Thanks for the response, I’m just kind of confused because i’ve looked at the law a number of times trying to find the definitive answer as well as a number of other forum and FAQ sites and it just seems like the response are mixed and based on a personal level rather than the actual law. There are so many fan pages and websites like Reddit and Rule 34 that exist so you know it’s going to show up somewhere while looking up anything anime on the web. Obscenity was also something that i was confused on when regarding this topic.
Well that’s because it’s a grey area, as is the case with adult porn.
It’s legal in the sense that it’s not child pornography, but obscenity laws make it very grey. Most states only declare things obscene if you do things with them that are illegal, like expose them to kids, and federal law has to follow these rules too, depending on your state.
So let me see if i understand. So loli is legal unless it is found to be obscene which would only be decided if an individual was doing things such as buying, selling, or distributing it? If so then viewing a rule 34 or fanart of loli is legal in one’s own home? Sorry if i don’t fully understand this stuff is all relatively new to me so it’s hard to grasp it.
No. It would be found to be obscene if the obscenity definition laid out by your state finds that it would be obscene, but only a sitting judge or jury can assert those facts, basically means you don’t know unless you’re told otherwise since it’s all subjective, arbitrary opinion anyway.
Different states have different definitions and statutes which may fall into them. Missouri and Texas are probably the worst offenders I’ve seen with regard to this.
It’s very confusing and confounding, as it was designed to be that way. It was designed to cast doubt on sexual materials, but in a conceptual way, rather than direct.
Loli is no different from adult porn in this respect.
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Ok i believe i understand. I just was curious because as I mentioned I see a number of different pages while looking up animes and sometimes you see images that might be considered loli so i was concerned if i could get in trouble from these images popping up.
Here is something I found pasted on an imageboard.
It’s the binding SCOTUS precedent which controls the legality of lolicon/shotacon and other types of pedophilic fiction.
They have to follow the same rules as adult porn.
Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition (2002)
https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/00-795.ZO.html
By prohibiting child pornography that does not depict an actual child, the statute goes beyond New York v. Ferber, 458 U.S. 747 (1982), which distinguished child pornography from other sexually explicit speech because of the State’s interest in protecting the children exploited by the production process. See id., at 758. As a general rule, pornography can be banned only if obscene, but under Ferber, pornography showing minors can be proscribed whether or not the images are obscene under the definition set forth in Miller v. California, 413 U.S. 15 (1973). Ferber recognized that “[t]he Miller standard, like all general definitions of what may be banned as obscene, does not reflect the State’s particular and more compelling interest in prosecuting those who promote the sexual exploitation of children.” 458 U.S., at 761.
US v. Williams (2008)
https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/06-694.ZO.html
But an offer to provide or request to receive virtual child pornography is not prohibited by the statute. A crime is committed only when the speaker believes or intends the listener to believe that the subject of the proposed transaction depicts real children. It is simply not true that this means “a protected category of expression [will] inevitably be suppressed,” post,at 13. Simulated child pornography will be as available as ever, so long as it is offered and sought as such, and not as real child pornography.
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Ok so if i understand this correctly.
Ashcroft v. Free speech coalition case draws a line between real and fake CP and if i read the Protect Act of 2003 correctly loli wouldn’t be considered “real” CP and falls under obscenity instead.
US vs Williams case only backs that claim up as far as i can tell but i may have missed something.
I also looked into the case of Stanley v. Georgia and it was ruled that possession of obscene material was legal in private. Or at least from what i was able to put together, but i’m no lawyer.
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It’s basically what they all a “grey area”. Loli/shota pornography is legal in states whose obscenity laws are very strict and encapsulate a wide variety of content, like Missouri for example found that most adult porn could be read as obscene within their borders.
Federal law only applies in obscenity cases where the material is likely to be, or has already been found, to be obscene since, by definition, obscenity is a state thing, not a national ‘across the board’ thing.
This means that any non-child pornography, like adult pornography or loli may be legal in Washington, California or Oregon, but illegal in Missouri or New York due to how their obscenity laws are written.
And yes, even though “mere possession” is protected by Stanley, the interests are limited to things that originate from within the home, apparently.
It’s an extremely confusing, almost entirely confounding issue that nobody talks about because of how much everything contradicts itself and isn’t at all compatible with the First Amendment.
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Like if you were to create your own adult or fictional loli content, it would be immune from obscenity because it wasn’t introduced within the chain of interstate or foreign commerce, meaning people who were charged for “possession” of it, like that Eychaner guy you mentioned from 2018. That’s not really “possession”, that’s receipt through interstate commerce.
Yeah… it’s really bloody confusing.
Stanley was written to basically be the calling card that overturned Roth because pornography itself is harmless, as a study commissioned by the Senate at the time concluded. In Stanley, the state of Georgia attempted to assert a paternalistic interest over people’s private thoughts.
But Congress didn’t really like the answer they were given by actual scientists, and were infuriated that SCOTUS would dare base their decision on private porn possession on something like science, logic and reason and not their interpretation of “common sense”, so when Nixon was elected, he packed the Supreme Court full of bigots and conservative, anti-porn zealots who essentially tried to nullify the primary holding of Stanley, and use pointless semantics and other bullshit to shamelessly impose their ideas on the people.
Under the logic I’ve presented to you, if you were to stream a BangBros video depicting adults in a state where such graphic depictions were likely to be considered ‘obscene’, it could legally jeopardize you.
Yeah… it’s extremely depressing and wholly un-American to fracture the freedom of speech like this, then come at us with double speak like this. They assume that people just instinctively “know” what’s right and wrong as it should be applied to media, which isn’t true at all. They shafted logic and reason.
I know it seems like a lot of opinionated crap I’m saying, but it’s all objectively true.
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Well… there is hope.
