Forum: Author Hangout

The way this is worded it make simple nudity of a person who appears to be under 18 an offence.

I didn't read it like that. The wording had things like: torture, sexual situations, and offensive. Not just nudity.

The way the law works you need to meet only one of the sub-sections, thus anything covered section 473.1 (f) is an offence - that does not require anything sexual or tortuous etc. and it only requires the sexual organs or anus or breasts of a female to be visible or described.

and it only requires the sexual organs or anus or breasts of a female to be visible

It's a full frontal nude so it shows everything (not internal plumbing, of course). That's why facebook originally took it down.

It's a full frontal nude so it shows everything

I hope this doesn't come across the wrong way, but I've seen the photo many times and never thought to look.

AJ

(f) material that describes:

(i) a sexual organ or the anal region of a person who is, or is implied to be, under 18 years of age; or

(ii) the breasts of a female person who is, or is implied to be, under 18 years of age;

and does this in a way that reasonable persons would regard as being, in all the circumstances, offensive;

I interpret the qualifier to intend that reasonable persons would have to find the content offensive.

AJ

True, but the issue is that there is no definition of a reasonable person. I know of people who in the judicial system who think short skirts are obscene and any form of nudity is totally unacceptable, yet they are in positions to decide what is and isn't reasonable.

The whole concept of 'reasonable' is qualitative to the personal views of the judge or jury members if it goes to jury. Just like the 'appears to be' part of the legislation.

Until they changed the laws to this crap it was extremely clear that child porn had to involve an under aged person engaged in obvious torture or sex. Straight black and white situation on anything it applied to. This is so wishy-washy that it can be applied to whatever the judge or magistrate wants it to be applied to.

Take the case of Tracey Lords. In her early films she looked to be of legal age, but it was later found out she wasn't, so the films were declared unlawful at that time. Take such a film before a judge who thinks a 'C' cup breast is of legal age, and bingo, that film is suddenly legal under the current law. Yet another judge may decide a female needs a 'D' cup breast to be of legal age. The law makes a muddy flash flood seem like clear water.

...............

I've seen a conviction where the 'offensive' CAM was images of people on a nudist beach and behind the focus person of the image were mid-teen females side on so only the side of the breast was visible. A few others had mixed groups playing beach volleyball in the nude and the judge deemed two of the players to be under age, despite the accompanying text saying they were all in college. - What is reasonable and what isn't changes from person to person.

The supposed standard varies from state to state and is different again with the commonwealth. Also, the standard varies from jury to jury and from judge to judge with most cases being decided upon the personal standard of the judge hearing the case. There is no documented standard in any of the states.

Also, with a case under this new wording of the law there is a lot of extremely skewed political bias applied to the case.

There is no differentiation between the ages now, while that used to be the case under the old law. Under this law, an 18 y/o found with a topless image of his 17 y/o girlfriend is treated the same as someone found with an image of someone having sex with a 10 y/o girl.

When the law was changed the people pushing the change deliberately widened the scope to enlarge the target group.

In a 30 second google search I found dozens of cases articles and treatises in which te reasonable person standard is explained and examined in Australian law.

And yet they aren't applied in the courts and it's all left up to the magistrate or judge to decide for themselves, because that only gets trotted out when a case goes to judge and jury.

Yet another judge may decide a female needs a 'D' cup breast to be of legal age.

Allegedly the current average women's breast size is now a little over a C cup. So if anyone with less than a D cup is underage, over half the female population is underage.

NB that statistic might only be applicable to the UK.

AJ

a crime against the state infrastructure:

All criminal cases are considered as crimes against the state. That's nothing unusual in the least. It's simply a matter of which state has jurisdiction.

If I punch AJ (which isn't that bad of an idea), and get arrested for it, then the charges would be State of Oklahoma v. StarFleet Carl, not AJ v. StarFleet Carl. CIVIL cases, where AJ sued me because I broke all his teeth out and he wanted payment for medical bills, would be AJ v. StarFleet Carl.

