your opinions - obscenity stuff

[keryx]

I'm guessing many of you have already heard about the recent wave of obscenity prosecutions & the reaction of many websites to them.

It turns out to be a pretty complex issue, and one where I don't have a particularly strong leaning one way or another. Would be curious to hear what y'all think.

The key issue seems to be that sites are being prosecuted for obscenity not because they purvey porn, but specifically because they contain references (how big or small I'm not sure) to sex with minors or animals. These aren't images of these acts, mind you - just fictional stories about them.

[Poll #597225]

Comments

[tartedelune.livejournal.com]

I want to elaborate in regard to the second question. My answers are responding to the question in terms of whether I think that they are legally acceptable. Morally I feel like it is a much larger question. One of the answers I chose was "In image, if the "minor" or "animal" is portrayed by a consenting adult." I think that this has a negative social impact so I would not agree that it is morally "okay," though I do believe that legally there is no reason people should be prevented from making porn like this.

I'm always so conflicted about porn issues...

[snidegrrl.livejournal.com]

I personally have no conflict about how to answer these questions.

As far as how public policy should go, I have no idea. Suffice to say I don't give any money to the ACLU.

[fierceawakening.livejournal.com]

As far as images go, I don't know how I feel. I gather that we're talking fakes of some sort. Fakes that don't involve actual animals or kids in "almost but not quite" scenarios. In that case -- I'm bothered, but I don't know that it's something that the law should be stopping.

In terms of words, I think censoring them is just bad. I don't think people should not write their fantasies down. Add the wrinkle that a lot of BDSM people, and that's who's being targeted, have ageplay fantasies and might write their stories without explicit mention that, say, the real Bethie would of course be eighteen and pretending to be a child, and I worry.

Mostly, though, the part that alarms me is the "Federal sentencing guidelines state that any obscenity-related punishment should be "enhanced for sadomasochistic material." I write SM erotica. I don't think I, or any other author of such stuff, does anything wrong.

[puzzlement.livejournal.com]

Not being an American, I'm only commenting here to note that a similar discussion has just sloshed through fanfic writers (fandoms with young heros, eg Harry Potter, have a chunk of sexual fiction written about relationships between pre-teen/early-teen heros and adults -- the fiction itself is written both by early teens and by adults). There was a popular archive hosted in Australia, where fictional portrayals of adult-child/teen sex is in a dark grey area of the law. The archive had to deny hosting to all such stories.

[queerbychoice.livejournal.com]

I think there needs to be an option for "something else not explained in comments, because I haven't found adequate words for it yet." I'm pretty far to the free speech side of things, but the boxes I checked are more like very rough approximations of what I think than absolute consistent rules.