Porn producer defends TV 'asset'

Right-wingers and family values campaigners want a law preventing pornographic films being shown on French television.

"Porn's subject matter is physical love, a theme that has produced countless masterpieces in painting, in sculpture and in literature," wrote John B Root, in an open letter printed in French daily Liberation and translated by the Guardian.

"If celluloid sex has never succeeded in hoisting itself to the rank of a cinematographic or televisual genre, it is because we have denied it the right to be economically viable.

"We would not be having this debate if porn was what it should be - joyous, well-made, aphrodisiac art."

Under his real name, Jean Guillore, Root writes novels for children and screenplays.

Family values campaigner and MP Christine Boutin is one of those calling for a ban on pornography on French television and plans to table a bill in autumn.

French terrestrial, satellite and cable channels screen hundreds of porn films every year.

Ban danger

Dominique Baudis, the head of the French broadcasting watchdog, has backed the calls in order to protect children, the Guardian reported.

Surveys in France have suggested many children have seen "hardcore" pornography, the newspaper reported.

But in the open letter, Mr Root said banning pornography from television would only make it more appealing to young people.

"Adolescents will just get far more pleasure out of watching a forbidden videocassette.

"When I first saw a Scandinavian film in 1973, when X-rated films were still banned in France, the pleasure of the transgression multiplied the sexual pleasure by 10."

And he argued that the economic damage to pornography producers resulting from a ban would force them into more extreme film-making.

"In Germany, where porn is outlawed on television, the sex video output is by far the most voluminous and by far the lowest grade in Europe.

"Porn is one of the fruits of the youth uprising of May 1968, and it is a precious cultural asset."