Now, if I happened to punch AJ while we were both on base at Tinker, then it'd be US Government v. StarFleet Carl, because even a speeding ticket on base is, quite literally, a federal case.

If I punch AJ (which isn't that bad of an idea)

What have you got against evil geniuses?

AJ

What have you got against evil geniuses?

Against them? I AM one. :)
Against you? I've received anonymous evidence you're the Grinning Dick in disguise. (As opposed to in dis dirt.)

I've received anonymous evidence you're the Grinning Dick in disguise.

I presume the anonymous evidence originated in the US, because your shrooms are much more potent than ours.

AJ

What have you got against evil geniuses?

Against them? I AM one. :)

Well, you're not disqualified from geniushood by reason of gender.

It's a little-known fact that females can't be geniuses.

Genius is one percent inspiration, ninety nine percent perspiration.

Horses sweat, men perspire but ladies merely glow.

Since females don't perspire, they can't be geniuses ;-)

AJ

All criminal cases are considered as crimes against the state.

here, there are four main types of crime:

(a) Crime against the person - examples being assault, murder, rape, etc;

(b) Crimes against private property - examples being malicious damage, theft, etc.;

(c) Crimes against state property - examples theft of government property, damage to a government building, crimes against infrastructure like blowing up a bridge.

(d) Crimes against the state - example treason.

The commonwealth crime is in the section of the law for crimes against state infrastructure in type (c) above and is not listed as a crime against a person at all.

The commonwealth legislation does include a section on crimes against the person as per type (a) above.

The way the commonwealth law is written raping someone on crown land is a crime against the person while possessing a picture of a topless female from the front who the judge thinks is under 18 is a crime against the state on the same level as blowing up Parliament House when no one is there. They do not see it as a crime against the person in the photo, even if it's a photo of someone raping a ten your old girl.

there are four main types of crime

This is where you're getting into we're talking about the same thing, just from two different areas. If you commit a crime against a person (murder) that's listed on the criminal charges against you for legal purposes, it's the state itself. Or, as what I've seen online, criminal cases are listed in records as XXXX vs The Queen. I've also seen some where it's R v XXXX, where the R is the prosecutor acting FOR the state.

Under Australian law there's a clear difference between a crime against the person or a crime against the state itself, that applies to the commonwealth laws and state laws. Treason is a crime against the state and only the state can lay charges for it. However, for a crime against the person, like assault, the individual has a right to bring a civil case even if the crown chooses not to prosecute under the relevant Crimes act, the individual also has a right to not have charges under the crimes act brought against the person.

In any criminal case the crown prosecutor can be representing the individual who had been harmed by the crime, or on behalf of the community, but they only represent the state itself when the crime is directly against the state, such as treason or theft of government property. So when prosecuting someone for a murder the prosecutor is representing the individual and the community and not the state as such.

Now the section of commonwealth law the CAM laws are in relates only to crimes against the property of the state, like bridges and the telecommunications system - mind you, when that section of the law was first written the entire communications system was owned by the commonwealth government.

Now to give you and idea of the difference to the bit about crimes against the sate and against the individual lets take an example.

There's a river with two bridges over it. One bridge is on a private road between two sections of property owned by the same person, and the other bridge is on a public road and owned by the government. An angry terrorist comes along and blows up both of the bridges - two acts exactly the same on the exact same structures. However, while the person will be charged by the commonwealth government as a crime against the state for the destruction of the government owned bridge under Chapter 10 the destruction of the privately owned bridge will not be dealt with under the same law as the commonwealth has no jurisdiction, so the charges will be a crime against the property of a person under the state laws.

Rape a ten year old girl on private property or state land and you get charged with a crime against the person under state law, rape the same girl on crown land you get charged under commonwealth law for a crime against the person. Now if you also film the event and email it to someone it doesn't matter where it happens you're also be charged under the state law for the crime against the person of producing and disseminating CAM under the state laws, but you can get charged under the commonwealth law for a crime against the state of producing and disseminating CAM.

