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The Slippery Legal Slope of Cartoon Porn
BenFenner writes "Two out of the three Virginia judges involved with Dwight Whorley's case say cartoon images depicting sex acts with children are considered child pornography in the United States. Judge Paul V. Niemeyer noted the PROTECT Act of 2003, clearly states that 'it is not a required element of any offense under this section that the minor depicted actually exists.'"
does it become illegal? Two stick figure drawings with a caption "10 year olds" would be considered illegal if you didn't pencil in some shorts? Madness.
If it's fantasy, you can say the depiction is as old as you want. It's not real, rules of reality don't apply, at all.
"we've got trenchcoats and bad attitudes" - John Constantine, HellBlazer
So a disclaimer at the bottom that all characters pictured are based off real adults who are merely very young looking would make it safe?
Ok, so if I draw a picture of a person having sex with a sentient machine (non-human like, lets say a 1m cube with a penis sized hole in one side) and that machine is only 10 years old according to the crappy fan-fic I write about it, does that make it child pornography?
Oh wait, I know how to use up more of the courts time, where were those rule 34 pictures of ALF and the simpsons I had laying around...
...
I was under the impression that the reason for child pornography laws was to protect children from exploitation. It may not be possible to prosecute the people abusing children if they are in a foreign country, but you can help to reduce their market by prosecuting the people who buy their products. How, exactly, does society benefit from prosecuting artists who draw cartoons, however tasteless? The money would be better spent going after mimes.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
So, who exactly is the victim in this case? If none is required then logically everybody involved in production of any work of (questionable) arts depicting killing, assault, robbery or any other crime should be convicted. Too bad over 80% or more of Hollywood and TV production would become illegal.
When we start trying to apply the laws of the
land to the realm of make believe our justice
system will have officially lost it's mind. . .
Next we'll be appointing a Cartoon Czar. . .
Lucky for Nabokov he's dead, or he'd be jailed for writing Lolita...
For repeated and multiple murder, for torture, both physical and psychological, for cannibalism and for a few other things that I'd have to consult my library for and reread some of his work.
And while we're at it, I also ask to have the governor of California arrested for ... well, pretty much the same crimes.
No, they didn't commit them. They only depicted and acted them. But appearantly that difference is no longer important.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
was that its manufacture directly hurt children (the ones portrayed in it, not some abstract concept). While distasteful, virtual "child" porn, no matter how realistic, seems to be a freedom of speech which is protected under the Constitution. Otherwise, you are creating a thoughtcrime.
Also is the matter of arguing "age". Some are undeniably children, but we live in a country where 18 years old prosecuted for statutory rape of 16 years old isn't unheard of in our recent histroy. Do we really want to relegate to the prosecutors this power?
Also consider the common cartoon/anime characteristic of having an adult in mind in an essentially child like body. What then?
In summary:
-lack of victim
-Freedom of Speech, if only popular speech were to be protected, we wouln't need 1st amendment
-age ambiguities
Plus as some cartoons are over the age over 18 like the Simpsons for example. They're 20 years old as a point of fact.
So I can legally masturbate furiously to a video of a 10-year old being having sex with her father that was filmed eight years ago? Awesome! No seriously, there might be a logical fallacy in what you said.
Ya, real democracy, wonderful. So that a 90% Christian nation can impose its morals on everyone. No, we need to remove blue laws, not give people the chance to make more. Our republic is supposed to be setup so that the majority can't run roughshod over minorities. Democracy is nothing more than codified mob rule.
It's not the best route, but a violent revolution (global this time) seems to be not far off from coming.
HAHAHAHAHAHA!
Violent revolutions do not happen because a form of information got censored. Violent revolutions happen because a sufficiently large proportion of the populace cannot eat or because a sufficiently large proportion are being repressed (repression in this context means "taken away at night and never seen again", not "prevented from posting what they like in their blog").
Even then it's amazing what people will put up with. Note that Robert Mugabe is still in power, for instance.
It shouldn't matter AT ALL the age depicted. The (Just) reason that child pornography is illegal is to stop the harming of children through its production. Adults have the right and ability to consent to be part of such productions as part of their own free speech rights. Children, almost by definition, do not, and thus their rights are violated when they are used in child pornography.
First in order to be child pornography a child, a real one has to be involved. Cartoon characters are not children and they have no rights to violate. Hand drawn pornography can be considered child pornography if and only if the drawings were done from an actual child model.
