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Graphic Artists Condemn UK Ban On Erotic Comics
mdwh2 writes "Graphic artists, publishers and MPs have condemned the UK's Coroners and Justice Bill, which will criminalize possession of sexual depictions that appear to show someone under 18 (the age of consent is 16 in the UK), as well as adults where the 'predominant impression conveyed' is of someone under 18, and even if they are merely drawn as being present whilst sexual activity took place between adults. The definitions could include Lost Girls, Watchmen, and South Park. The Comic Book Alliance has launched a petition against the law."
There's "what a law targets", and there's "what a law hits", and they can be two very different things indeed.
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
Question their motives? So what if their motive is that they want to draw fictional naked children? As long as no real children are portrayed or in any way harmed in the making of those drawings, why should anyone care? The original point of child porn laws was to protect the children in the pornography. In this case, there are none.
Warning: Apple/Nintendo fangirl. Likes her electronics cute & cuddly. May be rabid.
Unfortunately, laws don't really act as they were "intended", they act as they are written(at best, it's all downhill from there). Even if the law is actually written with the more-or-less-pure motive of cracking down on the 4chan babyrapers fan-art fanclub(and that isn't necessarily a safe assumption; pretty much any sex-related law has at least a few theocrats clinging to it somewhere), the original motive won't last for long. If passed, it will most likely be being applied to pretty much any graphic art that happens to make the Daily Mail readership uncomfortable within a few years.
Where's the line going to be drawn on that law ?
I understand the need to keep an eye on the perverts who pass themselves off as artists, but guys, myself included, routinely joke about checking ID before sleeping with a chick for good reason.
Wanna fight ? Bend over, stick your head up your ass, and fight for air.
And Megan's Law is never applied here in the US to people who peed outside or had sex with their 17 year old girlfriend while he was 18. Child porn laws are never turned on children who photograph themselves. But what difference does it make? It's for teh childres!!
The stories and info posted here are artistic works of fiction and falsehood.
Only fools would take it as fact.
My sibling posts have already pointed out some of the problems with that assertion, but I still think you might hava a point here. It is quite obvious that this law is not about protecting children, so you start wondering what it is about. And criminalizing the anime/manga aficionados is politically convenient, considering that they're an unruly bunch of liberals and swing voters, who are generally opposed to current government policy already.
would it not follow that written descriptions be outlawed as well.
furthermore, when drawing stick people, how do you tell a dwarf from a child...
And what's wrong with obscenity?
I understand obscene material bothers some people, but as long as they're not forced to watch it, I don't see why I can't.
As a Slashdot discussion grows longer, the probability of an analogy involving cars approaches one.
2girls1cup isn't illegal therefore I reject the whole premise.
I know a woman who likes to eat goat shit, because it's fairly dry and full of fiber, and I once jacked off while watching her carve up the neighbor's baby and make a roast out of it.
Complete bullshit of course. And the most obscene things I could think of on the spur of the moment. Should it be illegal to say such things?
It's all in there!
Perverts have been forcing it on children for thousands of years!
The sickness must stop!
Hitler studied to be a Catholic Priest.
Stalin studied to be an Orthadox Priest.
Almost everyone convicted of a violent crime in the US is religious. Worldwide, every single major terrorist incident was committed by religious people.
So again, if we are going to ban something for the good of everyone it should be the Bible, not comic books.
People are such twits. They really think they are helping children when doing this, which is the ultimate scape goat. What they are actually doing is preventing them selves from being exposed to something they find objectionable. They are imposing their morality/fear on individuals who aren't committing crimes, of course... not for long. What this all boils down to in a neat way, as it always does, is.... people are stupid.
Eat sleep die
But drawing people being torn apart or burned or tortured (non-sexually) is not obscene? I suppose I must have missed the memo explaining how X+sex is evil and must be banned, when X is tolerated and "free speech" and what not.
Weird. I thought anti-CP laws were about preventing child abuse. But if they are simply about obscenity... well, from now on I'll have to regard CP-producers as free speech activists!
Circumcision is child abuse.
Although drawing a naked baby being raped by guys in rabbit suits might not involve any children who once or ever will exist, it's still obscene.
What's obscene is that you consider it your business to tell people what they can draw.
I wonder if anyone would be so bold as to do the right thing, and suggest a law protecting artistic expression in the UK, equivalent in scope to American Freedom of Speech?
Dude, where's my packet?