In essence the state law sees the production and dissemination of CAM as being a crime against the person in the material while the commonwealth government sees it as a crime against the telecommunications system and not the person involved.

Mind you, since the state law wording is based on the commonwealth wording they both now do not require the subject to be a real person who is hurt in anyway. Thus it's possible for this to be a totally victimless crime.

Thus it's possible for this to be a totally victimless crime.

Australia's definition of a victimless crime definitely is different from America's. For the record, our system here is based on English Common Law, and tried to keep going with that. I'm not exactly WHAT the hell Australia did, but it sounds like they've gone batshit crazy.

Don't get me wrong - we can have both civil and criminal cases here. A rather famous one was 'The People vs. OJ,' where he was acquitted on the criminal charges, because the criminal evidence law requires beyond a reasonable doubt. He was found guilty in the CIVIL case, because that only requires a preponderance of evidence.

One thing I noticed when I was looking through the stack of cases were the ones called Judge Alone - which appear to be strictly bench trials, with no juries involved. I found the whole readings to be fascinating from a professional perspective, since I do have a Master's Degree in Criminology. Oh, and my professional opinion is your legal system is fucked up even more so than ours is. :)

I'm not exactly WHAT the hell Australia did, but it sounds like they've gone batshit crazy.

n this subject, that's an accurate appraisal of the situation.

So in Australia you can't view famous paintings of the baby Jesus that show his genitals as those are pornographic.

So in Australia you can't view famous paintings of the baby Jesus that show his genitals as those are pornographic.

My reading is that it requires any reasonable person to find it offensive. So if the painting shows the genitals and depicts baby Jesus as white rather than Jewish, then yes, it's pornographic ;-)

AJ

correct

correct

That is batsh-t insane. Usually I reserve that phrase for US prudishness and stupid laws. Just gobsmacked.

Sorry, no.

Anecdotally, I believe that in the UK it is illegal to download (make a copy) of the Lisa Simpson content but I couldn't point you to any legislation to that effect.

The good news is that, in the UK, all text content is considered non-pornographic. So if you really must read/write about toddlers having sex, you're free to do so. However that doesn't mean you can't be tried in the court of public opinion, like the civil servant who wrote a torture-porn story about the singing group, Girls Aloud.

AJ

like the civil servant who wrote a torture-porn story about the singing group, Girls Aloud.

I actually had the miss-fortune to read that when it was published. It was pretty bad, not so much the content but the technical aspect of it. There was no structure and it desperately required proof reading by someone older than five years of age.

When the writer was publicly named a year or so later, I have to admit to being rather surprised. Even more so by his day job, and I did wonder at the competency of his daily 'professional' produce. But then, it did explain a lot about why civil servants seem so ineffectual in their work....

Anyway, the point being is as far as I know, it's not banned, and can still be viewed on main stream video streaming sites, if you like bleak depressing movies..

Is-slottet (Norwegian) isn't available for streaming that I can find (in the US, anyway).

Is-slottet (Norwegian) isn't available for streaming that I can find (in the US, anyway).

If you google it you'll find the movie to watch on a computer.

The real question: why is Australia competing with Saudi Arabia? At least the Arabs have a religious reason for their rules.

because some crazy religious zealots who promote satanic doctrine and want all nudity banned a talking the politicians into passing laws to support their views and the politicians like it as it shows they have a new way to control the population and move one step closer to changing over to a dictatorship.

The real question: why is Australia competing with Saudi Arabia? At least the Arabs have a religious reason for their rules

Elections.

You try being the politician and runs on a campaign of "letting pedos that are hunting our precious children off the hook."

You are pretty much writing the oppositions campaign speeches for them.

That's why laws like third strike and so on exist - Politicians on ALL SIDES win by being "tough", not by being in favor of releasing "the thugs attacking innocent young white women."

