Well... here we go. Obscenity in Manga trial.

[wewontdie11]

Well I think we're all in agreement that 20 years is simply far too much, but the rest of this debate is very complicated.

I am usually a great believer in freedom of artistic expression and against censorship under the majority of circumstances, but this being a rather sensitive issue I think I've been forced to re-assess my views a bit.

It is minors that we're talking about, and somebody getting off to line drawings may well fall down the slippery slope of progressing to the real thing and doing something dangerous. But I have also usually had more faith in people than that, that average Joe isn't as susceptible to blurring the lines between reality and fiction as many would have us believe.

Then again at this moment in time, what he is being tried for has not harmed or infringed the rights of another person, so I don't see the need to send him to prison except to potentially prevent him from molesting real children. Which on the face of it seems ridiculous in itself. Locking him up "just in case".

This is a tricky one...

 

[AuntyEthel]

Yes, I appreciate no actual children were harmed in the creation of a manga and that allowing people to deem a collection of lines and scribbles 'obscene' could destroy art as we know it. On the other hand it's child porn

This is exactly how I've always felt. No matter how much people claim it to be art, or fiction, or 'just a drawing,' I always just say, "Dude, its childporn. No doubt about it."

It's not. There's no human child in the picture.

I do agree with you that hentai with kids doesn't use real children, but consider this...
When the artist/writer is initially conceptualising for the manga, what exactly is running through his head? It must be something along the lines of, "Well, I'm going to do a sexually perverse graphic novel, but I'm not going to draw adults. I'm gonna draw kids having sex." In my mind, that is really fucked up.

 

[Sylocat]

Haven't we already HAD these arguments about lolicon and shotacon? America got into a Moral Outrage(TM) over all this a while ago, we had the argument then, and we're all using the same repetitive arguments now.

If I buy Manhunt, should I be arrested for murder? Should I be arrested because buying it lets the Moral Guardians know that I may, at some future date, go out and commit murder? We talked about this in the ZP:Manhunt thread, and I don't recall anyone saying this. But of course, since our society is so much MORE uptight about sex than about any other "naughty" activity, the same people are using double standards here.

Now, let's talk about the psychology. Contrary to what you may think from watching Law & Order: SVU, most pedophiles go their entire lives without actually acting on their urges, and a good deal of child sexual abuse is committed by people who aren't actually pedophiles. Rape is about power, not sexual attraction. Furries are obnoxious, but they don't go around demanding that everyone else wear fursuits. Lolicon and shotacon could easily be considered a safe outlet for the urges of all the pedophiles who DON'T have the complete lack of self-control and the callous disregard for the feelings of others that you ALSO need in order to become a predator. Other "unusual" sexual preferences don't all come with those other requirements.

So you don't like lolicon, or tentacles. For the record, neither do I, but you know what? Big deal. Should we go around telling everyone else what they can and cannot jerk off to? For me the only requirement is that no actual person get hurt. If you start treating drawings as human, where does it end?

 

[Syntax Error]

I may be getting off on a tangent here, but by those laws, Bitter Virgin [http://www.onemanga.com/Bitter_Virgin/] (if you don't know about it, well, I linked you to the page, so start reading) would probably be illegal as well, same case with Blade of the Immortal (though the female in question here is not under aged). Thing is, there are some stories (usually sensitive material) that can only be depicted well using only a particular medium (most of the time, some subject matter are harder to pull off in more "mainstream" media, like TV shows and movies). Now if it's Lolicon, well, I would have my objections to that.

 

[Beowulf DW]

I may be getting off on a tangent here, but by those laws, Bitter Virgin [http://www.onemanga.com/Bitter_Virgin/] (if you don't know about it, well, I linked you to the page, so start reading) would probably be illegal as well, same case with Blade of the Immortal (though the female in question here is not under aged). Thing is, there are some stories (usually sensitive material) that can only be depicted well using only a particular medium (most of the time, some subject matter are harder to pull off in more "mainstream" media, like TV shows and movies). Now if it's Lolicon, well, I would have my objections to that.

There's a bit of a difference here. The rapes that occur in those two series, to my knowledge, are depicted as the evil acts they are, not for sexual gratification.

 

[Syntax Error]

There's a bit of a difference here. The rapes that occur in those two series, to my knowledge, are depicted as the evil acts they are, not for sexual gratification.

That's the point. Would it matter to the "untrained eye"? Would they actually bother to read through the totality of it instead of dismissing it as an "obscene" act just because it's illustrated? And at the beginning of the post, I did say that I was gonna be a bit off-topic.

EDIT: I'll stop using quotes for emphasis sometime soon. I think I overdid it with this last post.

 

[jasoncyrus]

This case honestly doesnt surprise me since a guy recently (ish) got put away for possessing simpson porn under child porn charges.

 

[jasoncyrus]

Anyone saying that it is just art has a seriously screwed moral compass.

That depends entirely on ones perspective.

Example: more "nude art" I'd never consider art. It's porn in a 3d solid format. Anyone who disagrees cannot call any other still singular nude image on the planet porn. saying a nude sculpture is art is calling a page 3 girl picture art.

