(from Canadian wire reports)

Child porn challenger wins artistic argument 
Violent sexual stories involving children have merit as art, judge rules 
 
 
JOHN ROBIN SHARPE 
VANCOUVER (CP) - The graphic child sex stories written by a B.C. man who
challenged Canada's child porn laws have some artistic merit and should
not be considered criminal, the B.C. Supreme Court ruled today. 
John Robin Sharpe was found not guilty of child pornography charges
related to his writings. 

"I find there is some objectively established artistic value to Boyabuse,"
Shaw said of the collection that Sharpe penned. 

Shaw also found that the Crown failed to prove that stories in Sharpe's
Kiddie Kink Classics, such as Tijuana Whip Fight and Suck It, advocated
the commission of sex crimes against children. 

During his second trial in January, university professors called to
testify by Sharpe's lawyers likened the stories in Boyabuse to literary
greats such as Charles Dickens and James Joyce. 

But another expert called by the Crown found the writings childish and
crude. A psychiatrist who works with sex offenders testified Sharpe's
writing was among the most violent he had ever read. 

Outside court Sharpe said he set out to strike down child pornography laws
and that he was proud of his effort. 

"I don't do this just for selfish reasons," he said. "I spent seven years
of my life fighting this. I look at this sort of as something I've done
for my fellow Canadians. I want to make this a better and freer country." 

He lashed out at reporters who asked him if he was a pedophile. 

"You people, I don't know, you're sick," he yelled. 

As he walked away he blamed the controversy over his stories on ``a bunch
of uptight people." 

Sharpe has been a pivotal character in Canada's child porn debate. 

Shaw heard Sharpe's original trial in 1999 and agreed with Sharpe that
Canada's child pornography law contravened freedom-of-speech provisions
because it captured works of the imagination. 

The B.C. Court of Appeal upheld that ruling. 

The Supreme Court of Canada, however, struck it down and instead upheld
Canada's law with two exceptions. 

One of them was artistic merit. 

Vancouver city police Det. Noreen Waters, who was involved in the
investigation, said outside court that Sharpe's stories were extremely
disturbing. 

"The writings are horrific descriptions of children as young as six years
old engaged in horrific, violent, sexual sado-masochistic sex acts written
as if the children wanted it and are enjoying it and are coming back for
more," Waters said. 

But the judge had little choice, she said, following the high court
decision. 

"They broadened artistic merit to the point that it's almost virtually
impossible to say that this didn't have some artistic merit." 

It is now up to legislators to act, she said. 

"I think maybe with this decision that may fall back to them to change the
legislation in some way to protect children from this type of material,"
he said. 

Federal Justice Minister Martin Cauchon was not available for comment
today. A spokesperson for his office said the minister is studying the
decision. 

Sharpe admitted at trial that some photographs found in his possession in
his Vancouver apartment could be considered child pornography. Shaw
convicted him on those charges. 

But Sharpe was acquitted of the more serious distribution charges relating
to his own works. 

Besides works with artistic merit, the Supreme Court also exempted
material created privately and not for distribution, such as personal
journals and drawings. 

As well, the high court said people can possess video recordings or
photographs of themselves, but they must not depict unlawful sexual
activity, must be for private use and be created with the consent of all
involved. 

In Canada, the age of consent for sex is 14 but one must be at least 18 to
lawfully take part in pornography. 

Any material that highlights the sexual depiction of genitalia or the anus
of someone under the age of 18 would be considered child porn, the court
ruled. 

Crown spokesperson Geoff Gaul said child pornography cases are going
ahead. 

"It is still a crime to possess child pornography," Gaul said following
the verdict. 

"What we have here is a conviction." 

John Dixon, president of the B.C. Civil Liberties Association, said common
sense prevailed in Shaw's decision. 

"Our position has always been that photographs made possible through the
sexual use of actual children ought to be prohibited," Dixon said. 

But "writings ought to be freely distributable among adults no matter what
fantastic or imagined content." 