Whoever is best at appealing to people's most base, primal bigoted panic and fear - wins.

Notably, the legal definition of sexually explicit conduct does not require that an image depict a child engaging in sexual activity. A picture of a naked child may constitute illegal child pornography if it is sufficiently sexually suggestive.

That would include The Godfather (Simonetta Stefanelli, who played Apollonia, was only 16 when she appeared topless in the love scene with Michael) and Romeo and Juliet (Olivia Hussey, who played Juliet in the 1968 film, was only fifteen when she appeared topless in bed with Leonard Whiting, who played Romeo).

It would, except the US child pornography ban wasn't enacted until 1977.

There's the small matter of the ex-post-facto clause in the constitution. Criminal statutes can't be retroactive.

While 'ex post facto' would protect the producers of the films, and distribution prior to 1977, I wonder about possession of a DVD or digital copy, which was obviously obtained after that date. While it was legal to make it, the statutes ban mere possession, and in reading them, I don't see any exceptions that would allow possession if the copy was acquired post statute.

Technically, you may be correct.

Which is, of course, the best kind of correct! 🤪

And I was only speaking theoretically. I doubt even the most insane prosecutor would make those charges because the blowback would be huge.

You can see how foolish the laws and policies are when you watch sites such as Patroen bend over backwards to find reasons to except Lolita or Game of Thrones from their bans on 'child sex', 'incest', or 'rape'.

It's a difficult problem to solve, but, at least in the US, you are generally free from criminal penalties for pure text stories, so long as the work, taken as a whole, has serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.

I wonder about possession of a DVD or digital copy, which was obviously obtained after that date.

I just did a search for her name, and her topless scene came up on YouTube - with no censoring.

I just did a search for her name, and her topless scene came up on YouTube - with no censoring.

I wasn't arguing that it wasn't available, it is, including on the prudish AppleTV. I was arguing that it is technically a violation of the statute.

As a kid, I remember stumbling across a film on Channel four in the UK, about 10pm, I think it was, called Is-slottet (the ice palace). A fucked up film that stuck in my young head because it was the most bat-shit crazy thing that I had ever seen (I was young so most things were bat-shit crazy in those days).

Anyway, from what I remember it was a lesbian story, or was about spurned love between two 12 year old girls. I'm pretty sure there was full frontal nudity of a sexual nature between the two actresses, who were of the same age as me at the time (ie under the age of consent).

Anyway, the point being is as far as I know, it's not banned, and can still be viewed on main stream video streaming sites, if you like bleak depressing movies..

There's a question of what decade that was in.

A lot of the laws on these topics have been hastily slapped together in the post internet age. But changes started happening before that in the 1980s I think. Someone above notes a 1977 law so that's even earlier than I thought.

My mother met my father because the local university got together with the local high school to introduce bachelors to eligible young ladies... So my mother was pregnant with my eldest sibling by her 17th birthday. Today that would land half the people working at both institutions in prison in a cell in between the one Epstein used to have, and wherever Jared has ended up... :)

Granted that is still older than you were. But, I note it show changing standards.

I have literally stood in small rural grocery stores in Asia in the mid 1990s and seen a woman give a very young prepubescent boy a brief 'handling' to show pride in their friend's family having a son. At the time that place was full of photography studios who's front window displays were usually nude pictures of boys because that was a thing families did to show pride in having sons... That same country, today would arrest all of those people. Their idea of how they see that conduct has changed dramatically in large part due to international visitors using the old norms to sneak in and exploit youth anywhere there was a gap in the law.

Part of the issue is that 'cash bail' has created many, many horrible situations. There's a significant body of research that shows that, overall, outcomes are far better when it's curtailed or removed. However, some outcomes are obviously going to be markedly worse.

It's similar to the old saw 'I would rather that ten guilty people go free than an innocent person remain in prison.' Easily said, but when even one of those ten guilty people commits a crime everyone is going to pound on the politician who erred on the side of not locking up innocent people.

