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Investigating the seedy side ... author of the book The Money Shot, Jeff Sparrow. Photo: Ken Irwin

"What was jail like?'' Darrell Cohen stares at me, and then his face scrunches up. His head slumps into his hands and he begins, wordlessly, to sob.

Few people know that, throughout the states of Australia, retailing X-rated pornography remains illegal. You can own the stuff, you can buy it, but you are not allowed to sell it.

The National Classification Code - which governs the censorship of literature, film, TV and video games - reflects a heated battle over video pornography in the 1980s.

Illustration: Rocco Fazzari

Australians were early enthusiasts for the VCR revolution, a boom that historians of technology attribute largely to porn. The early machines were expensive - but they meant you could watch hard-core videos in the privacy of your lounge room.

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In response to the suddenly flourishing market of VCR porn, the federal government introduced the X category. But anti-porn activists, both social conservatives and feminists, convinced the state governments not to ratify corresponding schemes in their own jurisdictions.

Since then, the laws have remained largely frozen, a strange and unsatisfactorycompromise that leaves the adult industry in a weird limbo.

In theory, the sex shops in Melbourne and Sydney are illegal. But illegality assists a peculiar freedom - most of the time.

See more here:
Video nasty: one man's ordeal and society's mixed messages on porn