Clamp Questions

[sharpeslass]

Okay, so my return to LiveJournal didn't take off quite with the momentum I'd planned. I just don't know where my time goes. I looked at my e-mail today and realized that two months had passed since I'd received an e-mail from a very good friend and that I still hadn't responded. I'm sure she is cross, but the time... it just sprints in epic

Comments

[7veilsphaedra]

I'm not in favour of fiction reflecting real life too closely - unless that's how the fiction itself wants to be reflected. I would far rather have the forbidden fruit stuff work itself out in the astral, through obvious and harmless fantasies and fictions, than intrude into the material where it breaks people physically, emotionally and mentally.

Why do people insist on breaking down barriers between fantasy and reality? A 30-year age-split in a fantasy situation is never what it appears to be on the surface. It's always about something which underlies the apparent reality: maybe a need for emotional strength and validation, possibly a source of a very specific sort of nurturing that is missing in real life, it could even be something completely different like "I love the way things were 30 years ago more than I like the present." This is why Freud and Jung and Adler, for all their flaws, took such care to point out that the subconscious is dominated by symbols, and those symbols are expressed in a language of colours, shapes and

[7veilsphaedra]

Also, the age of consent in Canada is 14, although legally, that is interpreted to mean an adult cannot have sex with a 14-year-old, but 14-year-olds can have sex with other 14-year-olds. One of my great-grandmothers was married at 15, and had her first two children by the time she was 16.

Until the 1950s there wasn't even a distinction for teenager. There were just children and adults.

Does this mean things were healthier in the past? Hell, no. But the preoccupation with young people's virginity is a kind of sickness in itself to my thinking. I've lived in countries where kids having sex with other kids is not treated like a big deal, and trust me, it isn't for the kids either. They are a whole lot less obsessed with 'getting it', and so they actually enjoy being kids instead of trying to be precocious adults.

[sharpeslass]

I think it is just that the whole idea of an adult male dating a ten year old is so utterly taboo in our society that I was surprised to see it in a fairly mainstream (in Japan) book read by kids. I'm not saying it should be banned or censored or even that it is wrong (though I will say that in reality an adult man dating a ten year old girl is wrong for many reasons). It was a shock to me to see it treated so casually and so I was more interested in what this meant culturally than psychologically, since in a totally American (or, I'm guessing, Canadian) publication, one wouldn't see such a scenario. I find it interesting that the general reaction of entire cultures can be so utterly different in their treatments of a subject. Make sense?

[7veilsphaedra]

Any adult, male or female, dating a 10-year-old is an absolute taboo, agreed. Pornographic representations of real children are also taboo, since the act of capturing sexual recordings of children in film, audio, photography or other such media is assault, plain and simple.

When it turns to artistic or literary forms, though, I back off. I don't like it. I think there are real psychological problems that need to be worked out by people who find that kind of thing stimulating. It is illegal in Canada, in fact, and the decision has already been handed down by the Supreme Court

[7veilsphaedra]

I was also reading your convo with lawless about the practice of 'dating with benefits' - essentially, prostitution. It's illegal in Japan, which is why it's very underground and why there are these coy euphemisms to describe it.

That kind of thing happens here in North America as well, and yes, with very young girls. Illegal as hell, but so is "solicitation for the purpose of purchasing or selling ..." sex which is a euphemism for prostitution.

The question is how strong is the social commitment to eliminating these things? A society with a strong middle-class is really the best protection for girls, boys and young men and women.

[sharpeslass]

It is sure as hell common practice to "date for benefits" in Las Vegas. I don't know about teens, but young women sure do it. And the couples are pretty darned obvious. But vegas was built on the idea that a rich man could surround himself with beautiful YOUNG women. The clubs all operate on that very premise...

[sharpeslass]

That is interesting... It is just such a different approach, or maybe a more old fashioned one? There was a time, not long ago, really, that the western world kept mum on such subjects as well

[lawless523]

I agree with you 100% on the difference between pornographic photography/video/audio where what the viewer sees is the sexual assault on and exploitation of an actual child and virtual representations through art, CGI, and in writing. To my knowledge, the US has yet to treat anything other than photography/video/audio as child porn.

One of the most important developments in the Handley case is the judge's dismissal of the child porn charges on the basis that the law they were relying on (either COPA or some later version of it) only applied to depictions of actual children. I am fairly confident that a law making depictions of virtual children in sexual acts illegal would be invalidated under the First Amendment because it's almost guaranteed to be overbroad.

[sharpeslass]

You can be arrested for owning a pornographic comic book depicting an underage child in the U.S.. There was a massive case not long ago in which a man was on trial. The comic book legal defense fund got involved. He was found in possession of a japanese comic book, the jury saw it, and were pretty merciless. I think he got prison time, though I believe it is on appeal. I don't know where it stands now. But it is definitely illegal to own art or any drawn depiction of sexualized children.

[lawless523]

Are you sure you're not thinking of the Handley case? He was prosecuted under obscenity laws for manga he possessed. The comic book defense fund was involved, but the child porn charges were dismissed for the reasons I stated: the relevant statute only deals with depictions of actual children, not virtual ones

[sharpeslass]

Yeah, I think that is the case I was thinking of. I suppose the law itself is irrelevant. If someone can be prosecuted for simply owning this type of manga, then it might as well be illegal. You are the lawyer though, not me!! I wouldn't feel safe owning anything like that...

[lawless523]

Really? I feel perfectly safe as long as I don't take the stuff, or a hard drive with it, into Canada. I have really hardcore, xxx-rated Gravitation doujinshi on my hard drive that depicts characters who are canonically of age but one of whom is drawn to look like he's ten or twelve. The doujinshi was created by the mangaka herself. There are also reasons why I believe it would pass the obscenity test that Handley's lawyer thought his manga would flunk.

In this link from an ANN Chicks on Anime roundtable on censorship with manga editor and expert Jason Thompson, Casey Brienza, an LJ friend of mine who is now writing a doctoral dissertation on manga, observes that women have not been and are never likely to be prosecuted for owning similar stuff. Neither Jason nor any of the other two participants in the roundtable disagreed with her. Why? Because women aren't viewed as potential predators, which is the real reason for prosecuting someone with a stash of manga that includes virtual child porn (or what looks like it). For all I know,

[sharpeslass]

I just wouldn't want to take the risk. If I was passionate about it, I might find it worthwhile, but most of my stuff just involves lovely young men who could be anywhere from 16 to 30. I have to say, if the story line identified them as "of age" I would be less worried about it regardless of the art, because pointing to the storyline as a defense would seem reasonable "look he's 18!!"

There are female sexual predators... Not as many, but they exist. I have a co-worker whose little boy was molested by a female babysitter. I understand Handley's stuff was pretty shocking. But it is still, at the heart of the matter, just a bunch of pencil squiggles on a page and no children were in any way involved.

[lawless523]

I don't see it as a risk, probably because of my background. I figure I can bamboozle any opposition, and I know constitutional law pretty well.

Yes, there are female predators, but I don't see the media pointed to as a reason why they're sexual predators. The argument, besides the sense that someone who likes whatever it is that Handley owned is morally depraved, is that someone to whom that appeals is going to want to go beyond viewing a bunch of squiggles on a page.

[sharpeslass]

Yes, well, I'm not a lawyer. The reputation smear of just being charged or accused is enough to warn me off.

I know the arguments. I'm just not sure I agree with them. It is a complex issue.