Hentai Collector Sentenced to Jail Over "Obscene" Material

[b4k4]

Your feelings on hentai, lolicon, and pornography in general can be whatever you like in my opinion, I just wanna take a moment to point out that I had a politics class last semester in college, and there was an entire sidebar dedicated to the fact that the US Supreme Court had made a ruling that drawings did not constitute child pornography.

Honestly, I don't think it's a great thing to be into, but the fact that they prosecuted him over the content of books that he owned is wrong. You could go from this prosecution to prosecuting people for reading books or watching movies in which people are murdered, with the only logic flaw being that so many more people are involved with media that has that kind of content.

At the end of the day, people need to realize that IT'S NOT FUCKING REAL. If he has actual sexual photographs of underage children, then yes, prosecute the bastard. But for God's sake, it is a DRAWING. Going after someone for that is quite simply retarded.

 

[b4k4]

Why is the First Amendment still under attack in this country?

I honestly wish I knew. I can kind of see the logic behind this one, but even then it's just so stupid I'm beginning to think that I'm the stupid one, and everyone else is a fucking genius.

 

[darthzack79]

The penalties for fighting and losing that case are completely outrageous, but this guy still has to be something of a pervert. And why do I get the feeling that he made up attending a bible study group?

 

[etherlance]

i dont see the point of charging this guy simply because he has some sexual cartoons.
i mean i am currently aware of at least five differant sites on the internet that display the same thing (i dont go on those sites though)

beastiality, child sex manga, incest, BDSM, it's all there on the internet if you look hard enough and that isnt illegal so why charge the guy for simply having that sort of thing in his manga collection.
hell the court said he doesn't have any criminal record, yet they were ready and willing to throw the guy to the wolves?

dont get me wrong he is a bit of a pervert but i can ganrantee that at least 75% of the people on this site have at one point or another looked at something similar.......does that mean the we all require locking up? no of course not.

this is when justice and sterotypical nonsense mix together and cause everything (especially this guys life) to go completly TITS up.

 

[FinalGamer]

Uhm....it's just drawings.

I'm sure people out there own worse manga like of guro or such, what about them? Seriously, it's as if you Americans are afraid of anything sexual. Puritans still rubbin' off on ya all those 500 years?

Okay but seriously, I don't agree with this man's taste but let's be thankful he decided to keep that in fiction, in fantasy, in pure harmless pencils and ink. What you want him to do, download the real stuff?

 

[Motakikurushi]

Maybe if the police had maybe realised what their jobs were and had ignored it, like any sane denizen of planet Earth would have done, then perhaps they could have saved the murder of an innocent woman at the hands of a decrepit drug dealer. The police like shooting fish in a barrel. Why go after serial killers and gangs when you can arrest poor, isolated and harmless human beings? It's much easier and quicker! Goes to show you how obnoxiously opposed and trigger happy society is to anything possibly paedophilic. Instead of accepting that people like that do in fact populate America, they plug their ears and scream 'la la la la they don't exist la la la la'. That's how you solve a problem. I guess they'll need to arrest the internet now as well. What does the guy need rehabilitation for? To cure his free will? Fuck, 'A Clockwork Orange' really wasn't kidding.

 

[Malshien]

I live in Japan and you can walk into any bookstore in the country and pick up stuff like that off the shelf. Honestly people, almost all the research indicates that lots of freely available porn helps keep sexual crime rates down, and suppression just brings them up. What message are the politicians sending, "Hello Mr. Porn reader, we want you to stop reading that disgusting comic book and suppress your urges until you're so messed up that you actually go out and do it for real!".

Personally it's not my cuppa tea, but I've sat on the train next to middle-aged salarymen casually flipping through comics showing violent tentacle sex, and then the salaryman probably went home and boned his wife, having vicariously satisfied his illegal sexual desires by reading the comic book. Japan has one of the lower per capita rape rates in the world (54th out of 65 countries, source: http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_rap_percap-crime-rapes-per-capita) so they can't be doing too much wrong. The U.S. on the other hand, with it's puritanical view of sex and sexuality, has the 9th highest rape rate in the world.

The comic books hurt no-one, but real rapes mess people up for life. I'd rather have a million guys quietly getting off on trains to comic books than have one person actually raped. ... Now I need to go and refresh the supply of disinfectant wipes I use to wipe down every train seat I sit on... *shudder*.

Well put and my point exactly. There is a distinct difference to reading/thinking and doing, plus I've argued before that the more you repress something the more likely it is to happen. A classic example is the underage sex issue, the answer lies in education not denying its existance or chastising and repressing those involved.

 

[Tirin]

Eh, different strokes (literally, in this case?) for different folks. It's unreasonable to arrest him over fictional stuff, but... Whatever. That's the law, I guess.

I'm happy to know that if I had any paraphilias, I could stockpile hentai without being arrested if it was found.

 

[shadow skill]

This is why i keep all my porn online and only keep Playboys in my house. No one throws a fit over Playboy.

Wait, i happen to own some manga depicting naked people who may or may not be supposedly over the age of 18... Am i a criminal now? I don't feel like a criminal. I haven't even done any "Self Appreciation" to any of those images. In fact all i think i have done is help give my hard-earned money to the local manga selling store here, witch is not a big business but a local small one.

