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NEWS: Creators Decry Tokyo's Proposed 'Virtual' Child Porn Ban

It is not that simple. For some personalities (or perhaps disorder would be more correct) rather than satisfaction you have escalation; start with the drawings, when that doesn't satisfy anymore seek out the real stuff, and when that doesn't satisfy anymore...
Removing access to the "material" may make no difference, I'm not a psychologist, but you could argue that the best way to stop someone going down the slippery slope is to rope it off.

It really bothers me that people think little girl panties are so important that it's worth fighting over. I'm glad that they posted a list of names, because these are authors that no longer garner my support. This ban probably should have happened long before it got this far.

So basically a very small fraction of a percentage of the population dictates what forms of media we have access to? Great idea there.

And no, you aren't a psychologist. Don't use the argument that "well, if X didn't exist, there wouldn't be so many related issues." It puts the blame on the supposed trigger, instead of on the person committing the act.

It really bothers me that people think little girl panties are so important that it's worth fighting over. I'm glad that they posted a list of names, because these are authors that no longer garner my support. This ban probably should have happened long before it got this far.

I come from a country with less gun crime per head than the US because there are less triggers - putting the blame on the person committing the act doesn't make the person they shot any less dead. I know many American's are very protective of their rights to bear arms - I once worked with one - but it doesn't change the fact that there is a case to me made whether you agree with it or not, so consider that the same is true of this bill.

How does confronting something fictional battle something real? Or more to the point, are you saying that allowing sexually explicit artwork increases real child abuse? Many conservatives have tried to make the exact same argument with regards to porn and rape, introduce obscenity and sex-related legislation, and the overwhelming facts turned out to be the completely opposite

(And why is it that people have orders of magnitude more tolerance for violence than sex anyways..)

There's a very thick, big line between fiction and reality. Real freedom of speech means exactly that: allowing people to express opinions you find "deplorable or morally wrong". Freedom of speech never forces anything on other people, so such a freedom cannot be held responsible as the root cause of criminal actions.

What you've described absolutely does NOT "cancel" each other out. As I've mentioned above, real freedom of speech never forces anyone to do anything. Basically you're saying that one party (the pro-ban party), in addition to merely expressing their ideological opposition to the other party, now also gets to exert control over them.

Real freedom is free. It always give people choice. It only feels unfree when people have to share it with those of antithetical opinions, ideologies, moralities. And that is actually the only real "problem" people experience. Unfortunately some tend to classify that as the root cause of all the ills of society: "If only *those* people were not free, if only *those* ideas were not free, then *our* society would be better off"

How do drawings result in real exploitation and abuse? Does every drawing of a fictional character result in a real child getting abused? How about 1-to-10 instance ratio then? Does every drawing of a fictional teenage character in a sexual situation result in a real person becoming a prostitute? Again, 1:1 for exploitation? If not, how about 1 in 10? or even 1 in 100?

The issue with the association is that there is just no tangible connection here, as in a logical implication. That is, If A happens, then B MUST happen. Or you can even say: If A happens, then B MUST happen 75% of the time. Substitute A for "fictional expression" and B for "real harm to real persons".

(again the same argument was attempted in that link above about porn/obscenity and rape)

I'm sorry, but people who are driven to "regulate freedom" for the good of society always do so out of some form of dislike. But real freedom doesn't address any kind of absolute right or wrong, nor should it. Rather, it sidesteps those issues of morality, dealing with the more ethically-focused issue of individual liberty instead. As such, there is only one clear, simple, elegant "line" that is drawn and actually defined by such a system, quoting Jefferson: "Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others."
Despite popularly saying so, there is no "abuse" of real freedom when it is recognized equally. You can look at it more rationally through a black-box test: if you couldn't see what I do, nor even be aware of me, what effects do my actions (that you are unaware of) have on your own or anyone else's liberty and well being? If it actually harms someone involuntarily, then yes it should be addressed, like drunk driving for example, since drunk driving passes both the black-box test and implication test in terms of causing involuntary harm to others.

