manga, pedophilia, fantasy, & reality

Jun 07, 2009 03:38

This is probably old news to a lot of people, but cleolinda posted some linkspam a while ago, and one article in particular really caught my eye ( Read more... )

pop culture: animanga, +fandom, okay so maybe a feminist, issue: feminism, +rants, issue: censorship

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Comments 12

aeirol June 7 2009, 16:10:41 UTC
I wonder if there hasn't been a backlash either because fans haven't heard about it (which I'm a little doubtful on, considering the amount of coverage it seems to be getting from different areas, and the public personages who are objecting to it), or because nobody wants to look like they're "supporting kiddie porn" (which is bullshit, but about the only other option I can come up with). I really hope this guy gets off and that the law is protested and overturned; seriously, the wording to that thing is so damn general you could make a case for anything. And it creates a foot-in-the-door policy for other forms of censorship; maybe I'm jumping the shark a little, but if we have laws against depictions of kiddie porn, then what about other forms of non-normative sexual preferences? Hell, not even explicit sex, what about portrayals of minors having sexual urges at all? God this thing is fucked up...

Also, something I realized: Lolita could be very easily seen as a violation of this law, despite its phenomenal writing and artistic ( ... )

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spiderstars June 8 2009, 10:11:14 UTC
They did when Lolita was published and there's also the fact that the ephebophilia in the book is portrayed as massively self-destructive. HH even acknowledges it.

I don't really think you can make the slippery slope argument in this case, mostly because the law is only particularly relevant to child pornography, which is a consent issue in a way that most other non-normative sex acts aren't. That doesn't bother me so much as just how ... wrong it is that someone is being punished for their fantasies. More appropriate would be a serious prosecution of everyone in the pornography industry, kiddies or no. At least you're protecting real people that way, not unrealistic lines.

I think there needs to be a pretty firm distinction between "minors" as in "under 18s" and "children". Two seventeen year olds having sexual urges is pretty much one of the most common things in the media. Depicting two ten-year-olds in a similar situation is entirely different, though it seems this law lumps the two together. Which is ... just odd, really

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aeirol June 8 2009, 17:36:54 UTC
Heh. Didn't even realize I was using the slippery slope argument until you pointed it out.

I'm...kinda wondering if there will be some sort of a distinction made, if nowhere else than in legal issues, because there is a difference. And while I realize the age of consent is based on several fairly important factors, it's still kinda arbitrary to slap a label on an age and say "There, that's when you're officially mature enough to make decisions for yourself."

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ashlultum June 9 2009, 05:49:35 UTC
Oh, it's absolutely arbitrary. One of several things that seem off to me about getting outraged over sexual depictions of 16- and 17-year-olds (in media outside of real pornography, at least -- within porn, the power imbalance between the people over 18 who have full legal rights* and the people under 18 who don't have certain rights yet still bothers me) is that the age of consent actually isn't 18 throughout the entire U.S. -- a number of states put the age of consent at 16 or 17. (Since I doubt you'll want to slog through the whole document to verify this, the relevant information is on pages 5-6 of the main text -- which would be page 15 in the PDF.)

*Well, minus the right to drink, in some cases.

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akai_senshi June 7 2009, 20:04:49 UTC
THANK YOU.

And yaoi...well, if it's stereotypical yaoi, of course at least the uke will look underage.

Geez, will these people do their research for crying out loud?

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spiderstars June 8 2009, 10:14:55 UTC
If it's stereotypical yaoi it's entirely possible that an adult male uke will like like a prepubescent girl, also. The thing is, this kind of law applies if the characters just happen to look underage, even if it's stated that they're adults elsewhere. That, I think, borders on utter silliness, because in certain art styles (more in the manga/anime vein than American comics, though I've seen it in American comics too) everyone looks pretty young. Sometimes it's just a stylistic choice.

I don't get the law, sometimes.

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tommyrotter June 8 2009, 14:13:59 UTC
Woooow. Nice job, peeps, nice job,

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