I was searching for some new music yesterday, and stumbled on the latest album of Melbourne punk band Amyl and the Sniffers. I listened to a few of their songs and liked their sound and lyrics - they've got that thing going where it feels like it's all very real and not the result of many iterations of refinement. A mood I associate strongly with what punk is all about to me - a rejection of authority.

The band also released a new music video with their song Jerkin', as I found out reading up on them.

At this point it is clear I should say the internet helped tremendously in discovering this band. Aggregators of listening habits helped me find people with similar taste in music so I could learn what they listen to. An online record store allowed me to listen to some of the songs I found out about. A bulletin board service helped me learn more about the band's recent activity. This is where another reality of today's internet / web jumps to the fore though, i.e. how it acts as an amplifier of fringe or outdated morals. The video is, in typical punk fashion, a statement. A statement about bodies being just bodies, not something to be ashamed of nor sexualize whenever seen. See the quote below to understand how the band saw that.

"The level of offence that a vagina or penis can generate is absolutely bizarre. Once, Amy said to me, “If the world wasn’t so fucked up, I’d never wear clothes.” It’s the context we stamp onto our sex organs that makes them innately “offensive.” This is why we wanted to strip away the artifice and examine the body in an open, conversational way. We approached the project as if it were a performance in itself. From concept to crewing to casting, we (the production) let the project evolve in the most natural way possible, allowing our subjects to dictate their level of input based on their comfort on the day. We were learning what it was as we were making it, which is basically the opposite approach I’m used to. But because this idea was driven by people’s personalities, it felt wrong to do it any other way. We just kept pulling things further and further back until we were left with just a white wall and the human body. I want to come out of everything I do with a different perspective. Just as one’s perspective changes with an Amyl song, I want to change in the same way. I think we all walked away from the shoot with an innate need to be less prudish and give less of a shit."

• John Angus Stewart, Director
  

Ironically maybe, they seem to have had to go to great lengths to make the video available for viewing online, and now might have altogether given up on it. The band's main website embeds music videos on a video sharing site. That site has a Nudity policy, so they might have felt they needed to create a censored version of it to be able to upload it there - even though I believe it falls within what's considered allowed (at the moment).

The original, i.e. uncensored version is on https://jerkin.amylandthesniffers.com. I don't see that microsite linked from their main website anymore though, while the censored version still is. To see it, a JavaScript-heavy experience follows, where you've got to confirm being 18 to go through to another page which embeds the video hosted on yet another media sharing site but doesn't allow direct linking or sharing.

Possibly they first added that verification step and later took down the link based on an interpretation of applicable Australian law. The current rules around the classification of films (of which musical representations are exempt though) would likely classify it as Mature or maybe even Mature Accompanied. A recent review (Stevens review) in the classification scheme recommends to do away with the rules around those category for online screenings, as it's recognised to be impractical to enforce the resulting need for an adult to be present during the screening. That's compatible with the Online Safety Act, which only puts limits around online content of a Restricted nature. The simple display of a nude person would not fall under that.

I like to think the band would have been able to have broader reach with their statement video if the web were still more decentralised and more open, as they would have self-hosted the original video without needing to come up with alternatives to comply with the rules from all the intermediaries currently involved, and challenge some outdated laws that consider any display of genitals as offensive.

You know, more punk.