The association, which tried unsuccessfully to intervene in the case, sees
the ruling as an important expansion of the artistic merit defence. 

"Much of world literature comprises twisted visions of reality," Dixon
said. 

"Canadians ought to be free without any fear of prosecution by the state
of communicating any written materials whatsoever with one another." 

Sharpe lauded the "generous" artistic merit defence. 

"In a sense the artistic merit defence almost makes a mockery of the main
thrust of the (child porn) law," Sharpe told reporters. 

For him, it made the difference between a facing a 10-year maximum
sentence for distribution of child pornography and "going free with some
notoriety." 

Sharpe is to be sentenced May 2. The maximum sentence he could face is two
years less a day. 

Children's advocates say the Sharpe decision will open the floodgates for
child sexual abuse. 

Rosalind Prober, president of the children's advocacy group Beyond
Borders, said the Supreme Court of Canada decision set a new, low standard
for the defence of child pornography. 

Writing that focuses on children sexually is a precursor to actual abuse,
she said. 

"They (the courts) created giant loopholes for pedophiles," Prober said
from Winnipeg. 

She said Sharpe clearly advocates the sexual abuse of boys in his stories. 

"It's purpose is not to end up in the library. He's writing it for
like-minded individuals and his purpose is a sexual one, not an artistic
one," she said. 

"Boyabuse. What does the judge think that is about?" 
 

188 responses total.

so what do you think? is this one of those areas where the value of the work
as art should override the subject matter?  I guess there can be artistic
value in writing fiction stories about any subject, no matter how disturbing

The subject matter is irrelevant in fiction. The only valid reasons fro
censorship,in my view, are if there are people knowingly injured in the
production of the work, or if the work is likely to be construed as true by
a reasonable observer when it is not. Fictional stories about fucking children
is neither of those things.

I say tough call.  I think the children's advocates are probably right, 
but also that the law is incapable of drawing a line which clearly 
criminalizes ONLY that speech which is definitively and absolutely a 
precursor to illegal sexual and/or violent behaviors.  The damage done to 
a free society by the proscription of free speech is immeasurable, 
especially because the criminalization of such borderline speech forces 
those who engage in it anyway into a penal system which is structured in 
no way to give them the help and/or treatment they may need.

        I'm with Paul;  if there's no one injuted in the production of the
work, and it's presented as fiction, then - whatever your personal feelings
on the matter - it should be protected expression.

        Stories don't turn people pedophilic, period.  You can't read a work
of fiction and suddenly discover that you're sexually attracted to children.

I agree with #4.  #3 kind of scares me, actually -- banning speech that is a
"precursor to violent acts" is creating a "thought crime".

No kidding.  I believe that #3 is a precursor to First Amendment violations,
and should be banned.  ;-)

I find it very interesting that people are interpreting #3 as supporting 
legal limitation of free speech.  It doesn't.

No, it's just a precursor to support of legal limitation of free speech.

It implies that, if it were possiblt to identify speech which is a precursor
to violent behaviors, it would be okay to restrict it.

I have seen young kids watch very violent cartoons and not turn around and
smash people over the head with a tree.  This is all very subjective.
Are people allowed to posses photos of their own children without clothes on?

think i'd have to read what he wrote.

This response has been erased.

This response has been erased.

#4> I disagree with your last sentence, because of the phrasing. Yes, you CAN
have a latent urge which is uncovered -- discovered -- by exposure to
stimulus. What you meant, I think, is that someone won't BECOME a pedophile
because of a work of fiction. But someone could easily read, say, "Lolita"
and say, "Hm... this is really turning me on...", a comment which would stir
up latent urges.
 
That in no way makes Nabokov guilty of pedophilia.
 
Here's the question I normally pose to opponents of child pornography which
does not involve actual minors: How many of you have seen, and enjoyed,
Zeferelli's "Romeo and Juliet" (or any other version which shows the bedroom
scene, especially where Juliet is naked)?
 
I ask because Juliet's character in the play is underage, probably 14 or so,
which means that that movie is illegal in Ohio and Canada. That subtle glimpse
of breast makes it kiddie porn by today's legal standards.

