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Being an English-speaking fan of lolicon manga really sucks

abunai wrote:

So it's all right to persecute a subculture, if it is publicly despised by a sufficient majority?

Paedophilia is no more a "subculture" than paranoid schizophrenia, drug addiction or sociopathy.

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Does the name George Klippert mean anything to you?

Equating homosexuality with paedophilia is not constructive. Or accurate.

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Whoever diminishes the rights of any citizen, diminishes the rights of all citizens

Possibly. But every democracy, regardless of how liberal it might be, finds it necessary to curtail liberties to one degree or another in order to contain antisocial behaviour.
The argument should not be over whether liberties should be curtailed - in the real world they're always going to be - but, rather, what specific curtailments are necessary and reasonable and to what degree.

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You really haven't grasped the most fundamental principle of civil liberties, have you? You don't understand that it is like the motto of the Three Musketeers: "One for all, all for one."

And yet you seem only to advocate the "all for one" part of that rallying cry. Certainly society must protect the liberties of the individual but "one for all" refers in this instance to the individual's responsibility to look to the health of society (and possibly accept restrictions as a result). In the context of a nation state, the one is meaningless without the other - the key flaw in libertarianism is its inability to address the balance (just as autocracy does in the opposite direction).

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The moment you single out a subgroup and deprive it of some or all of its rights, you have lost the whole ballgame. It's only a matter of time before it becomes your turn to lose your rights.

Nonsense. That's political ideology taken to unsustainable extremes. Do the prohibitions on the sale and display of Nazi memorobilia in Germany and France (regardless of whether or not you support those laws) make the citizens of those nations fundamentally oppressed? Or would it be fair to say that relative to most of the world the people of Germany and France actually have a great deal of freedom and have more legally enshrined rights than most other peoples?
Does Japan's ban on the depiction of genitalia in pornography, as silly as it might be, really leave the non-porn viewing population worrying that next it might be pictures of cars or toasters or steam irons that might be censored? Or would it be fair to say that in that instance the slippery slope doesn't actually extend very far at all?

Incidentally, whilst I don't claim to be able to channel the dead,

I think it's probably fair to say that Martin Niemöller (Lutheran pastor, political conservative, staunch monarchist, upright retired Prussian naval officer) would not have been big on the free distribution of lolicon hentai. Or any explicit pornography for that matter.

Indeed, I rather suspect he would have found his words being used to defend such material to be deeply offensive.

Richard J. wrote:

Being interested in a subject in fiction doesn't make a person interested in that same subject in real life. I find the study of serial murder fascinating, the reasons, the nature of the crimes, everything about it strikes me as intriguing. Outside of a cold text book study of the subject, I doubt I could deal with the reality.

This is true but...

Reading a text book on a given subject is not really analogous to reading something intended solely to provide a vicarious sexual thrill via the same subject matter. Intellectual curiosity is one thing, sexual stimulation is something quite different.

This whole discussion of the "Making lolicon manga illegal is an example of persecuting a thought crime" is missing one component. It can be argued that a big reason for anti-lolicon legislation is that the success of an industry that creates simulated child pornography could lead to an increased production of actual child pornography as a growing interest in the subject becomes apparent to the ones behind it.

That's always been my biggest concern with licensing such material: that someone so inclined could look at it and go, "Well, if Lolicon Manga X is doing pretty well in sales, maybe I could stand to release more videos!" It would be a case of riding a trend, except this time it's a trend that NO ONE wants to be ridden.

I never said you were psychotic.

Ah, I see. You heap profane abuse on me, and then you expect me to be nice to you?

How foolish of me, when I could have just used my Gestapo-like powers to delete your words.

Again, your parochial mindset fails to grasp that the world is wider than North America. But that's okay, we try to ignore the fact that you exist, too, so let's call it even.

While I would agree that the use of real-life models is a genuine area of concern that should be adressed, you are not addressing that issue. You are, instead, maintaining (in the face of a complete lack of evidence) that a fascination with lolicon is inseparable from active paedophiliac behaviour.

