What Constitutes Child Pornography?

[MakubeX2]

Originally Posted by Sumeragi

I'll ask the counterquestion: "DOES Japan have SUCH A HUGE problem with sexual crimes?"

It's not so much a crime but a underlying social issue. In relevance to the topic at hand, the "Compensated Dating" scene of Enjo Kousai in which girls as young as 10 exchange sexual favors for money is still very much alive.

So much so a series of videos featuring Enkou Girls age from 10 to 16 was filmed at the turn of last century for sale and distribution on the Net titled as "Kansai Enkou". Those responsibled were caught and sentenced at around 2005. But the punishment they received was very much a slap on the wrist with just fine and a few year's worth of imprisonment. I'll digged up the details of the cash later today.

[Metaler]

@Vexx/Sumeragi: Good call. Though I haven't read Sankaku in like 2 years.

[NoemiChan]

I think its not matter of if it's huge or not... but the fact that it continue to exist hunts not only society but those parents' who have young children...

Its probably easy to say that just like "it happens only once a month" but would it be a big concern for us if its our child that has been a victim because of such crimes? Won't we be angry?

[0utf0xZer0]

Originally Posted by SeijiSensei

I couldn't tell from reading that list of criteria whether exploitation only occurs when one of the parties is an adult. Can a seventeen-year-old boy be charged with exploitation if he has sex with a fourteen-year-old girl? How about a nineteen-year-old girl and a seventeen-year-old boy? Would that be exempted under the "age difference" criterion?

I understand the rationale for distinctions like the one in the Canadian statute, but it seems to me to give much too much leeway to prosecutors and judges to decide whether a particular case constitutes exploitation and creates the potential for uneven jurisprudence.

The dominant method of statutory interpretation in Canada is to read the section in light of the Act as a whole. It'd be shocked if a judge said those sorts of age differences alone justify classifying a relationship as exploitative because it would make the lower non-exploitative age of consent entirely pointless. The Canadian courts don't like that - ie the Supreme Court of Canada has ruled that someone purchasing marijauna cannot be charged with assisting drug trafficking because Parliament set a clear penalty for purchasing marijauna.

That said, in cases where the defendent is much older, I could see a prosecutor arguing age difference alone being enough on the grounds merely of the age criteria being included. Personally, I think that the analysis should be limited to dependency and maybe the circumstances of the relationship being formed.

Don't think there's much in Canadian law that would prevent certain kinds of sexting prosecutions, though our definition of child porn requires the depiction of either explicit sexual activity or genitalia which narrows the field somewhat..

Originally Posted by SeijiSensei

So a prosecutor in Moosejaw could treat the same situation differently from one in Vancouver? Or would a decision in a Vancouver court be considered a controlling precedent for a prosecution in Moosejaw? Here the states can vary wildly in their prosecution of justice as long as they don't come into conflict with the Federal constitution. (In the PA sexting case the actions of the local District Attorney were enjoined on 1st and 14th Amendment grounds, and the injunction upheld in the Third Circuit Court of Appeals. Sadly the decision didn't reach the question of whether the girls involved, being minors, had First Amendment rights to publish photos of themselves, a somewhat murky area in American Constitutional law.)

The way I understand it, Provincial courts in Canada (which handle most criminal cases - exceptions tend to be things like tax and drug cases) don't have to follow each other's precedents, but do have to follow those from the Supreme Court of Canada. That said, it's very common for judges to give precedents from another province considerable weight. Heck, precedents from other countries (especially Common Law countries like the UK and Australia) are often afforded weight in our courts.

*****

As to the debate over whether drawings should be considered child porn (which in many circumstances it is in Canada, BTW), I'm personally against it. Aside from having an extremely strong sentiment that the state has no business policing people's sex fantasies if there's no real people involved, I think having drawn CP be legal while real CP is not strongly encourages people not to go for the real deal. I'm less sure about the effect on offenses against children - porn doesn't seem like a great substitute for real sex. On the other hand I'm not sure it needs to be, as I think in general it guides potential deviants towards more porn consumption when they might otherwise go for other outlets.

My only real concern is that IMO pornography can be somewhat taste forming. I'd be very interested in knowing whether the anime fandom actually has more people interested in underage girls than the average population or if having outlets just makes them more visible.

