An Iowa man was convicted of possessing child pornography last week because some of the books in his vast collection of Japanese manga (comics) appeared to depict minors engaged in sexual acts. How exactly can a court determine whether a comic book character is a "minor" or not?
39-year-old Christopher Handley, an office worker, was brought up on charges of possessing child pornography in 2006 when customs officials seized a package for him. It contained several manga, some of which were "lolicon" that showed what officials said were children being sexually abused. There were also images of bestiality. Handley has a huge collection of manga, and only a few are lolicon. He also had absolutely no child pornography of any description in his house or on his computer.
Nevertheless, Handley entered a guilty plea. According to Threat Level, it was simply because his attorney had exhausted all other options:
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In the United States, the original intent of the child pornography laws was to protect children from sexual abuse. The idea is that when actual, living children (not images of them) participate in the making of sexual images, they are harmed. The US Supreme Court heard a case in 1982 (New York v. Ferber) whose outcome, in short, made any sexual images containing minors obscene and illegal - even if those images had redeeming social value. New York v. Ferber did not cover fictional images, only photography and film which involved actual children.
The Protect Act dramatically expands the scope of laws permitted under Ferber. But will actual children be protected by sending a man to prison for collecting fictional comic books?
http://io9.com/5272107/manga-collection-ruled-child-pornography-by-us-court