You also continuously deny the parallel issue with other criminal acts -- namely that it is (no matter how you prefer to avoid acknowledging it) a valid point to compare readers of lolicon with readers of other material that glorifies criminal acts. It is a valid point that people can read rape pornography and act out rape fantasies with a consenting adult partner, without ever becoming rapists, because their needs are met by the fantasy, without a requirement to actively commit the criminal act. This very central point you choose to ignore or denigrate as irrelevant.

So it's all right to persecute a subculture, if it is publicly despised by a sufficient majority? Does the name George Klippert mean anything to you?

Whoever diminishes the rights of any citizen, diminishes the rights of all citizens, and ignoring a civil injustice because "it doesn't apply to me" is the most ignorant and self-destructive thing any citizen in a free state can do. It is incumbent upon free people to defend the rights of even the most disliked and hated individuals or groups among the ranks of their fellow citizens.

And there you go again. "It's all right to deprive such-and-such of liberty, because I'm not one of them and I don't like them."

You really haven't grasped the most fundamental principle of civil liberties, have you? You don't understand that it is like the motto of the Three Musketeers: "One for all, all for one." The moment you single out a subgroup and deprive it of some or all of its rights, you have lost the whole ballgame. It's only a matter of time before it becomes your turn to lose your rights.

Once again.... only a spoiled child would expect a grown man to roll over and blithely accept being insulted. You heaped profanity on me, and I gave you intelligent put-downs in return. And when dormcat jabbed you with his not-inconsiderable wit, you likewise responded with profanity.

abunai wrote:

So it's all right to persecute a subculture, if it is publicly despised by a sufficient majority? Does the name George Klippert mean anything to you?

Pretty much. Politics is a game defined by pandering and rhetoric. Even with the nature of politics aside, I don't believe very strongly in democracy or how government works. I'm not a paramilitary anarchist but some of my core political opinions border on fascism. I also believe that a degree of damage to those that don't deserve it to eliminate those that do is a worth while trade off.

So basically I'm just giving you fodder at this point.

abunai wrote:

And there you go again. "It's all right to deprive such-and-such of liberty, because I'm not one of them and I don't like them." You really haven't grasped the most fundamental principle of civil liberties, have you? You don't understand that it is like the motto of the Three Musketeers: "One for all, all for one." The moment you single out a subgroup and deprive it of some or all of its rights, you have lost the whole ballgame. It's only a matter of time before it becomes your turn to lose your rights.

The fact that I don't like them is a key distinction. I'm not complacently allowing (in fact since I have no bearing on this legislation my opinion really has no weight in any circumstance) my contemporaries to be eaten by an unjust political machine. I loosely support the idea of a group of people that disgust me being criminally prosecuted for something that shouldn't be tolerated.

And again, this isn't a significant political issue being debated. This isn't Apartheid it's a bullshit loophole to having child porn.

Your "giving me intelligent put-downs" doesn't give you a higher position to talk down to me from.

As I'm sure your parents taught you as mine did to me "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say it at all".

Advice which I've followed pretty poorly in this topic. I will earnestly apologize to you for responding in an overly caustic manner to your initial post but I can say that I was legitimately offended by your response to a simple two line post by me.

Well the fact that lolicon manga doesn't have anything to do with real children doesn't work for you, the explanations I gave don't work for you and while you've admitted that it doesn't make people go out and molest children, you can't consider any reasons why someone might read any of this sort of material and not be a pedophile.

Since I can't convince you that there might be other reasons, I'll just shrug off the effort. May we agree to disagree?

If they touch a child, I'll be the first in line to severely punish them. However, given the vast number of people who commit such crimes without having been exposed to lolicon, I have to argue that reading it doesn't make you a pedophile. Since I feel there are other reasons to read it, I can't accept that being a pedophile is the sole prerequisite for reading it.

Also, I do feel my comparisons were accurate. Being interested in a subject in fiction doesn't make a person interested in that same subject in real life. I find the study of serial murder fascinating, the reasons, the nature of the crimes, everything about it strikes me as intriguing. Outside of a cold text book study of the subject, I doubt I could deal with the reality.

