Originally posted by rapinbatsisaltherage
reply to post by RFBurns
But I don’t see any legality behind that. Child porn is punishable by law because it depicts actual children in sexually graphic pictures. The law
does not police our thoughts, yet. Unless his fake porn somehow proved he had the intent to purchase or be in possession of real child porn this
doesn’t seem legally sound.
Edit: Also the same could be said about fiction stories. Do you think stories with underage characters engaging in sexual acts should be illegal if
the message conveyed is the one that worries you in this instance?
Well, let's dissect the argument:
Sex with minors is bad. Child pornography often pictures sex with minors or encourages sex with or sexual thoughts about minors, which is bad. Child
pornography promotes the sexual abuse of minors. Even if you don't abuse the minors yourself, viewing or paying for the photographs of minors being
abused sexually is contributory essentially making the viewer an accomplice or co-conspirator in the crime.
That is the rationale behind prosecuting child pornography.
That said, what's the hubbub about with non-real "child pornography"? Well, the rationale is that promoting child porn promotes the actual abuse of
children or contributes assistance (monetary) to those who abuse children. Thus it's bad.
The question then becomes semantic in some ways. We have the technology to computer-animate characters (cartoons or 3D "people"). Does the act of
computer animating (or sketching, or otherwise rendering graphic representations), in a sexual way, characters with the likeness of children
constitute child pornography?
The answer given by the judge says 'yes.' The intent of the depictions is to depict sexual acts or sexual situations with children. Thus it promotes
a sexualization of children and is contributory to the problem of child pornography. Not only that, but those who purvey cartoon kiddy porn may also
purvey the real thing. Supporting them by viewing or purchasing the fake kiddy porn may still contribute to the business of exploiting actual minors.
In any event, it still contributes to the problem of the 'idea' of kiddy porn, insofar as it promotes a sexual image of children or ties arousal to
images of children.
So, in that sense, kiddy porn is kiddy porn regardless of medium (actual photographs, 3D simulated photographs, cartoons depicting underage sex acts,
etc.).
However, as you state: it raises implications of a ripple effect. Does this mean that owning other cartoons or media depicting underage sexual acts
will now subject people to prosecution, whereas it may have not been enforced previously?
In other words, if it is illegal to depict graphic underage sexual acts, is it also illegal to depict them in literature? Under what circumstances? At
what threshold? If it's casually mentioned in a longer unrelated story? Or only if the majority of the piece is devoted specifically to the act(s)?
In other words, would a book about a pre-teen's life which has a paragraph or a page devoted to some aspect(s) of their sexual maturation or
experiences be prohibited? Or would only stories where some major percentage of pages are devoted to such topics (IE, erotica featuring minors) be
policed, while other more mainstream sources with only passing mention would be exempted?
Is literature given more of a pass than explicit images? Both may achieve the same end result, conjuring fantasies in the human mind with relation to
minors. But literature seems to get more protection under "free speech" rules. Don't know how far that extends into the erotica area of
literature.
But, it also begs the question about owning things like Manga and Anime from Japan, which can feature underage stuff. Their rules and societal norms
seem much more lax with regard to sexuality than in some other parts of the world.