For those who give the argument "It takes skill to creature a sculpture/painting...it takes a LOT of skill to create hentai and other none photographic erotic images.

I'll give a brief example:

Theres a 3d site I stumbled upon while searching for other coverage on this particular trial. What made me stop and investigate further was the quality of the images. Being a graphics study and design study this immediately struck a chord with me.

The content was put aside and I simply looked at it from a realism critique perspective. The realism of these images was *immense* a few of them i even had to stop and look at them again for a moment to make sure it wasn't real. Now I'm not talking you regular cheap 3d alien rubbish. I'm talking final fantasy CGI quality. Stuff you genuinely are gobsmakced at (once you get past the content).

If you are going to lock someone up for possessing manga you may aswell lock up anyone whos ever looked at a nude painting/sculpture.

 

[shadow skill]

This whole thing just reminds me of the Gernalow Wilson case, that kid got ten years for having sex with a girl in his own goddamn age group. As I started reading state laws regarding sex offenders I realized that the laws were written in a way that could allow a bored prosecutor to simply run through a high school with one of those earth moving vehicles with the scooper on the front and throw maybe a quarter of the kids in jail and force them to register as a sex offender. The man who wrote the law that Wilson was tried under even said the prosecutor was using it wrong! No one should be surprised by the idiocy of the case Decoy is talking about though, this is the country where it's possible to be charged as a sex offender against oneself or better yet as both victim and perpetrator for a non-violent act that inherently implies mutual consent due to the fact that the act is non-violent. The last part of the preceding sentence is confusing no? Believe me I was shocked when I came across an article about a girl being charged as a victim of and perpetrator of rape because she at the age of thirteen I believe had sex with and became pregnant by her boyfriend who was elven years old at the time!

Apparently some bored lawyers in Utah decided that her life was not fucked up enough, no they decided to take the matter to court, using some of the most fucked up logic I have ever seen in my life to charge her for raping her boyfriend and him for raping her since it is not legally (Note that this has no impact on intellectual capacity.) possible for either of them to consent since they were below the age of consent at the time. We shouldn't even be talking about whether a guy who likes Yaoi manga is a deviant, we should be talking about the people who write these demonic legislations, usually disguised as a measure to protect children, even hiding behind the name of the dead in many cases.

This whole thing is just one big mess but cases like this never cease to amaze me. Do any of you think you should go to jail because you watched a show where the hero employs aspects of asymmetric warfare that may be construed as terrorism? Does rooting for said hero make you a terrorist sympathizer? This case of sexcrime doesn't show how sick the accused is, instead it shows how sick the accuser is, that they would even seek to punish this in the first place.

 

[anti_strunt]

What are the odds the trial is as much about the fact that it is gay pron as that the characters might be potrayed as too young?

Anyhoo, here's a slight conundrum: it might be wrong to punish people who wack off to simulated child porn, but what about masturbating to the real stuff? As long as you haven't made the material yourself, as long as you aren't actually doing the molesting; you are only watching it. Should that, in-and-of itself be criminal? three points:

1. You would be paying other people to molest children.
It need not be so, I might just be downloading the stuff for free (and they say there's no such thing as acceptable piracy!).
2. You are withholding possible criminal evidence.
Again, need not be so, I might send it off to the FBI, and still keep a small cache to myself for "research purposes"...
3. You are participating in a crime.
Let's say I masturbate to footage of a bank robbery. Am I also a bank robber? Of course not. Let's say I masturbate to footage of child molestation. Am I also a child molester?

So, is it really possible to condemn someone who watches real child pron? If all three conditions about are met; why? As long as we talk about slippery slopes we should at least admit that the mountain can slope both ways. (And talk about OMGHITLER and OMGSTALIN only adds comedy to what should really be a serious discussion...)


Theory aside, I do believe anyone who displays pedophilistic tendencies irregardless of whether the individual acts on them should be forced to undergo some form of mandatory psychiatric therapy. Even if the condition is uncurable and "wired-in" at birth (which I do not necessarily accept), people who have such impulses should still be given every available degree of help in order to control those impulses - because those impulses should never, ever, be acted on.

In case you wonder, yes, I think people who display violent tendencies should also undergo similar treatment.

 

[anti_strunt]

Well, since the law is very clear on what legal porn is, i'd say yes, it certainly is a crime.

No duh.

That wasn't my point. I was arguing the morality behind it. Basically:
Simulated child-porn, no-one is hurt - A-OK. (Or so the argument goes.)
Real child-porn, what if no-one is hurt by my consumtion of it - is it then A-OK?
My three points tied into whether it might be possible to consume child-porn without actually contributing to the abuse of children. If so, would it be morally acceptable?

EDIT: How would this tie into, for instance, going to Rotten.Com to masturbate to pictures of burn victims?

 

[TheTygerfire]

 

[Riicek]

My three points tied into whether it might be possible to consume child-porn without actually contributing to the abuse of children. If so, would it be morally acceptable?

I'd argue that if you're consuming it you are contributing to the problem. If the desire for it isn't there than it won't exist. At least, that's how I see it.