Why should the line be drawn there? That is your subjective opinion of where you believe a line should be drawn. Others more conservative believe that the line should be placed at a higher age, what makes this opinion any more or less valid than yours? When you start drawing a line in one particular spot, others will try to move it to make it more restrictive. You can't have a line in the middle, because once you start placing a line based on a subjective opinion, it will move around on the whims of those in power.

Also, the reason there are laws against child porn is very simple, because it harms actual children who are harmed in reality. It is not because some people view it as "icky".

When you start limiting speech because the expression is morally wrong, you are on a slippery slope. Rape is an awful crime, and one could make the exact same argument about rape as you are making about virtual child porn. Does this mean that we should ban rape in media? How about murder, which one can make an argument that it is worse than any other crime, it is absolutely horrible when someone is murdered in real life. Shall we ban murder as well? Expressing something does not mean that the subject suddenly becomes "okay", as murder isn't okay just because it can be depicted fictionally. Your line of thinking could just as easily be apply to many other things. After all, like it or not rape and murder are both things that should and have to be defended against in real life.

When one's argument is that "I think [insert any subject here] is horrible in fiction, and that people should not support it, I see no problems with that. However it is no longer an experssion of free speech when you are arguing that the government should throw people in jail for certain forms of expression when it does not infringe on anyone else's rights [and no, there is no right to only have stuff you personally accept in the world], because the very nature of that argument is to get rid another's freedom of speech.

There is a difference between fiction and reality, and as argued above, the line of thinking you are using could just as easily be applied to many other subjects as well. Allowing something to exist in fiction does NOT mean that you are approving of it to happen in reality.

When you start regulating the freedom of expression and freedom of speech when another's rights are not being infringed, then you accept that there is no freedom at all. When you start drawing lines, there is no problem drawing a line in a different location based on the whims of those who are in power. If one accepts freedom of speech to be important, than that will lead to a situation that one is required to accept the existence of speech that they do not approve of. When someone can go to jail because someone in the government does not approve of the fiction that one writes or draws, then freedom of speech has been lost.


And for the record, I do not approve of much of the hardcore loli content that is out there, and I think that it is disguising. However just because I (or anyone else) may think it is disguising does not mean that the people who write this stuff should go to jail.

takarada wrote:

There is this fallacy that looking at pictures of children will make people who get excited about that sort of thing go out and molest children. This is the basis for this sort of legislation. Looking at pornography leads to satisfaction, not frustration. People with porn collections don't use real people to satisfy themselves. For a pedophile, if he can't get off on child porn then the chances of him molesting a real child would obviously increase. Banning or restricting access to these materials will lead to an increase in pedophile activity, not a decrease. We really need to protect children but instead people are not thinking it through and are increasing the risk of child abuse.

It is not that simple. For some personalities (or perhaps disorder would be more correct) rather than satisfaction you have escalation; start with the drawings, when that doesn't satisfy anymore seek out the real stuff, and when that doesn't satisfy anymore...
Removing access to the "material" may make no difference, I'm not a psychologist, but you could argue that the best way to stop someone going down the slippery slope is to rope it off.

chicogrande wrote:

Is it possible this legislation in Japan comes as a result of outside pressure (The United States or the UN?) in their need to control thought? I mean, we are talking about imagination here. First what they eat, now entertainment. The Japanese people should stand up for their culture.

The UN has been pushing for Japan to reform and regulate this sort of material for years. The UN, and several nations backing the UN initiative, keep applying pressure on Japan to change the laws each year.

It's nice to know that they're are behind this crusade to purge the world of underage anime girls instead of focusing their attention on more pressing issues, like keeping rogue states such as Iran and/or North Korea from acquiring nuclear weapons and selling them to terrorist groups, or actively preventing the next genocide in Africa instead of having a year-long debate on whether it even fits within their very narrow definition of the word.