I was reading a thread at Fametracker about the Michael Jackson case, and someone linked to a site that contained pictures from the book “The Boy: A Photographic Essay,” which Jackson had in his home. Now, I closed the link after the one picture loaded, but now I’m terrified I could be considered to have child porn on my computer! (It wasn’t porn exactly, just some 12 year old naked from behind-ew! but it still squicks me out).
Should I be worried? Clean out my cache and all that?
Well, a tag-along to Guin’s post. . .
Couldn’t someone construe some of Anne Geddes’ photos as child porn?
Tripler
Where does one draw the line between artistic and. . . sick?
As I understand it—though I am not a lawyer or anything like that—there has to be more than just nudity for it to be considered porn. It has to be sexual or appeal to prurient interests or something like that (sexual activity, sexually suggestive poses, etc.). So pictures of naked native children in National Geographic, for example, are not child porn.
Is the book in question legal to own? If so, I can’t imagine how you could get in trouble over having one of the pictures from the book accidentally stored on your hard drive. Are they charging Jackson with owning the book, or merely using it as evidence that he has an inappropriate interest in young boys?
They are looking for people with a couple thousand pictures on their computers and a house full of photos. Nobody is going to do anything about one photo from a published book accidently dowloaded.
nudity alone does not equal pornography. otherwise, my mom’s in some deep trouble over a bunch of 25yr old bathtub photos…
Thanks. I figured that I was being paranoid, but the whole thing just squicks me out.
According to many related posts on this topic posted on this board, the mere picture of a naked child isn’t child porn under american law. Of course, I couldn’t vouch for the accuracy of this statement, but it has been mentionned many times here. I’m postiong this answer only in order to allievate your fears until someone more qualified pops in with a more detailled answer (I believe the kid’s genitals must be displayed in an obscene way, or he must be engaged in a sexual activity for the picture to be considered kid porn, if memory serves).
Think about how many people could be arrested for child pornography if it were the case : professionnal photographers, parents taking a picture of their naked children, postcards editors (naked babies), naturist publications, ethnology/travel magazines, and so on…
I visited one of the site displaying pictures from this book (no…I wasn’t affraid. I know there are tons of books by famous photographers with pictures of naked minors out there. Actual child porn would be busted and wouldn’t be so easy to find). The picture you saw is apparently the book’s cover (a naked boy seen from behind at a distance, along a seashore). And though I do not doubt many would probably be appealing for a pedophile, none of the pictures appeared remotely pornographic to me.
To allievate further your fears, I noticed that according to this site, the book appears on the library of Congress catalog. I doubt they would have a “kiddie porn” section.
Just as a sidebar, I hear that some big-chain photo development places (Target, Wal-Green’s, etc.) refuse to develop any photos with child nudity on them, just to avoid any bruhaha over “kiddie porn” accusations.
As an aside, something I found weird, in an online article about Jackson’s case and this book :
It seems to me quite a stretch to use the ownership of heterosexual adult pornography as further evidence that Jackson’s preyed on little boys :dubious:
I also found this definition (I couldn’t tell if it’s still in force, how it is interpreted by US courts, etc…, of course) :
How could this be done without making an evaluation of the images? I know several Internet sysadamins who refuse to even look at what is posted through their servers. If I e-mail them about alleged kiddie porn through their servers, they’d just e-mail back “tell the FBI”. Legally, they can’t even look at such.
Question-who wrote such a book? From what I hear, it’s definitely got erotic undertones.
Germaine Greer. If it is the one I think it has to be.
I can’t give you a link (the next page includes pictures), but it’s apparently a compiling of pictures by a large number of photographers (maybe twenty or thirty) from various countries, published during the 60’s.
It’s on sale on e-bay and by antique book sellers and is apparently a collector worth hundreds of dollars.
And concerning erotic undertones, some pictures are of naked boys, some of undressed ones, some of fully clothed ones.
The two first categories are certainly erotic for a pedophile, but in the same way a picture of a naked or nearly naked woman is erotic for an heteroseual male. I could see only a couple samples of them, so maybe others are more suggestive, but they don’t appear particularily erotic to me apart, once again, from the fact that naked boys are depicted on some of them. Others depict for instance a face-shot of a kid “listening” to a seashell, or another a boy smiling at rabbits.
Uh… don’t they do this anyway? As in, sometimes when I pick up my one hour prints, the envelope is clearly labeled to charge me for 19 or 20 instead of 24, since they don’t charge for prints that didn’t come out, were overexposed, etc.
I’m wrong – Greer did have a book published called The Boy but there is another one which looks a lot more erotic.
I seem to remember a ruling where it isn’t considered child pornograhpy if the model is over 18, no matter how young s/he looks, or how the situation is portrayed. In essence, a girl, over 18, who hasn’t got a very developed body, and posing as a schoolgirl with a lolly, is not child pornography, whereas the very (bodily) mature Traci Lords, who were 15 at the time and didn’t appeal to prurient interests from pedophiles, is child pronography. I fully understand the protection of minors, but shouldn’t the intent of the consumer acvcount for something in these cases?
Or to turn it around, owning a film with Traci could get me sent to the slammer for possesion, but subscribing to “HornyJuniorHighCatholiticSchoolgirlSluts.com all models are over 18” is kosher. I find it a bit … strange.
Why? No harm has been done.
The same question arises in the case of cartoons and paintings depicting underage girls engaged in sexual acts as well as computer generated animations and literature, etc. It may affront the sentiments but no one is hurt. I suppose the intention of the laws is to protect the minors not to police public morality.
Wasn’t there a case of some man being imprisoned for having written sexual fantasies involving children in his own diary? Sounds like thought-crime to me, if right.
My local drug store that develops my photos never pulled a print. I only have one or two shots of the kids that could be even vaguely objectionable, but no fuss was ever made. Then again, that was roughly 11-14 years ago, long before John Ashcroft decided that Lady Justice was obscene and pornographic. :rolleyes:
Guin, I understand your fears- I too linked to a site a few months ago and was freaked out. It was an “artists gallery” much like my own gallery online, but it had ( amongst many other non-nudes ) a few distant or full-body shots of toddlers. At the beach. Still, I got scared… what a world.
Cartooniverse