Animated Kiddie Porn?

[Shakeyhands]

Interesting article out of Australia. Is a fictional character the same as real people?

"In my view, the magistrate was correct in determining that, in respect of both the Commonwealth and the NSW offences, the word ‘person’ included fictional or imaginary characters," the judge said.

http://tvguide.sympatico.msn.ca/TVNews/Art...s_child_porn_DW

[Oleg Bach]

Any dis-empowerment of children is a crimminal offense - all porn directed towards children should be an offense punishable by death...yep - You heard me....when a Canadian judge rules that kiddy porn sketches are art - then that Judge should step down - He is not protection children he is assisting in the attack... as the great Rabboni Jesus the Christ said in these regards..as he pointed towards the children..."If anyone harms one of these- they will wish they were never born and will have a millstone tied to their necks and be tossed in the sea" - put plainly this is the only time Jesus mentioned capital punishment - not for murdering of an adult but for the murdering of a childs spirit - destroying a life that has yet to be lived - Kiddy porn is the worst type of murder...and anyone supporting it in any form should tie a rock around their own neck now and go swimming.

[kimmy]

While I can't imagine what kind of retard would want to watch "Simpsons" porn, this is ridiculous.

If fictional characters are ruled to be "persons", I suppose killing them would be ruled "murder" then.

-k

{waiting to see if Matt Groening is charged in the death of Bleeding Gums Murphy.}

[M.Dancer]

{waiting to see if Matt Groening is charged in the death of Bleeding Gums Murphy.}

Mrs Flanders?

[Shakeyhands]

Mrs Flanders?

That was clearly an accident, though the Speedway could be found to have some liability given the low height of that back wall.... not to mention the T-Shirt.....

[Shakeyhands]

While I can't imagine what kind of retard would want to watch "Simpsons" porn, this is ridiculous.

If fictional characters are ruled to be "persons", I suppose killing them would be ruled "murder" then.

-k

{waiting to see if Matt Groening is charged in the death of Bleeding Gums Murphy.}

actually I remember seeing all kinds of it a few years ago... as a joke of course. Your second point is excellent.

[cybercoma]

While I can't imagine what kind of retard would want to watch "Simpsons" porn, this is ridiculous.

If fictional characters are ruled to be "persons", I suppose killing them would be ruled "murder" then.

-k

{waiting to see if Matt Groening is charged in the death of Bleeding Gums Murphy.}

I'm pretty much on the bandwagon with kimmy's post here. Although distasteful, drawings of children engaged in sexual acts is not the same thing as abusing children through the creation of live action child porn. Animated and fictitious characters are not "persons", that's pretty ridiculous.

[Rue]

Actually the legal issue is a little more difficult then just animated characters.

We are at the point where technology can replicate humans with computer

images where it will be impossible to know the difference between real from

fictional.

So then we are faced with this legal question-if someone replicates humans

to the point of almost absolute or in fact absolute similiarity to real humans

and then uses these replications to produce pedophile sexual scenes and movies

or movies of humans using sexual violence, etc., against other humans

then what?

Its one thing to talk about cartoons where its clear the character is not

a human but what about the new technology I talk of?

The law will be faced with having to review whether the fact something

that is not human means its automatically not to be regulated or in fact

whether it may still have to be regulated because the nature of what it

depicts is considered by our society to be unacceptable.

I am not a lover of censorship or undue regulation but I have already

becomne aware of replicated violent and child pornography that

I think could be extremely problematic and may intentionally or unintentionally

fuel and incite certain crimes.

It will not be an easy issue to resolve. There are limits to freedom of

speech and yes when we limit freedom of speech it can be a threat to

freedom, democracy, etc. but sometimes it is necessary to protect

the innocent or the vulenrable from harm or exploitation.

[guyser]

It will not be an easy issue to resolve. .

We could just count the fingers. All have only three fingers. Mandate that all fake replicas, looking to be human or not, must have three fingers.

[RB]

I think the legal folks have really gone bunkers with this "downloading" technology.