Secondly, though this doesn't apply in most cases, it has to be pornographic. Pictures of baby's first bath and similar don't count. Generally there is(and rightly so) less tolerance for what is and is not pornography when children are involved.
The real impetus behind child porn laws that go against those who merely possess or re-distribute the material and do not produce it or harbor those that do, especially once written, drawn, and cartoon porn is made illegal where a child was never involved at all(though if someone is making a lot of written porn they might not be up for jail but a mandatory talk with a psychologist might be in order), is generally to protect those persons' who are pushing for the law sensibilities. Just like segregation protected those same sensibilities by keeping the dark people out of sight, and such laws in the end are only a little less unjust, mainly due to fewer peoples' rights being violated on a generally smaller scale.
Witch Hunt.
Pedophilia and child pornography are morally reprehensible to most people, not to mention damaging to those exploited in its production. It's also worth pointing out that COPA and PROTECT are two prime examples of how our system of government fails to do what it set out to achieve.
COPA basically stated (among other things) that your first amendment right to free speech was null and void when the content of that speech was fictional child pornography. The supreme court ruled COPA unconstitutional, and rightly so, due to the fact that COPA very specifically abridged free speech; something the first amendment very specifically states Congress does not have the power to do.
Due to the fact that Congress's fast one wasn't able to slip by the Supreme Court (whose job is to filter out this bullshit), they changed a couple of words and relabeled COPA as the PROTECT act. PROTECT, like its predecessor, also abridges free speech by again making fictional work, which is deemed morally reprehensible by the majority of voters who reelected the folks who pushed the bill through----er, wait a minute...
This is the most prime example I have borne witness to of flagrant abuse of power by the Congress in my life:
1. Congress passes law.
2. Supreme court says "wait just a fuckin' minute"
3. Congress changes wording on law, renames and repasses it, while supreme court bickers over previous law.
4. ????
5. Congressman Asshole wins reelection for being "Tough on Crime." (also known in politics as "Profit")
As long as anything is morally reprehensible enough, Congress can throw the bill of rights out the window to enforce their agenda while the flak takes years to tear its way through the judicial system only to finally be struck down by one court or another.
Just goes to show that politics really can be a system that clogs down on its own bullshit as long as there's enough of a popular opinion in the first place to ramrod the shit past its initial threshold.
Laws against child pornography are an easy route to power
It's also difficult to oppose a law against child pornography without sounding like you're endorsing child abuse, especially when you're a public figure, so these measures usually are passed without much opposition.
Since God is the attributed author of the Bible, I think we should prosecute god!
Since Abraham strapped his son to an altar and was in the process of performing ritual sacrifice on him. Or that naked Moses, that's offensive. God only knows what those three "wise" men really wanted with a swaddling clad Jesus and his virgin (and underage I might add) mother.
If we're going to get the religious right nutters involved, we might as well get the completely involved!
Those of us who believe we have the right to self defence, and that the single most effective class of tools for that purpose (i.e., firearms) should not be restricted, have been fighting this sort of thing for over a century now. "For the children" is the rallying cry of the tyrant.
Who gives a shit about the cartoons, The Son Of A Bitch was/is a child predator and got what he had/has coming, he'll pay for it in the pen!!! "Whorley also received digital photographs of actual children engaging in sexual conduct and sent and received e-mails graphically describing parents sexually molesting their children."
He is not a child predator. The adults acting in the photographs he received are. He just has a sexual fetish that is not shared by most of the rest of us, one that provokes fear in a lot of parents.
c++;
You know what's gonna remove blue laws? Successive generations.
The politicians of today are fighting against two things they can not possibly win against: time, and Big Bird.
Yes, Big Bird.
Most of us here - regardless of country - grew up watching Sesame Street and other children's programs. You know, the stuff that taught us about sharing and respecting others? This is why I believe in 20 years or less gay marriage will not only be the norm nationwide, but it will be common. Big Bird told us not to judge people based on their beliefs, appearance, etc. and by the furry grace of Elmo we listened.
The second enemy - time. People are travelling around the world more and more. Information is spreading and its getting nigh-impossible for the government to control it. I'd say most teenagers think weed being illegal is bullshit. They just tune out the "anti-drug" crap and other lies as if it were their English teacher in high school.
These kids are going to go to high school with other kids who won't have to live in fear of being openly gay, or Atheist, or Muslim, or do or believe whatever they want that doesn't infringe on the rights of others. And one day, these kids will be able to vote. The idiotic laws will be repealed to some degree. It's just a matter of time.
Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
Becaauuuuse, it's bad precedent. Suppose someone has raped, tortured, and murdered over a thousand children. He get charged for those crimes, and in addition gets 20 years in prison for driving 62 on a 60 mph road. You may say 'who cares such a conviction is ridiculous, the guy deserves to rot in prison for the rest of his life', but it sets bad precedent for all of us, not just the 'villains'.
That's why the cartoon-related conviction matters.
Every public policy has a cost side and a benefit side. The cost of ever more stringent child pornography laws, in terms of both fiscal impact and damage to our society, far outweighs the marginal increase in safety to children.
Emotionally, cost-benefits analysis is repulsive. Emotionally, we want to do everything we can to protect children, and any other policy has all the emotional impact of actual child abuse. But fortunately, society is not based on pure emotion. Reason, which is the only mechanism through which we ever make progres, dictates that we take reasonable steps to ensure children are safe, but not to the point where we sacrifice other principles for which we stand and create an oppressive police state.
After all, we want to bring children up in a free society, don't we? We want them to safe after they turn 18, too!
Plus as some cartoons are over the age over 18 like the Simpsons for example. They're 20 years old as a point of fact.
So I can legally masturbate furiously to a video of a 10-year old being having sex with her father that was filmed eight years ago? Awesome! No seriously, there might be a logical fallacy in what you said.
Is there any significance to your choosing "10" and "8" (perhaps because 10 + 8 = 18?) in your example? I suspect what the OP was getting at is that the cartoon has been around for 20 years (Acccording to Wikipedia, the Simpsons started on December 17th, 1989 -- so actually it's 19 years).
I'm confident (but haven't checked) that Maggie appeared in the very first Simpsons episode. Therefore, Maggie was conceived on or before December 17th, 1989, making her at least 19 years old. She happens to portray a 2 year old in the fictional world presented by the show, but she herself is 19.
Personally, I find the notion of "treating cartoon people as real people" to be literally ridiculous (i.e. enticing ridicule), but if the lawmakers choose to go down this path, then I think a logically and legally consistent conclusion would be to treat Maggie as a 19-year old playing a 2 year old character on TV, just as most actors playing teenagers on TV sitcoms are much older than the characters they play as.
This would put Maggie into the the crosshair of a different law (not sure where the law has jurisdiction, is it still the US?) which says that even if everyone involved is an adult, if they are portraying children, then it's still illegal. IMHO, this latter law should definitely be abolished, because often there is not enough evidence within the fiction itself to say with absolute legal certainty whether a given story is portraying children or not, and thus there is too much subjectivity.
Sorry, but if the idea of raping children turns you on, then I want you off the streets and securely locked away from my kids.
I understand that parents get pretty scared about this and rightly so, but no one should be locked up because of something that solely exists in their head.
Think "Minority Report". And I know it is over used, but also Thought Crime from "1984".
If someone has a derangement but hasn't actually hurt anyone then [s]he should be helped and not locked up just so you can sleep a little better tonight.
He is not a child predator.
No, but the idea of sex with children turns him on. That makes him a dangerous, very potential child predator
Not really. Lots of people enjoy playing violent videogames, and that doesn't make them "a dangerous, very potential" violent person.
A lot of people can and do enjoy illegal (the Grand Theft Auto videogame, the Count of Monte Cristo book), immoral (the Goodfellas movie) and just generally unadvised (the Jackass movie) acts in fictional contexts, without having any serious amount of temptation of committing those acts in real life.
Bank robbers help enable the crime. Viewing child porn does absolutely nothing about the original crime. Viewing child porn is also not illegal, AFAICT - having possession of child porn is. Paying for child porn is a different matter, however, in that it does at least possibly contribute to child molestation. GP did not say there was nothing wrong with child porn.
You scare the crap out of me, because your reading skills don't seem to be up to much, your analogies suck, and you spout one insults at people you don't understand.
No, but the idea of sex with children turns him on. That makes him a dangerous, very potential child predator and someone I don't want near my kids, or anyone else's kids for that matter.
I get a kick out of watching gunfights on TV and in the movies. I also play paintball. Should I be arrested for murder? Aren't I showing the signs of being one step away from the latest mass shooting?
Viewing adult porn is different. Adults can consent or refuse to. However, a child can not legally consent, making any sexual act with a child rape.
I completely agree on this point. Kids just don't have the tools to deal with sexuality. Doing so is a part of childhood and growing up. But that should not involve sexual interaction with an adult.
