Confronting Bodies: Canadian Customs officer
Date of Action: 1994
Specific Location: Canadian Border
Description of Artwork: Kerosine Kelly's 'zine is an 8x10 low budget hand-made magazine. She writes, "Thorn is about not being ashamed of rage. The rage of blame to name yourself and your place in the fury. It's a lonely place to be, this. Thorn is a respite from that in this world of hate. Pages to be among others speaking loudly and in turn through words, photographs, comix, collage, music and/or a combination of these in order to resist the temptation to be silent. It's not about silencing others."
Description of Incident: Of a whole box of 'zines sent together in a box to the 'zine conference "Spew," in Canada, only "I Heart Amy Carter" made it-a month later.The "notice of determination" refers to provision 114 of the Customs Tariff and code 9956 of Schedule VII. Tammy Rae Carlan (who produces the "I Heart Amy Carter" 'zine) wrote, "Apparently my friend Gene's infamous and hot hairy fag rag "Hippie Dick" and my friend Kelly's wondrous work of genius "Thorn" were confiscated for pornographic content. Something about representation of anal sex and fist fucking. True enough "Hippie Dick" is an out and about porn zine (which by the way I highly recommend to anyone into hairy boys) but the idea of censoring this is unabashed homophobia. But of course that is the premise of these literal/visual border crossing laws, isn't it-that is to squelch any expression of anything that is not male-female ministry position procreative sex. And "Thorn" was censored for one piece of writing (which by the way I wrote] that was a very short but sweet recounting of some good old fashioned lesbo sex. And just for the record it wasn't necessarily fist fucking, three fingers does not a fist make."
Results of Incident: All three 'zines continue to be produced in the United States.
Source: "I Heart Amy Carter," #3; "Thorn" #5