corruption of minors

[piranha]

somebody sends you a personal message on a bulletin board requesting a manga depicting explicit sexual situations for which you mentioned you have the scanlation. from their userinfo it appears that they're in the US and that they're 14.

what do you do?

it's sort of an interesting dilemma. i don't actually believe in deciding for total strangers what they should and shouldn't read, whether or not they're legal minors. that is -- at best -- their parents' domain. heck, they might have their parents' consent because their parents might be rather more progressive than US law. but even beyond that, i read lots of things at 14 which my religious zealot parents didn't want me to read (and which the library wouldn't lend me, but i sat in the stacks and read it right there). i am not even just talking about smut, i am talking about serious sex ed, and i am even more so talking about fiction that was deemed "above" my comprehension (i wasn't much interested in smut, but very much interested in fiction way beyond the young adult genre). i've always hated that, and i don't want to contribute to this idiocy for anyone else. i was not scarred for life by anything "inappropriate" i read during my so-called impressionable years. it all broadened my horizons, in one way or another.

also, they might not actually be 14 (though they're possibly even younger, *heh*, to get past the COPPA barrier on that website). but they could also be older -- i enter false information about my vital stats on most websites because it's none of their admins' business what my actual info is. and, if i hadn't ever looked at the userinfo, i would be blessedly ignorant of this person's age altogether.

i guess theoretically the parents of an american minor could come after me if i handed that person a link to smut manga. would a disclaimer (such as "by following this link you are certifying that you are of legal age in your jurisdiction or have the permission of your guardian to view sexually explicit material, or you're lying to me in order to do what you want") protect me? maybe without that last part, *snrk*.

no, i am not actually spending sleepless nights over this sort of thing. just pondering what sort of climate the "protect the childrun" hysteria has created that this even occurs to me.

Comments

May I have that loaded gun please?

[flarenut.livejournal.com]

OK, obviously I'm being devil's (ahem) advocate here, but I don't think it's just "protect the childrun" hysteria that engenders these kinds of questions. It's not your job to act as mindless censor, but it's also not your job to act as mindless conduit. (Once again, I'm going to use a strawman example: you almost certainly wouldn't have sex in real life with a 14-year-old who asked you to, even if they appeared to have an adult understanding of what that meant. And in interactions on the net, it's a lot harder to get a sense of what level of understanding and maturity a person has than in meatspace.)

So obviously your decision to make (with all that implies), but worth remembering that it is a decision.

Sorry, just put the two-year-old to bed, so MAS is in full swing...

Re: May I have that loaded gun please?

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

MAS is actively welcome here (besides, this wasn't even proper MAS).

it's also not your job to act as mindless conduit

yeah, i wonder. indeed, i wouldn't ever (EVER) have sex with a 14-yr old. not even if i were madly in love and the 14-yr old were way more mature than average (which is hard to imagine now, but frankly, was just as hard to imagine at 21, and i didn't at all understand why my uncle wanted to have sex with me when i was 12 -- i am just not wired for sex with children).

but having sex with somebody is a far cry from handing them a book (which they have requested, i am not pushing it). i don't even see disseminating reading material at the same level as disseminating, say, cigarettes. because reading happens in another part of our brain than reactions to hormones or drugs, and people have rather more choice about how to handle things they read.

i do wonder whether i am not a mindless conduit when it comes to reading material. i mean, as regards any censorship i might impose. i am not mindless in that i shove anything out there without warning; i'm greatly in favour of fully disclosing what the reading material contains before handing it to somebody, and in this case i'd be very explicit, because the material is. but i find myself bemused by the idea that i should refuse to give it to a 14-yr old if zie still wants it after a full description -- when i was that age i had been sexually abused for 2 years already; my reality registered somewhere around 8 on the richter scale of scary experiences while this particular prettily drawn fantasy with superbly attractive men and a happy ending barely registers at all.

Re: May I have that loaded gun please?

[flarenut.livejournal.com]

I can see where you're coming from, and for the most part I probably agree with you. Especially in the situation you describe where you have a non-negligible idea of who this person might be -- for my strawman I was definitely thinking of somewhere closer to the opposite end of various gamuts.

(There are also some situations where I think that no amount of disclaiming would suffice -- even someone said, "Yes, I do want to see that." It's a little akin to the medical-ethics arguments about the possibility of informed consent under some circumstances.

And I know that some of the things that would have screwed up my understanding of sex -- even more than it was when I was a kid -- wouldn't make me blink today... But that's another rant, because so many of those things had nothing to do with porn, and still don't. When I think about all the images and texts that have a bad influence on people's understanding of sex, only a tiny fraction of those are classified as porn. Heck, I might be more willing to give a young teen a link to some nominal porn than I would to the collected works of James Dobson.)

