Should underage porn become legal with consent of models once they become of age?

[Blackberry]

I don’t think it would be very hard to fuck up a child so bad by sexually abusing them that they would “consent” to the release of videos of their abuse when they turned 18. But there’s nothing that could go right with that plan.

And I’m not talking 17-year-olds or anything because I think it’s stupid to call them children. But this line of thinking would extend to actual children.

[Little_Nemo]

@hotflungwok

I know that the movies are illegal, but why weren’t the people who had sex with her arrested for child molestation?

The DA’s probably didn’t want to take the risk of going to trial. Their case wasn’t that clear-cut. Yes, there were definitely people who had sex with Lords when she was underage and filmed her. But there was also clear evidence that the filmmakers and performers had asked Lords to produce ID and she had knowingly given them false ID saying she was over eighteen.

So it’s possible a good lawyer might have convinced a jury that the filmmakers shouldn’t be held liable when they made a reasonable attempt to obey the law and it was the “victim” who was acting under false pretenses. And if that ruling had been made, it might have been used as a precedent in other cases allowing other defendants to argue that they could not have reasonably known they were breaking the law.

The DA’s may have decided to pass on this case rather than take a chance on weakening their ability to prosecute future sex cases.

[JRDelirious]

In the Traci Lords case:

1. She herself was briefly detained but then released w/o charges

2. One distributor who* held on to stock and did ship some of her videos even after the news broke *ended up taking his case all the way up to the Supreme Court and losing, he was the only one with an actual criminal conviction for it.

3.The authorities sought to prosecute three different producers for sexual exploitation of a minor and various “racketeering” counts. They beat the case, though it did them a lot of economic damage and kept them off work for a while.

4. Other parties in the case (directors, actors, crews, publishers) were followed up with, interviewed, some claimed harassed, but not prosecuted, it looks mostly as an attempt to see if they’d cough up evidence of a wider-spread underage-player problem.

IMO in the last two cases the reasons stated by Little Nemo must have applied – the various responsible parties mostly DID cross their t’s and dot their i’s to the extent it was required in 1985 when it was far less easy to crosscheck. Requirements for vetting and recordkeeping became more stringent as a consequence, which is why now all American commercial porn has a note somewhere indicating that “Records required by 18 USCR 2257 are held by [entity, address, contact info]”.
(BACK TO THE SUBJECT)

In any case I don’t believe there’s much if anything that if illegal when involving “Teen Minor You”, can be *retroactively *legalized simply on the say-so of “Adult You” that you’re now cool with it. At best you can get your record cleaned but the 16 y/o porn still has to go.
BTW another part of the disjoin between general age of consent for private recreational sex (16 in most US states) and age for commercial sex work (18 nationwide and federally enforceable) is that the latter assumes a person legally enabled to enter into a binding contract , and in the US someone under 18 is a legal minor who cannot do so.

[drewtwo99]

Thanks for the input everyone I appreciate all the info that has been shared and all your points of view.

[ruadh]

@JRDelirious

BTW another part of the disjoin between general age of consent for private recreational sex (16 in most US states) and age for commercial sex work (18 nationwide and federally enforceable) is that the latter assumes a person legally enabled to enter into a binding contract , and in the US someone under 18 is a legal minor who cannot do so.

And yet someone under 18 can enter into an employment contract *outside *the sex industry.

[Gary_Oak]

I personally think they should just get rid age of consent in general…

[hotflungwok]

@Little_Nemo

The DA’s probably didn’t want to take the risk of going to trial. Their case wasn’t that clear-cut. Yes, there were definitely people who had sex with Lords when she was underage and filmed her. But there was also clear evidence that the filmmakers and performers had asked Lords to produce ID and she had knowingly given them false ID saying she was over eighteen.

So it’s possible a good lawyer might have convinced a jury that the filmmakers shouldn’t be held liable when they made a reasonable attempt to obey the law and it was the “victim” who was acting under false pretenses. And if that ruling had been made, it might have been used as a precedent in other cases allowing other defendants to argue that they could not have reasonably known they were breaking the law.

The DA’s may have decided to pass on this case rather than take a chance on weakening their ability to prosecute future sex cases.

See State vs Jadowski.

A guy has sex with a girl who claimed to be 19, had ID that said she was 19, and turned out to be 15. His argument that he did what he could to verify her age was thrown out and he was convicted.

[Wesley_Clark]

@hansel

It’s not even a slope, Fubaya. I guarantee that if you permitted this sort of retroactive consent, you’d have a ton of actual teen porn, either created by porn producers and held until the actors can give consent, or there’d simply be open solicitation of amateur videos of teens who are now able to consent. To allow this is to effectively disable a separate age of consent for pornography. Maybe that’s a debate to have, but this sort of retroactive consent is just a backdoor way of achieving that.

What incentive would there be to create porn of 15-17 year olds? I am under the impression there are tons of women who are 18+ willing to do porn, and some look over 18 while some look under 18. And as far as physical appearance, people really can’t tell the difference between a 16 year old and an 18 year old, so there is no new market. And as I said, the supply of 18+ year olds seems glutted anyway.

[Hershele_Ostropoler]

The least bad regime I would envision is:
[ul]
[li]Making porn with performers under 18: illegal[/li][li]Distributing/possessing porn while one or more performers is under 18: illegal[/li][li]Distributing/possessing porn in which one or more performers is under 18, after they have all turned 18: legal if everyone who was under 18 when it was made has consented.[/li][/ul]

The best I can say about this is that I don’t see how it would be better than the current blanket ban.

(That said, I would allow as a defense to statutory rape that the accuser showed the accused a (well-made) fake ID, or that they met in a 21+ club or an 18+ club or an AOC+ club – though not just “well, I asked…”)

[Little_Nemo]

@hotflungwok

See State vs Jadowski.

A guy has sex with a girl who claimed to be 19, had ID that said she was 19, and turned out to be 15. His argument that he did what he could to verify her age was thrown out and he was convicted.

That’s my point. The law evolves through court cases establishing precedents. State vs Jadowski in 2004 pushed it in one direction. But an earlier case, with a different outcome, might have pushed it in a different direction.