Does the age of sexual consent correlate to the the age at which one could legally appear naked in a magazine etc.? Nationwide 18 is generally seen as the minimum age of legal consent to appear nude in a magazine. In some states, however, like Maryland the age of consent is 16.
What governs how old someone has to be to appear naked in a magazine like Playboy etc. Is this law state by state or nationwide?
Brooke Shields appeard nude in the 1978 movie “Pretty Baby”, at the age of 12. And was also in a nude photo shoot at around the same time. People could appear nude much younger that 18 or even 16, as long as the nudity is not sexual.
What about the kid on the Nirvana cover who just turned 18? That must have been 16 years ago.
They’re both totally separate concepts, different in most states.
The governing legislation, for the US, I believe, is the Child Protection and Obscenity Enforcement Act.
My bro in Illinois told me about a middle-aged guy he knew who was dating a teenaged girl. She was legal to have sex in IL, but he made videos and showed his friends. She wasn’t old enough to appear in such films so he was convicted of child porn (but he couldn’t be charged for sex with a minor).
I would assume states have rights to set those ages, but IANAL.
I believe there are federal statutes defining the minimum age for this to be 18. That is, if the pictures are to be overtly sexual in nature. Those photos of naked 12 year old Brooke Shields were ruled not to be, therefore they’re legal.
There’s currently a debate going on in Australia over a picture of a naked 6 year old girl that was on the cover of an art magazine. Google Olympia Nelson…
In addition, Brooke’s mother signed a consent form. Even in the much more open legal and political climate around nudity in 1970s I’m absolutely positive they had to have parental consent before doing any nude scenes with an underage actor, especially given the content of the film.
Virtually every commercial or professional photographer will not take nude shots of any model without a signed consent form — regardless of the age of the model — since not having one opens them up to potential legal action. The same is true of movies or TV. Parents are able to give legal consent even when the minor cannot, as far as I know.
Recently in Australia, Bill Henson was investigated under allegations of child pornography due to the use of underage models in a photography exhibit. No charges were brought against him and the models he used were universally supportive when asked about their experiences working with him. Their parents were involved throughout and he obtained the consent of both the parents and the subjects.
Without getting into a debate about it, I think that some of the more militant child “advocates” are on morally and ethically shaky ground in saying that minors are absolutely unable to give consent under any circumstances, because in effect what they are saying is that the opinions of children and adolescents don’t matter at all, and that their judgment of the situation as uninvolved outsiders is superior to that of the people in question.
The age of consent in a lot of European countries is lower than 18, but you still have to be 18 or over to comply with international porn laws.
IMO having sex and making porn require two different levels of decisions. Having sex might include things like “Does this person have a disease?” or “What if there’s a pregnancy?” etc. Making porn requires those, but also “Am I comfortable with the notion of having these images out there for the rest of all eternity?”
Not debating you Sleel, but when you say they’re unable to give consent, consent to what exactly?
Isn’t Sleel arguing the exact opposite, that in some circumstances minors are able to give consent?
I just wanted clarification on whether he meant that IHO sometimes a minor can (in theory) consent to sex -or-if that minor can also consent to making porn.
Probably ought to wait until **Sleel ** come back on line but I read his comment as applying to cases like that in Australia where a child appears nude in a non-porn artistic work with the consent of the parents and the child quite happy with it i.e. not to do with consent to appearing in porn or to underage sex.
Seems to me that it’s a distribution question. You make a magazine or a website with nekkid girls, you hope (if you’re a good entrepreneur) that you will have customers nationwide. Therefore, you want to make sure you’re on the right side of the legal line in as many markets as possible.
With respect to age of consent, by contrast, you can only have sex in one state at a time. 
Orly? :dubious:
It seems like such a slippery slope. So some crackhead mom pimps her daughter to a photog for a couple hundred bucks of drug money…you’ve got parental consent, and what constitutes “non-sexual” is anybody’s guess.
E.g. remember that Blind Faith album cover?
The release of the album provoked controversy because the cover featured a topless pubescent girl,[3] holding in her hands a silver space ship designed by Mick Milligan, a jeweller at the Royal College of Art.[4] Some perceived the ship as phallic[5] The U.S. record company issued it with an alternative cover which showed a photograph of the band on the front.[6]
Here’s the album cover, which I wouldn’t consider safe for work:
I have to admit though, that here in the US, the old puritan prudishness is still in effect. Euro dopers may see it differently.
Ever see the “Virgin Killer” album cover for the Scorpions?
Not safe for work: File:Virgin Killer.jpg - Wikipedia
Parental consent means nothing if the pictures are deemed to be of an overtly sexual or lascivious in nature. Actually, it means that the parent can be charged along with the photographer.
Although it can get into a gray area, I think most reasonable people can pretty easily decide if nudity is artistic or sexually exploitve. The problem occurs when its child nudity. There are some who feel that any nudity always has at least some sexuality to it, therefore child nudity is always wrong.
A problem too is that although the same people who view pictures like those nudes of 12 year old Brooke Shields as art would not ever consider real kiddie porn as even remotely similar, people who like real kiddie porn would consider those pics as just ‘softcore’ kiddie porn.
