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NEWS: Lawyer Indicates Manga in Iowa Obscenity Case are Yaoi


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soubilover3



Joined: 02 Mar 2008
Posts: 1
PostPosted: Mon Nov 24, 2008 5:04 pm Reply with quote
Why is it a taboo to draw the...(hint hint, im at school, can't spell it out but im sure you all know what im talking about...) "hair" on a man, in Japan?
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sepherest





PostPosted: Mon Nov 24, 2008 5:11 pm Reply with quote
Thank goodness CBLDF is trying to help out.
It's terrible how this man can be sentenced up to 20 years in prison just for owning loli and yaoi. It's all fiction, it's not like he's actually commited a sexual offence against anyone.
But hopefully it won't have any effects on the industry since it's putting the more adult side of manga in the limelight.
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Panda Man



Joined: 12 Oct 2007
Posts: 257
Location: North Carolina
PostPosted: Mon Nov 24, 2008 5:14 pm Reply with quote
Wow, an update on the case and it makes it seem even more useless than before. Way to go US Law System.
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Avacado Burger



Joined: 25 Apr 2006
Posts: 85
PostPosted: Mon Nov 24, 2008 5:19 pm Reply with quote
20 years. Really? I can committ manslaughter, rape, aggravated assault and battery, or deal cocaine, and possibly get less than 20 years.

Ridiculous.
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Ta-kun The Black Kitty



Joined: 24 Jun 2008
Posts: 132
Location: Where the truth isn't hated.
PostPosted: Mon Nov 24, 2008 5:31 pm Reply with quote
Call me cynical or flame me if you wish, but this makes me glad I hate yaoi.
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The Ramblin' Wreck



Joined: 07 Apr 2003
Posts: 924
Location: Teaching Robot Women How To Love
PostPosted: Mon Nov 24, 2008 5:41 pm Reply with quote
The "up to 20 years" part is probably sentencing allowances, not hard requirements.

A speeding ticket COULD land you in jail for 30 days, but that doesn't mean it's goiing to.
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luisedgarf



Joined: 02 Oct 2004
Posts: 664
Location: Guadalajara, Mexico
PostPosted: Mon Nov 24, 2008 5:44 pm Reply with quote
Avacado Burger wrote:
20 years. Really? I can committ manslaughter, rape, aggravated assault and battery, or deal cocaine, and possibly get less than 20 years.

Ridiculous.


No, you will get Death Penalty or Life Sentence if you are an American citizen anyways.
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Dardre



Joined: 16 Mar 2006
Posts: 166
PostPosted: Mon Nov 24, 2008 5:47 pm Reply with quote
You know, for a country that's supposed to be the champion of freedom, the US sure is prudish when it comes to anything sexual. People scream about freedom of speech when it seems that the government/courts are suppressing something they agree with, but as soon as something comes up that they don't agree with or makes them uncomfortable, they start screaming for the the government/courts to do something about it. Bah!

There are times that I'm embarrassed to be an American... and this is one of them.
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Cait



Joined: 29 May 2008
Posts: 503
PostPosted: Mon Nov 24, 2008 5:52 pm Reply with quote
luisedgarf wrote:
Avacado Burger wrote:
20 years. Really? I can committ manslaughter, rape, aggravated assault and battery, or deal cocaine, and possibly get less than 20 years.

Ridiculous.


No, you will get Death Penalty or Life Sentence if you are an American citizen anyways.


That is not true. None of those crimes listed (including the manslaughter and rape ones) are capital offenses in the US and I don't believe any of them are life sentence felonies, either. Please don't imply things that you obviously lack real knowledge about.

As for this case, It does greatly concern me, because there are a lot of licensed yaoi widely available in English right now with young looking, or even "underaged" characters in "explicit" situations. Probably a good third of BL characters are teenagers. My hope is that cases like these will become something of the past once the new administration takes control in January. This whole anti-obscenity kick is all Bush administration pandering to right wing religious groups. There are much more important things for us to be worrying about (like the economy), and our president-elect understands that.
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The Ramblin' Wreck



Joined: 07 Apr 2003
Posts: 924
Location: Teaching Robot Women How To Love
PostPosted: Mon Nov 24, 2008 5:56 pm Reply with quote
Cait wrote:
luisedgarf wrote:
Avacado Burger wrote:
20 years. Really? I can committ manslaughter, rape, aggravated assault and battery, or deal cocaine, and possibly get less than 20 years.

Ridiculous.


No, you will get Death Penalty or Life Sentence if you are an American citizen anyways.


That is not true. None of those crimes listed (including the manslaughter and rape ones) are capital offenses in the US and I don't believe any of them are life sentence felonies, either. Please don't imply things that you obviously lack real knowledge about.

As for this case, It does greatly concern me, because there are a lot of licensed yaoi widely available in English right now with young looking, or even "underaged" characters in "explicit" situations. Probably a good third of BL characters are teenagers. My hope is that cases like these will become something of the past once the new administration takes control in January. This whole anti-obscenity kick is all Bush administration pandering to right wing religious groups. There are much more important things for us to be worrying about (like the economy), and our president-elect understands that.