Paedophilia, like so may other paraphilias, has been stigmatized in society. What separates paedophilia from homosexuality, of course, is the fact that active paedophilia (actual physical acts, as opposed to passive paedophilia, suppressed or sublimated paedophiliac urges) requires the participation of an individual who cannot meaningfully consent. Like other forms of non-consensual intercourse, society frowns on it. Yet when not acted upon, it cannot possibly be criminal in nature, unless one wishes to go the down the thorny path of advocating the prosecution of "thought crime".

As noted in an earlier post, I maintain that equating homosexuality with paedophilia is tantamount to homophobic agitation. However, my reason for bringing up Klippert was that the crime he was convicted of was being homosexual. That is, he was criminalized because of his nature, not his actions. The court records make this clear. In other words, he stands as a perfect example of a "thought crime" (in a Canadian court, even) to illustrate the subject. Moreover, a thought crime that today is totally decriminalized even as regards the act.

But, in my opinion, the crux of such curtailment of civil liberties must be whether the behaviour in question harms anyone.

This is remarkable -- I do believe that is the first time anyone has suggested (even circumstantially) that I might be a libertarian... what a distressing thought, and it shows that you have not quite understood me.

By the bonds of the social contract, the reverse also applies, and the society must move Heaven and Earth to guarantee the continuation of civic rights and freedoms.

In practice, this means that the citizen must, in order to save the free society from those who would curtail its freedoms, sometimes (often) struggle against the majority. That is the "one for all" bit.

Hmm. Two interesting examples. Did you know that in my native Denmark (occupied for five years by Nazi Germany), there is no ban on Nazi political affiliation, symbols or speech?

There is even a small Danish National Socialist Party, who are roundly ridiculed in the press and in the general public, and whose chances of ever being taken seriously are twofold: slim and fat.

In Germany, by comparison, neo-Nazism remains an issue -- specifically, I would argue, because of the prohibition.

In my opinion, the German decision to ban Nazi activities is foolish, because it empowers the neo-Nazis.
Of course, given world opinion, it is hard to see how Germany could act otherwise. But Realpolitik does not necessarily equate to sensible policy.

As for the Japanese ban on the depiction of genitalia, I realize that it may be germane to the subject of manga, but really.... it's a silly example. Even in Japan, it is ridiculed. Again, it is an example of politicians passing laws to protect "public morality" that should never have needed said protection.

Should we then discount the modern relevance of that document, on the basis of traits in its authors which we now find abhorrent?

How about some other examples, then? Violent video games? That's certainly visceral and personal enough.Do we (Jack Thompson's antics aside) indict gamers as potential mass murderers?

To accept this argument, however, one would have to accept that lolicon "breeds" active paedophiliacs -- and, as I have mentioned in an earlier post, the opposite could as easily be true. By providing a "safe" outlet for these urges, lolicon could, in fact, be acting in the opposite direction.

Yes, you are. It's not often that one sees a frank declaration of fascist viewpoints. Lack of faith in democracy is more common, but I gather that your position is not just a lack of faith in democracy's viability, but an actual opposition to its guiding principles.

Which is revealing, to say the least.

And, let's be clear about this -- we're not talking about actual child molesters or people who have live-model child porn in their possession. We're talking about illustrations. Drawings. And these are so intolerable to you that you have no qualms about their possessors being prosecuted. Is this a correct interpretation?

While I disagree with you on this point (since I know in my heart that my motives for this discussion are not coloured by a liking for lolicon, but for civil liberties), I believe you have, for once, a valid point here. Clearly, if you do equate lolicon with live-model child porn, then allowing lolicon would be a loophole. But it all hinges on whether the two are the same.

You had a remark in an earlier draft of your post, which you edited out before I hit the quote button, to the effect that you would rather see ten innocent men punished than one guilty man go free (or some similar paraphrase of Bismarck's notorious remark). I, as you will no doubt be unsurprised to hear, am a proponent of William Blackstone's proposition (which Bismarck referenced) -- that it is better to let ten guilty men go than to punish one innocent.

abunai wrote:

Yes, you are. It's not often that one sees a frank declaration of fascist viewpoints. Lack of faith in democracy is more common, but I gather that your position is not just a lack of faith in democracy's viability, but an actual opposition to its guiding principles. Which is revealing, to say the least.

