Shadow1980 said: Honestly, obscenity laws have no business existing in the first place. For one, they are based on wholly subjective standards. Who gets to decide what "contemporary community standards" are or whether something "lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value." Furthermore, it's entirely arbitrary. Why should a drawing or a video game depicting sexual content be potentially subject to the lable "obscene," while another work depicting graphic violence purely for entertainment value not be subjected to similar censorship laws simply because it lacks sexual content? Just because some portion of society, even an overwhelming majority, finds it offensive and disgusting does not give them the moral right to ban products and activities that do not harm others. When it comes to issues of individual liberty, I tend to subscribe to the "harm principle," which can be summed up in the following passages: "Liberty consists in the freedom to do everything which injures no one else; hence the exercise of the natural rights of each man has no limits except those which assure to the other members of the society the enjoyment of the same rights. These limits can only be determined by law." - The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, France, 1789 There are certain forms of speech that are and should be banned because they have demonstrably harmful effects on other people and/or otherwise impose an undue burden on society. Incitement to violence, perjury, false advertising, child pornography, "fighting words," and of course speech that can cause imminent panic (e.g., the famous "Yelling 'FIRE!' in a crowed theater" example) are all illegal. Libel and slander can also carry civil liabilities. Regular pornography like what you can easily find on the internet, with consenting adult actors having videotaped sex for the entertainment of others, does not harm anyone or impose an undue burden on them. This goes double for cartoon, comic, or video game characters engaging in sexual acts, even sexual violence. They are fictional characters that exist merely as ideas in someone's head and as lines on paper or as polygons or sprites in a game file. They are not human beings and thus possess no rights. The acts portrayed in a game like Rapelay are not actual rape of an actual human being any more than performing a fatality in Mortal Kombat or popping headshots in an FPS are actual acts of murder. Whether it's pornographic content or violent content, such content in games, comics, and animation is for all intents and purposes completely harmless. If someone wants to watch "Horny Nympho MILFs Vol. 9" or play a pornographic visual novel or read an H-manga/doujin, they should be able to do so without the government sending people to arrest them. For these reasons, obscenity laws are inherently unjust and should be abolished (with the obvious exception of laws banning sexualized depictions of real-life minors). |
What we are seeing (and I appologize because I have been drinking and my dictation is probably bad) is the culimination of "correlation is the same as causation." (Seriously, why does spellcheck not work in the advanced form). Someone who engages in sexual violence might very well enjoy porn about sexual violentce. Of course, at the same time, someone who might never wish to harm someone else might also enjoy that same media. Desire is NOT illegal. You have every right to fantasize about whipping someone with a wet cat. It's only when you whip someone unwilling with a wet cat that you cross the line into illegal behavior. We cannot lose this distinction. The difference between desire and action is everything.