Sex in the Union: EU Law, Taxation and the Adult Industry

Abstract

In March of 2010 the ECJ rendered what appeared to be a routine judgment in the realm of taxation. The objects of the levying were films, which are displayed in individual cubicles on a pay per minute basis. The Court excluded such display from the tax benefits enjoyed by other categories of cinema. However, this illusion of a «traditional» internal market dispute easily disappears if one «sexes up» the decision, in which judges were essentially confronted with a subtle legal concept of «cinema» and its controversial constituent, pornographic movies. In the best of Victorian traditions, the Court omits any reference to the very word «sex», which raises certain concerns about the adequacy of the rhetorical construction of this 21st century decision and its strikingly puritan judicial appraisal of sexuality.