Re: May I have that loaded gun please?

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

There are also some situations where I think that no amount of disclaiming would suffice -- even someone said, "Yes, I do want to see that."

agreed, though they are few and far between, and usually this means i feel the person is in some major way incapable of giving informed consent. is mentally retarded, for example, or is too young a child. 14 in general seems not too young for anything reading-related, though a specific 14-yr old might be. "anything" might come with a preceding lecture though, not just a disclaimer. if i am the first person ever to expose somebody to something iffy, i become very careful. if i know a person very well, i might say "oh no, you DON'T want to see that, trust me" -- but if they insist even after i explain why not, i will show it after all. oh, and there is stuff i just don't touch myself (usually violence-related), so asking me for it is moot. (i avoided as much as possible any imagery from abu ghraib, for example -- reading about it was more than enough, i don't need those images in my brain; it has reference materials that burned themselves in.)

When I think about all the images and texts that have a bad influence on people's understanding of sex, only a tiny fraction of those are classified as porn.

absolutely. i had no exposure to porn at all when i was a teenager, and man, did they manage to screw me up in regard to sex. in fact, seeing some run-of-the-mill porn would have been good for me; it would have corrected my incredibly skewed perceptions a little.

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

If I were living anywhere in the world outside of the US I might pass it along with that disclaimer, possibly after talking to the recipient to make sure zie knew what zie were asking for.

If I lived in the US, no way, no how, not ever, uh uh, sorry.

luckily i don't live in the US

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

but it occurs to me that i have no idea whatsoever what sort of hot water this sort of thing could get me into in canada.

nice icon. :)

Re: luckily i don't live in the US

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

I get the impression that we are generally more sane about interpreting disclaimers.

Not that you wouldn't get charged, but that the courts are more likely to find in your favour if you made a point of using one.

US porn vigilantes

[flarenut.livejournal.com]

It's kinda scary to think that the US government actually pays some private citizens to scour the net looking for porn they don't like, in the hopes that the links might give rise to prosecution.

[aquaeri.livejournal.com]

As a cultural European, I'm a great believer in 14 year olds reading their way to knowledge that if anything will reduce the chances of actual life-damaging experience seeking.

I don't have any real insight in the current cultural climate around these things in the US however. Other than that the US has always seemed more prudish, and has always had the consequences to show for it, too (and not seemed to care).

[wcg.livejournal.com]

I'd be mostly concerned with the legal implications. If you send it, and the person at the other end is actually an FBI agent, is there any chance the RCMP would show up with an arrest warrant? If so, then don't send it.

legal implications

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

*heh*. yeah, that's good advice in general. i am not actually worried about that in this case; the person has written hundreds of comments in the community that mark zir as an otaku (big anime/manga fan). if it's an FBI agent, zie is very very good at pretending, and spends a lot of time writing about totally non-smutty series. this is a perfectly normal fan site, a small subset of which is interested in BL.

though this could be entrapment, couldn't it? i am never entirely clear on when something is or isn't.

aside from that, i think japanese-based BL flies under the radar of the FBI (and just about everybody else who normally gets their knickers in a knot about things sexual). what could possibly be interesting about pretty pictures drawn by women for women, ya know?

Re: legal implications

[wcg.livejournal.com]

I have no blessed idea. I just don't want to see you become an unwilling guest of the government.

[azarias.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't hand over the goods. I don't think smut's going to hurt a 14 year old, I read a lot of kinky things at 14, and the average 14 year old's mind is dirtier than a stack of dusty yaoi manga any day. But if the kid hasn't figured out to pretend to be an adult when asking for "adult" material, the kid hasn't practiced enough to earn a reward.

pretending to be an adult

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

*snicker*. well, that's funny. and eminently practical in this climate.

but it bugs the shit out of me as a matter of principle. it's total crap that in this world a 14-yr old has to lie in order to get zir hands on some smut.

*goes off to tilt at windmills*.

[firecat]

I have no problem with 14 year olds reading/viewing sexual stuff; I did. but in the current "climate" I might not be brave enough to act on my convictions.

[1ginko.livejournal.com]

I am going to try to respond and at the same time be careful because I cannot reveal details. Email if you want.

Recent events have had me reviewing resumes. In investigating a response of yes to the question have you been convicted of a felony, I found myself tracking two cases of a federal agent acting as a 13 and 14/15 year old. Both cases seemed to be long in the making before the arrest. Both cases began with requests of photos.

