# Harry Potter slash = child pornography? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 22, 2003, 5:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/harry-potter-slash-child-pornography/176752 "2003-05-22T05:45:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![susan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/susan/32/17537_2.png) [@susan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/susan)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2003, 5:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/harry-potter-slash-child-pornography/176752/1 "2003-05-22T05:45:15Z")
In perusing Harry Potter websites, I’ve found several offering slash fiction featuring, say, Harry and Ron, or Hermione and Ginny. Wouldn’t this be considered child pornography in at least some jurisdictions? I didn’t open any of the stories so I can’t give you a sense of how pornographic they are, but I would think that any depiction of sex between minors is potentially problematic these fdays. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2003, 5:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/harry-potter-slash-child-pornography/176752/2 "2003-05-22T05:50:18Z")
Purely textual stories are legal no matter how repugnant they may be. Child porn is only illegal when actual children are involved. ---
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2003, 6:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/harry-potter-slash-child-pornography/176752/3 "2003-05-22T06:20:58Z")
Actually there are some intpretation of laws that consider these stories illegal. I recall one case where a parolee was forbidden for writing pornographic stories about minors even in his personal journal for his exclusive use. But generally these stories are considered to be pretty much legal. Even if they are illegal, there is enough actual child pornography to keep investegators busy without having to pursue people who arrange letters in specific, forbidden, ways. ---
**Author:** ![spectrum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9fc29f/32.png) [@spectrum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spectrum)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2003, 6:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/harry-potter-slash-child-pornography/176752/4 "2003-05-22T06:59:06Z")
They’re not illegal for being child pornography, because there are no children involved. They may, however, be copyright infringement… ---
**Author:** ![rjung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/45deac/32.png) [@rjung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjung)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2003, 6:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/harry-potter-slash-child-pornography/176752/5 "2003-05-22T06:59:44Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Diogenes the Cynic \* > Purely textual stories are legal no matter how repugnant they may be. Child porn is only illegal when actual children are involved. Give John Ashcroft another six months… ---
**Author:** ![Rabid\_Squirrel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e0b2c6/32.png) [@Rabid\_Squirrel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rabid_Squirrel)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2003, 7:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/harry-potter-slash-child-pornography/176752/6 "2003-05-22T07:07:22Z")
Don’t get me started about the erotic Transformer fan-fiction :eek: Please don’t google it, you have been warned… ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2003, 7:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/harry-potter-slash-child-pornography/176752/7 "2003-05-22T07:46:28Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by even sven \* > \*\*Actually there are some intpretation of laws that consider these stories illegal. I recall one case where a parolee was forbidden for writing pornographic stories about minors even in his personal journal for his exclusive use. > \*\* That doesn’t have anything to do with the legality of writing pornography with children in it. I’m sure he was also forbidden from, say, going into toy stores. That doesn’t mean that it’s illegal for anyone else to enter toystores, just means that part of his punishment meant the curtailing of certain activities. I believe the law over written pornography and children was hashed out back with the US publication of _Lolita_, and the final verdict was that it was protected speech. ---
**Author:** ![bifar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/779978/32.png) [@bifar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bifar)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2003, 10:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/harry-potter-slash-child-pornography/176752/8 "2003-05-22T10:07:29Z")
In my limited experience most Harry Potter slash ‘ages’ the characters till they’re legal – over 16 or whatever. And because they’re older, and in more adult situations, you imagine them as older in your mind and it’s not as if you’re replaying kiddie porn in your imagination. (Thank god.) But it is still a bit odd to imagine, for example, Ron Weasley doin’ it with Millicent Bulstrode or something. ---
