(no subject)

[drewkitty]

I am watching with some bemusement as Six Apart establishes for itself a highly untenable position in both law and public relations. Ineffective censorship sacrifices important legal protections and carries with it the burden of being effective -- plus angering your so-called community.



The law is clear. If you want to portray someone else's characters in sexual situations, you'd better RUN, not walk, to the legal definitions of "parody" and become very, very familiar with them. So if you want to show Snape and Dumbledore in a threesome with Harry's mother, it's not enough for it to be "HAWT" . . . it needs to do a good job of social commentary on the Harry Potter books. The very lack of sex in the series cries out for parody, in my arrogant opinion. Just do it right.

The law is even more clear on the subject of portrayals of minors engaged in sexual situations. In static text, a 1st Amendment right may or may not exist . . . but in text chat, graphics or video, not only do you NOT have a right to such portrayals, but you risk criminal prosecution under our felony child pornography laws.

Harry Potter is a minor under US law. Never mind that he's been in the kind of close combat that is unusually likely to trigger PTSD and flashbacks. If you write the phrase "Potter's cock cried out for attention" you'd better be talking about a clay-worker's rooster just at dawn.

I remain bemused by the case of the sixteen year old girl who took pictures of herself in bed with her seventeen year old boyfriend . . . and was convicted on child pornography charges. Article | comments on topix.net

I am also concerned about this case, where poses that are shown constantly in such publications as Seventeen and Teen Cosmo are now being criminally prosecuted.

Our Draconian laws have slipped far behind the social reality and far, far behind our technology. I can't speak for everyone else, but I didn't discover that I had genitals on the day I turned eighteen.

I was going to write a dissertation touching on some of these issues, but I was frostily informed that the Internet was not relevant to discussions of social deviance, and that pursuing such research would be a dead end. Now I'm kind of glad I didn't, because writing for academia is a form of intellectual masturbation . . . except that after self-abuse, one has something to show for it.

I'd also like to wave a cheery "hi" to the Six Apart abuse team member / employee who hits this post due to keyword searches. Be aware, your participation in Six Apart censorship puts you at risk of personal liability for being sued. Cheers.

Comments

[taral.livejournal.com]

So tempted to find someone willing to be the guinea pig for a test case. :D

[kensan-oni.livejournal.com]

*headthunk*

... I don't know what is worse... The ruling, or the people commenting who didn't bother reading the article...

One of these days, we are going to get rid of these stupid puritanical values this country has fallen in love with and actually approach sex with maturity instead of insisting everyone is always a ken and barbi doll.

[cheesybunny.livejournal.com]

Actually I think those comments are about a different case, if you click on the link to the story at the top of the comments page you'll see it's something about some teens posting some pictures on myspace.

[drewkitty.livejournal.com]

Several separate cases there. The topix.net refers to two girls who posted pictures of themselves _together_ on myspace . . . the CNet article is about the case in Florida with the 16 and 17 year old. Neither of these cases is the case I actually recall, which involved a teenager posting pictures only of herself, who was brought to trial on child pornography charges and convicted.

Just goes to show what kind of problem we hare having.

[ihuitl.livejournal.com]

The problems here are manifold:

- The idea of 'provocative' is so vague as to allow anyone to be prosecuted just because someone in the right position might feel uncomfortable. Especially if they can conjure moral panic and remind parents to be paranoid that their children might be touching themselves at night, even if they are old enough to learn to drive.

- The state considers anyone under 18 to have the mental reasoning of a toddler, for legal purposes. This is flatly stupid: the ages of consent in many other states and nations are 15-17, which I think it much more reasonable.

- People refuse to admit when teens become sexual, and that there is a difference between a sexually mature high school student and a prepubescent child. Laws should reflect the age of the victim and punish appropriately: under 14 is fine as a heinous felony but I wonder if 1-2 years under the age of consent doesn't deserve to be a wobbler. The distance in age should also be considered.

- I just don't care anymore what the state does; california is too busy regulating trans fats to even touch this, and if they do it will mean a backlash of paranoid Oprah-watchers. Same for the draconian weapons laws.

[drewkitty.livejournal.com]

Much better. There's California state law. Then there's Federal law. The gap is widest in places like Louisiana, where the age of consent is low yet Federal child pornography law controls.

[crassus.livejournal.com]

Here, here. (Or is that hear, hear? Always been confused on that one..)

There was a recent article about an unrelated case of a 15 year old boy who had taken pictures of girls his age on his camera. The report featured two law enforcement spokespeople at the mic giving a press conference where the woman said (and I'm paraphrasing): "We live in a dangerous world where our kids are coming under attack from predators at all angles, and whether they are adults or kids themselves, we need to raise awareness to this issue."

Essentially, in that one stroke, she painted a boy taking a sexy picture of someone his age as a predatory action. He is now a predator for finding someone his age sexy.

Another case is still underway of a 12 and 13 year old who had sex with each other in Utah where both parties are being labelled as both victim and predator under the current law. The law states that having sex with anyone under the age of 14 is a felony, regardless of how old the "perpetrator" is. I wonder how they would handle masturbation.

Another case which made the frontpage of CNN of a 17 year old boy who had oral sex with a 15 year old and is currently serving 10 years in state prison is another poser. The two were at a party and the boy was going down on a willing girl and the act was videotaped. The case was open and therefore by Georgia law, all documents, including the videotape which was deemed as child pornography must be made available to anyone who requests it. Officials are flipping head over heels, saying that "we must protect our children from the DA" and change the law to make sure that such materials are kept out of view.

There's so many of these cases to choose from. It seems that it's happening every day. If it weren't so politically incorrect to joke about this stuff in public, one could imagine Jon Stewart having a field day making a career out of the material comparable to Chris Hansen.

It's a shame you didn't write your dissertation on the subject. I would've loved to have read it.

[drewkitty.livejournal.com]

>> Another case is still underway of a 12 and 13 year old who had sex with each other in Utah where both parties are being labelled as both victim and predator under the current law. The law states that having sex with anyone under the age of 14 is a felony, regardless of how old the "perpetrator" is.

Back in "the day," this would have been handled as evidence of unfit or abusive parents and the kids would be taken into custody and placed (separately) as wards of the court, with counseling. Nowadays, there are so many abusive parents and so few placements, even for children who are being badly abused, that maybe juvenile probation and monitoring is the best answer.

The English common law doctrine of mens rea suggests strongly that a person eight years old or younger would be exempt automatically from the statute, as being unable to distinguish between right and wrong sufficiently. So nine through fourteen year olds would merely fall under the jurisdiction of the juvenile court, which has wide discretion to act in the best interest of all parties. Fifteen through seventeen year olds likewise, but face the potential of being charged as an adult with all of those consequences. Eighteen and older, the venue shifts to criminal court.

So on its face it looks ugly, but in the context of the juvenile justice system and our history of jurisprudence, it's actually quite reasonable.

The question that no one is willing to examine (for a variety of reasons) is simply this: should there ever be a case where a minor has sexual relations, that does NOT at least in theory require the intervention of the juvenile court, plus criminal court if the other party is not a minor (by age or adjudication.) Note that any loophole will be immediately exploited by unscrupulous predators.

[alienor77310.livejournal.com]

WARNING: Kinda SPOILER for Deathly Hallows

Many fen thought that the epilogue to the book was crap. But for fanartists, it is probably a boon - because it refers to a 37-y.o. Harry Potter. Without that epilogue, Harry would have remained 17 forever in the legal eyes of some hosts, such as deviantart.com, and hence subject of child pornography laws, even if depicted with white hair and wrinkles.