Loli is. by default, legal. It does not meet the requirements for child pornography and for an obscenity judgement to be made, it requires a sitting judge to make the arbitrary determination that it meets the threshold of obscenity, which is never the same between states. States like Oregon, in fact, found that obscene speech was protected by their state constitution, so it’s very unlikely that anything would be found obscene there. Other states, like California, Washington, and Maine literally refused to take up obscenity cases relating to fictional anime or loli content, while a handful of others simply haven’t done so.
The obscenity doctrine is a plain-as-day example of bad precedent. It’s honestly baffling to me that it could even exist, and the hideous and complicated history behind it only furthers the fact that it should be overturned, just like segregation and marriage inequality were.
We will see the First Amendment restored to its proper glory. Whether these conservatives like it or not, the freedom of speech does include the obscene, as it did so long ago.
Innocent people have been severely harmed and disenfranchised by this prime example of bad precedent. Filmmakers, artists, novelists, and consumers of this type of material are all potential victims of this callous attack on American individualism and freedom.
It wasn’t designed to address sexual exploitation, but to be used as a weapon in an ongoing culture war between sex-positive progressivism and puritan moral-fallacy conservatives during a precarious time before the Internet, when things like homosexuality were far more taboo.
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I looked up more info regarding obscenity and found that the definition that is given would make most types of pornography on the web today illegal. So websites like PH, Rule 34, and even Reddit would all be considered illegal, At least if im looking at this correctly. If that’s the case then im sure 70% of America is guilty at this point.
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Sure as hell may seem that way, but you’d be surprised. The obscenity doctrine has no valid applications that can’t be accomplished by other less restrictive, more reasonable means that don’t involve the use of an arbitrary, outdated, and useless invention.
There are companies that sell and distribute lolicon hentai and games, like Steam, Amazon (despite going after figurines), Fakku, MangaGamer, Denpasoft, Jast, the list goes on, and these companies have been around for so long there’s no way nobody’s noticed them.
But that doesn’t mean it still can’t be an issue for somebody in a state or predicament less fortunate.
Censorship of the arts is never justifiable. Period.
Rule 34 has been around since 2007 and has tons of obscene content. A group of internet personalities on YouTube used to have a web series where they would play demo disks and then look up rule 34 and flash games of characters and content from the games they played, mind you the pornographic images were censored for youtube but it still shows them clearly on the site viewing obscene material. There’s 100% no way someone hasn’t taken notice of that. I’m sure everyone has looked at porn at least once in their lifetime i mean i sure as hell know my parents did, but blows my mind they would rather bust people for non CP rather then the real stuff. CP is wrong on so many levels and makes me sick to think about but i can tell the difference between a real child in pain and an animated image of a chibi character.
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Wasn’t those laws in Australia passed by the moderates? Meanwhile, in Denmark, it appears to be the conservatives who are more liberal about art and fiction these days: Looking for Research The point is never to latch onto any part of the political spectrum. Only look for specific politicians with specific views.
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I find the fact Denpasoft (Sekai Project) in that list ironic since they themselves actually hate lolicon.
Even one of their staff said anyone who likes Noumi Kudryavka from Little Busters! (which is a SFW VN anyway) is a pedophile.
Personally I believe they would get away with censoring their releases if they could.
And MangaGamer also hate their customers, so I have a feeling they’d be no different either.
Well, MangaGamer released Maggot Baits and a version of Dies Irae not reliant on Steam, so I have to give them credit. As for their private messages, look, I, too, work in a company that has customer service. Fortunately, I don’t deal with the customers myself. I just process their documents, but even from that, I must admit that some (not all, fortunately) customers are kind of dumb.
It’s illegal here so I just engage in civil disobedience.
Punishing people for fictional art/literature is borderline retarded behavior no matter how anyone tries to cut it.
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I think he’s from the UK.
It should absolutely be protected on artistic grounds. After all, the more people are “offended” by it, the more artistic it is. Art Should Comfort the Disturbed and Disturb the Comfortable.
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it technically is legal, but again, the obscenity doctrine was never designed with logic or objectivity in mind.
When I first heard of the Miller test, I laughed. I laughed because of how…wrong it is, on so many levels, both logically and legally, especially with regard to the Constitution.
Even on an academic sense, the test is immediately invalid because pornography, especially the kind that caters to deviant tastes and triggers outrage, IS a form of art. Something is considered art when it’s the product of human imagination, ingenuity, and creative skill, but also when it provokes an emotional response from its audience. There’s no official rule that states pornography can’t be or isn’t a form of art. It is. Even the most obvious, generic types are on the basis that they are audiovisual works designed to satisfy emotional desire.
Sexual arousal, desire, lust, and eroticism are all valid emotions and subjects worth exploring, expressing, and indulging with as far as art goes.
Even if it’s just a 12 second video on some porn site, it’s still technically art.
Appealing to the ‘prurient interest’, by default, lends it serious artistic value.
America would be better without the obscenity doctrine. A Constitutional exception to the First Amendment should be based on harm, not morality or personal offense. That trivializes the justice system, undermines the freedoms guaranteed, and invalidates the purpose of the First Amendment, which was to foster freedom of the mind and conscience from coercion or intrusion by the state, and to do so, assuring the unfettered exchange of ideas is necessary. Sure, there are exceptions, like real child pornography, libel, and incitement. But these are not arbitrary exceptions, nor are they contingent on arbitrary variables, but rather objective questions regarding facts that can be proven beyond a reasonable doubt.
The very fact that obscenity prosecutions don’t even require a lack of reasonable doubt to get a guilty proof that it’s a farce, and will be overturned.
The obscenity doctrine truly has no place in this country’s legal system, no different from ‘Separate but Equal’, marriage inequality, and sodomy laws. It will be next to fall.