If it hasn't happened already, I imagine that pretty soon the number of "child" porn (by the legal definition) images on social networking sites and cell phones will out-number all the other child porn images ever created.
There's just no sense in laws that make images of naked people under the age of 18 illegal. Punish the people who actually commit crimes of child abuse.
The original intent of obscenity laws was to prevent the public display of obscene material, not to protect against thoughtcrime. If someone draws something that you would find offensive, should that really be outlawed if it's kept private?
But cartoons aren't ART!
For it to be art, it has to be old!
"It is possible to commit no errors and still lose. That is not a weakness. That is life." -Peak Performance
Meanwhile in the USA two people who forced a 13yo to strip and expose herself to them on nothing more than the word of one student who they knew hated her are not being tried for a sex offense while a 14yo girl who took sex pics of herself for her boyfriend IS. Rest of the world: We don't get it either.
A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
When your house gets raided and the material you intended to keep private gets seized and is no longer private, we'll see how you feel about that argument.
Wait, what? How would someone in possession of a drawing be a child molester? Don't you need to, I dunno, molest a child in order to become a child molester?
"An image is "pornographic" if it is of such a nature that it must reasonably be assumed to have been produced solely or principally for the purpose of sexual arousal."
That's a rather broad definition... Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition, Victoria's Secret catalogues, and just about anything that directly or indirectly invokes the "sex sells!" marketing theory.
Thoughtcrime, of course.
Good-bye
Child pornography is a subset of the term obscenity (at least, if you're a healthy individual it is).
Well, if the UK law is anything like the US law, it's not a subset of obscenity -- in fact, child porn is another category entirely precisely so that prosecutors don't have to meet the "obscenity" standard in order to prosecute child porn (because, as the GP noted, child porn inherently exploits the children in the porn). This was reaffirmed by the Supreme Court a few years ago when dealing with "virtual child porn"; this case raises the same issues.
Define the word. For me, "obscene" means: something that makes the prudes freak out.
Andres Serrano. HR Giger. Larry Flynt. 2 Live Crew. Mortal Kombat. Jyllands-Posten. Getting the idea now?
Circumcision is child abuse.
Agreed. Additionally, "fine" folllows only a single rule: "Your Mileage May Vary".
The definition of "fine" is made by individuals. Being so it may and will vary. The problem isn't whether it is "obscene", but whether it is harmful. The difference between perceived and real should be noted.
Are the viewers willing to see it? Is it causing any real harm? What is the opinion of the sides involved? And, more importantly: is there any issue that should be priorized before discussing this?
These are the questions that should be addressed
The good, the evil and the vacuum tubes.
It matters quite a bit how the image is produced. In fact, that's the crux of the issue. A guy who paints a picture of a child having sex isn't hurting anyone, so the law should leave him alone. The reason we have child porn laws is because the children used to make the pictures are considered victims. No victims, no crime.
They don't hit because they're leading the target, they hit because they're using scattershot. And they're hitting a shitload of other stuff too.
So is it acceptable for two people to force a 13yo to strip and expose herself to them so long as it is not for their sexual gratification?
Not proven. And even if it were, not anybody else's business.
See above.
Not proven.
Not proven - so vague as to be meaningless, hence unprovable.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
I find child pornography as revolting as anyone (aside from the sickos, of course). That said, I staunchly defend anyone's right to artistic expression, regardless of how revolting I might find it. You can't have it both ways; either you have freedom of expression, or you wind up legislating it away.
As long as no actual child is harmed, I cannot argue with fictional representations of sexual acts involving children. Are they repulsive? Yes. I'll still fight hard to defend the right to create such content, on the grounds that no actual person is being hurt.
In short, I find your agreement with legislating morality as it pertains to freedom of expression to be obscene.
512 MB RAM, 20 GB disk, 200 GB transfer, five datacenters. $19.95/month.
Just like here in Australia, where we said that Bart and Lisa were real people and if you draw/possess/distribute pictures of them naked, you go to jail.
This would be kind of ironic considering some of the comments when the logo for the 2012 London Olympics was first shown.
So is it acceptable for two people to force a 13yo to strip and expose herself to them so long as it is not for their sexual gratification?
How do we know it wasn't for their sexual gratification. That's before even considering ideas like "rape is more about power than sex" or even that there are plenty of people who find power to be sexually arrousing.
