UK authors - Beware. 16 may be legal for sex, but not nudity!

[Handley_Page]

Sigh.

And on a completely different topic...

Perhaps we might petition Laurel and Manu to create a specific 'Flame Wars' category, where people could go and scream insults at each other as often as they wish. The creation of such a category would foster the growth of creative insultery, taking the art of verbal defecation to a whole new level. It would provide a source of sorely needed emotional release for some individuals, and probably leave a lasting mark on the Internet.

It would also make it much easier for those of us who wish to have a reasonable discussion, to do so.

Just a thought.

I think you could be right!
Perhaps we might ask for a 'handbag' (I think it's called a 'purse' in the 'States) icon?
See Here for illustration.
I know that such an icon exists.

 

[sr71plt]

That would be fine with me. I just wouldn't read that forum, just like I just don't open a lot of posts now. There obviously are folks here entertained by that, so they'd have a central place to go to read it.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Please; put your handbag away.
Will you please take your vituperation into PMs or something other than a thread.
Your writings do nothing to advance the subject and merely clutter up the screen.

I agree the constant flame wars are annoying, but what do handbags have to do with it?

 

[elfin_odalisque]

Aren't you mixing up what you can do with what you can write? Humbert was a fictional character when the book was written. So was Lolita.

No, sr. Ogg cited an UK legal case highlighting the differences in England between age of consent and age for nude photos. His parting advice to writers (UK ?) was no more than sensible and you dabbling in foreign countries' laws on sex between teenagers just shows your ignorance.


This thread has not been about writing but law.

 

[sr71plt]

I agree the constant flame wars are annoying, but what do handbags have to do with it?

At not quite worst it evokes a female cat fight; at worst (as it is applied to male account names) it introduces--or, maybe, points out--gay bashing. Just goes with the level of much of the bashing that goes on on the forum.

 

[elfin_odalisque]

No, not really sr. Lolita, Romeo and Juliet, Story of O, were all published when age wasn't a legal consideration.
as I understand, and agree with, most respectable publishers have avoided under-18 sex to conform with current social mores-including lit.

There is an ever-increasing risk that publishing under 18 current sex could get you into trouble. if you want to write kiddy sex, get off Lit and go to the darker corners of the web.

 

[TxRad]

No, not really sr. Lolita, Romeo and Juliet, Story of O, were all published when age wasn't a legal consideration.
as I understand, and agree with, most respectable publishers have avoided under-18 sex to conform with current social mores-including lit.

There is an ever-increasing risk that publishing under 18 current sex could get you into trouble. if you want to write kiddy sex, get off Lit and go to the darker corners of the web.

They were not discussing Lit. They were discussing UK law. Not writing but pictures vs actual sex.

As for writing and underage, you must not read much in the mainstream. Its been around forever and is still around.

 

[sr71plt]

There is zero legal risk for a mainstream publisher to publish underage sex. Writing about it isn't against the law.

 

[oggbashan]

There is zero legal risk for a mainstream publisher to publish underage sex. Writing about it isn't against the law.

That might be true in the US. I doubt it is now true in the UK. Whether or not it is illegal, social mores are are against it if it encourages paedophilia. Such a story wouldn't sell.

Crime fiction is different. Raping and killing an underage teenager is acceptable if the perpetrator meets justice by the end of the book.

 

[robertreams]

There is a difference between what is legal and what is right or wrong. Even a 22 yr, old teacher should not be having sex with a student of any age, because teaching is a position of trust. If you are the teacher, you have power and if you abuse that power you should lose your job. Every teacher knows the difference. To cross that line is a willful choice. Who we choose to fuck is a decision, not an accident.

 

[oggbashan]

There is a difference between what is legal and what is right or wrong. Even a 22 yr, old teacher should not be having sex with a student of any age, because teaching is a position of trust. If you are the teacher, you have power and if you abuse that power you should lose your job. Every teacher knows the difference. To cross that line is a willful choice. Who we choose to fuck is a decision, not an accident.

In the original post, I wasn't querying the conviction for a teacher having sex with a pupil, even though she wasn't HIS pupil. The law is clear. Consensual sex in England is only possible between people aged 16 or over who are not in a position of authority, one over the other.

But the point of law that was new to me was that making or possessing nude pictures of people under 18 can be illegal.

Like many parents and grandparents, we have pictures of our youngsters naked. Owning them might not be illegal. I don't know. But sharing them? We could get into trouble...