I saw in the news a while back "family man" with children downloaded kiddie porn and got a penalty of 25 years. I don't pretend to understand the motive behind watching children porn, it is exploitation of children and wrong. I guess there are a lot of foolish men about.

But that is one way how we find lot of foolish people who in making poor judgments suffer the consequences of the rules.

Edited December 12, 2008 by RB

[AngusThermopyle]

Absolutely ridiculous.

They are not people. They were not born, they do not eat, breathe, shit or piss. They do not love or feel in any way. They have no rights (other than copyright) as they are fictional constructs with no corporeal existence.

By this judges criteria they should run around charging store maniquins with indecent exposure when the outfits displayed on them are being changed.

Must be either retarded, totally delusional or using some really excellent drugs to come up with this one.

And yes, I have to agree that the idea of watching cartoon characters having sex is really really strange and I just don't get it, but to make the leap from that to declaring them persons is also equally strange.

[kimmy]

I think the legal folks have really gone bunkers with this "downloading" technology.

I saw in the news a while back "family man" with children downloaded kiddie porn and got a penalty of 25 years. I don't pretend to understand the motive behind watching children porn, it is exploitation of children and wrong. I guess there are a lot of foolish men about.

But that is one way how we find lot of foolish people who in making poor judgments suffer the consequences of the rules.

The internet presents people with the opportunity to read and see and hear things they'd never read and see and hear otherwise. Sometimes they use that opportunity to educate and edify and illuminate themselves. Other times they use it to amuse or astound or shock themselves.

Last week I watched a video of a fat girl attempting to sing while dancing atop a table... the table flipped over, the girl went head over heels, landed on the table, then crashed to the floor. She was quite likely badly hurt. But god, it was funny. Am I a bad person for having watched the video? Does it represent some repressed malice? Is it likely that I'm going to go around knocking dancing fat-girls off tables in the future? No, I really don't think so. It was a moment of entertainment, a chance to say "LOL, WTF?!"

And yes, I have to agree that the idea of watching cartoon characters having sex is really really strange and I just don't get it, but to make the leap from that to declaring them persons is also equally strange.

I strongly suspect that the reason someone would create "Simpsons Porn" or "Family Guy Porn" is to create a reaction of "LOL, WTF?!"

-k

[Argus]

I'm pretty much on the bandwagon with kimmy's post here. Although distasteful, drawings of children engaged in sexual acts is not the same thing as abusing children through the creation of live action child porn. Animated and fictitious characters are not "persons", that's pretty ridiculous.

There's a ton of animated stuff out there based on every cartoon series imaginable: the Simpsons, The Power Rangers, The Flintstones, Sailor Moon, Barney, Scooby Doo, you name it, it's there. Calling it child porn is a wild stretch, especially since it's not aimed at paedophiles, but mostly done by college boys to cause other college boys to smirk at it.

There is another whole set of animated porn mostly done by the Japanese, who seem to be the world's biggest porn fetishists, featuring big eyed anime characters who people can easily mistake as underagers (and often enough are meant to be), and that stuff can get far more graphic.

But I don't think anything fictional should be illegal; be it writing, drawings, or computer animation. No work of the imagination ought to be punishable by imprisonment. Regardless of what you think of its morality or tastefulness.

[Argus]

We are at the point where technology can replicate humans with computer

images where it will be impossible to know the difference between real from

fictional.

So then we are faced with this legal question-if someone replicates humans

to the point of almost absolute or in fact absolute similiarity to real humans

and then uses these replications to produce pedophile sexual scenes and movies

or movies of humans using sexual violence, etc., against other humans

then what?

If they are identifiable with real people, then that ought to be punishable. If they are simply created from imagination then I don't have a problem with them.

You have to bear in mind the reasons behind the kiddy porn laws. One reason is obvious; to prevent children from being abused for the sake of lacivious adult tastes. If we have kiddy porn made up entirely of fictional imagines who are almost impossible to differentiate from reality - well then, that pretty much eliminates any notion that the real life stuff could be profitably sold. Thus no one is going to be grabbing children in order to produce videos of them. In this case one could actually say that the production of the imaginary stuff could prevent real children from being abused.

