Posted: May 22, 2016 10:52 pm
crank wrote:You're right in that we do outlaw more than direct attacks on children, Texas law on child porn outlaws 'simulation' of sex involving minors.
I assume the purpose of that law is to ban explicit sex scenes in films involving children. For example, I know that in the scene in Taxi Driver, where a 13 year old Jodie Foster is required to slow dance with her pimp, they used her 18 year old sister as a stand in. And that's just dancing. Although there are actually a number of films from the 70s that do involve sexualized images of young teenagers and explore teen sexuality with a certain amount of nudity involved.
But yeah, more recently, a more hysterical version of such a law has appeared, which I now assume is what you're referring to, banning pornography that attempts to simulate sex involving minors. A similar law has been introduced in the UK, I believe, and the suggestion is that it could ban, for example, someone dressed as a school girl in a sex scene (although you could quite easily get around this by pointing out that there are plenty of people who still wear a school uniform when they're 18). The other concern I remember reading about was from porn stars who are young looking for their age, saying that they could effectively be banned from their jobs because while they are over 18 years old, they don't look it, and could be accused of "simulating sex involving minors." I'm unaware of anyone actually being prosecuted over these laws though. You wonder if it was the law that was hysterical or the reaction to it, and if so, what exactly is it that's intended to be banned.