Age of Child Pornography

[Maxine MagicFox]

[madonna]

[Maxine MagicFox]

[madonna]

[Kinokokao]

@Etrian Odyssey Character Ages

http://www.atlus.com/etrian/

If you click on "Comic" it displays sample profiles of some of the classes. Dark Hunter is listed as age 16, Medic is 15 and Hexer is 12. There are 4 profiles for each class and certainly some are older or younger. Survivalist, for example, is given an age of 27 in these comics and the Alchemist is 30.

@Literature as Pornography
I read the selections of legal code that you provided in the previous thread. They not only explicitly mention "Pre-pubescent" (which is generally accepted to be <12) but also clarify and reinforce my initial statement that pornography is limited strictly to visual depictions. Nowhere, anywhere, in any of the legal code does it state that written material is covered by these laws.
Obscenity codes maybe, but such laws are highly subjective and generally are never extended to the type of scenario we are debating.

And Penthouse Forum contains graphic photography of vaginal penetration. Part of my job used to include opening up magazines and scanning them for penetration since that type of pornography is illegal for sale within my state. Penthouse Forum was a magazine we were not allowed to sell under state law.
ETA: Penthouse Forum is legal to own in my state. The first thing you see after crossing the Red River is porn shops for this very reason.

However, we are able to sell erotic novels which contain scenes which explicitly and graphically describe not only vaginal penetration but a wide variety of sexual positions and situations. The law clearly differentiates between visual and written depictions.

And I don't feel that your experiences in anyway qualify you to make a reasonable assessment of the access and viewing habits of teenage Japanese. If you have some sort of scholarly resource you would like to quote, I will gladly read it.

[madonna]

[Hanyou]

I feel a bit presumptuous posting here since I am not part of the EO community (can't find the games offline) and I don't post here frequently, but I must agree with madonna. Perhaps my reasons are different, however.

Child pornography involves real children, and the line is drawn at age 17. There's no such distinction in anime, especially since anime characters are often drawn with childlike features, regardless of age. However, if there must be a distinction, then it's only fair to make it at the very same age. Pornography involving a 15-year-old is still child pornography. I see no reason why the standard should be different for hentai/ecchi, assuming there must be such a standard.

Allowance of a sort of art can be perceived as endorsement. The questions we must ask are: Does the quality of the art somehow excuse the content? Or: Can it be separated from the content? Quality and content are separate issues, to be sure. We can admire the musicianship of a good song without necessarily agreeing with its message (if we're honest with ourselves, I'm sure we've all done so). That said, content still affects the artwork as a whole. How does quality excuse content? If one were to write an intelligent post that advocated rampant racism (regardless of whether it was satirical or not), would you fail to moderate them for their behavior? Probably not, because we place limits on things. There is nothing wrong with these limits.

While hentai alone may not equate to racism, an artistic representation of a child engaged in a sexual act may come close (this also applies to written material), if we can all agree that it's morally reprehensible for adults to observe children engaged in sexual acts. There is no obligation to provide this even if there is a demand. The content of the Etrian Odyssey games is wholly different from sexual representations of the characters.

There will, of course, always be a demographic of people willing to look at NSFW artwork, for whatever purpose. I don't see why this site needs to cater to that broad audience. Furthermore, I don't see why a site dedicated to Etrian Odyssey needs to dedicate any space to the even smaller demographic of people who may like NSFW Etrian Odyssey art. I was under the impression that this site served a different purpose--as a sort of encyclopedia of information as well as a community. I would expect the content of art, regardless of the quality, to serve a similar purpose. Hentai certainly draws a very clear line. I imagine that even ecchi is questionable (it may also fall into the NSFW category, so it's fair to group the two together).

Keep in mind that allowing that sort of content tilts the site in that direction. It caters to that audience...and by explicitly publishing it on your site, you at least endorse the dispensation of such material. Regardless of whether some Etrian Odyssey fans are also fans of erotic art, they are still separate groups of interest. The dominating features in hentai are the erotic traits.

The NSFW art/fiction is an unnecessary appendage. If you wish to draw the "child pornography" distinction, then any character who's under 18, or who appears to be under 18, falls into that category. Make of that what you will, but remember (and I'm using the impersonal "you" here, because "one" gets tedious), you are responsible for everything you allow, even if you don't technically endorse it. If you allow swearing on your forums, you are responsible for that. If you censor swearing, you are responsible for that as well. If you allow discussion of heated topics, endorsement of communism and/or libertarianism, endorsement of racism and/or a lack of racism, you are responsible.

Personally, I don't hold any of this against the site. My own personal position on hentai in general can be described as one of indifference for the most part. I don't think most hentai portraying children is necessarily as bad as real child pornography, for obvious reasons, but I think that as a representation it is somewhat honest to equate it with written material advocating racism, regardless of the material's intent. Taking intent into account, things become more complex, and that's why it's all up to the administrators. I do think it's useless for the site and diminishes the general purpose a bit.

But again, if the line must be drawn, what reasons would there be to draw it at anything other than 17, given existing laws about real child pornography? I realize the unique situation with which this franchise presents the admins, but why should that change anything?

[madonna]

[Maxine MagicFox]

[madonna]

[Maxine MagicFox]

[Kinokokao]

[madonna]

[Maxine MagicFox]

[madonna]