The second reason is a sort of general assumption that if people watch child porn, or read it, they'll be more inclined to actually go out and molest children. There is no real evidence to support this. But it falls in line with the similar general notion that if men watch porn, particularly violent porn, they'll be more likely to want to go out and rape women. That too has never been shown to be true, but many cling to the notion.

The third reason is a sort of generalized disgust for such imagery, and contept for those who enjoy it, leading to most people simply saying they don't care if such people are being pointlessly persecuted or not.

For the second and third reasons I believe that computerized images, at least of children, will be illegal. They already are in Canada, as is written fiction.

A larger scale question will involve the creation of porn featuring adult images which are similar to real-life adults. I imagine that will be considerably more popular. There'll be realistic looking porn featuring all your favourite actors and actresses. Presumably, the time is coming when you can feed in a few jpg images of that girl who sits across from you in Algebra, or your neighbor's wife, or your sister in law, and have their faces digitally and seamlessly attached to pornographic video images. What will the legal answer to that be? I suspect sales of such things will draw lawsuits, rather than prison, but people who create their own images will be left alone. As they are now.

[Oleg Bach]

There's a ton of animated stuff out there based on every cartoon series imaginable: the Simpsons, The Power Rangers, The Flintstones, Sailor Moon, Barney, Scooby Doo, you name it, it's there. Calling it child porn is a wild stretch, especially since it's not aimed at paedophiles, but mostly done by college boys to cause other college boys to smirk at it.

There is another whole set of animated porn mostly done by the Japanese, who seem to be the world's biggest porn fetishists, featuring big eyed anime characters who people can easily mistake as underagers (and often enough are meant to be), and that stuff can get far more graphic.

But I don't think anything fictional should be illegal; be it writing, drawings, or computer animation. No work of the imagination ought to be punishable by imprisonment. Regardless of what you think of its morality or tastefulness.

Bart mounting his own sister is less than just bad taste or potty humor...you simply do not allow such things. You don't seem to get it about the "underagers" as you call them - is it a fine line in your mind between the age of 18 and 12 - or does the underager include new borns - I will put it to you again - any child interfered with sexually is perminently robbed of their future - of there abiltiy to marry and breed sucessfully - and the evil is passed on generationally....It takes a crazed human to even consider children as sexual toys...Imagine a full grown dog attempting to F**k new born kittens...This does not even happen in the animal world - and if it did we would beat that crazed mutt to death with a club. Again - Fiction eventually leaks into reality - why take the chance!

[kimmy]

The law will be faced with having to review whether the fact something that is not human means its automatically not to be regulated or in fact whether it may still have to be regulated because the nature of what it depicts is considered by our society to be unacceptable.

I am not a lover of censorship or undue regulation but I have already becomne aware of replicated violent and child pornography that I think could be extremely problematic and may intentionally or unintentionally fuel and incite certain crimes.

It will not be an easy issue to resolve. There are limits to freedom of speech and yes when we limit freedom of speech it can be a threat to freedom, democracy, etc. but sometimes it is necessary to protect the innocent or the vulenrable from harm or exploitation.

This is certainly a more challenging issue than trying to determine whether Lisa Simpson or Meg Griffin are "persons".

There are several questions to be considered. I think they are really just variations on questions raised during previous trials, such as Robin Sharpe's. I believe that in Sharpe's trial, it was determined that while most of the material he possessed was indeed child pornography, written works of fiction were not considered child pornography on the grounds that no exploitation of a minor had actually taken place (I think that was appealed some number of times... not sure on the ultimate status of the ruling.) I think the situation you're suggesting-- life-like computer-generated "victims" are probably very similar to a verbal distinction. Reading a story, one might not be able to tell if it were real or fiction... looking at a drawing, it could be from the mind's eye or it could be from an actual model. I suspect that the same ruling about written pornography would apply to images created by hand or computer, provided a real model were not used.

