Arrested for nudist films?

Thursday the Canadian police announced "Project Spade" and the arrest of 348 people for purchasing DVDs from the site Azov Films: DVDs that were advertised as legal nudist films. Last week, a father living at the Sunsport Gardens nudist community was arrested because he had hired a professional photographer to take "family photos" of his daughters, and unknown to the father or the girls, the photographer either cropped some photos or else zoomed the lens in on the girls' crotches.

On the Azov Films case, the Canadian police said:

“This case has really challenged people to reconsider what nudism and child modelling are. It’s caused countries around the world to look at this material and ask whether it’s OK for doctors, teachers, daycare providers and hockey coaches to be buying this kind of material.”
- Lisa Belanger
Toronto police detective constable who led the investigation

Nature of Azov Films DVDs

According to the Toronto Star,

On the surface, it appeared to be a legal “naturist” site, showcasing what were billed as artistic films that featured nude boys. But officers decided a closer look was needed, and an investigation was launched in 2006. They looked at Way’s material and found nudity — worrying to many, but not enough to meet the strict legal parameters of child pornography.

However (according to the news articles) the owner of Azov Films, a Mr. Way, also had his own private collection of unmistakable child pornography. The news coverage alternates references to the personal porn collection, or non-Azov pornography found with Azov's customers, with statements about the films sold on the site during the six years it was in operation, from 2005-2011. Possibly in the expectation that careless journalists would confuse one with the other, as some have indeed done.

While Azov's site was taken offline when the owner was arrested in mid-2011, the Internet Archive holds the company's own description of the material it sold and in some cases produced:

• Our naturist/nudist films are of authentic naturism and are not obscene, lewd, sexually oriented, lascivious, or pornographic. They are not illegal to own, sell or distribute. Our naturist films are suitable for viewing by all family members.
• We have no pornography, obscene material, lewd material, lascivious exhibition of the genitals, prurient conduct, vulgarity, or close-ups of body parts in our naturist films.

The films were openly for sale via the Internet, and delivered by the Post Office. Azov was in court in the US several times over the years - battling over trademark and copyright questions. Apparently there is case law that customers cannot use as a defense the company's own description of the legality of the material. Even so, as the site operated for many years without government interference, and the police seem to have carefully avoided saying that what Azov sold was pornography, it seems likely that simple nudity was all that was sold via the website.

"Child exploitation" is how the police describe the DVDs for sale. But what does that mean? Belanger is quoted by the Star: “One child in a movie takes 15 showers — all these kids we knew were being exploited.” In comparison, in the Brazilian film "O Menino Maluquinho", the pre-teen protagonist takes a bath, with a pet turtle, in front of the maid. In "Pixote", the title character takes a shower, and again the camera shows all. "Exploitation", and we never knew it!

The police say that the DVDs of the boys are "explicit", but they don't say that they are "sexually explicit". Nudist films can indeed show "explicit" nudity (which is not illegal), without showing explicit sex. The vocabulary games remind me a story of the era of "yellow journalism": a woman was described as "exotic" because the paper could be sued for "erotic", and why not? its readers didn't know the difference.

For our Brazilian readers, the DVDs that resulted in the arrests seem indistinguishable from the DVDs sold by "Brasil Naturista" (also known as "pelados.com.br") and before it, the VHS tapes sold by the now bankrupt Naturis. And no different from the films made of rented children - sorry, hired models - at Abrico Beach in Rio and at several other Brazilian naturist venues around 2009, still for sale on sites indistinguishable from that of Azov Films.

Naturists beware

The contrast between the carelessly worded press accounts, and the weasel-worded police phasing, makes it quite clear that the material Azov sold via its website was close to the line between naturist photography and child pornography. Inspector Belanger's summer of watching movies found that under a third of the films crossed the line. Since Mr. Way claimed to have known the law, and conducted his business openly, it seems likely that the third, even if over the line, were not far over it.

How can a naturist be sure that he has family pictures, and not child pornography? The answer seems to be, he can't. We'll return to that question later.