[1][2] Laws have been enacted to criminalize "obscene images of children, no matter how they are made", typically under the belief that such materials may incite real-world instances of child sex abuse.
[10] Feminist critic Kuniko Funabashi argues that the themes of lolicon material contribute to sexual violence by portraying girls passively and by "presenting the female body as the man's possession".
[12] In December 2008, a man from Sydney was convicted of possessing child pornography after sexually explicit pictures of underage characters from The Simpsons were found on his computer.
[16] The definitive Supreme Court of Canada decision, R. v. Sharpe, interprets the statute to include purely fictional material even when no real children were involved in its production.
[22] The most recent case occurred in Alberta when on February 19, 2015 the Canada Border Services Agency intercepted a parcel and arrested its recipient on March 27.
Based on the box art of a sculpture being shipped to him, four charges were pressed: possession/distribution, mailing obscene matter, and smuggling prohibited goods.
[23] The possession, storing, fabrication, or distribution of child pornography or any other kind of sexually explicit pedophilic material, including fictional erotica (drawn, written, animated, etc.
[50][51] With the promulgation of the Films and Publications Amendment Bill in September 2003, a broad range of simulated child pornography became illegal in South Africa.
For the purposes of the act, any image or description of a person "real or simulated" who is depicted or described as being under the age of 18 years and engaged in sexual conduct, broadly defined, constitutes "child pornography".
[52] Under the act, anyone is guilty of an offence punishable by up to ten years' imprisonment if he or she possesses, creates, produces, imports, exports, broadcasts, or in any way takes steps to procure or access child pornography.
The court found it unreasonable to convict Lim of disseminating child pornography based on the schoolgirl uniforms and young appearance of the characters featured in the animations.
However, the South Korean Supreme Court overturned this previous ruling, declaring that these characters were underage "in the perspective of a common individual of our society".
[60] The Khaleej Times summarized the law by stating that "[child pornographic] materials include photographs, recordings, drawings or any actual, virtual or simulated sexual acts with a juvenile under the age of 18.
[clarification needed] On December 13, 2006, Home Secretary John Reid announced that the Cabinet was discussing how to ban computer-generated images of child abuse—including cartoons and graphic illustrations of abuse—after pressure from children's charities.
[100] Arguments made against a ban include manga creator and artist Ken Akamatsu who stated that "There is also no scientific evidence to prove that so-called 'harmful media' increases crime".
[102] In Mexico any speech related to sexual preferences (such as fictional art) is protected under the legislation from Articles 13(3) that provides "the right of expression may not be restricted by indirect methods or means, such as the abuse of government or private controls over newsprint, radio broadcasting frequencies, or equipment used in the dissemination of information, or by any other means tending to impede the communication and circulation of ideas and opinions" and the Article 1 that provides "Any form of discrimination, motivated by [...] sexual preferences, status or any other which attempt on human dignity or seeks to annul or diminish the rights and liberties of the people, is prohibited.".
[105] Before a modification on the Penal Code was promulgated on April 23, 2018, the law did not prohibit the mere possession, but other activities such as production, financing, trading, and distribution were punishable by imprisonment ranging from 6 months to 4 years.
Spain allows drawn pornography which does not resemble real children, including cartoons, manga or similar representations, as the law does not consider them to be properly 'realistic images'.
In 1996, the U.S. Congress introduced the Child Pornography Prevention Act of 1996 (CPPA) to update the types of pornographic media featuring minors considered illegal under U.S. federal law.
In 2002, the United States Supreme Court ruled in Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition that two provisions of the CPPA were facially invalid due to being overbroad in banning materials that are neither obscene under Miller, nor produced via the exploitation of real children as in Ferber.
§ 1466A into U.S. obscenity law:[144] Section 1466A of Title 18, United States Code, makes it illegal for any person to knowingly produce, distribute, receive, or possess with intent to transfer or distribute visual representations, such as drawings, cartoons, or paintings that appear to depict minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct and are deemed obscene.Thus, virtual and drawn pornographic depictions of minors may still be found illegal under U.S. federal obscenity law.
1466A for using a Virginia Employment Commission computer to receive and distribute "obscene Japanese anime cartoons that graphically depicted prepubescent female children being forced to engage in genital-genital and oral-genital intercourse with adult males".
[152][153][154] After being tracked down by IP, John Charles Wellman was arrested on May 3, 2007, then convicted and sentenced to 40 years for 3 counts related to fictional child pornography.
The judge ruled that two parts of the act that were broader than the Miller standard, 1466A a(2) and b(2), were unconstitutionally overbroad as applied specifically to this case, but Handley still faced an obscenity charge.
[156][157] Handley was convicted in May 2009 as the result of entering a guilty plea bargain at the recommendation of his attorney, under the belief that the jury chosen to judge him would not acquit him of the obscenity charges if they were shown the images in question.
[166] On a federal level, works depicting minors that offend contemporary community standards and are "patently offensive" while lacking "serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value"—that is, found to be "obscene" in a court of law—continue to stand as illegal, but only if the conditions for obscenity discussed above are met: mere possession of these works continues to be legal.
Some states pay less mind to the contents of such materials and determine obscenity based on time and place an offense may occur, while others may have strict, well-defined standards for what a community may be allowed to find appropriate.
[171] In November 2011, when Joseph Audette, a 30-year-old computer network administrator from Surry, Maine, was arrested after his username was linked to child pornography sites.
The office in conjunction with the Southwest Missouri Cyber Crimes Task Force argued that the "Incest Comics" on Bee's computer "clearly lack any literary, artistic, political, or scientific value".
During the trial, Circuit Judge, James L. Dennis, dissented from the ruling and asked for a new trial, arguing that the exclusion of Arthur's expert of choice; Dr. David Ley, had affected the ruling, and proposed the possibility that an expert like Dr. Ley could've testified of the "therapeutic benefits for some individuals suffering pedophilic disorder" of the Erotica that Arthur had on his website.