Manga Translator Appeals Child Pornography Charges

[HK_01]

I find the whole lolicon stuff extremely disturbing, but this is ridiculous. It's not child pornography, those are just drawings after all and viewing them does not make one a pedophile (it's still creepy as hell though, in my opinion).

 

[HK_01]

those are just drawings after all and viewing them does not make one a pedophile.

Now that's where you're wrong. Fantasies about sex with children and generally being occupied with pedosexuality encourages child abuse.

For that reason for instance, justicial psychiatric treatment of sex offenders whose victims were children involve training them to no longer fantasize about children, but to quote the report 'acceptable fantasies'. Well, if we know that drawn child porn is about fantasizing about sex with children, is there any other conclusion than that actual and cartoon child porn are one and the same thing?

How are they the same thing? No actual children are harmed or being exploited in the making of these drawings.

And no, looking at these images does not necessarily mean you want to have sex with actual children. Just to reiterate, I am definitely not in favor of loli porn and think that it's disgusting, but I am certain that getting off to those images and wanting to have sex with actual children are two very separate things.

 

[enriquetnt]

is absurdly logical, drawings are NOT people, period. unless you can prove in a court of law that a drawing is in fact a real person you cant convict anyone off anithing just because of a drawing, take south park for example, they do a lot of abhorrent bizarre and downright nasty stuff you could ever seen, theyr offensive on so many levels that i already lost count but i dont se no one takin the creators to court for any of the things they portrayed ANIMATED on television whit sound and movement, involving children (and yes including a LOT of sexual themes and actual ACTS, and a lot of real people names and placest to boot)

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

How are they the same thing? No actual children are harmed or being exploited in the making of these drawings.

I explained that in my last post. Looking at drawn child porn pictures keeps a sexual preference for children alive and active, and this increases the chances of child abuse occuring.

Also, not acting against it obviously has a normalising effect. If sexual pleasure from ideas of child abuse is considered normal as long as it's not actual pictures, then why wouldn't child abuse be so bad as we regard it now?

The harm being done isn't just directly, and also the indirect forms require to fought. And let's realise something else for a moment: No normal person wants that drawn child porn, so nobody who doesn't deserve is going to be affected by such a ban.


As for that translator, well, he works on child porn and doesn't realise there could be trouble? That's like throwing bricks through people's windows and then complaining that you had no idea it was illegal when getting caught.

I think the distinction is that drawing pleasure from drawn pictures is not the same as drawing pleasure from ideas of child abuse, since these pictures are not pictures of abuse but just fantasy. The fantasy is just of a different kind. The fantasy is in displaying children sexually but in a non-abusive way. Real children would indeed be abused by those situations but in this fictional story they're not, because the writer/artist said so and the script shows it to be the case. This is plain fiction and it is indeed harmless, nobody has the right to stifle someone's story simply because it doesn't work like that in the real world or because it may lead some dense individuals to do bad things. This is the EXACT argument against violent videogames. Fiction doesn't need to comply with reality about ANYTHING. That's why it's called fiction!


Furthermore, there's an actual segment of Japanese people called 2D-con (2D complex) who do not have any attraction to real life (3D) people and only care for drawn charters. These people wouldn't find any real life person attractive and it is for those people that those drawings are made (usually by them too) thus they have nothing to do with actual real children and more to do with creepy escapism and sexual sublimation/suppression.


That guy being titled a "manga expert" is likely to be one of those people, it just makes sense to me. While not like them I do understand that culture since I do like a lot of anime-related stuff and the basic gist of it is that the "loli" is an idealized creature equally unreal as a fantasy creature such as an elf. Real life kids have little in common with them so I would hardly feel worried about someone's preferences.


If anything, the fact these people may like loli stuff is a pretty good showing that they reject reality altogether, deeming it quite inferior to their idealized dream characters, which in turn makes them completely harmless.

 

[Abedeus]

So if you burn a book, does it count as murder?

What if you steal one, would that be kidnapping on top of theft?

If they have humanoid characters, yes.

Manslaughter or mass homicide, too.

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

So if you burn a book, does it count as murder?

What if you steal one, would that be kidnapping on top of theft?

If they have humanoid characters, yes.

Manslaughter or mass homicide, too.

I think writers killing off their characters should also be considered murder. If they planned it from the beginning it should also be conspiracy to commit murder too.



The only problem would be that they could just write their way out of the situation by pretending the entire death thing was a dream or something.



...



Can you people finally see how ridiculous this whole situation is? The law doesn't work this way. >_>

 

[Duckman]

those are just drawings after all and viewing them does not make one a pedophile.

Now that's where you're wrong. Fantasies about sex with children and generally being occupied with pedosexuality encourages child abuse.

For that reason for instance, justicial psychiatric treatment of sex offenders whose victims were children involve training them to no longer fantasize about children, but to quote the report 'acceptable fantasies'. Well, if we know that drawn child porn is about fantasizing about sex with children, is there any other conclusion than that actual and cartoon child porn are one and the same thing?