Sorry, but if the idea of raping children turns you on, then I want you off the streets and securely locked away from my kids. If you are OK with these people being near YOUR kids, then you need to have your kids taken away from you and given to parents with some common sense.
Here we are convicting without a crime again.
How about we take them off the streets and get them help. Not a prison...
Forcibly taking people off the streets against their will is the definition of prison. You can fancy it up all you want, it is still a prison.
Prison (n): a place of confinement or captivity
That way, we all win (assuming that "help" works in this case. IANAPsychologist, so I don't know if it can be "helped").
Furthermore, what do you do if they cannot be helped? You have just justified locking people up for things they might do. This opens Pandora's box and makes the situation ripe for all kinds of government abuse.
Remember, You are unique...just like everyone else.
... Just because the Constitution does not require the government to permit something does not mean that the government is restricted from permitting it. The Constitution is, rather, a check on democracy itself, and for many things it sets no rules and leaves democracy to its own devices, which is probably the right thing to do in these cases.
Bzzzt. Sorry, wrong answer.
Why do people keep getting this all backwards. Under the Constitution, the people have all the rights, not the government. The government doesn't "permit" anything - it is restricted (by the Constitution) in what it is allowed to do.
The Bill of Rights should not have been necessary, but some states wanted certain important rights spelled out, just in case somebody got too ambitious with federal powers (it hasn't really helped, the US government does a *lot* of unconstitutional things). The 10th amendment spells it out pretty clearly:
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
Oh please moron, try to stay on topic. We are talking about a freaking CARTOON here people, just some freaking paint on a bloody page. How the hell can paint be underage? Does anybody else not see the problem with this? If you have a screensaver of your 400 year old elf mage or some crap all it takes is some pervert judge thinking "yeah, that looks a little jailbait to me" and your ass is rotting in jail. Does nobody else see the problem here?
Let me spell it out: before, with child porn, you had to actually have something involving a child. And it really isn't that had to tell the difference between normal porn and child porn. Now, thanks to these numbnuts, ANY cartoon, animation, drawing, hell even a stick figure can cause you to rot in jail for decades. Because it doesn't matter what it is anymore, it only matters what a judge says it is. Now does everybody see the problem? This thing was so made for abuse it isn't even funny. Literally whether or not you spend the rest of your life in jail will simply be based on what kind of mood the judge is in and how prudish he is. This is thoughtcrime and it isn't even YOUR thoughts you are being punished for, but the thoughts of the judge. How did we fall so far?
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
What about an animated pr0n based on the The Curious Case of Benjamin Button?
The character depicted would be 60+ years old by the time he appeared underage.
See people, this is the problem with attempting to flout freedom of expression. When it comes to real kids, I'm with ya. When it comes to make-believe...who's to say what's ok to make-believe?
but have you considered the following argument: shut up.
You would think so, but the the "Flower Power" children of the 1960's have demonstrated how easily these ideals can get corrupted once it is your turn to take the reins. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Nice to see people still miss the point. Whether you care to admit it or not, it's not normal to wank off to pics of underaged people. I personally lost interest in that more or less immediately upon turning 18.
The argument you're making is that because there isn't direct damage that it isn't causing damage. It's a bad argument, basically it would be OK to view and look at child pr0n as long as you didn't make or produce it. Encouraging it by giving the sites hits or trading other people's images would OK, because of course that person trading the images didn't make them.
I'm not really sure what about that isn't clear. Trading in kiddie porn is harmful to those that are abused and even in the best case scenario it trivializes what is typically a very damaging act.
And really, you ought to be ashamed of yourself for making light of what is an immensely painful experience for victims.
I don't suppose you noticed that are in fact no victims in this case. No actual children where involved. Otherwise I agree with you.
Thought crimes. C'mon, it's what Chris Hansen is all about. Why don't you have a seat over here?
Seriously though....if fantasy CP is a crime, so is pretty much all the crap you see on tv, movies, magazines, etc. Even things on the Disney channel and Nickelodeon. Thought crimes. Want to see something even more disturbing? It's that this crap is a-ok, and the parents participate. Disgusting.
Let's ban sci-fi/fantasy/mystery/thriller books and throw their authors in prison while we are at it.
Nice to see people still miss the point. Whether you care to admit it or not, it's not normal to wank off to pics of underaged people. I personally lost interest in that more or less immediately upon turning 18.