As they say on the net, no one knows you are a dog. You have no idea if this person is 14, but that this person says 14 is their age, makes a case where you "know" you are interacting with a minor who by law is unable to give consent.

i'm not a fish but i play one on the net

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

if this had at all the earmarks of a 14-yr old apparently coming on to me, or if photos of real people were involved, i'd be automatically giving it a wide berth, not just because i know that's where the FBI goes fishing, but because, uh, totally not interested.

i wonder whether the FBI trolls LJ communities such as show_your_boobs. when i was on the abuse team, we got scads of reports about underage girls posting pics of themselves on those comms.

a part of me, however, gets ornery when i see everybody else look over their shoulder first. i want to consider primarily the ETHICS of the situation, not the law enforcement angles.

Re: i'm not a fish but i play one on the net

[1ginko.livejournal.com]

Ah, caught me in jumping way over a personal basis--I am totally not interested in sharing of this kind with underage, regardless of how mature I think they might be, so, I skipped all the ethics in my response. That's just me.

Where I was tying in the law enforcement aspect is that from what I have seen they do spend a lot of time interacting and posing.

Re: i'm not a fish but i play one on the net

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

that makes it sound a little as if i am interested in sharing of this kind with minors, and that's the wrong flavour. i am not aspiring to be a porn pusher for kids. i am not hanging out in venues that encourage that sort of thing. usually i don't know the ages of the people i trade with; this happens in comms designated 18+. though we all know that some people lie when they join, this is the first time that i've actually interacted with somebody who hasn't at least pretended to be of age (it's impossible to tell from the actual interactions how old somebody is. many of the fangirlish squeeing SOUNDS 14 to me, *sigh*, though from posts with personal information it's obvious these are often people who're of or past college age). i am working through the ethical issues, not trying to find an excuse to push my hobby on pure and innocent minds. i think you understand that, i just wanted to make sure.

so you wouldn't share erotica with a minor, no problem. i am interested in why not, and where the borderlines are for people in what they would and wouldn't share with a minor. what if a 14-yr old asked you to explain something about sex, would you do that? what if they wanted to borrow your copy of "joy of sex"? (let's assume you have one :). if not, is it just the sexual aspect that makes this out-of-bounds? would you lend other books? what subject matters are taboo? what if zie is 16 or 17, does that make a difference?

[lorres.livejournal.com]

what do you do?

Just as I would consult with someone's partner before I took up intimacies with that person, I would consult with the 14 yo's parents before sending sensitive material.

Otherwise, not being able or wanting to do so, I wouldn't send. Chances are that if the person requesting the materials really wants/needs it they can get it elsewhere, or similar enough. I'm not totally risk averse, but in this case I wouldn't want to either risk nasty legal implications or nasty parental backlash.

Legal consequence/Parental backlash might not be just towards me, but towards the requester. I wouldn't want that person to be punished or reprimanded because of what I did.

consulting with the parents

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

thanks! i am not arguing with you, just explaining how it would feel to me were i to do things the way you do. :)

i don't actually consult with a potential new partner's partner because it's an ethical thing to do, but because it's the thing that causes the least interpersonal grief in my experience (and i don't do it for all intimacies; i only do it for actual sex and other big stuff; not for staying up all night and talking, etc). my potential partners are adults, their other partners are not in loco parentis, and if somebody tells me their partner is ok with X then i take that at face value (by that time i usually have a good idea as to whether that's true since i don't do one-night stands, or quick relationships at all). so that's a really different situation for me.

were i to take up intimacies with a 14-yr old... no, i can't even say that i'd consult with their parents, because i just wouldn't ever want to take up intimacies of that kind with a 14-yr old. if we wanted to stay up all night and talk, yes, i'd make sure the parents knew, not because of what we are doing, but because of the minor's absence from home at a late hour. if a 14-yr old asked me for a glass of wine at dinner, i'd consult with the parents too. as i said in another comment, i view reading material in a vastly different way than i view sex or drugs or physical interaction. and talking is like reading; i feel all people have an intrinsic right to it -- if a 14-yr old asked me to explain something about sex i'd not consult with zir parents first either.

if a 14-yr old asked me for sensitive reading material, there might easily be a problem with the parents. what if the material were sex ed materials? birth control and abortion? what if it were about emancipation? about evolution? those were materials MY parents would have never wanted me to see either. should parents have that sort of control over what their offspring read? because i come from such a restrictive background (where they would have locked me away even from public school if they had had the legal power), i am incredibly wary of granting parents this much control -- controlling reading material is damn close to thought control IMO.

"they can get it elsewhere" feels like a cop-out to my ethics. passing the buck is easy, yes, and i do it all too often, but i rather only do it if i have a really good reason for me not working out an actual ethical response to the situation. in some cases i much rather they get it from me, who's at least honest and straightforward about it, than they get it from some sleazoid who might use it as a lure to get some hold over them. but instead of sharing it directly, i might share ways of how to get it without involving somebody else -- teaching somebody to fish instead of handing them the fillet. (that's what i will do here, i think.)