Other good points have been made against this statement. But ultimately this argument has no backing. The fact that a child and a loli are different, though similar, is enough of a logical argument that calling the two the same falls apart. And again, I must point out that the argument of lolis leading people to become pedophiles is silly. There is no research for or against that argument that I am aware of. To rattle off an opinion as fact without solid evidence is the sign of a weak and flawed argument.

 

[dexxyoto]

I find myself skeptical of their case as it sounds very flimsy but since kids might be involved people freak the hell out. Unless you can prove the original artist drawing the images actually used little kids in sexual situations to draw said images this is little more than a thought police argument.

as well why is the translator being punished rather than say the publisher or maybe the original artist?

And come on manga rarely has any sort of realistic proportions anyways. That's like saying "Woman Dreaming" by Picasso is a photorealistic picture. (Yes I'm an art nerd thanks.)

A bit surprised at this case going on in Sweden of all places too. I sort of thought of them as being more sensible than this but everyone's allowed to have an idiot period.

Captcha: cookie cutter Yeah yeah I get it I should get back to work baking don't rub it in.

 

[lacktheknack]

Cool! Now, return to this after you've fixed REAL children being ACTUALLY trafficked!

 

[loa]

Looking at drawn child porn pictures keeps a sexual preference for children alive and active, and this increases the chances of child abuse occuring.

Cute theory.
Can you prove it?
Cause that sounds an *awful* lot like the "violent games make people violent" drivel we all know and love.

What makes this so different from that?
And what makes you think that, without an outlet, a sexual preference just vanishes?
Is that really what you think will happen?
Cause that's what you seem to be thinking here and I'd call that naive at best.

It also seems like you think a sexual preference can be "learned", you know, that's why we gotta keep those gays away from our children after all so that it doesn't "spread" cause we all know that's exactly how it works.

Right?

And let's realise something else for a moment: No normal person wants that drawn child porn, so nobody who doesn't deserve is going to be affected by such a ban.

So you are the final arbiter of what constitutes as "normal" now?
You think that "If you got nothing to hide, you got nothing to fear" rape logic is perfectly sound?

Fucking

gah.

 

[Therumancer]

Indeed in most countries, the burden of proof is on the accused.

In most first world countries? that's BS and you know it. Most if not all first world countries have innocent until proven guilty as the standard. And we don;t find the American system silly because we think the accused should have to prove his innocence, we find it silly because it is so weak it is often abused by sue happy people to sue for foolish things.

Got fat by eating at mcdonalds? Sue.
Spilled coffee on your lap and it was hot? Sue.

that kind of shit.

The civil court system and criminal justice system are differant in the US, with differant standards of proof. "Beyond a reasonable doubt" is only the standard in criminal cases against the state. When it comes to civil cases it either goes to "a preponderance of evidence" or "clear and convincing testimony" depending on the exact case and arena.

Your comments also bely a certain amount of ignorance. In the US companies are expected to take responsibility for their actions and behaviors, even if it doesn't always happen. In the cases above the reason for the trials was because Mcdonalds was promoting it's products as being healthy and not make it clear how fattening and unhealthy their food is. Understand that on a fundemental level hamburger and fried potatoes aren't health food, but at the same time they shouldn't be as bad for you as Mcdonald's food actually happened to be given all the things they cut their meat with and so on. At least in the US those specific complaints started when Mcdonalds was in the midst of some major campaigning tp prevent their food as at least not being damaging, pushing their "new" healthier fries, and things like that. The specific evasive terms used by advertising companies don't justify a lack of responsibility, in a civil case for things like that it comes down to what a reasonable person would infer from the advertising being used. It's a valid case. When it came to the coffee case, which was appealed (to some extent) people don't realize that the case only happened because the coffee was hot enough to require skin grafts, had she drunk that coffee the lady in question probably would have died. Urban legend, and international ignorance aside, it was a fairly reasonable case.

When it comes to the criminal system, which is what we're talking about, most countries do not actually practice an "innocent until proven guilty" court proceeding, even if they use that term, precedent has typically turned it into something else. However given your own statements you seem to cocede that, hence your other comments about American stupidity, with you jumping on civil matters dealing with an entirely differant type of law. In those cases the state doesn't have a direct, vested, prescence on one side of the other, and is effectively acting as a neutral party.

Now I get it, people from other countries don't like to be shown their failings, and why the US is what it is today. The thing is that they should learn from their failings and from where the US surpasses them, rather than getting all uptight about it.

Also, part of my point was American ignorance in our assumption that other countries have the same degree of freedom, protections, and civil liberties thaat the US does. Those, especially in the American left wing, like to try and present the US as oppressive (lol) without any real understanding of what the rest of the world is like.

That said there is a grain of truth in the latter part of your statements, in that there are a lot of problems with the entire "Innocent until proven guilty" assumption, especially with American precedents in regards to it which have taken it to crazy extremes, the opposite of the rest of the world which has mostly undermined it through their own precedents. To a great extent we've turned our court system into something resembling a game, where it's not about simply proving guilt, but in being able to justify actually using the proof. The US rules of evidence, and search and seizure protections are flipping insane at times. In the US it's possible to more or less catch someone red handed for murder, drug trafficing, or other crimes, but then not be able to win the case because of some technicality involving how a piece of evidence was uncovered which leads to the entire case being lost due to everything from that point on being declared "fruit of the poisoned tree".

