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Arctik_Firangi wrote:A picture of a fifteen year old bikini-clad girl isn't any sort of porn I've heard of. What sort of example is that? I've seen parents who dress toddlers in frigging bikinis. It's weird, but it's not porn.

But then what is pornography? What makes it distinctly itself? Bill Henson's work features explicit sexual acts, but I don't believe that its porn. Many family photos, as has been mentioned, feature nude, or otherwise revealed, children. But those hardly seem like porn either. The defining characteristic seems to be the harmful objectification/victimization of the subject matter. How does one harmfully objectify a cartoon character when it is already, inherently, an object?

Arctik_Firangi wrote:
Artists like Bill Henson... well, maybe he is a pervert, maybe he's not. But his exhibition in Sydney wasn't 'porn', and they closed that because of complaining parents. I disagreed with that. Inane, graphic Simpsons porn is just another thing, though.

I agree. But not to the extent that I would consider it on the same level as a photographic image of a small child being molested.

Arctik_Firangi wrote:
But basically, I said don't be an idiot. Don't keep your sentimental-picture-of-girlfiend between the pages of a stash of porno mags, or whatever. Who in their right mind would? That's what I mean. Neither of us live in a country where the court rules by the letter of the law, and refuses to hear reason where it is due. Texas might be a different place, but that might just be television. We all know the mass media can take a lot of blame for the 'knee-jerk' on both the authoritan and defensive sides.

I believe that both of our nations rule by the letter of the law insofar as there is a 'letter to rule by. There is always a degree of subjectivity inherent in any judicial practice, but we should always work to minimize that where possible.

Arctik_Firangi wrote:Where does 'inflexible standard' come from? Were those people convicted, or just arrested?

The Australian guy had child porn, and your examples almost certainly had a good defense case.

The inflexible standard comes from the existence of a legal definition. Something which, in the United States at least, pornography has. The trouble here is that the judge ruled to include cartoon characters in the definition by considering them as discreet legal entities in their own right.

dogma wrote:

The inflexible standard comes from the existence of a legal definition. Something which, in the United States at least, pornography has. The trouble here is that the judge ruled to include cartoon characters in the definition by considering them as discreet legal entities in their own right.

Actually, pornography has never had a simple definition. My First Amendment Professor, a former ACLU litigator, couldn't tell us exactly what was and wasn't obscenity. That's important, because obscenity isn't protected as tightly as other forms of expression.

It was the idea of inflexible standards that lead to the opening of many portals for porno in the first place. You can't ban nudity, because that includes classical art. What about sex scenes that are integral to the plot of a movie? And so on and so on. The current Miller test is delightfully vague:
1) Appeal to the prurient interest, as judged by a reasonable person of the community the work is in
2) A graphic depiction of sexual acts or excretory functions (or both!)
3) No serious artistic, literary, scientific, etc. value

Interestingly, this means that people in say, San Fransisco or NYC have greater first amendment protection for hard core smut than a person in rural Alabama.

According to my prof, the stuff covered by modern obscenity is more or less restricted to things like scat, fisting, bestiality. interestingly, child porn is in it's own area, not included in obscenity.

That's actually pretty interesting. I've always been under the impression that some of the feminist definitions held at least moderate sway. But then I'm also not so well read on law as I'd like to be.

Didn't Paul Reubens (Pee-Wee Herman) get busted for child pornography because of his collection of Victorian erotica? If I remember correctly it was because some of the images contained nude pictures of teenage girls. However the pictures were not illegal when they were taken and most of the models had died of old age before Reubens was born.

Polonius wrote:I forget where I read it, so it may be apocryphal, but in many states you can get legally married under 18. A man had naked pictures of his 17 year old wife, and got busted for child pornography possession. I suppose, even if it didn't happen, it could. I know many people aren't wild about freaky sex, but it's really hard to demonize what somebody does in bed with their spouse.

I can't say it never happened, but it wouldn't have been paedophilia, as that requires the victim to be younger than about 13 or 14, depending on the state. Above that, but below the age of consent it's statutory rape, which carries a far lesser sentence. Even then, in most places the age of consent is lower than 18.

sebster wrote:

Polonius wrote:I forget where I read it, so it may be apocryphal, but in many states you can get legally married under 18. A man had naked pictures of his 17 year old wife, and got busted for child pornography possession. I suppose, even if it didn't happen, it could. I know many people aren't wild about freaky sex, but it's really hard to demonize what somebody does in bed with their spouse.

I can't say it never happened, but it wouldn't have been paedophilia, as that requires the victim to be younger than about 13 or 14, depending on the state. Above that, but below the age of consent it's statutory rape, which carries a far lesser sentence. Even then, in most places the age of consent is lower than 18.

That's the point of the story. Actually having sex with the woman is totally a-ok, but having the naked picture is against federal law.

And Paedophilia isn't a crime, it's a mental disorder. What you're thinking of is the imposition of strict liability on those that have sex with minors. In ohio, over 16 is totally ok, but under 16 and over 12 still allows for the affirmative defense of good faith ignorance. Let's say you pick a girl up at a bar and sleep with her, and it turns out she's 15 with a fake ID. The law allows you to use that as a defense. Under 12, however, is strict liablity, which is the legal term for "you can't wriggle out of this one, bubba." It's interesting because it's the only area outside of civil violations (housing ordinances and whatnot) that uses strict liability. In addition, keep in mind that it was only until fairly recently that rape laws could be used against one's spouse.

In case anybody is curious, the actual US Federal law regarding child porn is available here:
http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/uscode18/usc_sec_18_00002252---A000-.html

Interestingly, only having three images or less is an affirmative defense, and the punishment is 5-20 years. For comparison, the punishment for actually buying or selling children is up to 30, and the actual sexual exploitation is 25-50.

Interesting.

3) knowingly—
(A) reproduces any child pornography for distribution through the mails, or in interstate or foreign commerce by any means, including by computer; or
(B) advertises, promotes, presents, distributes, or solicits through the mails, or in interstate or foreign commerce by any means, including by computer, any material or purported material in a manner that reflects the belief, or that is intended to cause another to believe, that the material or purported material is, or contains—
(i) an obscene visual depiction of a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct; or
(ii) a visual depiction of an actual minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct;

(c) It shall be an affirmative defense to a charge of violating paragraph (1), (2), (3)(A), (4), or (5) of subsection (a) that—
(1)
(A) the alleged child pornography was produced using an actual person or persons engaging in sexually explicit conduct; and
(B) each such person was an adult at the time the material was produced; or
(2) the alleged child pornography was not produced using any actual minor or minors.

It would seem our Australian example would indeed have been considered a child pornographer, and would not have been accorded the option of an affirmative defense.

There has been a case in the UK (it happened a couple of weeks ago) where access to Wikipedia was blocked because someone had complained to the Quango in charge of making the internet clean from kiddy porn, about the picture on the front of an album by The Scorpions, which was published in about 1982 and is available is most large record shops. The album cover has a photo of a young teenager nude on it.

Da Boss wrote:Can I marry a Moomin?

I would *totally* bang the snork-maiden....

Its a hard one i guess, as much as i despise anything pedo. How are you supposed to go about working out if the cartoon is adult, and more importantly are we breaching freedom of expression.

As for the simpsons stuff, it may of not been sexual. Im pretty sure watching homer bang marge would be funny if nothing else.