[ you must chill ]

[winterlive]

everybody knows i love freedom of expression.

this ain't it. (link is nsfw and also pretty despicable, imho.)

maybe we'll all pick up and wander off or whatever. maybe fandom will decide to go all haywire and make their own space on the web, maybe we'll all have to uproot ourselves and exodus from the reign of stinky stinky six apart. but let's not make martyrs out of molehills, okay?


eta: in case i was somehow unclear, the following two things are true:
1. i find that image repulsive. personally, ethically, ugh. i also find rapefic, bestiality and torture to be by and large repulsive.
2. i cannot fault lj for banning it because it's illegal. i do not support the banning of any user over the perceived offensiveness of their material, only its legality.

eta II, much after the fact: i see that people are still keen to talk this one over. good for you. it's good to keep informed. but just so you know, a lot of information came out between the time this was posted and the three days later that some of this conversation is happening in. we know more things now, things have been confirmed, proven false, proven different. i therefore stand by two things i said in the original post: 1. sixapart stinks, and 2. you must, MUST chill. i stand by all things said in the first ETA.

Comments

[bunnymcfoo.livejournal.com]

while you're certainly entitled to feel that way, 6A does have the law on their side this time. Obscene visual representations of the sexual abuse of children.

[balefully.livejournal.com]

I take exception to the law, too. :( Legal definitions of obscenity and laws against it and all that have always been laughable in their murkiness, to me.

[bunnymcfoo.livejournal.com]

*head tilt* in some cases, i think that yes, they are murky. this one though seems pretty damn cut and dry.


i'm not trying to bait you here, for the record. i'm just saying that at least this time what is and isn't allowed is stated in a direct and clear manner, if not by 6A themselves.

[balefully.livejournal.com]

Nono, that is totally fine! I'm just saying that I don't like what they (whoever "they" may be) are directly and clearly stating, basically.

[bunnymcfoo.livejournal.com]

*head tilt*

so, out of curiosity, where would you, personally, draw that line?

[balefully.livejournal.com]

As long as it's fictional, it's legal. That's my line.

[bunnymcfoo.livejournal.com]

so, say someone drew a picture of a real person? that would be okay?

[balefully.livejournal.com]

As long as it's disclaimed as fictional, and therefore not libel or defaming. Where "okay" = "what I would consider technically legal if it were my responsibility to draw the line", of course.

[bunnymcfoo.livejournal.com]

huh. i see. thank you for answering my question.

[balefully.livejournal.com]

I suppose if irreparable emotional harm were suffered by the subject, there would be an issue. Hmm. I guess there's ambiguity there that I hadn't really considered...

[bunnymcfoo.livejournal.com]

*nod* i know i'd be pretty damn emotionally harmed if a painting depicting me at say, age ten, taking it like a pro surfaced.

come to that, if it were my kid, i'd probably be pretty traumatized too.

[balefully.livejournal.com]

I think it might come down to a distribution issue, then? I just don't think the actual act of creation of the painting or what-have-you should be illegal, as that seems like thought-policing, in a way, and making the artist responsible for reactions people may have to his/her work doesn't seem entirely fair. The issue of intent would always come up, which always complicates things EVEN MORE.

[bunnymcfoo.livejournal.com]

okay. so. *head tilt* in the world of your laws, henceforth to be called BsW, the art of creation isn't to be punished. okay. gotcha.

so, would you please explain what you mean by 'a distribution issue'? because i'm reading that as 'it's okay to make this, but it's not okay to let other people see it', and i'm curious if that's what you meant or not.

as to intent, in my opinion? that's less hazy or murky than it seems to be in your opinion. this (NOT WORK SAFE) seems to have been created with the intent to titillate. michaelangelo's david not so much. d'you see the contrast there?

[balefully.livejournal.com]

Yes, that is what I meant. Although that would be a very difficult thing to reinforce.

The intent to titillate, while probably a part of the creation of that art (which actually isn't loading for me, so I'm not sure what it is, yet), cannot be said to be its only value by anyone except the artist. Maybe it's supposed to provoke discussion or exploration of shame/violence in sexuality or something else altogether? It is murky, in that only the artist actually knows what the full intentions of the piece are, and it's completely subjective to everyone else.

And while Michelangelo may not have intended to titillate with his David, that doesn't mean that people definitively do not, ever, get off to it. I'm sure that somewhere in the world, at some point in history, someone has.

[bunnymcfoo.livejournal.com]

it would be a very difficult thing to enforce and regulate, and i'm not arguing with that point at all.

hm. okay, i'm understand your point, and the point made by fodian below, and i do see how there is a given value to discussion brought about by art like this. frankly, any open dialog is going to be a good thing, as far as i'm concerned. perhaps, as you said before, it comes down to the manner in which it's presented. when art is presented in a community devoted exclusively to pornography, i can't help but think that the artist's intent was not to stimulate an open conversation about shame/violence in sexuality. *hands*