After all, what's wrong with a little kiddie porn?

Laura Hudson
(Fighting for our right to own and enjoy child pornography.)

I recently found myself engaged in a difference of opinion involving Ms. Laura Hudson (Comics Alliance) and her support of Lolicon Manga. Ms. Hudson is seemingly of the opinion that free speech and personal liberty are in danger of forever disappearing if a genre of Manga involving illustrated tales of sexual activities between adults and children are deemed illegal and possessing such materials made punishable by imprisonment. Ms. Hudson also appears to believe that those of us who disagree with her "educated" opinion would use such a ban on lolicon Manga as a starting point to strip away all of the civil liberties we in America enjoy today.

Thankfully such extremist beliefs did not win the day when our country was creating laws to abolish slavery, child labor or rape. Each of these laws striped away a personal liberty from any number of individuals and yet far from being diminished, the character of our country was actually strengthened and the quality of our democratic union greatly improved by these restrictions.

Ms. Hudson says, "Thoughts are not actions, drawings are not people, and believing that someone might commit a crime is not the same thing as someone doing it." (Italics mine.)

I would agree with her up to a point, but even the most rudimentary of psychological schools of thought will agree that thought and action are connected. Ask any black person or Jewish Holocaust survivor if the impact of a racially motivated action is lessened because it is "only an illustration". Ask any therapist in America what they'll do if an individual begins handing in drawings entitled, I want to kill my wife and children. The patient may not actually be committing the crime, but the attending therapist will treat the drawings as a sign of potentially harmful action and they'll call the police. There are many institutions that understand what Ms. Hudson does not, "some ideas are very dangerous" and that whatever form of media they manifest themselves in they are not a sign of healthy attitudes.

Ms. Hudson continues, "The most important difference between child pornography and drawings, of course, is that making child porn involves the abuse of real children, while drawings are not people and so creating them involves no abuse. Real people also have actual ages, whereas drawings do not, and thus the difference between an adult and a child." (Italics mine.)

Now, I'm not sure what actual people having actual ages and drawings not, have to do with the difference between an adult and a child, but birth certificates have no affect upon the impact either filmed or illustrated pornography is intended to have upon the viewer. Pornography is pornography. Creating Manga designed to cater to a taste for sexual intercourse with children is obscene, exploitative and degrading. It is abusive in nature and perverse in content. There is nothing nurturing, educational or scientific about it. Its sole purpose is titillation and to suggest other wise is lunacy.

Ms. Hudson says, "This is obviously adult X-rated content, and no one is suggesting that it be made available to children."

Duh, thanks for understating the obvious. Of course no one is suggesting selling this type of material to children. The producers of kiddie porn know who their target demographic is and they write the words and provide the accompanying illustrations to reach their intended reader/viewer. I doubt there are very many children looking to spend their weekly allowance monies on kiddie porn instead of Pokemon cards. Any idiot knows this, well almost any idiot.

Ms. Hudson states, "the fundamental principle of free speech is that people have the right to express and read what they choose whether other people like it or not."

Maybe to the adolescent mind this might appear to be a valid interpretation of the "First Amendment" but clearly she's neglected to research either the amendment or the history about its creation. Intelligent scholars and informed adults understand that the amendment is just as concerned with what is considered acceptable speech and what is not considered acceptable speech.

Last but not least, Ms. Hudson says, "And I'm secondarily concerned because it can be a very subjective thing to decide whether an imaginary character is a minor or adult. How do you tell the difference between a character who is 17 or 18, particularly in a genre with the "younger" artistic conventions of manga? No one should go to prison over such a subjective judgment."

In Japanese culture where Manga is an accepted artistic and literary device, Lolicon Manga is looked upon with disdain because the average Japanese citizen, unlike Ms. Hudson, has no difficulty in understanding the illustrations contained in Lolicon Manga. They know kiddie porn when they see it. For Ms. Hudson to assert that We're just to ignorant to reach the same decision with our own eyes is ludicrous. And I'm not sure what intellectual limitations Ms. Hudson may suffer from, but even if I wasn't one hundred percent sure of exactly what the illustrations were portraying, I could probably read the written content and confirm my suspicions one way or another. Duh...

Right now the comic book landscape is dominated by individuals in their early to late twenties. I am continually perplexed by their opinion of what constitutes adult behavior and interests. Apparently Ms. Hudson seems to believe that the average American citizen loves nothing more than sitting down after a hard day at work and enjoying a warm slice of apple pie and a rousing book of kiddie porn. She seems to believe that this activity is such a normal part of American life that she has decided to champion the cause and fight for our right to possess and enjoy as much child pornography as our hearts may desire. I'm sure the vast majority of us feel ever so grateful for her actions on our behalf.

Well, maybe just a very small percentage of select individuals...