And you can tell the difference between a 14-year-old with a pushup bra and a 19-year-old with a pushup bra exactly how? In a world where hormones in the drinking water and better access to good nutrition can lead to Precocious puberty and a 12 year old who looks like she's 20, how the hell do you tell?
Legally, of course, you're completely right. I'm just pointing out that your claim to have "lost interest in that more or less immediately upon turning 18" is somewhat suspect indeed. Also, your claim that it isn't "normal" is suspect given the normal ages of marriage in primitive cultures, which usually for women was upon the onset of menses, much younger than 18.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
I think you are, in large, right. One stumbling block tho: when those kids grow up, they become insane parents themselves. And insane parents, as proven by several generations since the 70'ies, will forget ideals, become even more over-protecting and borderline insane - all for their children. :)
Not in Soviet Amerika(disclaimer: YMMV depending on the state)!
Say, hypothetically, that you're 23 years old. You go to a 18+ or even a 21+ club and you meet a girl who unambiguously wants to have sex with you. You ask her, "Are you over 18?" She tells you yes. You ask to see her I.D. and it shows her picture and it indicates that her age is over 18. You take her home and have sex with her...
Later the cops knock on your door and arrest you for statutory rape. Turns out she felt guilty about the whole thing. Maybe she used her fake I.D. to buy herself too many drinks and she lost her judgement, or maybe her boyfriend just found out and gave her an ultimatum with turning you in as a condition. But none of the petty details matter as much as the fact that
You are now a rapist. Look forward to a short, painful rest of your life in and out of prison.
Let's change the scenario slightly.
Let's make them cartoons depicting gruesome murders -- but note that as with the kiddie porn, no actual person is harmed. Or at the other end of the scale -- cartoons depicting someone smoking pot, even tho no actual marijuana was grown, harvested, or smoked.
HOW IS THIS DIFFERENT??
Under a worst-case interpretation, a cartoon depiction or written description of a crime becomes legally the same as doing the crime itself, and subject to the same penalty as the real thing.
Under worst-case enforcement, that would pretty much empty most libraries, just for starters.
I don't have time to wade through and wrap my brain around all the legalese in the decision, but I do know we definitely do NOT want to go down the road of enforcing real penalties against fantasy depictions of crimes, regardless of what that crime may be.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Rather the point I made up above -- if fantasy depiction of one crime is illegal, and is to be penalised as if it's the real thing -- then ALL fantasy depictions of crimes must, in fairness, be equally penalised as if they are real.
And there goes the contents of most libraries, most film/TV, and anything else that might depict persons or property or intent.
I'm reminded that some cultures and religions prohibit depictions of humans -- the stated reason is that it's idolatry or soul theft or some such, but one wonders if the foundation might have been something akin to what we're discussing. Imagine the caveman arguing his case before the hetman: "Og drew a picture of me with a knife in my head! Og wants to kill me, and for that Og must pay!" To which the hetman, tired of this argument, responds: "No more drawings of people! And if you disobey me, the sky gods will strike you dead!"
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
That gets into the entire 'what is normal' problem. Current attitudes concerning when someone is sexually mature are neither normal nor natural. Over the last century or so we have been pushing the age of 'child' further and further and putting more and more importance on 'keeping innocence' and have really been forcing the myth that minors (i.e. people between 12 and 18) are unable to act like adults...
It is -- and should be IMO -- illegal to portray children having sex.
Please forgive my abysmally poor artistic skills.
This is a fictional depiction of a 16 year old boy lying down:
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This is a fictional depiction of a 16 year old girl lying down:
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This is a fictional depiction of a 16 year old boy lying down on top of a 16 year old girl, having sex:
=
If you think I have committed an actual criminal act and that you have some right to pull out a gun and and attempt to imprison me with deadly force then you are dangerous and deluded, and I well defend myself with equally deadly force. And if you think you have some right pull out a gun and kill or imprison someone else for drawing fiction just because they have better art skills than me, then you are just as dangerous and deluded.
You're no better than the Taliban-types that claim it is a criminal act to draw fictional images of Mohammad, and presume they have some fucked-up right to murder or imprison people for drawings, or to run around blowing up random building and random innocent people just because some drawing offends them. Some people have this fucked up notion that they have some right to use force, injure, imprison, or even kill anyone who offends them. Ooooo... a picture of a woman without a veil on her face.... that's porn... pull out a gun and imprison the pornographer.... and shoot to kill if he resists arrest.
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.