[TinyRedLeaf]

Originally Posted by 0utf0xZer0

My only real concern is that IMO pornography can be somewhat taste forming. I'd be very interested in knowing whether the anime fandom actually has more people interested in underage girls than the average population or if having outlets just makes them more visible.

Precisely. Which was what I was more interested about originally, within the context of the Japanese Culture thread.

Originally Posted by TinyRedLeaf

Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Is media reflecting a preference for sexualised young girls that was already there to begin with, or did media create that preference? How and where did it begin?

I work in media. I'm a strong supporter of the freedom of expression. But I've been uncomfortable for a long time with the idea that media producers are not responsible for the actions of the consumers of media products.

It's a cop out, I strongly feel, for media producers to make such claims. We do shoulder some responsibility. The question is, how much?

Media content can influence the way people think and behave. If it doesn't, we may as well stop producing advertisements and stop worrying about "propaganda". So, in the case of Japan, I would be interested to know why there is so much sexual interest in very young people in the first place. When did it begin? How did it come to be so? To what extent can it be attributed to media influence? Not just broadcast media, but also text literature, be it modern or old.

[flying ^]

Originally Posted by 0utf0xZer0

I'd be very interested in knowing whether the anime fandom actually has more people interested in underage girls than the average population or if having outlets just makes them more visible.

this... right here... is a potential study waiting for grants.

fund it!


the result(s) could go either way but it will be revolutionary.

[SeijiSensei]

Originally Posted by 0utf0xZer0

My only real concern is that IMO pornography can be somewhat taste forming. I'd be very interested in knowing whether the anime fandom actually has more people interested in underage girls than the average population or if having outlets just makes them more visible.

I recently heard a discussion with a psychologist about how the expanded access to pornography on the Internet had radically changed the expectations of young males about sexual relations. She argued that young women were being pressured to take part in things like anal and group sex because pornographic depictions of these types of sexual acts granted them wider legitimacy than they had before the Internet was available. I find that rather plausible myself though gathering evidence on this might be rather difficult.

A quick search on Google brought up this article which makes the same case.

Psychologist Dr Linda Papadopoulos has just published a government report into the sexualisation of children, and is certain that exposure to porn is having an adverse affect on the lives of today's teenagers.

'My research has left me extremely concerned,' she says. 'A recent survey showed that 54 per cent of boys found porn "really inspiring" in terms of sexual performance. This worries me, because of the nature of the material they are now watching.

'This isn't the type of pornography that was around when we were teenagers. What kids are seeing today is very often violent, and it has no intimacy, no respect, no kindness, no context of sex within a loving relationship.

'It is very damaging to young people and to their relationships.'

It seems likely that expanded access to child pornography might have similar effects, though obviously on a much smaller group of the population.

From a methodological perspective, the arrival of the Internet provides a clear pre/post division that makes causal inference easier. Your question about whether anime fans have a higher preference for depictions of sexualized children than the population as a whole must confront what researchers call "selection bias." Since people watch what appeals to them, it is difficult to determine the direction of causality from media exposure on the one hand to attitudes and behaviors on the other. This is a serious methodological problem throughout the "media effects" literature. Suppose we find a correlation between watching a lot of televised violence and the propensity to commit actual violent acts. Is that because extended exposure to televised violence "desensitizes" viewers so they feel freer to commit acts of violence, or do people who have fewer inhibitions about using violence find televised violence more acceptable or rewarding and watch more of it as a result? Probably the answer is some of both.

[aohige]

Kiddy porn is a big no-no, even just having lolicon taste is considered burning in hell for all eternity level of sin in US, yet, the cold hard fact is that there are far, far, FAR greater number of children being sexually assaulted here in the States than Japan. Like tenfolds greater.
Same goes for rape in general, actually.

Otaku reading Comic Lo is far less harmful than thousands of child abusers right here at home.

[Squarecrow]

Originally Posted by aohige

Kiddy porn is a big no-no, even just having lolicon taste is considered burning in hell for all eternity level of sin in US, yet, the cold hard fact is that there are far, far, FAR greater number of children being sexually assaulted here in the States than Japan. Like tenfolds greater.
Same goes for rape in general, actually.

I was going to say that USA has far more people but I checked and the population of the US is only ~2.5 times that of Japan. Surprised me.

