I guess you heard my book, Cherry, got banned in Canada? Here's what really happened.

27 September 2002
I get an email from the Bleeding Rose bookshop in Vancouver to say that a shipment of Cherry that they ordered had been seized by Canada Customs. They say that they have 30 days to appeal and that the book might be released if it is deemed that it has enough artistic merit.

I know about the Little Sisters case, and contact them for advice. Worker Mark MacDonald tells me that other shipments of Cherry have also gone missing. He tells me the reason that they have been seized is because of a fisting* scene, and later I hear that a section involving someone being peed on is also under suspicion. He also tells me that Canada Customs has a decades-long history of harassing small, independent queer bookstores in Canada, and that they are quite arbitrary about the material they seize. MacDonald said that for years Canada Customs seized every shipment they imported. Every single one. (And you must have some idea of what it's like to deal with a faceless bureaucracy, it's exhausting.) He said that they couldn't even get safe sex material into the country because it was being called obscene.

I don't think a state has the right to censor material. I am absolutely opposed to censorship, it has no place in modern society, it creates thousands of problems and solves nothing. Having my book seized and messed around with by censorious goons really pisses me off.

Moreover, Canada Customs' definition of fisting or pee sex as "sex with degradation" are completely out of touch with real life sexuality. They are based on an outmoded, conservative, and discredited political ideology that sees depictions of sex as abusive, especially SM sex, and wants to police people's bedrooms and sexual imaginations.

I decide to go public with what has happened, so I draft a press release and send it to everyone I know.

What happened next
I didn't expect to be prohibited in Canada. Nobody told me that this might be a problem. Canada Customs seems to operate in their own secret little arbitrary world. Some bookshops stock Cherry, some weren't allowed to. Who knew what the rules were? I found out that the law makes no sense at all. Whilst you can't import so-called "obscene" material, there is little to stop you publishing and distributing it within the country.

Over the following couple of weeks I got many emails of support from all over the world. People were outraged by the seizure and astounded that Canada Customs are continuing to confiscate consensual adult material. In fact, they do it all the time and I had messages from authors who said that they had gone through it and wished they had got as much publicity out of it as I did. Patrick Califia, a famous writer whose own books have been banned in Canada, emailed his support too.



I got coverage. Specialist LGBT news outlets picked up the story and it became syndicated in the wider news media - archived versions may still be available online.

There is also an excellent article by Ann Rostow about Canada Customs that mentions Cherry in the December 2002 Girlfriends magazine, Why Sally Can't Read.

The appeal
My publisher and I sent letters of complaint about the seizure to Canada Customs. We had to chase them down, at no point did they contact me to say what they were doing to my book. If Bleeding Heart hadn't got in touch, I would never have known.

We also wrote defending the book's artistic merit. I think it is absurd to have to fight for the artistic merit of porn, it's like judging one literary genre by the rules of another. Even more absurd is the idea that Canada Customs are the ultimate authorities on the kinds of sex that should be allowed. Nevertheless, I argued:

Cherry is a traditional coming of age story. I am a gay woman who lives in London, England, and the novel reflects my own experiences of coming out and of surviving the - sometimes unwelcoming - lesbian scene. It is a novel that definitely would help those who are considering coming out as gay in London, or any other place.

The book is written with humour, imagination, style, warmth and with an insider's eye. It contains plot development, characterisation, and has an imaginative use of language. It deals with relationships, identity, and considers many moral dilemmas. My book is part of a movement in which women write honestly about their lives and make public areas that were previously marginalised and hidden by mainstream society. I believe that it is vital this kind of work gets distributed because it is only by sharing our own stories that bigotry and misinformation can be broken down.

There are scenes of a sexual nature in Cherry, indeed the book is an exploration of lesbian sexuality, but I would like to point out that every sexual encounter is consensual, relative to the plot and true to life. The book is intended for an adult readership and is not being marketed or made available to minors. Moreover, Cherry is actively non-racist, -sexist, -ageist, -ableist and -classist and it offers non-stereotyped characters who represent the diversity of the lesbian community.

24 October 2002
I received a formal letter from Anne Kline, who is the Senior Progam Advisor for Customs Disputes in the Prohibited Importation Unit. She said that 'Cherry has been found to be "admissable" even though it does contain "descriptions of sex with degradation," ie, fisting, because it doesn't "meet the requirements for prohibition under Tariff item 9899.00.00".

Kline enclosed a copy of the Tariff, which is very long-winded and indecipherable to a lay person. I assume that she is saying that the "artistic merit" argument won out. She said that the books had been released to the importer, that they will not be seized again, and apologised for "the inconvenience our determination process may have caused you."

The outcome
So what was achieved?

• Cherry is now available to all in Canada, not just people who buy through Amazon or the big chain bookstores, but also supporters of the little gay shops who are often the bedrock of the local LGBT community.

• Cherry got press!

• We got to highlight Canada Customs' dangerous and stupid policies and hopefully helped people like Little Sisters get one step closer to winning their legal battle.

• The booksellers didn't lose money by having the stock they ordered destroyed or confiscated until it was unsellable.

• Finally, as one kind correspondent told me: "You have the distinction of having written a fist-fucking scene that even Customs had to say had artistic merit."

Last bit
I consider my book to be of marginal interest to the mainstream, so it is disturbing to think of it being the focus of some kind of state control. If it can happen to me, it can happen to any author who tries to write about sex. Why are Canada Customs so concerned about realistic depictions of dyke sex? Why was my little book treated as though it was dangerous contraband? Don't these guys have more important things to do with their time and those tax dollars?

* Don't know what fisting is? It's when someone puts their whole hand up someone's bum or vag. It's intimate, sexy, intense and has nothing to do with hitting anyone.