Reply #37: jesus fucking christ on a fucking popsicle stick

[iverglas]

Extreme=topless?

Why would you ask such a bizarre question????

"Extreme" = what you can easily read for yourself if you take two minutes to ask google to find it for you -- LIKE I DID. I then summarized it for the less industrious, in post 21.

(I'd thought that a post with the word "facts" in the header might catch the odd eye. Sadly, I seem to have been deluded.)

Let me be even more brief; from the consultation paper submitted for public comment before the current proposals were made:

... It is not possible in a public document like this to give a great deal of graphic detail or description of the material in question. However, we can say that there are hundreds of internet sites offering a wide range of material featuring the torture of (mostly female) victims who are tied to some kind of apparatus or restrained in other ways and stabbed with knives, hooks and other implements.

These acts are usually presented in a sexually explicit context so that it is clear that the purpose of the material is sexual gratification, although the violence itself may not be sexual. For example, some material contains sexualised images of women hanging by their necks from meat hooks, some with plastic bags over their heads. There is also extensive availability of sites featuring violent rape scenes. Within this category there is a growing trend for scenes purporting to be filmed in real time which heightens their impact. Depictions of necrophilia and bestiality are also widely available. ...

Now, DOES THAT LOOK LIKE "TOPLESS" TO YOU?

This is such a meaningless term, it's just unenforceable.

"Meaningless" to someone who hasn't lifted a finger to find out what it actually means. So let me help you again:

There is now also considerable public concern about the availability of extreme pornographic material featuring adults. We are not referring to what might be called mainstream pornography or to the kind of material classified for sale in licensed sex shops by the British Board of Film Classification. By "extreme" we mean material which is violent and abusive, featuring activities which are illegal in themselves and where, in some cases, participants may have been the victims of criminal offences. We believe most people would find this material abhorrent. It is already illegal to publish it under the Obscene Publications Act 1959 and in Scotland, the Civic Government (Scotland) Act 1982, but the global nature of the Internet means that it is very difficult to prosecute those responsible who are mostly operating from abroad.

Outlawing porn with children is an easy, cut and dried definition. Someone is or isn't of a certain age.

Actually, I think you'll find that child pornography provisions generally relate to images of someone depicted as being of a certain age. Here's an example:

http://www.canlii.org/ca/sta/c-46/sec163.1.html

163.1 (1) In this section, “child pornography” means

(a) a photographic, film, video or other visual representation, whether or not it was made by electronic or mechanical means,

(i) that shows a person who is or is depicted as being under the age of eighteen years and is engaged in or is depicted as engaged in explicit sexual activity, ...

and in fact vicey versey:

(5) It is not a defence to a charge under subsection (2) in respect of a visual representation that the accused believed that a person shown in the representation that is alleged to constitute child pornography was or was depicted as being eighteen years of age or more unless the accused took all reasonable steps to ascertain the age of that person and took all reasonable steps to ensure that, where the person was eighteen years of age or more, the representation did not depict that person as being under the age of eighteen years.

Sort of an analogy -- maybe the women hung from meathooks hadn't really had meathooks shoved through their necks, but they were depicted as having had meathooks shoved through their necks, and it is the depiction of the act that is proscribed.

I find it hard to believe that any adult today does not know that these materials are being published, and I cannot understand why anyone who knows that would attempt to trivialize attempts to address the problem by suggesting that what is really being done is to criminalize depictions of bare breasts.

Of course, I'm sure that there are those who do not regard the publication of depictions of women hung from meathooks as a problem. I prefer not to have to acknowledge their existence, myself.

I often wonder whether those people would regard the publication and sale of photographs of black men hanging by ropes around their neck from trees for the delectation of white folk who get their kicks from thinking about the lynching of men of colour to be somewhat problematic, of course.