Sorry to burst your bubble, but trafficking in obscene materials via interstate commerce has been illegal for a long time, and will likely continue to be far into the future. I'd suggest actually reading the court ruling posted in the article.
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sunflowerseed



Joined: 16 Nov 2008
Posts: 106
Location: South Texas
PostPosted: Mon Nov 24, 2008 6:00 pm Reply with quote
minakichan wrote:
I'm pretty vague on US pornography laws. Is explicit virtual child porn (so I guess, what would include minor yaoi and shouta) legal or not in this country?


Regardless to what many will say, basically 'you' don't order any manga that has any one under 25 in it if you want to stay semi-safe. On top of that 'you' don't order or buy manga that has any visual sex in it. It does not work to put characters in a book that look 12 years old and say they are 300 years old or clones or spirits either.

Same with import video games, if you have a imported region 2 PS2 for example, only get the G-rated games for safety against like what is happening to this guy. For instanced the Shuffle 'up on stage' is G-rated as was the first Shinkyou Sokai Polyphonica game and the Simoun PS2 game. The first FateStayNight game would be a NO-NO.

In my opinion as a citizen of the USA, If he is convicted the court system needs revamping to remove so called 'all anime is hentai and all manga is hentai' views which the current court system has in Federal Court. Then he will probably win a multi-billion dollar lawsuit against the USA for false charges after spending a few years in jail.

It seems to me that 'Big Brother' knocking down doors and executing people in their houses for buying manga and anime is the next step around the corner. Imagine going to jail and being marked as a sex offender for buying series of manga books you liked that the artist decided to add a little extra in of visual sex and you never expected to see any thing like it in the publications.

Take it as you may, this guy is in big trouble over something he took no part in and it could cost him his life in jail the first week he enters it since they are all run by the gangs in them.
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The Ramblin' Wreck



Joined: 07 Apr 2003
Posts: 924
Location: Teaching Robot Women How To Love
PostPosted: Mon Nov 24, 2008 6:04 pm Reply with quote
Quote:
There is explicit sex in yaoi
comics. And the men are drawn in a very androgynous style, which has the effect of making them look really young. There's a real taboo in Japan about showing pubic hair, so they're all drawn without it, which also makes them look young. So what concerned the authorities were the depictions of children in explicit sexual situations that they believed to be obscene. But there are no actual children. It was all very crude images from a comic book."


I'm sorry, but that really reads like "Your Honor, she told me she was a 300 year old alien princess"
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Cait



Joined: 29 May 2008
Posts: 503
PostPosted: Mon Nov 24, 2008 6:18 pm Reply with quote
The Ramblin' Wreck wrote:

Sorry to burst your bubble, but trafficking in obscene materials via interstate commerce has been illegal for a long time, and will likely continue to be far into the future. I'd suggest actually reading the court ruling posted in the article.


I don't know what you think you are bursting. I've read all of the court documents available already. I'm also very well versed in the letter of the law, but you are the one who seems to be missing that instead of focusing our federal government's resources on important things (like terrorism) for the last eight years Bush allocated resources specifically to bring legal action against "obscenity;" cases like this one. My point was that with a different perspective, one less rooted in an interest to pander to social conservatives, we will be seeing far fewer cases like this one. Our resources will be better served elsewhere.

Just because something is technically illegal doesn't mean it is going to be, or has to be prosecuted. Speeding is illegal and I don't see cops out pulling over every car going over the limit (which around here is every car). They pick and choose the worst offenders based on the ability they have to bring force to bear and use common sense in judging whether an individual is actually posing a threat with their behavior. Bringing people with histories of child abuse to court for having "obscene" material makes sense, but going after one guy with no criminal history for his comic book collection, regardless of whether the contents of those books are deemed "obscene" or not, and just because it is "illegal" is unecessary and excessive. It's the kind of thing that gets done to "make an example" of someone, not with the intention of actually making anyone else any safer.
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bleuster



Joined: 22 Sep 2005
Posts: 455
Location: Orange County
PostPosted: Mon Nov 24, 2008 6:19 pm Reply with quote
Does this happen a lot in Japan?
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RadicaLElly



Joined: 24 Aug 2004
Posts: 194
Location: Coral Springs, FL
PostPosted: Mon Nov 24, 2008 6:28 pm Reply with quote
For those who don't know, the way to prove whether something is obscene or not is to use the Miller test. This rates obscenity on 3 levels:

1. If the property in question was intended to appeal to the prurient interest (meaning something intended to appeal on a sexual level)
2. If the property is patently offensive (would the average person find it obscene?)
3. If the work lacks any political, artistic, literary or scientific value.

Not knowing the manga in question I can't vouch for how obscene it appears, but most yaoi manga tends to have genitals blurred or not drawn altogether, which I would think would count as a strike against it being obscene to the average person. Not to mention it could be argued that manga has artistic value.

I knew that media law class would come in handy for something.
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