If no victim is harmed in the creation of pornography, should it be illegal anyway? There's 2 arguments in to be made on that front. The first is obvious: it should be banned because the general public hates it, it is against community standards.

The second is that the existence of the pornography has harmful consequences... it could lead to real crime.

Could the verbal or visual depiction of children in sexual situations cause someone to actually have pedophile urges? I think most people probably suspect that somebody who has pedophile urges after watching kiddie-porn was probably a pedophile to start with.

Could the verbal or visual depiction of children in sexual situations inspire a pedophile to attempt to prey on children in real life? That is a difficult question. I think some people have argued the opposite, that this material provides a release that might reduce the likelihood of a pedophile seeking out "real world" victims. However, the argument that seeing or hearing something caused someone to do something bad has been made many times, for many years. Ozzy Osbourne made my son commit suicide. Marilyn Manson made my boy kill those kids. Resident Evil made my son go on that murderous rampage at his school. Playboy magazine made my client rape that woman. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles made our kids attack that child. South Park made our kids beat up that redheaded child. Maybe there's some validity to this sort of view, although I am skeptical.

My question is, if this argument is to be made... why is it made so selectively?

I saw a grisly murder on TV this week. Shouldn't we put a stop to this? If watching Simpsons Porn is going to make people try to have sex with children, isn't watching grisly murders on TV going to make people try to commit grisly murders?

-k

[Oleg Bach]

The logic behind it being a victimless crime does not fly with me. Would it be appropriate to have a video game where you have sex with a hooker and you kill her after the act so you don't have to pay up? ooops - they have that already - so this topic is hopeless because people are already debased to a point where even the devil does not want you.

[Argus]

There are several questions to be considered. I think they are really just variations on questions raised during previous trials, such as Robin Sharpe's. I believe that in Sharpe's trial, it was determined that while most of the material he possessed was indeed child pornography, written works of fiction were not considered child pornography on the grounds that no exploitation of a minor had actually taken place (I think that was appealed some number of times... not sure on the ultimate status of the ruling.) I think the situation you're suggesting-- life-like computer-generated "victims" are probably very similar to a verbal distinction. Reading a story, one might not be able to tell if it were real or fiction... looking at a drawing, it could be from the mind's eye or it could be from an actual model. I suspect that the same ruling about written pornography would apply to images created by hand or computer, provided a real model were not used.

Kimmy, that's irrelevant in Canada, as the law was changed a few years back to specifically include drawings, animated creations and fictional writing.

[Argus]

The logic behind it being a victimless crime does not fly with me.

Logic of any sort rarely rises above the ground with you.

[Oleg Bach]

Logic of any sort rarely rises above the ground with you.

Do I smell envy of my ethics? Logic is a black and white entity. There is no grey area. Anything that generates life and love and stablity is GOOD. Anything that generates death - suffering, poverty, gloom or has a negative out come due to actions taken is BAD. Kiddy porn is BAD in any form... animated - real or photographic. End of story buddy. Social responsiblity is based on the common good. Those that wish to tinker and toy with ethics to suit their strange sense of right and wrong are totally illogical - We either protect our childern fully and with full force and stength or we do NOT protect them at all. There are types in this world that want none of us to be protected including the children - those type are not fit for the white light of day. Those that lesson the protective barrier that protects children will also in time take away the shield of morality and attack all adults to suit their preverse sense of power and control. When human rights are lessened by any degree - eventually all human dignity is debased so some jerks can feel powerful - If any amoung you here wants to bring harm to the little ones you will have to go though me....and I am not a boy - I am a man!

[Argus]

Do I smell envy of my ethics? Logic is a black and white entity.

Maybe in science and math, but nowhere else. Certainly not in emotional issues dealing with human beings.

There is no grey area.

There are almost always grey areas.

Anything that generates life and love and stablity is GOOD.

