Poles apart as anti-porn law outlaws Playboy

Polish newsagents selling Playboy could face two years in prison if President Aleksander Kwasniewski signs a law tomorrow that bans all pornography.

Under the law - one of Europe's toughest - hard-core magazines or videos featuring animals or violence will net five years, although vibrators will still be legal.

Opponents say adults should be able to read and watch whatever they want, but the law's supporters say it is needed to cope with the explosion of smut that followed the collapse of Communism in 1989.

Stefan Niesiolowski of the main governing party, Solidarity, said: "This means that pornography, which is disgusting, demeaning to women and leads to violence, evil and human suffering will disappear completely from Polish stores."

Mr Niesiolowski's forecast seems optimistic. Like its neighbours, Poland has been inundated by local language versions of magazines such as Playboy, as well as home-grown sex magazines, and several easily accessible German cable television channels offer regular soft-core sex films.

However, the deep-rooted power of the Catholic church, and the Pope's own opposition to sexual liberalisation, has prevented the explosion in the sex industries seen in some of Poland's post-Communist neighbours.

Budapest is one of Europe's most popular sites for making pornographic films and Hungarian newspapers are packed with advertisements for escort services. In the similarly liberal Czech Republic, one television station's female weather forecasters broadcast in the nude, an unlikely scenario in Poland.

While young Poles are sanguine about the sex magazines and television shows, seeing them as part of an inevitable - and welcome - process of liberalisation, many of their older compatriots are shocked at the attitudes towards sex that are reshaping the mores of the deeply Catholic country.

The law has already been passed by the centre-right-dominated parliament, making it difficult for leftist President Kwasniewski to refuse to sign, although he says that "mature people should behave according to their own conscience".

The law is garnering support from unexpected quarters. More than 100 scientists, writers, artists and university professors have appealed in a letter to President Kwasniewski to sign the law. "Research around the word has shown that pornography has a destructive influence both on social and family bonds and individuals," said their letter.

But, in a recent poll, 53 per cent of the population said that they had nothing against the sale of soft pornography and another sampling showed 72 per cent of Poles think that adults should be able to watch erotic videos or read sexually explicit magazines.

If, as seems likely, President Kwasniewski signs the law, it is unlikely to be thoroughly enforced, mainly for technical reasons. The courts will have to decide what exactly constitutes pornography - a process that could take years.

At the same time, the rapid expansion of internet access across Poland renders its provisions virtually meaningless.