and video products, including advertising, messages and materials; products of mass media and electronic media containing information of erotic nature; aiming to achieve an aesthetic effect, focusing on the adult people and not exciting base instincts of the audience, being not offensive;
• products of sexual nature are any tangible objects, items, printed and audio and video products, including advertising, messages and materials, products of mass media and electronic media, intended to meet sexual human needs;

Let’s start with the latter, i.e. the legal products of sexual nature (while complying with relevant restrictions on broadcasting time, displaying age marks, etc.) are intended to meet sexual human needs. The products of erotic nature are focused on adult people in order to achieve an aesthetic effect. The products of pornographic nature illustrate the unethical scenes of sexual intercourse, sexual inversions (banned all over the world!) in order to excite base instincts, to harm human honor and dignity, and it does not give any hint to aesthetic imaging of adult relationship for artistic purposes.
BUT, storing pornography (!) for personal use, or, for example, by certain professionals for medical purposes is PERMITTED, i.e. it cannot represent the grounds for criminal liability under the Law On Amendments to Article 301 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (in terms of liability for storing pieces of work, images or items of pornographic nature), passed by the Verkhovna Rada. After all, it is quite evident that such a prosecution for these actions would violate the constitutional prohibition to interfere in the private and family life of people, established by Article 32 of the Ukrainian Constitution.
So why does the ban on rebroadcasting adult channels not represent interference in private and family life of people? Why do officials have to stake their lives on offering people an opportunity to watch what they want pursuant to their wishes in writing and on their own responsibility? Why to determine what erotica and pornography are, while even the use of pornography (!) for personal purposes is permitted by the Law?
May it be worth calling adult content the product of sexual nature, as it corresponds to reality and is not contrary to laws? (For sure, not forget to fulfill liabilities under the Law and the Memorandum). And is the issue likely to get finally off the ground?
By the way, the international researches evidence a positive impact of pornography (products of sexual nature) as follows:
• removing complexes (including the sexual ones);
• options for sexual and psychological discharge;
• countries without sex-taboo traditions refer to a positive example based on the fact of very low number of sexual offenses (including the grave ones);
• according to a Swedish MP, it results in the birth rate growth and, as a consequence, demographic situation improvement…

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