**Author:** ![Loneraven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c0e974/32.png) [@Loneraven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loneraven)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2003, 10:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/harry-potter-slash-child-pornography/176752/9 "2003-05-22T10:20:08Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by bifar \* > \*\*But it is still a bit odd to imagine, for example, Ron Weasley doin’ it with Millicent Bulstrode or something. \*\* But that wouldn’t be slash, would it? ---
**Author:** ![Shade](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2bfe46/32.png) [@Shade](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shade)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2003, 10:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/harry-potter-slash-child-pornography/176752/10 "2003-05-22T10:48:29Z")
Well, nearly 😃 PS. I thought I heard this argument before and computer generated images of children having sex was illegal?? Or maybe it was just because it was obscene… But I think \*\*bifar has a good point. \*\* If it was Dumbledor & Colin, it’d be really, really, icky, but Harry and Cho would be imagined as older… Remember Hermione (14?) is practically dating Krum (18?). If Rowling can do it… ---
**Author:** ![RexDart](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b77776/32.png) [@RexDart](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RexDart)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2003, 11:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/harry-potter-slash-child-pornography/176752/11 "2003-05-22T11:23:20Z")
I haven’t read all the _Harry Potter_ (just the first two), but I think there’s 7 years of wizard school, one year per grade, and each book is a grade IIRC. So as of the 4th book, where I think we are now, all the first-years from _Sorceror’s Stone_ are 4 years older, which makes them 16. Frankly, having met a number of 16 year olds in my life, and knowing that they aren’t abstinent saints, I don’t have a problem with putting characters that age into sexual situations. Heck, I read Nabokov’s _Lolita_ back in college, if you can write that you can write whatever you want. So if Hermione Grainger wants to get it on with Ron Weasley or some such, then I don’t have a problem with it. Heck, they could do it IRL and it wouldn’t be illegal most places. The question is between “slash” being legally ok and it being ethically ok. Unfortunately, “slash” fiction is written mostly by horny gay teenagers who project their own desires onto well-known characters as a way of acting out their desires, since they feel uncomfortable expressing them IRL. Society won’t let them be gay openly w/o repurcussions, so they project their lives onto the lives of fictional characters and that’s quite pathetic and sad. I’ve actually seen links to pages wherein people have concocted elaborate scenarios by which Elijah Wood has gotten hot and horny with other real actors from LOTR, and they really believe it’s happened, and that’s taking this slash b.s. too far. Frankly, if I were an actor, I’d be personally horribly offended at the crap these perverts make the characters do, let alone when they bring the real person into the mix. I’d like to see Micheal Dorn show up at some jerk kid’s house one day and give him a…stern lecture…about all the crap he wrote about him and Data having an illicit affair on some lousy webring. ---
**Author:** ![Diceman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Diceman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diceman)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2003, 11:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/harry-potter-slash-child-pornography/176752/12 "2003-05-22T11:43:26Z")
> [@](#): > > I thought I heard this argument before and computer generated images of children having sex was illegal?? IIRC, this law was declared unconstitutional for being overly broad. After all, the purpose of child pornography laws is to protect children from exploitation. ---
**Author:** ![Weirddave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/919ad9/32.png) [@Weirddave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weirddave)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2003, 1:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/harry-potter-slash-child-pornography/176752/13 "2003-05-22T13:12:29Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Diceman \* > \*\*IIRC, this law was declared unconstitutional for being overly broad. After all, the purpose of child pornography laws is to protect children from exploitation. \*\* Not to defend child pornography, but where’s the exploitation of children if it’s all 'puter generated? If you censor imaginary images, where’s the line between that and Anime or “thought crime”, for that matter? Is Michaelangelo’s “David” now pornographic, assuming you carry that kind of thinking through to it’s logical conclusion? ---
**Author:** ![frithrah](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ad7895/32.png) [@frithrah](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/frithrah)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2003, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/harry-potter-slash-child-pornography/176752/14 "2003-05-22T13:29:42Z")
[http://www.cnn.com/2002/LAW/04/16/scotus.virtual.child.porn/index.html](http://www.cnn.com/2002/LAW/04/16/scotus.virtual.child.porn/index.html) You’ve got to keep in mind that While Rehnquist and his creepy crew impose a generally pretty conservative rule upon us, the court is still primarly made up of lecherous old men. “Hey? Who put this pube on my Coke?” "A sociobiologist would tell you that there is a reproductive algorithm underlying all of this. Whatever it becomes as it rises from the primal to the spiritual, the sexual urge begins with the desire to reproduce. Even if one is specifically