Sensual Celebrations is no porn site: It's a small, and rather tame, collection of essays and stories about relationships and sexuality. Its authors ponder the joys of masturbation, calling it "gonad solitaire," and guide readers through the challenges of "moving nookie outside of the bedroom" -- giving somewhat less than serious consideration to such obstacles as pine needles, grass seeds and flying insects. But even such articles could be endangered by the proposed law, say Glass Wings co-creators Katherine Phelps and Andrew Pam.

That's because the law would essentially turn ISPs into legal enforcers with a vested interest in expunging sexuality from the Web as it's accessed in Australia. In an attempt to make the Net safe for children, Australian legislators have proposed fines as great as 27,500 Australian dollars per day -- or more than U.S. $18,000 -- for ISPs that fail to properly block "prohibited content."

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The proposed law -- due to take effect on January 1, 2000 -- would work like this: The Australian Broadcasting Authority, which regulates Australian radio and television, will accept complaints about porn or other "prohibited content or potential prohibited content" on Internet sites, then assess the sites and ask the Classification Board to rate them, just as it currently rates films. Any time a site gets an X rating, the ABA will be obliged to issue a take-down notice to the domestic Internet host; an R rating means only people over 18 can access the site, although it's not clear how this provision would be enforced. The host has 24 hours to comply -- and classifications cannot be reviewed for two years. The ABA may also order Australian ISPs to block access to sites overseas by filtering proxy servers.

Critics see huge potential for the law to result in a complete eradication of material even vaguely related to sex. "Service providers are being required to determine for themselves the likelihood that certain material will be R, X or RC [for restricted content] rated," says Phelps in a Freedom of Sexpression article, running under the banner "Freedom? Fuck Yes!" on the Glass Wings site. "These people who have specialized in networking expertise are qualified in what way to make these determinations? In order to be safely within the law, service providers are likely to remove content far more broadly than legally required." And she believes relationship-advice articles and safe-sex stories like those on her site could be the victims.

The way her partner Pam sees it, ISP-level filtering is inevitable: "The incentives are huge for ISPs to take down sites to be on the safe side," he says, adding that the law could easily result not just in overzealous censorship, but a winnowing-out of ISPs. Considering how quickly the Net community reposts anything that "authorities" have ordered taken down, it's unlikely that anyone has the resources to police even a specific naughty photo spread, much less an entire Web's worth. The cost of continuously monitoring content and updating blacklists "would be prohibitive," says Pam, "and Australia's 650 ISPs will be dramatically reduced."

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