Because as with other crimes it often isn't the motive of perpetrator but rather the effect upon the victim. Motives are just convenient to persuading juries that the crime actually did occur. I'd love to see a study done to determine whether the many actions humans perform necessarily have a registrable motive. I suspect many actions don't. Certainly many actions aren't premeditated as such.
Semi-automatic amateur armchair Australian philosopher; conjecture ready at any moment...
Where does prohibition figure in this I wonder. For example, in the USA there seems to be a big thing about seeing breasts (and topless bathing is, as I understand it, illegal), whereas in Europe (where it's mostly legal, especially the Med beaches), breasts are two a penny and not such a big deal!
Stepping over to the Scandinavian countries and there they have a still more open attidute, and full nudity seems to be no big deal.
Is there a frisson of excitement added to the pot for images deemed 'obscene'? Think of TubGirl (OK ... actually, let's not think of it!). How many of you have seen it? Is that obscene? I'd say it was obscene, and yet I've seen it (actually, of course without seeing it you can't really judge!). I've seen it and, strangely, it's not something I suddenly want to try for myself either! So can something be "obscene" and yet not "dangerous"? So it it's not dangerous why talk about making such images illegal?
As with all censorship, it's Mr. Outraged, of Middle England, trying to impose their values on everyone else, because they are right and we all need protecting from ourselves!
Do I think some things should be illegal - HELL YES! Culottes for a start, they're just Devil's Trousers!
In this case, do I think it's right to ban cartoon images of minors in sexual situations. Blimey! That's a tough one. A blanked YES will catch stuff like South Park, and is therefore, IMHO, obviously wrong - but for sure people are going "too far" in other areas and it makes sense to try and formulate a legal response in those cases. I don't know what the answer is, or even if it would be possible to distinguish South Park from South Pron in some useful legal way?
Eclectic beats from Leeds, UK
handmadehands.co.uk
But drawing people being torn apart or burned or tortured (non-sexually) is not obscene?
The same applies to movies and TV. e.g. the first (1977) Star Wars movie was classified as suitable for all audiences, even though it includes the use of a WMD which killed huge numbers of people.
I suppose I must have missed the memo explaining how X+sex is evil and must be banned, when X is tolerated and "free speech" and what not.
The "violence is ok, sex is not" idea appears most common in the US. Where apparently one nipple equates to "sex"...
> This doesn't negate the fact that the viewer can be harming themselves by seeing it.
Even if we assume that 'fact' is true, should it be illegal for people to harm themselves? How harmful is watching child porn to the viewer? Define harm. Can I amputate my own arm? Finger? Can I get a piercing? Earrings?
Speak for yourself buddy. I'm of the opinion that making the production of "obscene things" illegal is an anathema to free society. And I think you'll be hard pressed to find many allies here.
"Did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage?"
Just curious as to how the brits are taking the movie "The Reader" ?.. Course we are not talking about infants, and the fact that the one being 15 is a boy instead of a girl lets it slide I suppose.. but couldn't this movie fall under those laws ?
I liked the movie.. but you have to wonder what happens if you place it in modern day, and or reverse the roles to older man younger girl.. some people would be freaking out, you can be sure.
waiting for ad.doubleclick.net
It's yucky and I don't like it personally so you shouldn't be allowed to do it. Decent people (like me) all agree.
Rampant carbon sequestration destroyed the Dinosaurs' tropical paradise. I'm here to help repair the damage.
Are you saying that you're the go-to guy on what's obscene?
No, but you seem to be saying that you are. Your posts repeatedly imply that obscenity is an absolute--that there is a basic definition (you even referred us to Wikipedia, as if that's an agreed-upon resource.)
Meanwhile, for many of us "obscenity" is a code word for "I want to impose my morality on others", for people out to do that are far & away the most likely to use the term. And you, like they do, imply that there can be an agreed-upon definition. But somehow the "obscenity line" is always a moving target. If the "stop obscenity" people get their way with one law, they turn around and want to move it again to include more censorship. If the anti-obscenity law folks defeat the latest censorship bill, the stop-obscenity people find something else they want to ban, again moving the line. That's because they aren't really out to protect people but to control them.
"We can categorically state we have not released man-eating badgers into the area." - UK military spokesman, July 2007
>>>I think we all agree that obscene things can be made illegal to produce
No we don't. The right to liberated speech should Not be curtailed if there are no victims. If I want to draw Wonder Woman or Supergirl as a young child without clothes, so be it. You cannot victimize ink-on-paper. No crime has been committed unless you imprison me, and then you've committed the crime of human rights' abuse.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Child pornography
This is not a law on child pornography (which involves the abuse of children), it is a law on fictional depictions of under-18s, as well as adults with a predominant impression of someone under 18. Please RTFS.
