I'm probably way behind everyone else on this

[maderr]

Red Rose Stories was recently shut down for obscenity charges. The article is here. She got busted hardcore for hosting a fiction site with stories that contained ped, BDSM, non-con, incest, scat so and so forth. Now a lot of this would barely make me blink, the rest of it makes me O_o but

It was all fiction. I detest anything involving children. There are certain kinks which well never appeal to me. But to each his own. So long as there are no real children involved and the real adults are all consenting, that's that. And like I've already said, this was a fiction site. Unless I'm missing something (becasue I've only been awake fifteen minute or so, which means I really shouldn't be typing right now) I don't quite know how the FBI was allowed to bust her. By those rules, even I'm going to be in trouble eventually for my Evil Incest Tendencies (oh yeah, mom don't read that part).

Someone on logophilos linked this NPR report and it's pretty damn annoying. As in, the government was honesty confused as to why their cases were thrown out. Fucking duh they were thrown out. Morality and law are not the same thing. You *can* arrest people for dropping their pants in the middle of Time Square and fucking like bunnies. You can't arrest someone for watching a video of that scene being played out. If the government wants to really crusade against the Evil Porn Industry, shoudln't they at least figure out wht the fuck their doing first? It sounds like they're making the rules up as they go...

I realize a lot of people Seriously Disapprove of Such Immoral Materials but really why? First rule of fanfictiondom - If you don't like it, don't read it. Our entire system of ratings and warnings and listing the pairings (which has to suck for some, b/c listing if often spoils what the author is planning) exists to avoid offending as many 14 year old nitwits as possible. It's a problem that kids can log on and surf porn, yes. But you know what? That's a parental issue. And I'm sorry, but everyone one of us has read or seen things we weren't supposed to see during our young and tender years. But I never went overboard, because I knew my parents would freakin' kill me. Or maybe I just grew up with awesome parents who never acted like sex and stuff was Big Bad And Evil. If I recall correctly, it's still the four of us who are teling my parents to freakin' behave. My dad will occasionally greet me, when he calls, with "So how goes the gay porn?"

/end tangent. My point being - the tax dollard diverted to crack down on obscenities should be focusing on the child porn. Because that isn't fly unless it's total fantasy. Kids are too young and undeveloped to understand completely what's going on. So long as they keep it to fiction (and fanart? That one I'm not honestly sure about. I've a friend on LJ who draws shota - thought not below the age of twelve - occasionally and I wonder now how the feds regard fictional works of art. I would say it's legal, but we all know how the government doesn't thinks.

I hope this all made sense. One never knows when I'm still half asleep. Crack down on the kidde porn. Leave the rest of us the fuck alone and remind parents it's their job, not the government's, to keep track of what their kids are up to.

That broadcast also amused me in that they government was disappointed they could no longer bust people for sodomy. I can just see their moralistic little faces crumble in disappointment. Why the hell is everyone obsessed with what everyone else is doing in their bedroom? Honestly. I liked this world more when being nosey wasn't acceptable.

And as a final biting of my thumb, Figaro icon. Now I need to get dressed and go in search of coffee.

Comments

[cynbaby.livejournal.com]

This worries me.
I'm worried that after they're done going after the sites like the one in question, they're going to go after other sites.

I'm afraid for BnD. It may become one of the casualties.

[maderr.livejournal.com]

I think they'd try but you guys are pretty good at covering all your bases. But who knows. So far as obscenity goes, I'm sure they'd love to smack down slashdom as a whole. I really don't like the way it's looking at all.

[starparty.livejournal.com]

That would make me *cry*

One of the sites I used to read actually transferred their servers and computers to Canada because were actually starting to be harrassed. It's scary that we are slipping further and further away from the freedomes we used to have.

[skylark97.livejournal.com]

Man, our government really needs to get a life. Really. -_- How is it that we can learn all of this shit in high school and college and yet to become a government agent, you don't necessarily have to have a keen grasp on any of it?

Crack down on the kidde porn. Leave the rest of us the fuck alone and remind parents it's their job, not the government's, to keep track of what their kids are up to.

You get it, I get it, the rest of the thinking world gets it who knows why they can't figure it out. -_- Apparently there are a lot of parents out there who figure that in order to be good parents, they must first make sure that all their electronic babysitters are programmed to Barney levels. Because, you know, heaven forbid you be forced to interact with your child and discuss anything of an important nature with them...

[maderr.livejournal.com]

If the government worked this hard at the shit that needs addressing, we might actually have a relatively awesome country. As it is, we're becoming exactly what our ancestors were running away from.

[mashoogina.livejournal.com]

Wow, that is... fucking AMAZING. So they're going to police internet porn now including fiction. Are they going to raid Border's too and make sure that the erotica section isn't causing anyone offense? Oh no wait, they wouldn't wait that long for that, they'd just haul it off to some storage area somewhere. Nice. I'm going to hide my erotica before they start doing house-to-house searches.

Fucking stupid idiocy that is. SO much for Freedom of Speech.

[maderr.livejournal.com]

It frightens me how far they're taking all this. I mean COME ON why are we making a big deal out of this? *headdesk* It shouldn't be a crime to look at naughty pictures. It's none of their goddamn business.

The Bill of Rights is weeping.

[kiyoshi-chan.livejournal.com]

Uh, completely random and out of point, but that icon is soooooooooooooooo lovely.

[maderr.livejournal.com]

^_^ And how are you, my poor little stressed ki-chan?

[kiyoshi-chan.livejournal.com]

Stressed out. :P Also trying to finish reading through my notes for tomorrow's midterm at least once.

[maderr.livejournal.com]

*loves* It will all be over soon? And don't stay up too late, you. That won't help at all.