This is why I so rarely post anything on the SDMB that isn’t either a fact or an opinion that is directly related to my own experience and therefore not open to argument or refutation. What I wrote before would take willful misunderstanding to misinterpret.
We were talking about nude pictures of minors. I talked about two famous people in particular: 1) Brooke Shields, and 2) Bill Henson. I also mentioned standard practice of professional photographers and what little I know about the film industry. Nowhere did I mention porn, nowhere did I mention crack whores, nowhere did I mention parental pimping. Just stop it with the ridiculous hypotheticals.
My problem is with advocates who simply ignore the opinions of both the child and parents and assume that their interpretation of constitutes exploitation or coercion is superior. In the case of Bill Henson’s models, none of them have said anything negative toward him or their experience working with him. Their opinion then and now is that it was a positive experience. None of their parents has reported feeling uncomfortable about the photography session or the resulting photographs. I’ve also never seen anything from Brooke Shields to indicate that she felt exploited by doing nude scenes in films even at the early age she performed them.
Both situations are of willing minors who are unable to give informed consent under the laws of their countries. In that case, the consent of the parent must also be given. If there were parents who tried to exploit their child without the child’s consent, that would be both morally — and in probably every country of the world — legally wrong.
To clarify my general position, as opposed to this specific case, my personal opinion is that minors should be able to express consent for sex and related issues at a younger age than they currently do in most locations.
How many of you waited until you were of legal age in your jurisdiction to have sex? How many of your parents did? My mother met my father when she was 16 and he was 23. They got married when she was 19. I’m pretty damn sure they didn’t wait until they got married to have sex.
In California, where I grew up, minors are unable to give informed consent to other minors, which makes it technically illegal to have sex even with someone of an “appropriate” age if you’re a minor. My first two partners committed statutory rape when they had consensual sex with me since they were both well over 18 and I was still 17.
I also had a couple of exploratory sessions when I was a kid (about 5 or 6) with a couple of kids who were about that age or a bit older that would probably have us thrown in counseling now if anyone had found out about it. And there was the time when the babysitter’s daughter, who was about 13 if I remember right, used me for kissing practice when I was 7 or so.
I think it’s pretty sick that moral judgments are so skewed lately that my parents early relationship would be characterized as abusive now, and a good part of my sexual development would similarly be considered exploitative when I was a willing and generally enthusiastic participant. I’m pretty sure I’m not the only person on this board whose parents got busy early, or who had a similar experience with sex or sexual contact at fairly young ages.
So either we agree with your interpretation or we’re wrong? You mention the word “opinion” in the above…isn’t an opinion “open to argument or refutation?” I’m not willfully misunderstanding or misinterpreting you…I do disagree, however.
The title of the thread refers to “magazine/video etc.” Either potentially includes porn.
FWIW, if I had been in charge, I never would have released the album covers cited. The rest of the world may think they’re okay, so I’ll go along with that. IIRC both models reported a good experience, even as adults, and that’s great. But I don’t expect every photographer to be an artist, or for that matter, an ethical one. See, for example, Vanessa Williams losing her Miss America crown.
The trend, I think, is that if you give an inch they’ll take a mile. For instance, I have heard that when Rhett Butler uttered his final line, audiences were shocked that he would use the word “damn” in a motion picture.
In a footnote (#22) to the article cited after the quote, Wikipedia states:
*Although legend persists that the Hays Office fined Selznick $5,000 for using the word “damn”, in fact the Motion Picture Association board passed an amendment to the Production Code on November 1, 1939, that forbade use of the words “hell” or “damn” except when their use “shall be essential and required for portrayal, in proper historical context, of any scene or dialogue based upon historical fact or folklore … or a quotation from a literary work, provided that no such use shall be permitted which is intrinsically objectionable or offends good taste.” With that amendment, the Production Code Administration had no further objection to Rhett’s closing line. Leonard J. Leff and Jerold L. Simmons, The Dame in the Kimono: Hollywood, Censorship, and the Production Code, pp. 107-108. *
Fast forward a few decades, and George Carlin came out with his famous bit about the seven words you can never say on TV. After his death, watching retrospectives, I notice that not all of these words are bleeped any more.
And of course language has crossed from film to TV to music on the radio. I’m not such a prude that I think that “damn” doesn’t have a place in conversation. I pull up next to youngsters at traffic lights and they have the stereo turned up; every other word is fucker, motherfucker, fucking, or some variant thereof. In a way, Rhett Butler started it.
Once you deem something acceptable, someone will always come along to challenge the boundaries. Artists push that limit routinely, and I think that with regard to children, we need to be a little paranoid.
I know what you’re saying and agree, by and large. So…should we agree on 16? Someone will say 14. 14? Some will say 12. 12? Shall we say 10? There are some 12 year olds with more maturity than some 30 year olds, no doubt. But how do we judge that? At least a chronological age is easy to determine, unless of course you’re a female Chinese gymnast.
IMO some laws are on the books “just in case.” If I were your mother’s father, believe me when I say that I would size up anybody who wanted to date her. A guy who seems to care about her, genuinely, who acts decently toward her…I’m going to turn a blind eye to a lot of stuff. But if she’s secretly dating some 40 year-old drug dealer, there is a law on the books that I can use to put the smackdown on him.
