# 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:** 1\ **Showing post:** 3
**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. --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-hand-drawn-child-porn-cartoons-are-illegal-why-are-pedophile-text-only-stories-not-illegal/708172)._