[kiyoshi-chan.livejournal.com]

*sighs* I need to just finish this once and I'll go to bed.

At least Lei-tachi are comforting in their sappiness and antics.

And at least I'm too drained from the spate of anger to bother very much about anything. :P I have about 10 slides or so to go.

[kiyoshi-chan.livejournal.com]

*loves* Hope you have a good day/week/weekend/thingy. x_X;; *huuuuuuuuuuuuugs*

I'll probably go to bed soon.

[miikarin.livejournal.com]

Now I'm in a ranting mood. But frankly, I don't have the time to rant. Perhaps later. (Plus I think I've spammed enough of my flists' comments pages)

This is just insane. Pure insanity and utter narrowmindedness and stupidity (two attitudes that I absolutely cannot stand). Red Rose Stories (RRS) was all fiction as you pointed out. And as far as I remember, we were still able to think what we wanted and do what we wanted so long as it did not hurt others. That fiction, no matter how odd some of the kinks may be to other people, was not real and did not hurt real people. I just cannot begin to say how wrong this whole closing of RRS is.

This brings back to mind the whole topic of Sahari (whose new online handle/fiction place I still don't know where it is located) who closed down her site because of that woman who was so narrowminded that she didn't care that her daughter willfully viewed the site. She saw the site as something that corrupted her daughter, etc...

And what you said is true as well. Parents are the ones responsible for what their children views on the internet. It's like TV. If parents would watch to ensure that their six year old isn't watching anything other than childrens' shows, then that same parent should be watching to ensure that the child does not go into anything other than kid-friendly sites. And there are always programs like NetNanny, and honestly, there's probably a bunch of other programs that I haven't heard about. (Goodness knows that I don't need it - I've been at this since I was 14)

And that brings to mind another point. Physical age is not the only indicator of maturity. Personally, I like the approach of people like your parents and my mother who do not treat sex as 'taboo' and not to be discussed. It just causes more children to dabble in actions they do not understand. By promoting an image of understanding and ability to understand, parents are helping their kids far more than they are by trying to 'shelter' their children. Children grow up. You cannot keep them under your wing forever. Now how they gain their knowledge of the issues pertaining to teens and young adults can either be introduced by the parents or left to the peers (which is not smart imho.)

>.> I ranted, didn't I? Actually, I'm quite proud of myself. This is way shorter than I thought it would be.

[amnell-kahlan.livejournal.com]

Hehe. Sorry to be replying a year after it's posted, but I agree. I can't really say anything about Red Rose because I've never been to the site, but I agree with you. Forbidding children to view porn (which 90% of them do anyway) is not as important as making sure they don't go out and do stupid things like smoking (no offence to those who do), drugs, prostitution, etc. It seems a lot safer to me to let us (the children) to find things out for ourselves from behind a glass wall instead of letting us go out and try everything for ourselves. 'Cause children are often stupid. Really, really stupid.

[hayama-sb.livejournal.com]

2 things...

1) Supreme Court strikes down ban on 'virtual child porn' (April 2002)

2) A lot of this is probably the "idea" of getting headlines/publicity that they are "doing" something againt this stuff, since the filing of charges gets the front page/lead story, but when the case gets thrown out/found not guilty, the story gets buried, since the news media doesn't care at that point.

[suyari.livejournal.com]

Twisting the immortal words of my baby sister... A-fucucking-men!

It always strikes me as completely ludicrous the way the government feels they need to censor our free speech in regard to fiction and yet every other fifteen minute news coverage is divulging the inner screts of what makes the USA tick.

Seriously, I can do without knowing what obscure government office was at the west corner of the Pentagon doing god knows what at the time a 747 ground to a halt on the lawn. Do we really need to let everyone know? I'm all for having the freedom to know. But, if I don't want to, you shouldn't force it on me.

Likewise, if I chose to indulge in certain morally debatable but wholly unacted upon fantasies through other freedoms (and here, I wonder who the feds elementary school teachers were, that never explained to them the difference between fantasy and reality) then by God, leave me the fuck alone.

I'm not hurting anyone, and there are a ton of real evil people out there upon whom you could be wasting your time.

If they can't understand the difference between acting out and dreaming up, then I'm far more worried over the average citizen than I should have any right to be.

Next thing you know, they'll pick up on busting people in their bedrooms to arrest consenting adult individuals whom participate in obscure sexual fetishes.

Lovely job American government. Way to make the everyday man feel safe in his own nation.

[rykaine.livejournal.com]

I suppose now they'll be pulling our Manga back off the shelves? Or cancelling the cons for the next 10 years? Y'know... until they can sort this stuff out?

Dude, I though censorship was resembling illegal.

[rykaine.livejournal.com]

hmhmm

I wonder if The FIRE isn't too conservative to find this wrong? http://www.thefire.org/

[raielchan.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't ever want to read any of that scary stuff, but I think Freedom of Speech should protect the written word and not discriminate.

Once you start discriminating, you run into the problem of where to stop.

However, I have no problem with restricting access of certain things (i.e. protecting children or even me from having to read it if I don't want to).

Nor would I with profiling an author who the starts writing a whole bunch of ped/bdsm/snuff stories. Because some people might be sick enough to actually write about a crime and then commit it.

It is a crime against freedom that the FBI seized all this site's equipment. That's my feeling.

[indigoraven.livejournal.com]

I will admit that kids is a little too much for me, and the last thing we need is to encourage any pedophiles... but take a trip to the local bookstore. Anything you can think that might possibly be on a website is somewhere in a published novel on the shelf. It is not the job of the government to restrict access to these things which any healthy sane adult should be allowed to choose for themselves. It is, however, the job of the parent to get off their fat lazy ass and pay some goddamn attention to what their children are doing if they don't want them to have access to such things.

Yes, and Figaro makes me happy.