# If hand drawn child porn cartoons are illegal why are pedophile text only stories not illegal? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 25, 2014, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-hand-drawn-child-porn-cartoons-are-illegal-why-are-pedophile-text-only-stories-not-illegal/708172 "2014-12-25T20:19:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2014, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-hand-drawn-child-porn-cartoons-are-illegal-why-are-pedophile-text-only-stories-not-illegal/708172/1 "2014-12-25T20:19:14Z")
I was reading [this dope thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=744495)and wondered why[if per this case hand](http://www.foxnews.com/story/2008/12/19/court-appeals-affirms-cartoons-child-porn-are-illegal/)drawn pedophile cartoons are illegal and this is a created fictional representation, why are pedophile text only stories not in the same category? [Court of Appeals Affirms Cartoons of Child Porn Are Illegal](http://www.foxnews.com/story/2008/12/19/court-appeals-affirms-cartoons-child-porn-are-illegal/) > [@](#): > > Dwight Whorley of Richmond is serving 20 years in prison, convicted in 2005 of using a public computer for jobseekers at the Virginia Employment Commission to receive 20 Japanese cartoons, called anime, illustrating young girls being forced to have sex with men. Whorley also received digital photographs of actual children engaging in sexual conduct and sent and received e-mails graphically describing parents sexually molesting their children. > > A three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday upheld his conviction. ---
**Author:** ![Shalmanese](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shalmanese](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shalmanese)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2014, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-hand-drawn-child-porn-cartoons-are-illegal-why-are-pedophile-text-only-stories-not-illegal/708172/2 "2014-12-25T21:12:00Z")
[Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_status_of_cartoon_pornography_depicting_minors#United_States) has a pretty good summary on this rather thorny legal issue. The tl;dr is that the US passed the CPPA act in 1996 which was ruled as being unconstitutional in [Ashcroft vs Free Speech Coalition](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashcroft_v._Free_Speech_Coalition) in 2002. The PROTECT act of 2003 was drafted specifically to address the ruling and so far, the Supreme Court has yet to weigh in on the PROTECT act so it’s constitutionality is in question (some lower courts have affirmed it, others have struck it down). The PROTECT act specifically refers to “drawings, sculptures, and pictures of such drawings and sculptures” but not to text which is why there’s legal backing for criminalizing drawings. Pedophile text stories likely _would be_ still illegal under the obscenity exception to free speech but the government has radically backed down on invoking obscenity convictions except in the most extreme of cases. The Whorley case always seemed rather silly to me since the man was caught with actual, real, child pornography so trying to prosecute him for anime as well just seemed to add complication without much gain. ---
**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:** [December 25, 2014, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-hand-drawn-child-porn-cartoons-are-illegal-why-are-pedophile-text-only-stories-not-illegal/708172/3 "2014-12-25T21:28:37Z")
Right, and, if the text stories _ **are** _ deemed _obscene_ by the court, under regular obscenity law, **yes you can** be prosecuted and convicted, but it happens only rarely. See the [Frank McCoy](https://www.techdirt.com/blog/?tag=frank+mccoy) and [Karen Fletcher aka Red Rose](http://www.dmlp.org/threats/united-states-v-fletcher) cases. Contrary to popular belief, it was never ruled that text-only material can’t be obscene; it just became generally unenforced after the adoption of more restrictive tests for obscenity and the explosion in visual porn. Heck, one could imagine that a local jury could make a ruling of obscenity against a written porn story because it does have minor characters in the story, if the judge does not instruct them otherwise. But the fact is that the presence of minor characters does NOT make a story _ **per se** _ obscene. As **Shalmanese** points out, PROTECT Act prosecutions for “non real” materials have never made it to SCouUS and are ALSO relatively rare, usually piled on when the accused has already called unwanted attention upon himself for some other reason, as an additional charge to pile on. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2014, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-hand-drawn-child-porn-cartoons-are-illegal-why-are-pedophile-text-only-stories-not-illegal/708172/4 "2014-12-25T21:32:53Z")
ah nevermind