Basically, if you want to be critical of the US Criminal Justice system, what you look at is the insanity surrounding the whole Michael Jackson perophille accusations, or OJ Simpson trial, the role which money played, and how much evidence (especially in MJ's case) was present yet was not sufficient to ensure a conviction. I mean the guy had a secret room in his house which was a sort of pervo-throne room where he took little kids to get them drunk and molest them. When they actually found his little molestation nest based on testimony you'd figure that would be it, but nope... not in America.

 

[Biodeamon]

Why are resources being diverted from protecting real children to prosecuting someone who gets off on fictional children? I may disagree with his preferences, but he's not actually hurting anyone.

Would they rather he use real children?

Yeaaaaah. I'm of the opinion that 'pornography featuring fictional children cause people to become pedophiles/entice children into sexual acts' is about as accurate as 'Call of Duty is a war simulator that trains kids to shoot up their schools'.

I don't think this is really like the "when people play call of duty they get violent" nor "that pornagraphy is a vent" argument. lolicon is just creepy. end of discussion.

 

[ph0b0s123]

The implication of this case should worry anyone who comes to a website like this and by inference enjoys video games. The implication of this case (as well as laws inacted in some other contries), is that virtual depictions of harm being caused to virtual people is just as bad as showing someone real being harmed.

Do I need to explain how that principle is bad for gamers. I mean I took pleasure in shooting multiple virutal people in the face just this morning. Should the police be investigating me for murder? Actually don't answer that ;-)

Such a bluring of the line between real and not real is not good news, especially for us gamers.

I won't even get started on how idiotic it is that you can be prosecuted as a child sex offender for having a drawing of a 15 year old 'child' when it is perfectly legal to sleep with a real 15 year old in Sweden, as the age of concent is 15. Or that out-lawing drawings incentivises people with an interest, into looking for real child abuse pictures, because the punishment is the same, so why not get the real stuff. Or that this is a bit minority report by punishing people for what they 'might' do, rather than what they have actually done in regards to abusing children.

No-one wants to argue against protecting real children from sexual preditors, but things starting to go a bit too far now. Only once they are able to catch and punish all the people who have actually abused a real children, should they start to go after people who have seen a drawings of non-real children being abused, even if it is regarded disgusting.

And remeber how this house of card logic here can be so easily turned to gaming as they are just murder fantasys right.....

 

[loa]

I don't think this is really like the "when people play call of duty they get violent" nor "that pornagraphy is a vent" argument. lolicon is just creepy. end of discussion.

Yeah.
And you don't legally prosecute people on the grounds of just "being creepy" without actually doing anything to step on someone elses rights.
End of discussion.

 

[ultrachicken]

This is absolutely ridiculous. Knives could be used to stab people, but you don't go around locking up people who cut a cake. A death scene in the latest action flick could have been based off of a real murder, but Michael Bay isn't in jail. Just because people are uncomfortable with pedophilia doesn't justify inverting the legal system.

 

[Darkmantle]

Indeed in most countries, the burden of proof is on the accused.

In most first world countries? that's BS and you know it. Most if not all first world countries have innocent until proven guilty as the standard. And we don;t find the American system silly because we think the accused should have to prove his innocence, we find it silly because it is so weak it is often abused by sue happy people to sue for foolish things.

Got fat by eating at mcdonalds? Sue.
Spilled coffee on your lap and it was hot? Sue.

that kind of shit.

Why do people bring up the coffee lady like its some bad thing? That coffee was a hundred degrees hotter than it needed to be and caused really horrific burns to the woman. She wasn't suin because she dropped coffee on herself. She was suin because the coffee was so hot that it caused horrible skin damage.

yes, she sued because the coffee was hot. Anybody else see the hilarity in this situation?

 

[him over there]

How are they the same thing? No actual children are harmed or being exploited in the making of these drawings.

I explained that in my last post. Looking at drawn child porn pictures keeps a sexual preference for children alive and active, and this increases the chances of child abuse occuring.

Also, not acting against it obviously has a normalising effect. If sexual pleasure from ideas of child abuse is considered normal as long as it's not actual pictures, then why wouldn't child abuse be so bad as we regard it now?

The harm being done isn't just directly, and also the indirect forms require to fought. And let's realise something else for a moment: No normal person wants that drawn child porn, so nobody who doesn't deserve is going to be affected by such a ban.


As for that translator, well, he works on child porn and doesn't realise there could be trouble? That's like throwing bricks through people's windows and then complaining that you had no idea it was illegal when getting caught.

Thank you sir for saying everything that I came into this thread to say. Just because a real person isn't being abused doesn't mean it isn't wrong. Allowing it to be sanctioned as long as it is victimless means it just slightly more socially acceptable creating a slippery slope that encourages it. Especially with the possibility that making it obtainable may result in possible child grooming.

 

[Darkmantle]

SNIP

I know quite a bit more about the system than you'd think, but I am not willing to type up an impromptu essay to explain it, or the specific reasons and justifications for the commonly held view. I simplified it, and I am going to leave it at that.