 

[Bramblethorn]

That might be true in the US. I doubt it is now true in the UK. Whether or not it is illegal, social mores are are against it if it encourages paedophilia. Such a story wouldn't sell.

Depends on how it's packaged. Stuff that's marketed as porn is likely to get an unfriendly reaction if it features 14-year-olds having sex, but... well, "Game of Thrones" is doing pretty well in the UK sales charts, and that features a wedding night scene with a 13- or 14-year-old girl.

But the point of law that was new to me was that making or possessing nude pictures of people under 18 can be illegal.

Like many parents and grandparents, we have pictures of our youngsters naked. Owning them might not be illegal. I don't know. But sharing them? We could get into trouble...

There was a big controversy about this in Australia a few years back with an artist who was taking nudes of teenagers. IMHO there was nothing sexualised about the pictures, and he seems to have been scrupulous about getting parents' consent, but inevitably it was cast as KIDDY PORN BURN THE PERVERT.

 

[Mister_Chris]

Ogg, a few decades ago The Sun tabloid newspaper in Britain regularly published pictures of topless 16 year old girls on page 3, typically with a sentence or two of light sexual innuendo. Another - I think it was The Sport, but my memory might be failing - actually did a countdown, and published topless pictures taken on the girls 16th birthday.

I seem to recall that some tabloids voluntarily moved to 18 yr olds, and others eliminated the feature entirely.

Did the laws change?

Certainly US culture has. Photography magazines from the '70's always had several topless or naked female images. Not any more; in fact, one magazine does a "50 year ago" retrospective look at selected articles from their magazine from 50 years ago, and they actually pixellated the topless illustrative pictures that they themselves published in their own magazine, 5 decades previously.

I certainly support the position of female equality - equal pay for equal work, best person for the job regardless of gender... all of that. But aren't we getting a little too politically correct? Does a picture of a naked female somehow cheapen or demean women as a whole?

I dunno. Maybe it does. But I don't see the connection, I like looking at naked women, and I miss the old days. A naked female image doesn't always mean pornography.

A few decades ago I was a nudist, and there was a lot of concern with families taking pictures of their happy, naked children playing at the camp, and getting the pictures processed at the 1 hour photo. It seems that as soon as you have a picture of a naked boy or girl under 18, it absolutely has to be pedophilia. And if it's your child, then we can probably tack on child abuse and incest.

SR71PLT There is zero legal risk for a mainstream publisher to publish underage sex. Writing about it isn't against the law.

Pilot, that surprises me. Certainly you cannot legally sell or purchase visual porn in the US that features performers under 18. But are you suggesting that publishing written, descriptive pornography featuring characters that are explicitly under 18, is legal in the US? I would not have thought that to be the case.

I recall a few Beeline books from my youth that explicitly described underage sex, often as young as 12 or 13. But I don't recall seeing anything like that since the '70's.

Perhaps a drama that includes an underage component as a minor feature might be OK. But I would not have thought the kind of explicit stuff we write here would be publishable anywhere in the US, if the ages were dropped to 15.

Can you expand on your position?

Thanks - MC

 

[oggbashan]

Ogg, a few decades ago The Sun tabloid newspaper in Britain regularly published pictures of topless 16 year old girls on page 3, typically with a sentence or two of light sexual innuendo. Another - I think it was The Sport, but my memory might be failing - actually did a countdown, and published topless pictures taken on the girls 16th birthday.

I seem to recall that some tabloids voluntarily moved to 18 yr olds, and others eliminated the feature entirely.

Did the laws change?

...

Thanks - MC

Simple answer - Yes, the law HAS changed and the teacher's defence statement, that he didn't know, would be reasonable for most adults in the UK. I didn't know, but I wouldn't have crossed that line anyway. Many people don't know that it is now illegal to share nude pictures of people aged between 16 and 18. The upper limit used to be 16.

The teacher's defence ON THAT CHARGE is useless. Ignorance of the law does not excuse the offence. It might feature as part of a plea of mitigation, but cannot be a defence.

Wikipedia Summary of the Sexual Offences Act 2003:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_Offences_Act_2003

Section 45(2) changed the definition of "child" in the Protection of Children Act 1978 (which applies to child pornography) from a person under 16 to a person under 18. Section 45 also inserted section 1A of the 1978 Act, and section 160A of the Criminal Justice Act 1988, which create defences which apply where the photograph showed the child alone or with the defendant (but not if it showed any other person), the defendant proves that the photograph was of the child aged 16 or over and that he and the child were married or lived together as partners in an enduring family relationship, and certain other conditions are met.