not interested in making babies, the software is still running, leading men (who can still father children – if not necessarily parent them well – into their eighties) to find attractive those women who remain capable of child-bearing. A corollary of this inequity of nature is that men go on being appealing to young women at ages where the converse tends not be to true. This, I believe, is what drives the ancient emotional economy in which beauty is the currency on the one side and currency the currency on the other. Look anywhere on this planet for the concentrations of beautiful women and you will find, close at hand, rich and powerful men. That these men are often older as well results from the fact that some time is generally required to gather money, power or celebrity, while time is generally somewhat hostile to beauty." - John Perry Barlow ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2003, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/harry-potter-slash-child-pornography/176752/15 "2003-05-22T13:58:01Z")
**Weirddave** , that’s one of the points that was argued before the court, insofar as the law being “overbroad”. The court said: sorry dudes, “anything that even looks like something bad” doesn’t cut it, try again. The arguments on the opposite side tend to be in the sense that this material (a) might help build tolerance for the idea itself, (b) among consumers could build up a tolerance to the stimulus and a desire for the Real Thing, © could conceivably be used as a “lure” for children (“Look, Timmy, there are all these books about boys doing just this! There’s even a video game! See how much fun it is!”), (d) could make enforcement harder because then the authorities would have to prove there were actual children harmed. The first three are speculative, the last one is utter BS as it’s _supposed_ to be hard work to prosecute someone, so we may as well do it only against REAL child-abusers. That said, I would not be surprised at all if there were non-US jurisdictions where it IS unlawful to publish explicit _pornographic/erotic_ (as opposed to scientific/didactic) written depictions of sex involving minors. (And yes, in the case of slash, it’s copyright/trademark law that you’re likelier to get nailed for.) ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2003, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/harry-potter-slash-child-pornography/176752/16 "2003-05-22T14:15:46Z")
Re **RexDart** ’s assertion that slash is written mostly by gay teenagers, personal experience has convinced me that far more young straight women (teens to mid-20s) write slash (at least male/male slash) than gay teens. Contrary to popular belief, there is a huge subset of straight women that find gay sex exciting to watch or read about. Otherwise, explain the huge straight-woman following of _Queer as Folk_ or some of the more sexually ambiguous _bishounen_ (hope I got that right) anime. ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2003, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/harry-potter-slash-child-pornography/176752/17 "2003-05-22T16:09:12Z")
**jayjay** is right. My interest in slash fic ranges from minimal to nonexistant, but I knew quite a few slash fans and even a few writers in college…a women’s college, mind you. Some were very active in online slash communities, and as best as I can tell from what they told me the slash community is almost entirely female and almost entirely heterosexual. I couldn’t guess at how many gay teens _read_ slash, but the number of those actually writing it seems to be vanishingly small. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2003, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/harry-potter-slash-child-pornography/176752/18 "2003-05-22T16:18:15Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Lamia \* > **jayjay is right.** But of course. It’s amazing how much more smoothly the world would run if the above statement were “a truth universally acknowledged.” 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Priam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/77aa72/32.png) [@Priam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Priam)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2003, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/harry-potter-slash-child-pornography/176752/19 "2003-05-22T16:18:51Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Lamia \* > \*\*\*\* I couldn’t guess at how many gay teens _read_ slash \*\* _shuffles his feet and nudges some papers under his desk_ ---
**Author:** ![rjung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/45deac/32.png) [@rjung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjung)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2003, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/harry-potter-slash-child-pornography/176752/20 "2003-05-22T16:43:48Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Rabid\_Squirrel \* > Don’t get me started about the erotic Transformer fan-fiction :eek: Every year, in [the Trannies(\*),](http://www.digiserve.com/eescape/tf/Transformers.shtml#Trannies) I have a gag question that asks voters for the _Transformers_ character they want to be lovers with. And while it’s good for laughs, I _do_ worry about the folks who profess hot nekked lust for fifty-foot-tall robots… (\* = Yes, I know about the name, no need to rehash it) “Trypticon! Who needs ‘Sex in the City’ when you can have sex _with_ the city?” :eek: [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/harry-potter-slash-child-pornography/176752.md?page=2)