Minimum do's and don'ts.

Possession of the material, in and of itself, ought not to be illegal. Though
it *can* serve as evidence that abuse took place. Nor should making the
material be illegal if it's made *without* doing any abuse (e.g. digital
animation).

Only the act of abuse itself should be prohibited.

This is probably another case where we have to distinguish between immoral
and illegal.  

My strong support of free speech and Fahrenheit 451 inspired fears of
censorship battle against my repulsion against this literature.

The issue isn't "will we turn people into pedophiles?", really.  The issue
is "will we encourage pedophilia?"  We all have plenty of latent urges, some,
like Sindi talked about with the kids watching cartoons, violent.  The issue,
really, is pedophilia becoming culturally permissible.  There are consequences
to that.

We worry about NAMBLA.  We worry about amazon.com publishing their literature.
I'm not convinced we shouldn't worry.

I wonder whether parents don't want their kids thinking that any sort of sex
involving people under 18 is permissible, even if both parties are under 18
and consent.  Hence the laws against portraying it.

#15> My parents educated me about pedophilia. When an adult son of some church
members invited my brother and me to go bowling (we were tween at the time),
we went. Sure, no problem. When he invited us over to watch some movies, Dad
balked a little, but let us. When he invited us into his bedroom to show us
something, we flat out said no. He pushed. We said we we wanted to go home,
not hysterically but not passively. He dropped the issue and told us we
shouldn't tell our parents. We called and got picked up. We told Dad why. I
never saw the guy again (well, I did over ten years later... he was applying
for a job where I worked, Domino's; I told the MIT that I really didn't want
to work with him, and he didn't get the job).
 
Granted, many children aren't that lucky, but the fact that we'd been educated
of the possible danger without being frightened about it probably kept a bad
situation from getting much worse.
 
Hiding dangers from children don't protect them from the danger, it only keeps
them unprepared for when they actually face it. That was my father's
philosophy, and I agree with it.

You know what?  I'm far more worried about the permanent and serious harmful
effects on our nation's children resulting from the Backstreet Boys than I
am about this so-called child pornography.  Children exposed to music like
that are easily persuaded that it is good, and their sense of good taste can
be damaged for life.  Imagine a child unable to enjoy the works of Verdi,
Hindemith, or Miles Davis because of childhood exposure to this disgusting
filth.  All right-thinking individuals should take action against this menace
now, before it's too late.  

what's a tween?

Someonw tween childhood and adolesence. usually applies to 10-12 year olds. 

short for between, and a pun on teen. Like Randy said.

In my opinion, "pedophilia" doesn't apply if the attraction is to teens, it
applies if the attraction is to tweens and younger. (The law disagrees, but
social history agrees, in general.)

i'm with #18.

It is totally possible that a person who discovers they have an 
attraction to children would choose to write about sexual acts with 
children as a substitute for actually engaging in sexual acts with 
kids. I think it is gross and morally wrong but I am not sure it should 
be illegal. There needs to be a clear distinction between those things. 
Also, I think that as a society we need to foster an environment where 
such people can get help *before* committing any actual acts of child 
molesting. 

Re: pictures of naked children. When does it become porn? When I see a 
picture of a naked child, I dont see anything sexual in it at all. I 
see innocence and freedom and, well, childhood. I know that when I got 
naked as a kid it wasnt for sexual reasons. It was because being naked 
was fun. What parent doesnt have the naked kid in the bathtub picture? 
That could be porn to a child molester. On the other hand, it isnt ok 
for people to perform sex acts with kids and then photograph them. 

How can our society protect kids but still maintain the maximum civil 
liberties? This issue is tricky because both things are important. 

I believe my child's civil liberties are more at risk from those
looking to fight child pornography than from the existence of child
pornography.

YES!