OH GOD I'M A CRIMINAL NOW!!!

Seriously though people, wtf is up with this. I've been where this guy was. I have gone on the internet and looked up some seriously messed up things for a cheep thrill out of boredom and too much spare time, weather we admit it or not 99.99% of everyone on this site has. Does that make us all criminals? Are we victimizing anyone? Are we really breaking the law because sometimes we need something a little extreme to get some "self appreciation"?

And last thing i have to say, isn't it illegal for anyone, even a postal worker to go through someone's mail? Shouldn't someone loose their job over that invasion of privacy that started all this? Seriously!

They are allowed to look through international shipments.

 

[PyroZombie]

You can't stop this shit.

The internet is full of this garbage.

 

[jthm]

War is Peace; Freedom is Slavery; Ignorance is Strength
We will arrest you for your thoughts that don't line up with the majority and will not render our judgments based on your actions.

 

[jezzy]

Breaking News: Other than threats, people can now be jailed for their thoughts, even if they are not acted upon.

I don't like lolicon, but this is so ridiculous that it's not even funny. The guy's lawyer was incompetent for telling him to plead guilty because now he can't even appeal. I might seriously write a letter to whatever court sentenced this guy just to get it out. I feel so bad for the guy. Goddammit.

I don't have time to look through 17 pages of comments (please pardon the laziness), but Neil Gaiman wrote an excellent post [http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2008/12/why-defend-freedom-of-icky-speech.html] about this back in 2008. He's since posted about the ruling, but I haven't had a chance to read that yet.

 

[Seldon2639]

http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2008/12/why-defend-freedom-of-icky-speech.html

That is all I came here to do.

 

[Sparrow]

Look, what ever it comes down to and whatever anyone thinks, this stuff is pretty nasty. Although the prison sentance was probally a tad harsh, I think it's probally for the best that they don't let him actually keep the stuff.

Lines on paper is a fine argument, someone shouldn't be able to gain a prison sentence and a hefty fine for lines on paper...

But when those lines on paper come together to form the image of a child/animal being sexually abused then surely that's a different matter all together?
Granted you can't argue that because he had drawings of such things that it means he must also engage or have the potential to engage in such acts...

But simply the idea that he was interested in seeing such acts, even illustrated should raise enough questions, right?

I mean I'm sure there are people out there (in vast quantities) that enjoy the sight of a pair of hand-animated titties flopping around...
And if they want to satisfy that part of their tastes fair play to them...
But child pornography and Bestiality is wrong no matter how it's portrayed and people who actively seek it out are fairly disgusting...

So yeah, I'd feel sorry for the guy if the case was he was found in possession of illustrated pornography, because that would be over-reacting...
But he went for child pornography and his only excuse was,

"I thought it was only illegal if I downloaded it..."

Riiiiight...

Actually, this man can put it much better than I can.

Put it this way. If you like a space orientated stuff, you'd be attracted to a space game. i.e. Mass Effect. Maybe you never want to go travelling into space, but it's fair to say that one of the reasons you may buy it is due to the space element. I'm not saying there aren't other reasons you could have bought the game, but if there's a game about pink turtles in a green field, you wouldn't buy it just because it was cheap. You'd think "I don't want to play this game, it's all about green fields and pink turtles."

I'm rambling now. Point being, if this guy bought animated child pornography, it's probally because he wanted to see animated child pornography. This probally means he bought it because he likes to look at naked kids, animated or otherwise. Maybe he doesn't want to have sex with children, but he damn sure likes to look at them naked. That in itself is terms strong enough to take that stuff away from him.

I'd quite like to know what the response to this would be if these books weren't animated child porn, but real child porn. Would everyone feel the need to defend him then?

 

[Slash Dementia]

That's going way to far. I don't like this stuff, but let the man look at his hentai in peace. If anything, wouldn't it be keeping him entertained so that he doesn't go on a child rape spree (I doubt he's anything like that)?

There are real criminals out there and the U.S. is using tax payer dollars to jail someone who looks at hentai...

/Facepalm

 

[Zodiac_A17]

Okay this is more than likely morally wrong and I like anime & manga; but giving him jail-time for lines on paper is more wrong.

 

[snow wolf]

This is just stupid they're just drawings, and also someone could draw a character that looks about 3 but is 21, how do they tell the age? The artist is the one who really decides.

 

[RabidusUnus]

How can you have a crime this damaging without a victim? Sure, it's sick and perverted, but seriously, it's just some drawings. This is stupid. But still, that hentai is messed up.

EDIT: Isn't this like getting arrested for murder after shooting someone in a game?

No it's like being angry, writing out a plan of how to kill someone, then deciding against it. But being charged for murder anyway.

 

[CD-R]

This is an absolute outrage of the highest caliber. The ACLU should have been involved and this guy's lawyer is an idiot. They should have fought the charges. It's a drawing!!! A DRAWING!!!! they don't have civil rights theres no minors being harmed!!! The Protect Act protects nonone. I am so pissed about this.

 

[diablomaki]

side note:all my thoughts arent related

i would rather be raped than killed and i would rather live to regret what happened

if we are innocent until proven guilty, then he has only owned some nasty, nasty porn-type comics(aren't comics collectible?)

"justice is blind" in this case justice is so fucking spider-eyed and opinionated