[1][2][3] It is a broader term than child pornography, incorporating material that may cause sexual arousal such as nonsexual images, books or magazines on children or pedophilia, toys, diaries, or clothes.
[1] The history of child erotica goes back at least as far as the paintings of the ancient Greeks, and continues through England's Libertine movement of the 1600s to the advent of the printing press, the camera and the case of Lewis Carroll.
In that case, a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit, which included Neil Gorsuch, found that an affidavit showing a suspect had a history of publicly posting child erotica and making comments suggesting he was sexually attracted to the children depicted in the erotica did not establish probable cause to support a search warrant for child pornography.
[18] Similarly, in United States v. Vosburgh, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit admitted as evidence forty-six non-pornographic images of prepubescent girls in swimsuits and thirty pictures of Loli-chan, a 13-year old camgirl, finding that the "probative value of the Loli-chan pictures was not insignificant" in suggesting that Vosburgh harbored a sexual interest in children, knowingly possessed the child pornography found on his computer, and purposefully accessed a link he thought would lead to child pornography.
[20] Paul Reubens, the actor best known for playing Pee-wee Herman, acknowledged possessing a massive collection of "vintage erotica" such as "a young man with his hand on his thigh".
In November 2001, the NBC television station serving Miami, FL, ran a story entitled "Selling Innocence."
The news report prompted Florida Congressman Mark Foley (R-Palm Beach County) to propose legislation banning child modeling web sites.
Immediately, all Webe Web child model sites went offline after Internet domains and servers were seized by law enforcement.
Some parents said they were unaware of the imagery being taken of their children, and some had signed over temporary legal custody of their child to Pierson during the modeling session.
In a separate case, unrelated to images connected to Webe Web, Jeff Libman was indicted by a grand jury in the Southern District of Florida on April 28, 2009, for receiving, possessing and distributing child pornography.
According to court documents, USPIS and FBI agents seized large volumes of computer media during the execution of a search warrant at Libman's residence in Fort Lauderdale.
[30][31][32] Company vice-president Jeffrey Robert Libman, 43, of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, pleaded guilty and was sentenced in December 2010 to nine years in prison.
In accordance to his plea agreement, he admitted that 16 images received from Pierson were child pornography as defined by the Indictment.
Neither A Little Agency nor the VMS distributed nude photographs, but federal prosecutors argued that they still contained "lascivious exhibitions" of the genitalia based on the six-part Dost test.
[34] Federal prosecutors claimed the Web sites dealt in images of girls as young as 9 wearing scant clothing in suggestive poses.
[34] Attorneys filed a motion to dismiss the charges against them arguing that the pictures of young girls in suggestive poses on the websites they operated did not rise to the level of pornography.