Secondly, we already have laws against obscenity - as you say yourself. What is the justification of a new law then, one that covers simple private possession? The justification for obscenity laws is ropey enough in the first place, but the concept of "Obscenity" only has meaning in terms of showing it to other people. In fact one MP (Edward Garnier) did propose limiting this new law to publication - despite his definition being so broad as to include merely showing it to someone, he was criticised by other MPs, and labelled a "libertarian"(!)
Let's not get into that debate though, there's Wikipedia if we need to look up basic definitions.
You should trying looking up the definition of "child pornography" on Wikipedia, and see how it is defined as the abuse of children, and not me doing a quick doodle on a piece of paper.
Under this law, I could take an image of two consenting adults having sex, doodle a fully-clothed 17 year old on it in the background, and suddenly the image is illegal and I need to be put in prison for three years.
But take a pair of scissors and cut the image in two, so the so-called "child" is no longer in the scene, and the image is legal again.
You might draw two perpendicular stick figures and write "guy fucking a baby" underneath it. Then I'd argue that the title would be considered obscene and the drawing is irrelevant.
Do you think that writing "guy fucking a baby" should therefore result in a three year prison sentence?
If so, you'd better report to the local police station, because you've just done it. If you don't, do you agree that it shouldn't for a drawing, either?
Common sense would dictate
Law does not work that way :(
Another law being passed based on the assumption that a certain medium is targeted and consumed exlusively by children.
I'm almost 30 and I own several thousand comic books, probably 30 graphic novels, and actively collect 6 or 7 titles every month. I own the Watchmen and several other titles that would be taboo under this law. None of what's in any of these is more pornographic that he Clan of the Cave Bear series by Jean M. Auel, which my parents gave me to read when I was 13. They'd already read the books a couple of years before and knew about the sex scenes. My wife read Flowers in the Attic around the same age and she tells me that the oldest boy rapes his sister.
Neither of these books come with warnings about the graphic nature of their content or laws to prevent their dissemination to children 2 years above the legal age of consent (WTF, this is akin to the difference between the draft age and legal purchase of alcohol in the US).
My wife is pregnant with our first child and I hope that I never become so irresponsible that I want the government to censor artistic expression because I'm too lazy to investigate the media my children are interested in before I let them consume it. My parents used the Clan of the Cave Bear books as a starting point for the discussion of, not only reproduction, but relationships and human sexuality. I'm sure my parents were embarrased, but that was there job NOT the governments.
For the most part people have little problem with sex or sexuality in visual art. How many nude paintings did you see on your field trips to art museums growing up? For the most part people also have little problem with sex or sexuality in written art. I can't count the number of novels I read in middle school and high school that at least made reference to sex. However, when you combine the visual and written medium everyone looses their Fracking mind if anything taboo comes up (Drugs, sex, etc were the original reason for creating the Comics Code here in the US).
It's all just Nanny State BS.
Bureaucracy expands to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.-Oscar Wilde
Like I said, someone taking pornographic photos of a child is a child molester.
Yes.
A person in possession of a pornographic image of a child is guilty of possessing a pornographic image of a child.
Right.
Whether the image is produced by camera, Photoshop, or a charcoal pencil is irrelevant, it's the intent and context that define its legality.
Incorrect, because in the latter cases, there is no child. Please grasp the difference between fiction and reality. Your logic is no different to saying:
"A person shooting someone is a murderer. A person who murders is guilty of murder. It doesn't matter whether he shoots a real person with a gun, or in a computer game ..."
Either possessing child porn is legal or it's not, does it really matter if it's a realistic digital rendering or photo?
But if you're now talking about what the law is, yes, it does make a difference. Laws apply differently depending on whether they're real or not, and even for fictional images, whether they're realistic or not.
And the issue here isn't realistic images - it's unrealistic ones that will be covered by this new law. But they aren't yet covered.
The person in possession of it didn't directly harm a child in either case.
Well, the logic of criminalising child porn is that it creates demand for actual child abuse, and the need to reduce this overwhelms any concerns about owning a image of child abuse where the person technically didn't create demand for abuse.
That logic doesn't apply to cartoons. If you want to argue against that logic, then you're not arguing in favour of this law, you're arguing against the justification of criminalising child porn in the first place.