#23> you bring up one of the problems with kiddie porn. the problem also rears
its head in the fetish world: Why should it illegal for me to walk around in
latex, so long as I'm coveed correctly? And yet some communities bar it
because *some* people get their sexual jollies from it. Likewise, if I
masturbate to Anne Geddes pictures, does that make them pornography? Some
would actually say, Yes, it does. I don't think so.

The general standard for kiddie porn is similar to the standard for adult
porn: It's a subjective call based on exposure of genitals, the nature of the
pose, whether there are others involved and what they're doing, and so on.
If a six-year-old is naked and posed like a Hustler centerfold, it's porn;
if they're naked but posed like a Maxim cover model, it probably isn't.

resp:8 if resp:3 is a precursor to first amendment violation, then this
 judgement is a precursor to legalization of child pornography.  Either  way,
we have a problem.

        I can't believe you even THOUGHT of masturbating to Anne Geddes
pictures.  Does anyone find those half as disturbing as I do?

they should be illegal.

People masturbate to THAT?  They must REALLY be desperate  I'm given to 
understand that she goes out of her way to make her pictures UNsexual.

I fail to see how the product of someone's imagination (a story)
becomes "child porn".  It was my impression that the element of
the crime was the abuse of a child in the production; how can it
be "abuse" if the characters are imaginary?  If that's the case
then mystery writers are guilty of murder, and so are their
readers when they re-create the crime in the process of reading
the stories.  Absurd!

For once, I'd say that the SCOTUS can learn something from Canada.

The fault of finding writing gross, obscene, etc, lies 100% with the
READER. Without readers such writing is nothing but scribblings on a page.
It is the READER that creates the problem. It would address the alleged
problem more directly to forbid persons that are allegedly driven to
criminal acts by READING to READ. And, it is not an authors' fault if you
find yourself unable to do that, but YOURS. 

Re #13:  In "Amelie" (great flick) there is a brief sequence
of babies swimming underwater.  In one of these sequences the
genitalia (male) are visible.  Is "Amelie" child pornography?

(Let the bluenoses use that as an excuse to ban it.  I'm sure
that the sequence which follows, featuring Peg-Leg Bates,
already has the movie on the Aryan Nations banned list.  The
two are not that far apart; I'd like to see them make the
parallel more obvious.)

#33> Nirvana's "Nevermind" album also has nude male infantgenitalia, I
believe.

        That *was* censored in a number of outlets, wasn't it?

Re #27:  No, it isn't.  He was convicted for having pornographic photos of
         actual kids.  He was let off for having pornographic *stories* 
         about imaginary kids.  It's just a statement that what is illegal
         is child pornography that used actual children, not works of the
         imagination that no children were harmed to produce.

("In Canada, the age of consent for sex is 14".... ?!)

Back in the 1970s there was a sex education book for children 
called "Show Me."  It had explicit photographs of adult men and women 
having various kinds of sex, including oral.  It also had pictures of 
kids.  One of them showed a boy with an erection -- he might've been 
ten years old.  Another one showed a little girl -- also about ten 
years old -- in a spread-legs shot.  It also showed naked kids "playing 
doctor" together.  It was talked up as a caring, sensitive, 
enlightened, and above all tasteful book for children.  I remember 
seeing it for the first time right out there on the table at Barnes and 
Noble in NYC.  There was no big controversy about it.  I think it was a 
best seller, in fact.

No one would defend such a book today.  No one.  Okay, Susie Bright 
tried to defend it recently, but she got shouted down by eveybody.  The 
question is, were we more enlightened then or now?  Lest this sound 
like teapot "A or B" coyness, I'll state right now that I think the 
book was a pedophile's dream come true and never should've been 
published.  But back then, if you expressed even slight puzzlement 
about the book, you faced being called a prude by the More Enlightened 
Than Thou types.

        That doesn't make sense to me.  If the book fulfils a valuable social
role, then why should it really worry anyone that it also helps a pedophile
get off?  It's the harming of children that's the horror we're trying to
prevent, not people with fantasies about children masturbating.  The latter
might even help to prevent the former.

- Backtalk version 1.3.30 - Copyright 1996-2006, Jan Wolter and Steve Weiss