PORNOGRAPHY is making another appearance on centre stage in Papua New Guinea.
The issue goes back to a time well before independence, but public awareness of the subject became widespread when claims of locally generated pornography became common in the last quarter of the past century.
At one point, prominent figures were named as alleged participants in obscene movies, charges that they vehemently rejected. No firm evidence was produced to underpin those accusations.
But times have changed, not only in our country but around the globe.
Pornography is today readily accessible.
The development of internet technology has led to a no-holds barred range of films now available to anyone and everyone with enough money to join an on-line club or even to access pornography free of charge.
High quality films can readily be copied and redistributed; the technology to produce videos and compact discs is within the grasp of any intelligent teenager.
And the most extreme pornography can now be directly printed from the internet and readily compiled into booklets or pamphlets.
Against this background, our existing regulations targeting obscenity and pornography are simply laughable.
Customs officers at our international entrance points keep an eye out for obscene magazines, photographs and books and where they are discovered, those bringing them into the country may subsequently be prosecuted.
But who is going to risk smuggling a copy of Playboy into PNG when a world of hardcore pornography can be accessed from the nearest internet-connected computer?
And what impact can our Censorship Board hope to have on the flood of overseas movies, publications and other materials submitted to it for approval and subsequent sale or hire by the public?
The whole issue of pornography needs to be approached from a new standpoint.
Attempts to ban products associated with pornography are doomed. Private moral behaviour has been shown time and again to be a minefield to try and effectively legislate.
People will inevitably find a way around the laws, no matter how draconian they may be.
We are neither defending pornography nor behaviour regarded by many as immoral.
But if we are to have laws relating to morality they should, like any other laws, reflect the consensus of opinion held by the community.
The real question is how those opinions are arrived at and how strongly they are held.
Devout PNG Christians will publicly maintain that the Bible sets the parameters for moral behaviour with perfect clarity.
That may be true, but for those less dedicated to religious beliefs, those parameters may well be unacceptable.
PNG does not have a State religion.
Many, possibly even the majority of our people, claim to be Christians but in practice they observe few of the tenets of Christian belief.
In a secular State such as PNG, there is therefore, the risk that a passionate religious minority will seek to impose a stringent and ultimately unenforceable moral view upon the majority.
And the outcome, eventually, will be a society that holds an unfocused and apathetic view of moral laws.
There is a parallel with the death penalty that has now been a part of our laws for some 15 years.
Ask the man or woman on the street if rapists and murderers should be executed and the vast majority will enthusiastically agree.
Yet,we are prepared to wager that the relatives of the first Papua New Guinean to be executed under the current law would generate such a public outcry that it would be virtually impossible to again implement the law.
In the same way, average citizens when asked, would strongly condemn prostitution, adultery and the dissemination of pornography. They will publicly proclaim that laws against these activities must be upheld – but support often fades when a family member or wantok is charged.
It seems to us that relying on fundamentalist laws to deal with moral issues is not the answer.
Our goal should be the creation of a society that generates laws that flow from the moral beliefs of the majority of our citizens.
And if most of those citizens were practising followers of Christian beliefs and that commitment was reflected in their daily lives, then pornography and illicit sex might well be minimal within our society.