That means if you married between the ages of 16 and 18 (possible in the UK with parental consent), and you take a nude picture of your husband or wife when they are not 18 - YOU have to prove the marriage exists otherwise you have committed an offence. You can't share that picture with anyone else, even if the subject of the picture is now over 18.

 

[Mister_Chris]

OK - so things changed in 2003. I would have thought I would have caught that, but clearly I didn't. I may have been more clearly focused on Mr. Bush's activities in Iraq at the time, but I truly just don't remember. Thanks for getting me up to speed.

I'm still grumpy about what I perceive to be excessive political correctness; that being, you can't show naked women in magazines at all, unless it's in a pornography magazine. For some reason, it's OK to do that; you just can't publish art. It's porn, or nothing.

I must now go grump in private. Peace. >MC

 

[Handley_Page]

I agree the constant flame wars are annoying, but what do handbags have to do with it?

On a couple of sites which I visit, the handbag icon is a symbol of disapproval of a flaming cat-fight or similar.
If someone gets really peeved at two persons sniping at one another on the page, he/she might simply put up the handbag icon to indicate disapproval.

It usually has the effect of quietening down the rhetoric.

 

[oggbashan]

OK - so things changed in 2003. I would have thought I would have caught that, but clearly I didn't. I may have been more clearly focused on Mr. Bush's activities in Iraq at the time, but I truly just don't remember. Thanks for getting me up to speed.

I'm still grumpy about what I perceive to be excessive political correctness; that being, you can't show naked women in magazines at all, unless it's in a pornography magazine. For some reason, it's OK to do that; you just can't publish art. It's porn, or nothing.

I must now go grump in private. Peace. >MC

I THINK that the legislation was aimed solely at paedophiles who were escaping prosecution because the pictures had to be proven to be of a person under 16, BUT it really relates to abusive pornography, not pictures of family members skinny-dipping.

It has had an impact on some schools who now ban parents from taking pictures of their children at school events, and no longer sell videos of school plays etc.

As usual, the legislation was an over-reaction and in practice has led to unnecessary restrictions on photography. But with the increase and improvement of mobile phone photography, such restrictions are almost impossible to enforce.

 

[Bramblethorn]

I certainly support the position of female equality - equal pay for equal work, best person for the job regardless of gender... all of that. But aren't we getting a little too politically correct? Does a picture of a naked female somehow cheapen or demean women as a whole?

For me it's about public vs private spaces. I quite enjoy looking at pictures of naked women (who have made a free and informed choice to share that view with me) but I don't like being smacked in the eye with it when I'm driving down the road, walking into work, or trying to read the newspapers.

If public spaces are full of images of women who wouldn't actually be accepted in public, that sends an unpleasant message - "your place is in the bedroom and your main job is to look pretty". (See also: incessant discussion of Angela Merkel's wardrobe.)

The up-side, for those of us who like naked women, is that women who feel empowered may be more comfortable sharing. I know of one musician who routinely performs in her underwear or less, not because people are paying for that, but because she's comfortable with being naked and knows she's not going to be arrested or shamed out of existence for it.

A few decades ago I was a nudist, and there was a lot of concern with families taking pictures of their happy, naked children playing at the camp, and getting the pictures processed at the 1 hour photo. It seems that as soon as you have a picture of a naked boy or girl under 18, it absolutely has to be pedophilia. And if it's your child, then we can probably tack on child abuse and incest.

Uh-huh. Child abuse is repulsive, but unfortunately that makes it very tempting as a cudgel for beating one's political opponents.

Pilot, that surprises me. Certainly you cannot legally sell or purchase visual porn in the US that features performers under 18. But are you suggesting that publishing written, descriptive pornography featuring characters that are explicitly under 18, is legal in the US? I would not have thought that to be the case. I recall a few Beeline books from my youth that explicitly described underage sex, often as young as 12 or 13. But I don't recall seeing anything like that since the '70's.

Written material gets a LOT of protection from the First Amendment and various Supreme Court precedents. Last I looked, Amazon US was still selling Piers Anthony's "Firefly" (no relation to the TV series), which... ugh. Game of Thrones also has brief but explicit sexual content with a 13-year-old in the first book; it's not something I go looking for, so I don't know what else is out there.