There should be some middle ground, but I don't know what it is. Perhaps a sliding scale where the cash bond represents a significant outlay to the person in all cases? That would be very small for a dirt-poor person, enormous for a wealthier person.

At least one major problem with the current system is that even $100 can be entirely out of reach for someone who's living paycheck to paycheck and working two jobs. Lock them up even for a few days, and those jobs are gone. They can't pay, they can't work in order to pay, and so they rot in jail until a trial happens. Even if they're found innocent, they've just lost months in jail. They've likely been kicked out of wherever they were living. If they had children, the system has them, and they have no resources to try to get them back (anyone who believes most child welfare systems will just hand the children back over without a fight is kidding themselves). Their meager possessions may have been liquidated or stolen.

Even if they were guilty (which they often aren't - in most studies, the majority of people given cash bail turned out to be factually innocent in the end), the penalty for a minor misdemeanor is not supposed to be catastrophic. We're essentially putting the punishment before the conviction in many cases; the actual sentence is often far less injurious that the pre-trial incarceration. Which would screw up your life worse: weeks to months in jail waiting for trail, or 80 hours of community service for a misdemeanor conviction?

I agree that it sucks. I'm absolutely not in favor of simply removing cash bail and letting the chips fall where they may. On the other hand, the current system is horrible, and even some very tough-on-crime right-leaning types agree that it's often not serving the public interest. The disagreement is what to do about it.

In the obvious compromise case, one should never be automatically released without cash bail if one has already been detained and then been rearrested for a second offense that is materially unrelated to the first. At the absolute minimum, a judge should have to rule on the case specifically. The problem is that you're quickly getting into the mini-trial sort of case, which is often biased in favor of the prosecution. It's also the case that some people get one free shot at reoffending, and some will, and that'll screw things up for everyone in the same way.

Overall, though, anyone who thinks a significant number of innocent people aren't arrested and held (for sometimes considerable periods of time) is fooling themselves, and that's not even considering the more celebrated cases of those who are convicted of crimes that they didn't commit. Any system needs to account for that.

I hit the reply button in the wrong message. I intended my comment to attach to @irvmull's message. I knew you weren't defending it.

In the US, mere nudity is not in violation of the law. For example the books by Sally Mann are not illegal. On the opposite side, you don't need either nudity or sexual acts to produce images that violate the law.

That was the case under the old law. But the new law makes the works of Sally Mann and David Hamilton unlawful and can get people locked up for up to 15 years.

Interestingly enough, both Sally Mann and David Hamilton's works can be found on Amazon, some with covers displayed which are themselves potentially problematic. They're all (I think) third-party sellers, but many are US, suggesting that at least some US booksellers (and Amazon as well) aren't concerned about legal entanglements, at least at the present time.

This is obviously a case where laws differ enormously in different parts of the world, so my comments are US-centric. I viewed Amazon Canada and they show the same listings; other Amazon national versions may not.

That's my feeling, too. I'm not sure if Earnest was noting the 'In the US' part of the original post and responding with a US-centric response, or if he'd switched to Australian law (which we know is very different).

It is probably worth noting that neither Sally Mann nor David Hamilton's controversial works appear on amazon.com.au

That's my feeling, too. I'm not sure if Earnest was noting the 'In the US' part of the original post and responding with a US-centric response, or if he'd switched to Australian law (which we know is very different).

Sorry about the confusion. Under the old Australian law nudity, per se, was not unlawful, but under the new law nudity of someone seen, by the authority, to appear as under 18 y/o is unlawful - thus those works would breech the current law.

In my opinion, if you're asking yourself this question when trying to decide how to write it or any other form of 'art presentation' it's better to be safe and avoid the arm chair lawyer debates.

Pretty much yeah. It was at the moment when I started finding myself asking this while looking over NiS story back when I was running the 'NiS archive' that I threw my hands up and decided to GTFO of that project.