[adrian-turtle.livejournal.com]

What I would do is advise the 14-year-old, sympathetically, of the legal situation. If he or she was really looking for "serious sex ed," I would offer a link to Scarlateen, which has lots of valuable information presented in a frame of health and safety. I'd go way further out on a limb to get safety-related sex ed to a young person, or to inform a queer teenager that he or she is not alone, than to provide any given porn to any given young person.

For pornographic comics I was sharing with adults, I would tell the teen something like, "I understood why you want to read it. I'm a fan too. I'm sorry I can't risk sending it to you now. US laws about children and pornography are really crazy in some ways. An adult who sends porn to a 14-year-old can go to prison for more than 10 years, and have to register as a sex offender. It doesn't matter that it's just drawings, or that you're asking for what you want and not being exploited. People can still get in enormous trouble based on the letter of the law."

I might recommend less explicit comics I thought the teen might like. I would not actually advise lying about zir age in so many words, on the chance that it's really a federal agent, but I certainly would not say anything against it.

[(Anonymous)]

Doog dropped in and said: the "reasonable and prudent coward" standard is your friend. Don't do it. There is plenty of opportunity to find erotica on the 'net, even by error, and if someone is not smart enough to find it without your help, you don't want anything to do with it.

As for parental consent, for those who suggested that, it is not likely to be a valid defense, not to mention the problems in confirming the actual identity and authority even in person. (For example, the age of consent for almost any sexual activity in Washington is 16; the age varies below that by the difference in ages between the partners. That's imperfect, but better than many places. Anyway, it would not be valid or lawful for a parent to consent to me having sex with their 15 YO, putting aside all the other issues.) Given the unrealistic but nonetheless present attitudes about kids and sex, nothing at all good is going to happen if you go through with this. And, since this sort of activity is sometimes grooming behavior, even though I am confident you are not the sort of person to whom those concerns would validly apply, there is some rationality to it all.

the reasonable and prudent coward

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

hey, doog! always nice to see you.

of course knowing me, you also know that i was never a fan of that standard. if i don't do something, i want the decision to be informed by something deeper than fear of other people's laws (though that might well do the trick at any particular time, because the price to pay might seem too high, overall i don't want to become like that). it's sort of like i don't think much of getting religion if one does it for fear a jealous god might smite one in the afterlife.

i knew that parents cannot permit somebody having sex with their child if the child hasn't reached the age of consent in their state (which is a mixed blessing; good when i think of those who'd sell their kids to the highest bidder, bad when it comes to fostering the idea of kids being honest with their parents about sexual activity).

what about erotica/porn? can parents consent to their kid reading/looking at that even if it's illegal for a third party to give it to the kid, do you know?

[adrian-turtle.livejournal.com]

>Doog dropped in and said: the "reasonable and prudent coward"
>standard is your friend. Don't do it. There is plenty of
>opportunity to find erotica on the 'net, even by error, and if
>someone is not smart enough to find it without your help, you
>don't want anything to do with it.

Doog, I am a reasonable and prudent coward, myself, and I think it's important to make a distinction between "having anything to do with it" and actually breaking the law. If this request is really coming from a clueless 14-year-old who does not know the law, it would be courteous and respectful to refuse gently and explain why you are refusing. If I were 14 (or 17, for that matter), I would want someone to tell me what was going on, so I could decide whether to give up or wait until I was of age, or look for less risky alternatives.

Pleonastic started this discussion by asking about a teen asking an unknown adult for pornographic manga. That's different from situations where an adult and a young person have an existing close relationship and the adult takes the lead. It is even further from any situations involving 2-person sex. Where people are talking about "parental consent," above, I think they mean consent in terms of "May I tell this to your kid?" To my mind, that's not even in the same universe as "May I fuck your kid?"

Where adolescents are actively seeking information about sex ed or birth control and their parents do not want them to have it, the legal situation gets complicated. Depending on the jurisdiction, it may be legal for most people to give the kid a book, but the school and public library could be constrained from going against the parents' wishes. Online information is not currently illegal in the US, but the kids who need it most may have the most difficulty reaching it. (Filtering software used in schools, libraries, etc, generally blocks sex ed information.)

I said the legal situation was complicated, but the ethical situation is fairly simple: I believe I have a moral obligation to help people find health and safety information when they are looking for it, or when they need it. "People" includes young people. "Health and safety information" includes sex ed, birth control, and many of the helpful hints for heartbreak avoidance I've seen on Scarleteen.