But I suspect a company that blatantly pitched to the "under-age porn" market might find itself under attack on other fronts - people can target advertisers, or pressure payment services not to work with them, etc etc, even before the possibility of legal changes.

On a couple of sites which I visit, the handbag icon is a symbol of disapproval of a flaming cat-fight or similar.
If someone gets really peeved at two persons sniping at one another on the page, he/she might simply put up the handbag icon to indicate disapproval.

It usually has the effect of quietening down the rhetoric.

Why a handbag in particular, though? Is there something distinctively feminine about that kind of argument?

 

[oggbashan]

...


Why a handbag in particular, though? Is there something distinctively feminine about that kind of argument?

It is an expression derived from Mrs Thatcher when Prime Minister:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-11518330

Margaret Thatcher's handbag was an icon of an era: a weapon wielded against opponents or unfortunate ministers.

Its fame even reached the Concise Oxford English Dictionary, which defines the verb "to handbag" as: (of a woman politician), treat (a person, idea etc) ruthlessly or insensitively.

Lady Thatcher herself once told an interviewer: "Of course, I am obstinate in defending our liberties and our law. That is why I carry a big handbag."

 

[sr71plt]

On a couple of sites which I visit, the handbag icon is a symbol of disapproval of a flaming cat-fight or similar.
If someone gets really peeved at two persons sniping at one another on the page, he/she might simply put up the handbag icon to indicate disapproval.

It usually has the effect of quietening down the rhetoric.

The urban dictionary take:

"Mainly British. A pointless and worthless argument, deriving from the image of old ladies having a handbag (purse) fight at the bus stop."
"Oh, put your handbags away".

It's often effective on forums (and is here too) when used against male posters, because it conveys the view that they are acting like silly school girls. It's the "girls" (or gay connotation) that stops them in their tracks.

 

[Mister_Chris]

For me it's about public vs private spaces. I quite enjoy looking at pictures of naked women (who have made a free and informed choice to share that view with me) but I don't like being smacked in the eye with it when I'm driving down the road, walking into work, or trying to read the newspapers.

Well, fair enough. Certainly public spaces in Las Vegas are saturated with nude, seminude and sexually suggestive images of women on billboards, signs, free newspapers, even advertising on buses. (Also really buff guys, although women predominate at maybe a 50:1 ratio). I did find the experience jarring the first time I visited Vegas, but after a few days it became part of the background noise.

Personally, I don't mind 'page 3' type topless girls in a newspaper (and truthfully, if you're actually looking for real news, you're probably not reading the Sun). But the political climate seems to have shifted to the point that women feel that the depiction of a nude or seminude female image, is a direct assault on their worth as human beings. Certainly not all women feel that way; but many do. And it has resulted in the elimination of nude or seminude female images in virtually every context, with the ironic exception of pornography.

Aren't naked women beautiful even when they're NOT fucking? I think they are. But somehow the depiction of a naked female is now taboo, and seen as a direct assault on women's rights. And it shouldn't be. Or so I think.

Written material gets a LOT of protection from the First Amendment and various Supreme Court precedents. Last I looked, Amazon US was still selling Piers Anthony's "Firefly" (no relation to the TV series), which... ugh. Game of Thrones also has brief but explicit sexual content with a 13-year-old in the first book; it's not something I go looking for, so I don't know what else is out there.

I followed your 'ugh' link... the article contained such repulsive concepts that I was unable to finish the article. To 'sell' a 5 year old girl on the idea that having sex with daddy is just like playing with daddy, except way better... it turned my stomach. I have never read any of Anthony's work, although I knew of his existence. There's no possibility I'll go near his stuff now. I don't want his cerebral pollution in my brain. It sickened me, and kind of ruined several hours of my day. Took me a while to get past it.

I had made the (perhaps foolish) assumption that, since video porn of people under the age of 18 was illegal, and Literotica mirrored that age as its own policy, that the same age ban must apply to the written word. How silly of me.

And how disappointed I am.

Setting an arbitrary age is a very blunt tool. In some circumstances, it might be too high; in others, too low.

But I can think of no circumstance in which a father should be having sex with his 5 year old daughter.

And the fact that this is being sold under the thinly veiled camouflage of 'science fiction'...

Well. It's still ruining my day. I'm glad that there's the possibility, at least, of societal self-policing. Although it hasn't seemed to deter Amazon.