I guess Japan's rampant sex crimes weren't really rampant after all.

[Random32]

Japan doesn't have a child pornography problem, the rest of the world has a censorship problem.

Who the hell does lolicon harm? I read some lolicon manga and view anime images of young girls. Who am I hurting? No one.

Does reading lolicon make me more likely to harm a minor? I would argue it makes me less likely to. It's an outlet for bad sexual desires that would otherwise would otherwise have a chance of harming someone.

As for anime fandom and overlap with pedophiles. I don't think so. Pedophiles that read lolicon are anime fans like people who like watching pornographic movies are movie buffs, which is to say they aren't. Yes, pedos that satisfy their sexual desires without hurting people tend to read lolicon, but I don't think they are anime fans in the sense that most of us here are.

[willx]

Originally Posted by SeijiSensei

I recently heard a discussion with a psychologist about how the expanded access to pornography on the Internet had radically changed the expectations of young males about sexual relations. She argued that young women were being pressured to take part in things like anal and group sex because pornographic depictions of these types of sexual acts granted them wider legitimacy than they had before the Internet was available. I find that rather plausible myself though gathering evidence on this might be rather difficult.

After reading this, I was hunting around for an academic study that I found a year or so ago that apparently documented that after prolonged exposure to sexual images or pornography -- people reacted less and less to images of extreme violence. Apparently the intense stimuli from the erotic images desensitized them to violence.

There was also another study done in either Spain or Italy that apparently found that there was a rapid rise in ED or impotence among young men. This was attributed to the increased availability and intensity of pornography available. Basically, real women, were less stimulating than the images these men had gotten used to.. and therefore wasn't enough to elicit a response.

Food for thought?

[TinyRedLeaf]

Originally Posted by aohige

Kiddy porn is a big no-no, even just having lolicon taste is considered burning in hell for all eternity level of sin in US, yet, the cold hard fact is that there are far, far, FAR greater number of children being sexually assaulted here in the States than Japan. Like tenfolds greater.
Same goes for rape in general, actually.

I wonder. Do you have hard numbers to support that view?

I am inclined to be sceptical, especially in the light of what SeijiSensei clearly pointed out:

Originally Posted by SeijiSensei

Your question about whether anime fans have a higher preference for depictions of sexualized children than the population as a whole must confront what researchers call "selection bias." Since people watch what appeals to them, it is difficult to determine the direction of causality from media exposure on the one hand to attitudes and behaviors on the other. This is a serious methodological problem throughout the "media effects" literature.

In other words, how sure are we that we aren't simply believing what we want to believe?

Originally Posted by Sumeragi

Exactly. While there is a huge pornography industry, ultimately sexual crimes are far below the level of pretty much any other modern industrialized country, despite the lack of man specific laws. To me this entire thread is in itself is absurd: It's exploring a relatively small issue which looks big because Japan in general is much "cleaner" than other nations.

Emphasis mine. To what extent does Japan look "cleaner" than other nations simply because it doesn't have the laws to penalise behaviour that would be considered criminal in other places? As indicated by the original article and the ones MakubeX2 had provided here and elsewhere, it seems that many people who would be criminal elsewhere in the world would not be prosecuted in Japan, simply because no such laws exist there.

Again, if you have concrete and comparative numbers to support your view, please provide them.

I highly doubt there is anything "unique" about Japan that makes people there less likely to be sexual predators than people elsewhere in the world simply because the Japanese apparently have more access to pornography.

[Random32]

Originally Posted by TinyRedLeaf

I wonder. Do you have hard numbers to support that view?

I am inclined to be sceptical, especially in the light of what SeijiSensei clearly pointed out:

I don't know about numbers of child sexual abuse specifically, but the UNODC publishes a report about rape statistics in general, which can be found here. http://www.unodc.org/documents/data-...l_violence.xls

This data supports aohige's and my assertion of lolicon readers being less likely to rape.

In other words, how sure are we that we aren't simply believing what we want to believe?

We never can be sure, but that applies equally to the people claiming that we are wrong as well. We can only do our best and hope we're right.

I highly doubt there is anything "unique" about Japan that makes people there less likely to be sexual predators than people elsewhere in the world simply because the Japanese apparently have more access to pornography.