What kind of life, love and stability? If a Nazi regime was stable, would any action taken to maintain that stability be good? What kind of love? Any kind? Love of country? Obsessive love?

Anything that generates death - suffering, poverty, gloom or has a negative out come due to actions taken is BAD.

What about the death of evil people? Didn't you just suggest pedophiles ought to be killed? Does that not contradict your statement? Clearly not anything which generates death or suffering is bad after all - if it's to people you disapprove of.

Kiddy porn is BAD in any form... animated - real or photographic.

Granted. But so what? Many things are bad. Cigarette smoking is bad on any number of levels. So is gambling, so is the consumption of alcohol. Adultery is bad on many levels and for many reasons. Abortion can be bad. Lying is bad, especially when it's done by politicians. None of that is illegal, nor is are the numerous other things which are "bad".

Social responsiblity is based on the common good.

Ah, yes, but who gets to define the common good?

-We either protect our childern fully and with full force and stength or we do NOT protect them at all.

Hmm, there are children at risk all across this country, all across the world, who we really don't put a ton of time and effort into protecting. Children's aid societies, or their equivalents all across the world are woefully underfunded for the tasks at hand, and children are being hurt and killed from England to Australia, from Canada to South Africa, when we, as societies, could do more to protect them. Children are dying, enslaved, beaten, and miserable all across the world, yet we probably spend more money on our pets than we do protecting them. There are children on the streets of your city who are cold tonight, who are in considerable danger of physical, sexual and emotional abuse, and are not being helped.

And you're saving your righteous indignation for cartoon images of Bart and Lisa? Do you not see something wrong with that?

[Oleg Bach]

Cigarette smoking is not bad - it's dirty - and your gums get destroyed by the higher level of temperature the increases the bad bacteria - You only die from it if you believe you will or you listen to intently to those that insist you die - like the nasty pictures on packs of smokes with the rotten lungs - that are by design made to break your reslove and faith and by doing so compermise your immune system.

You sure hate law - law devides the good and the evil - but we are lawless ---- and that allows those that are mentally dickless to torment children because they are not man enough to be with a woman.

[RB]

The internet presents people with the opportunity to read and see and hear things ... It was a moment of entertainment, a chance to say "LOL, WTF?!"

There is a case in Canada, pictures animated and termed cartoon. Faces of real children with cartoon bodies. The fellow charged, had over hundreds of faces of real children and used those fancy programs to make them animated, a cause for concern for parents and law enforcement and they are the ones who would dislike the usage of LOL..

I guess in order to protect these kids and kids in general the vote will be to bring the perpetrators to justice ... one by one.

[Oleg Bach]

Nothing more pitiful than a preditor - hunting...and being a total failure at that ...resorts to hunting and eating kittens..............it's disgraceful. I used to call those that harm children - angel wing cutters....weak human beings that hunt our children to sustain themselves...should be stopped. The kids are our continuance ...Pediphiles ultmately are hunting and destroying YOU - the adult...the adult is the ulitmate victim in the end...now guard yourself!

[Oleg Bach]

Continued: Here is the problem with child porn and the general destructive sexual interference with children. Most people look at this subject with the attitude - not my kid...or they can not relate because they do not have children . Or they are attempting to be cool and liberating and describe this stuff as "art" - Are is a creative affair - kiddie porn is exactly the opposite - It is not creative it is destructive.

If you are not concerned for the offspring of other becuase you feel that it does not effect you - well it does! These children that surive this abuse will never become functioning happy adults. For instance in Toronto on the Bloor Viaduct - is an anti-suicide barrier - almost all the adult jumpers were victims of sexual abuse - It is not an assualt that heals with time - It is perminent damage. Looking forward into the future - if child pronography and all other encouragements are not put in check - there will be thousands upon thousands of deeply damaged and disturbed adults wandering about..and it will lower the quality of life for all - The human environ will be polluted and there will be less good will and joy in our population ..............do you want this inferiour and unhappy world? Child porn harms all of us - perhaps not immediately but eventually we all suffer.