Got nothing more. Gonna go vomit now. >MC

 

[sr71plt]

Piers Anthony shares a publisher with several of the posters to Literotica.

 

[49greg]

I would not have thought that a teacher could have sex with a student of any age.

I don't think they can in the state I live in.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Personally, I don't mind 'page 3' type topless girls in a newspaper (and truthfully, if you're actually looking for real news, you're probably not reading the Sun). But the political climate seems to have shifted to the point that women feel that the depiction of a nude or seminude female image, is a direct assault on their worth as human beings.

One of the issues here is the question of which female images they choose to depict. In the case of stuff like Page 3, those choices tend to send the message that a woman's worth as a human being has an awful lot to do with whether she's young and skinny with big tits. When women hear that message over and over, yes, it does become an assault on their worth, because even the ones who do fit that standard won't be there forever (and will do a lot of damage to themselves if they try).

Certainly not all women feel that way; but many do. And it has resulted in the elimination of nude or seminude female images in virtually every context, with the ironic exception of pornography.

It's hard to gauge and I don't have any solid numbers, but... my impression is that there are still a lot of non-porn nudes around*, maybe more than ever, just that it's much harder to find them in among the terabytes of porn out there.

Among his other talents, the late great Leonard Nimoy was a professional photographer, and he did quite a lot of nude photography. I've never seen his work criticised as anti-feminist. I'm sure there'd be something negative out there if I looked hard enough, but most of the reaction I've seen is positive, stuff like this essay.

Aren't naked women beautiful even when they're NOT fucking? I think they are.

Depends what you mean by "beautiful". The models in things like the Scar Project aren't conventional by any standard that Page Three would recognise, and likewise Nimoy's Full Body Project, but then that's part of the point of those projects.

If you mean "interesting and worth studying, even the ones I don't find sexually attractive," then absolutely, I agree. But "beautiful" comes with a lot of baggage - in my experience, guys often use it as their default compliment when they want to say something nice to a woman, and that gets us back to the "your most important job is to look pretty" thing.

(Last year, when Maryam Mirzakhani won the mathematical equivalent of the Nobel Prize, a lot of well-meaning folk responded with comments along the lines of "she looks great!" For what it's worth, I do find her visually attractive, but maybe it would be more relevant to extol her talent and hard work?)

I followed your 'ugh' link... the article contained such repulsive concepts that I was unable to finish the article. To 'sell' a 5 year old girl on the idea that having sex with daddy is just like playing with daddy, except way better... it turned my stomach. I have never read any of Anthony's work, although I knew of his existence. There's no possibility I'll go near his stuff now. I don't want his cerebral pollution in my brain. It sickened me, and kind of ruined several hours of my day. Took me a while to get past it.

I had made the (perhaps foolish) assumption that, since video porn of people under the age of 18 was illegal, and Literotica mirrored that age as its own policy, that the same age ban must apply to the written word. How silly of me.

Sorry to do that to you :-( Between this and the bears I seem to keep pushing your buttons, really not my intention!

If it helps feel better about it, maybe think of it this way: even with the legal freedom to read/write/publish stuff like that, most people CHOOSE not to. I actually find that more comforting than the idea that only the law is holding them back.

Setting an arbitrary age is a very blunt tool. In some circumstances, it might be too high; in others, too low. But I can think of no circumstance in which a father should be having sex with his 5 year old daughter.

I'm not going to defend "Firefly". I've read it and it's just as creepy as the review article paints it; IMHO the world would be a better place if that book had never been written.

But I don't think we need laws against that sort of book. I expect most people would react to it as you did, or just try to ignore PA's weird sexual politics and focus on the "rampaging space monster" bits of the story. The chances of it actually turning somebody into a child molester who wasn't already there seem pretty slim.

And as you say, laws are blunt instruments. I know several people who were raped as children; some of them have chosen to write about it, either as a way of dealing with it themselves, or in the hope of helping others in similar situations. Censorship laws marketed as "protect the kiddies!" inevitably end up blocking that sort of writing; IMHO the harm far outweighs the good.

Well. It's still ruining my day. I'm glad that there's the possibility, at least, of societal self-policing. Although it hasn't seemed to deter Amazon.

Amazon sells it, but I don't think many people are buying. Its current Amazon sales rank is #852,172, which puts it a bit ahead of Vanilla Ice's autobiography but well below Jimmy Swaggart's Great Women of the Bible.

*with the caveat that anything can be porn to the right person.