Pornography reduces rape, and not just in Japan

University of Hawaii Study on Sex Crime, Pornography, and Japan shows that a massive increase in the availability of porn coincided with a massive decrease in rape. This does not apply exclusively to Japan either, other countries such as the Czech Republic have displayed similar results.

So from that, I think its reasonable to extrapolate to Child Porn reduces Child Rape. Any reasons why that reasoning would be flawed?

[Destined_Fate]

Well it makes sense, porn helps some people relieve themselves. I was at boot camp and on a dorm where guys and girls were separated. Let me tell you, a very sexually frustrated bunk mate can be extremely scary as the weeks go by. Which is why when one of the guys went into the stall for awhile no one bothered him because we would rather he get his business over with and not wallow in it. Hell, some of the ugly girls started to look hot. You know things are bad when that happens.

Luckily one of my buddies had a smart mother that knew how to sneak such "material" for her precious baby. Needless to say he was a very popular guy because he shared.

[Metaler]

Originally Posted by willx

After reading this, I was hunting around for an academic study that I found a year or so ago that apparently documented that after prolonged exposure to sexual images or pornography -- people reacted less and less to images of extreme violence. Apparently the intense stimuli from the erotic images desensitized them to violence.

There was also another study done in either Spain or Italy that apparently found that there was a rapid rise in ED or impotence among young men. This was attributed to the increased availability and intensity of pornography available. Basically, real women, were less stimulating than the images these men had gotten used to.. and therefore wasn't enough to elicit a response.

Food for thought?

Yep, the State can't have any of that.

George Orwell was right.

[MakubeX2]

Kansai Enkou Case :-
http://pastehtml.com/view/cca5lhu87.html

There's a lot of material here to be translate and I do not have the time nor space to do it here. What I'll do here is to translate the most important details relevant to the topic.

Basically Kansai Enkou was an illegal porn video series in Japan made around the '00s featuring young underage girls that were in the "Enjo Kousai" around the Kansai region, filming them directly in the act. It's made catering to those maniacs who want their porn raw and unprocessed.

There was reportedly 162 titles featuring 92 girls filmed, 79 of them minors and only 102 was released before the 4 masterminds was arrested in 2005 for violation of the Child Pronography Act. The main camera man cum actor was fined 10 million yen with 15 years imprisonment, the rest sentenced to 6-7 years imprisonment.

There are other details in the original Japanese texts. So others here who are eloquent in Japanese might want to translate and point things out should they be relevant to the topic.

With that said, it's worth questioning about what drives those minors to be in the trade and to be filmed above all things.

Now, my take is that since the Japanese society is very open in terms of sexuality, it drives Japanese girls to be precocious in terms of sex at an early age. But they lack the maturity to comprehen things and the responsibility to deal with them. Some of those girls figured that since there are people who will pay big bucks to sleep with them, so they will exploit this with their body, not knowing what this will lead to.

So, besides enacting tougher law on dealing with REAL CP, perhaps it is time for an education reform.

[willx]

Originally Posted by MakubeX2

Now, my take is that since the Japanese society is very open in terms of sexuality, it drives Japanese girls to be precocious in terms of sex at an early age. But they lack the maturity to comprehen things and the responsibility to deal with them. Some of those girls figured that since there are people who will pay big bucks to sleep with them, so they will exploit this with their body, not knowing what this will lead to.

So, besides enacting tougher law on dealing with REAL CP, perhaps it is time for an education reform.

Emphasis mine. Wha? This.. Hm, I'm not sure if I agree with this..

I'm always for more education though (incl. more practical real life education)

[MakubeX2]

Originally Posted by willx

Emphasis mine. Wha? This.. Hm, I'm not sure if I agree with this..

There is always indication of, if not direct, sex in Shojo Manga for one thing.

[sudolicious]

Originally Posted by MakubeX2

There is always indication of, if not direct, sex in Shojo Manga for one thing.

I didn't want to say anything at first, because it seemed you had a better grasp of the japanese culture, but you can't seriously tell me you think this is even the slightest indicator for the japanese society being "very open in terms of sexuality"?! I thought you were thinking of other aspects I haven't been paying attention to.
Also, lol @ "always".

Your conclusion from before isn't making much sense either.

[Metaler]

Now I admit I don't know as much about Japan as you guys, but I'm pretty sure most people there are disgustingly homophobic. So, no, they're not open about sexuality.