I said that some of my opinions are borderline but not exactly outright. It's kind of difficult to explain without loaded buzz words like fascism but in terms of pure policy some of my feelings are close. And aside from all the historical evidence people weigh against it, the core ideals weren't all bad. It's mainly the racism and mass murder that people had a problem with as opposed to the economic success and general sense of visible direction it provided.

abunai wrote:

And, let's be clear about this -- we're not talking about actual child molesters or people who have live-model child porn in their possession. We're talking about illustrations. Drawings. And these are so intolerable to you that you have no qualms about their possessors being prosecuted. Is this a correct interpretation?

In explicit legal terms, yes. The law is very new (2000's new) and has yet to be applied outside of the initial precedent set in the Sharpe case but taking the ramifications of that setting into consideration it hasn't been used to assault relatively innocent weirdos. Sharpe was a man-boy love advocate and I believe had at least one prior regarding some sort of pedophilia type charge. Given that he was using illustrations as a flimsy legal two-step around the justice system he deserved to be arrested. I think he managed to slip through an "artistic merit" loophole though that resulted in rewriting the law.

abunai wrote:

While I disagree with you on this point (since I know in my heart that my motives for this discussion are not coloured by a liking for lolicon, but for civil liberties), I believe you have, for once, a valid point here. Clearly, if you do equate lolicon with live-model child porn, then allowing lolicon would be a loophole. But it all hinges on whether the two are the same.

Which is the spirit of the law. Laws don't get made for the purpose of persecuting those that don't deserve it since democracy makes that pretty much impossible.

However, going back to the root of this topic, the fact that it may in some cases result in criminal charges against a minority of a minority of people makes it not just a question of legality for publishers but a question of business sense with a very very very obvious answer.

abunai wrote:

You had a remark in an earlier draft of your post, which you edited out before I hit the quote button, to the effect that you would rather see ten innocent men punished than one guilty man go free (or some similar paraphrase of Bismarck's notorious remark). I, as you will no doubt be unsurprised to hear, am a proponent of William Blackstone's proposition (which Bismarck referenced) -- that it is better to let ten guilty men go than to punish one innocent.

I edited something out? I don't remember doing that. I'd stand by that comment though. I won't chip away at it with points about the legal system but I will state that even if you mean "I'd rather let ten guilty men walk free than punish one innocent" as a slight exaggeration, it's how the justice system works in most first world countries with jury systems. Literally ten guilty men walk free at the expense of keeping an innocent man out of jail. I for one find that pretty irresponsible to do. Releasing killers to protect people that, at the very least, fail to cooperate with the police (thus bringing very much suspicion on themselves) is not a risk many willingly assume. And besides, releasing every "innocent" person in jail would make prison useless. The only time truly innocent people get convicted without having done something immensely stupid or incriminating is because of crappy lawyers that can't evaluate a case.

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大運動会（ＴＶ）　　Ｇガンダム　フルーツバスケット　
灰羽連盟　ななか6/17　カレイドスター　ＡＩＲ
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ロリ　ふたなり　女装少年

Gawd I'm really tired of this endless debate. Can we talk about Wayanaguda's Round Shell instead? BTW, he really likes creating images for Ai Haibara (Detective Conan). Maybe because she's technically legal.

Gawd I'm really tired of this endless debate. Can we talk about Wayanaguda's Round Shell instead? BTW, he really likes creating images for Ai Haibara (Detective Conan). Maybe because she's technically legal.

dormcat wrote:

Gawd I'm really tired of this endless debate. Can we talk about Wayanaguda's Round Shell instead? BTW, he really likes creating images for Ai Haibara (Detective Conan). Maybe because she's technically legal.

Ah, I remember Round Shell. It illustrates an interesting point of English-speaking fans relying entirely on Japanese material...fetishes that don't have the same cultural impact. I mean, I'm not sure there's too many Americans going "ZOMG!1! TRADITIONAL AND NOSTALGIC BULKY RED LEATHER BACKPACKS!11 *fapfapfapfap*

As I recall there's also a Round Shell Second. Backpacks sell!

And what does "ロリ　ふたなり　女装少年" mean, dormcat? The only thing I think I know is "ロリ" being "rori."

And what does "ロリ　ふたなり　女装少年" mean, dormcat? The only thing I think I know is "ロリ" being "rori."