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Manga collector on trial for obscenity charges


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The CBLDF is good people. A friend of a friend works with them. They were selling sketchbooks at Baltimore Comic-Con a few weeks back.

Oh, I know. I'm glad they've gotten involved.

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Okay, let's look at this a minute, objectively and philosophically.

The theoretical rationale behind the outlawing of child pornography of the photo/video type is that minors are used in sexual situations in which they are presumed by law not able to give willing consent.

If you draw or write a depiction of a minor in a sexual situation without actually involving a living, breathing minor, no minor/child has been harmed.

Therefore, if the art/literature is pure fiction, other than being in bad taste, violating societal norms and taboos, etc.--exactly what crime has occurred?

I'm sorry, but banning animation, art, or literature strictly because it depicts something others find distasteful is, in my eye, Orwellian. I personally find the thought of people and dogs "kissing" with much tongue-slobbering utterly repulsive, unhealthy, and repugnant, but it happens, and who would I be to tell anyone else not to show it or depict it? If we're going to drag out the old "people seeing it will go out and do it" argument, well, let's ban all TV and movie depictions of murder, car racing, and unhealthy eating. (Like we basically have with cigarettes, no?)

I have seen hentai and so-called erotica that I find nothing short of repugnant and disgusting. But I find the concept of someone else regulating what I am able to see, think, write, draw, or read even more repugnant.

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Here's my take on it:

It's not illegal. No one was harmed; it was animated, as was previously pointed out. Furthermore, it says the prosecutors believe the depictions to be underage, which says to me it's not like they're animated toddlers or anything, because then there would be no believe about it, in my opinion anyway. I'd like to believe that a reasonably proven person (a.k.a. the jury) would be able to see this, but I don't have faith in the general populace of Americans to look at things at more than just face value. And if this passes, that raises a lot of questions about what will and won't be allowed. For example, will they outlaw InuYasha? I mean, how many times do we see Kagome in the hot springs? Is it a little disturbing that he may have animated child pornography? Yes, but I also recognize that with a collection that large, and the admission that the "offending material" was only in a handful of volumes, it is possible the collector did not realize what exactly was in these particular volumes. Maybe he did and intentionally imported them, or maybe he just imported them in bulk and that happened to be in a few volumes, we don't really know. But in the end, it's like the guy above me said: is it distasteful? Yes. But so are strip clubs, which are perfectly legal. Is it hurting anyone? No, it's all animated, no real people are involved, but, keeping with strip club comparison, strippers can be reached and touched, and God knows what else in the process. You can argue that strippers are a legal age, but still, someone is being harmed and it's distasteful, yet it's perfectly legal. In the case of this guy's manga, it may be distasteful, but no one is being harmed.

Overall, if the prosecution wins this, I foresee either a huge decline in the type of anime allowed in America, or a lot more editing to make it "acceptable" by American standards.

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I'm wondering how this even came together. He's got manga that somehow was seen by someone who was offended by it? ... and they saw fit to alert authorities? Who knows this guy well enough to check out his collection, but finds the material offensive enough to do that? Is that how this reads to anyone else, or is it something initiated by all this federal-government-monitoring-your-every-move kind of surveillance? I'm just baffled.

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I'm wondering how this even came together. He's got manga that somehow was seen by someone who was offended by it? ... and they saw fit to alert authorities? Who knows this guy well enough to check out his collection, but finds the material offensive enough to do that? Is that how this reads to anyone else, or is it something initiated by all this federal-government-monitoring-your-every-move kind of surveillance? I'm just baffled.
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  • 2 months later...

Related item in today's Washington Post:

1st Child-Porn Cartoon Conviction Upheld

A federal appeals court in Virginia has upheld the nation's first conviction under a 2003 law against distributing or receiving cartoons depicting child pornography.

Dwight Whorley of Richmond was convicted of using a computer at a state unemployment office to receive 20 highly stylized Japanese cartoons, called anime, illustrating children engaged in sex with adults. He also sent or received child porn photos and text-only e-mails.

Whorley was convicted of 74 counts and sentenced to 20 years in prison.

In an opinion released Thursday, a three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected Whorley's claim that cartoons are protected under the First Amendment because they do not depict real children.

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Related item in today's Washington Post:

1st Child-Porn Cartoon Conviction Upheld

A federal appeals court in Virginia has upheld the nation's first conviction under a 2003 law against distributing or receiving cartoons depicting child pornography.

Dwight Whorley of Richmond was convicted of using a computer at a state unemployment office to receive 20 highly stylized Japanese cartoons, called anime, illustrating children engaged in sex with adults. He also sent or received child porn photos and text-only e-mails.

Whorley was convicted of 74 counts and sentenced to 20 years in prison.

In an opinion released Thursday, a three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected Whorley's claim that cartoons are protected under the First Amendment because they do not depict real children.

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You see where I'm coming from, right?

Oh. You mean how just because something is perverted and obscene doesn't mean it's actually doing any harm to anyone? Yeah. A pen and some paper can be a mighty danger to society (warning: that was sarcasm). Still, how anyone finds any appeal in that material is beyond me. Maybe some form of mandatory counseling would be a more suitable punishment seeing as how there are clearly some issues there.

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You see where I'm coming from, right?

Oh. You mean how just because something is perverted and obscene doesn't mean it's actually doing any harm to anyone? Yeah. A pen and some paper can be a mighty danger to society (warning: that was sarcasm). Still, how anyone finds any appeal in that material is beyond me. Maybe some form of mandatory counseling would be a more suitable punishment seeing as how there are clearly some issues there.

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You see where I'm coming from, right?

Oh. You mean how just because something is perverted and obscene doesn't mean it's actually doing any harm to anyone? Yeah. A pen and some paper can be a mighty danger to society (warning: that was sarcasm). Still, how anyone finds any appeal in that material is beyond me. Maybe some form of mandatory counseling would be a more suitable punishment seeing as how there are clearly some issues there.

Edited by dragonclaw21974
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He was previously convicted back in 1999 on child pornography charges and is on the sexual offenders list in Virginia. That pretty much means that it is a given that any form of pornography that depicted any type of child (drawn or real) that was involved in this most recent case would get him alot of years. The laws are much stricter for those on the offenders list.
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He was previously convicted back in 1999 on child pornography charges and is on the sexual offenders list in Virginia. That pretty much means that it is a given that any form of pornography that depicted any type of child (drawn or real) that was involved in this most recent case would get him alot of years. The laws are much stricter for those on the offenders list.
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I'm wondering how this even came together. He's got manga that somehow was seen by someone who was offended by it? ... and they saw fit to alert authorities? Who knows this guy well enough to check out his collection, but finds the material offensive enough to do that? Is that how this reads to anyone else, or is it something initiated by all this federal-government-monitoring-your-every-move kind of surveillance? I'm just baffled.

Easy, He orderd books from a seller in Japan.

Customs actually did their job and opened the package.

They see what they THINK is kiddy porn

Guy gets sent to the feds.

Your tax dollars at work,

Ricin

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