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T H E_.H O T_.S P O T
Dr. Laura, how could you?
___________________
R E C E N T L Y
Sade off
Two hard men are good to find
The bridegroom stripped bare
|  |  THE SHIPPING NUDES | PAGE 1, 2, 3 - - - - - - - - - - The four prints in question are hardly controversial. Two are classic nudes. In one, a woman is seen from behind, not showing her breasts, her genitals or her face. The other shows a woman's legs with her hand between them. The two remaining photographs are stylized bondage shots. One shows a woman in a leather corset and collar, her wrists bound and raised over her head. In the other, the same woman kneels, blindfolded; her wrists bound behind her are being pulled, not forcefully, to the side by a chain. Insofar as the women's breasts are bare, the photos are one step beyond standard fashion photography (although that standard wavers even in the pages of Vogue and Harpers Bazaar), but they would never be deemed legally obscene in the United States. Even the more stringent obscenity criteria of Great Britain, where Morey's prints were headed, permit publication and distribution of photos such as these. Trying to understand what it was about his photographs that DHL considered objectionable, Morey asked Jeannie -- and eventually her supervisor, John Corrigan, operations manager for DHL in Cincinnati -- for clarification. Was it the nudity? The bondage? The tone of the photos? Was there a DHL policy on what constituted pornography? Or was it simply that Jeannie, or Corrigan, or someone else who had inspected Morey's parcel, was offended by his work? Unable to get any explanation beyond a reiteration that the photos had been declared by DHL to be pornographic and therefore undeliverable, Morey requested a written statement of DHL's policy on pornography, only to be told that none was available. Throughout the interaction both Jeannie and Corrigan were "rude and unprofessional," Morey maintains. When he persisted, they dismissed him by saying, "I have nothing else to say to you." How does an international courier service like DHL determine what material is legally obscene? Does it follow U.S. statutes, or those of the foreign country the material is destined for? Is it required, appropriate or even legal for a private corporation to make its own judgments on these matters, rather than leaving such issues to police authorities or customs officials? Is an international courier entitled to restrict material it finds objectionable, regardless of whether that material is legally obscene? And how does a shipping company determine what material it will and will not handle, and how does it then communicate those criteria to the hundreds of individuals scattered across the country who must make specific decisions to accept or reject the individual packages they find in their hands? Trying to find answers to these questions, I was passed from one DHL office to another until I found my way to David Fonkelsrud, a DHL public relations specialist located in San Carlos, Calif. "DHL is governed by the customs regulations of all the countries we ship to," began Fonkelsrud, reasonably enough. "There are differences in the customs regulations of different countries. We reserve the right, as do all private express carriers, to open and inspect the contents of any shipment." I explained that I wasn't challenging DHL's right to inspect packages but was simply questioning why DHL had put itself in the business of trying to decide what British customs would or would not consider obscene. "We do it as a customer service," Fonkelsrud said, arguing that DHL was merely trying to protect the interests of its customers. "If a customer were to send a package and have it rejected by customs [in some foreign country], we would have to make the customer pay for the return shipping of the package." I pointed out that Morey -- and probably other customers as well -- would certainly prefer to pay return shipping in the unlikely event that his photographs were rejected by British customs, rather than be unable to ship his package at all. While admitting that such issues can be "very touchy," Fonkelsrud defended DHL's policy because screening smooths DHL's relationship with customs officials. If DHL were to ship packages that ended up being rejected or seized by customs, he maintained, "It would reflect negatively on DHL. We would lose our credibility. If they know we prescreen, they don't scrutinize our shipments as closely as they would otherwise, and that saves customers cost and time." "DHL is not in the business of testing the bounds of foreign customs restrictions," he said, maintaining (incorrectly, as it turns out) that "DHL has a legal obligation to ensure that shipments in its networks are in compliance with foreign customs laws and restrictions." "Many countries, such as the U.K., have prohibitions on the importation of pornography," he said. "Since the shipment in question contained nude photography, it fell into this category." Nudity equals pornography. End of story. Incredibly, Fonkelsrud seemed genuinely surprised to hear that neither current American law nor current British customs policy equates nudity with pornography. He repeated his belief that "a naked photograph would more than likely be considered pornography." Presumably, in this case, he meant that nudity would be considered pornography by British customs. "After 25 years of operating in this business," he assured me, "we have a good understanding of customs regulations in other countries." I explained that while photographs involving bondage are more questionable, there is no country in Western Europe that considers nude photography to be inherently pornographic. Fonkelsrud didn't budge. "Let me be absolutely clear," I said, "You're telling me that no one can ship a nude photograph of any kind to the U.K. via DHL." "That's right," Fonkelsrud answered. "What about nude photographs shipped within the U.S.?" I asked. "The same procedure would apply," Fonkelsrud said. "What about written material?" I asked, going a step further. DHL, said Fonkelsrud, would apply the same "conservative approach" to any written material that could possibly be considered pornographic. When asked how DHL personnel are supposed to understand not only the subtle differences between pornography and erotica, but also how these subtleties will be interpreted by a particular customs official on a particular morning in a particular office somewhere in London, Fonkelsrud refused to answer. He had had enough of me for one afternoon. "We don't disclose [the details of how we enforce these policies]," he said, "because we don't want to communicate that information to people who are attempting to get around our procedures." He did tell me that training in these matters is developed in conjunction with DHL's legal department, and that the training is given to all service and operations personnel, management and individual couriers. So, DHL will ship no nude photographs, no books that are so much as semi-risqué -- overseas or within the United States. Presumably that means DHL will never ship any illustrated art history books either, although I failed to inquire specifically about those. This policy seems all the more preposterous given the recent report in Washingtonian magazine that Larry Hillblom, the late founder of DHL, lived on an island in the South Pacific where he allegedly imported not photos, but live Asian virgins for his pleasure. Absurd? Indeed. Inconvenient? Definitely. Censorship? Well, that's another matter. There are, after all, other carriers. Or are there? N E X T+P A G E | Who you can use to send a Michelangelo and other pornographic material |
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