I hope to hell you're being ironic/joking, and I just got wooshed.
Otherwise, fuck off. It's irrelevant what 'decent people' think. It doesn't affect them, unless they want it to.
Sharia law is moral to Muslims... but we don't like when it's legislated. So stop being hypocrites and stop trying to legislate morality. How do you know that your morality is right? What if somebody did it to you? A muslim is every bit as convinced of their correctness as you are. Perhaps more relevantly, I am every bit as convinced as you are that my morality (who cares if it doesn't affect me) is correct, nay more correct.
Since we can't know either way, law has no business being involved.
I have developed a truly marvelous proof of this comment, which this signature is too narrow to contain.
Exactly.
If something done by A is harmful to B, and B hasn't consented to it (which includes being old enough to consent), then maybe there is a case for government involvement. But if there is no demonstrated harm then what the hell business is it of government????
We are about to go through this in Canada where, after years of soap-boxing by a tiny number of ideologically oriented journalists, the government is about to find out if the law against polygamy is constitutional. They are going to prosecute some of the residents of a small town populated by an offshoot of the Mormons.
Not having any ability to show that polygamy itself is actually harmful the offended folk have managed to associate it with sexual assault and other sex crimes. The thing is there are already laws against these other things so why, after many years of observation, haven't the police laid charges under these other laws? Because there is no evidence to support them.
But polygamy offends the press activists who have been campaigning against it so they keep on about child abuse, at the same time ignoring the very real widespread and very obvious child prostitution going on in their own cities. Now they've got federal politicians up in arms about "Canadian values." So we will have the situation where two people can have a sexual relationship and live together. The two can also have a sexual relationship with a third person - as long as that person doesn't live with them. But let the third person move in so that there is effectively a marriage of 3 (formalized or not) and boom they are breaking the law. How can this make sense to anybody?
The tyrant will always find a pretext for his tyranny - Aesop
OTHERS WILL MISINTERPRET THIS ON PURPOSE!
The MOMENT you allow a matter of taste "obscene" to be part of law then you can just wait for SOMEONE to classify something as obscene that you don't agree with.
Jazz was obscene to the nazi's. Godwin be damned, either you have freedom of speech or you don't and if you don't want speech that you find obscene then you can't have free speech and sooner or later someone will find what you find normal obscene.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Torture? So you'd outlaw everything from _Slumdog Millionaire_ to the ST:TNG episode "Chain of Command" to several Edgar Allen Poe stories?
Just because it makes sense to prohibit an action doesn't mean it makes sense to prohibit its fictional depiction.
And that sort of "reasoning" is the frictionless surface on the slippery slope to tyranny.
If there's twice as many of us as there are of you, why shouldn't we stop you from doing things that we think are yucky? You shouldn't want to do them anyway, because we don't.
Rampant carbon sequestration destroyed the Dinosaurs' tropical paradise. I'm here to help repair the damage.
The point is not to prevent anything, but to use the current 'witchhunt'-flavor of the day (or generation) to implement laws that enable government to 'optionally' criminalize everyone to allow selective enforcement.]
There is a threat that people might actually not break the law -- in which case, the power of a government is hampered in its ability to establish control through threat.
If there are few laws, then when the government wants to silence you, people ask why. If the law is so complex you that everyone is a law-breaker, then when asked why, they can mumble something about US or State, or City (or whatever gov) code clearly says the person they arrested is a law breaker. They'll get a swift & speedy court date within 5 years with a public defender -- don't worry "ma'am/sir", justice will prevail.
By creating a law that is subjective like 'looks young', they open a whole new avenue of silencing people they don't like.
They also create new excuses to hunt for more 'violating items'. So how about we start treating all Japanese anime as 'suspicious', because they draw young looking sexualized characters in stories (even if the show is aimed at children,
it's really all a cover for old perverts to look at forbidden drawings)...etc. blah blah blah.... Have to keep the laws up-to-date and current to go after 'technology', as drawings/computer art is looking more real all the time. The supposed reasoning for crackdown on child-porn, is that the children were exploited. But if the pics aren't real, where are the victimized children we have been hoodwinked into 'protecting'?
It becomes another way the government extends its license to interfere in consensual adult activity that prudes want to regulate and extinguish so everyone is under their thumbs and as unhappy as those pushing the laws.
*sigh*
(what else is new...story of 'humanity'...)
-l