I came across this article today and it caused me to go 'wait, what??':
https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/3a8nv3/quebec-author-yvan...
Summary is that in the author's retelling of Hansel and Gretel there was one paragraph depicting sexual abuse of a child by their father and authorities are charging the author and his publisher with producing child pornography. From the article:
"The charges against them stem from a single paragraph in one of Godbout’s novels, a dark retelling of Hansel and Gretel, in which a father sexually assaults his daughter...The work was not marketed to children, contains no explicit visual images, a content warning was printed on the back, and the scene is meant to be horrifying, not erotic."
As many authors here (myself included) have written some dark moments in our stories that touch on the tragedy and absolute horror of child abuse, that authorities could then charge us (!!) with such is incredibly chilling and worrisome. Has anyone else heard of this case? Are there any more details that this article is missing/overlooking? While I don't live in Canada, I'm sure some of us here who publish do.
All I know is I read this and went 'ack!'. Even if they win in court, the very process of arrest and being charged for this would be awful and life-disrupting (if not destroying!).
Comments
Interesting...
I rarely use children in my stories and certainly none with any violence (sexual or not).
If I click on a story and the age shows less than 13, I don't read it, it is not for me at all.
Samantha
In my stories there is a
In my stories there is a character (not the protagonist) who had suffered such with an adult character trying to help them. Thus there was a flashback-style scene illustrating (without being graphic) the terror the child had suffered. But if the legal definition in Canada now encompasses even this, then seriously yikes. Especially for BC as they also charged the publisher!
Child Pornography
It isn't uncommon for the authorities to attack someone for breaking a law that they didn't really break. Sometimes, it's an honest mistake. Sometimes, it isn't.
There is an older case where a father took pictures of his kids playing in their backyard wading pool. Someone at the film processing lab turned the pictures in to the authorities. The judge ruled that it wasn't pornography. It was little kids doing what little kids do. But meanwhile, the parents went through hell and probably had to pay to defend themselves.
I have never heard of works of literature being tagged as child porn. After all, the book Lolita is still available.
If you go to e621 dot net, you can find plenty of cub pictures -- some explicit. Such things, if they actually were photos of real kids, would be illegal.
And that's the point. Genuine child pornography is created by abusing real children.
In America, anyhow, you can draw or write whatever you want. You may find that some (most) private means of distribution will ban it, but it isn't against the law.
After all, if we banned literature that depicts criminal actions, cruelty, and the like, most literature would be banned. The Horror genre would be gone. So would murder mysteries and the like.
I did a quick google. The law states that depicting real children that are being abused is illegal. Also, if you use the face of a real child in your photoshopped or drawn smut, you can be arrested. There are, of course, gray areas. For instance, if you take a picture of a child who is peacefully sleeping, and photoshop in a naked man, you may or may not get arrested.
On this site, there is some very explicit underage sexual fiction. Really underage, as in eight years old or so. I haven't heard of anyone having problems with it. The fact that it's set in a universe where that is the norm might help.
But that's America, where we have the freedom of speech written into our constitution. Other countries without that right explicitly enumerated are open to having their leaders come up with some justification for limiting that natural right.
So, if you are wont to explore the Internet, and go off the beaten path, it would be a good idea to always use https. Better yet, also use TOR. Even if you live in America, you can get a boatload of grief if someone is snooping on your browsing habits. At the very least, you will have to pay a lawyer to defend you. Most likely, the common perception will be that you got a hot shot lawyer to get you out of trouble -- sort of the "OJ got off" attitude.
I believe one of our past denizens was extorted into registering as a sex offender (without even having committed a crime) because the powers that be had a problem with the fact that she was trans. Such abuses of power anger the hell out of me.
If you really want to be paranoid, use Tails Linux. (The Fox Tails Linux used in GLOO'd Tails is only partially fictional.)
By the way, I'm pretty sure that Google has a huge database containing the browsing habits of just about everyone on the internet. Also, they use a technique called fingerprinting to keep track of who you are across all of your devices. It's very data and processor intensive, but data processing is their gig.
To reiterate about the legitimacy of banning free speech (so nobody yells at me for promoting kid porn,) I will state for the record that banning something that is produced by abusing real people is legitimate.
We don't want to encourage people to abuse children by giving them monetary incentive to do so. That draws a very clean line.
Abuse children, go to jail. Pay someone to abuse children, go to jail.
Wanna read a horror novel where everyone dies gruesomely? Go for it.
But that's if you live in America. I won't pretend to know where the lines are drawn in other countries.
If the authors are in the U.S.
They can write any story anyway they want provided they don't slander anyone or use false, illegal details in their stories causing the stock market to crash or some company to lose their customer base. The U.S. is very open with the 1st Amendment and judiciously guarded from the smallest courts to the largest Supreme Court. It doesn't mean everyone can sue someone for what they claim they were harmed by the story. That is civil court. The muslim defamation league use that one for terrorizing anyone saying anything disparaging against islam. Courts and lawyers break a lot of people. Exonerated in court doesn't mean much when you have lost your home and everything else. I've only read a few cases where the victim was awarded punitive and real cost and damages for false lawsuit filed against them. Maybe they didn't know to ask for that in their own brief. Judges won't award the victim a settlement if they haven't asked. IE, you file a lawsuit against me, you lose, you pay for every thing, lawyer, court, fees, and my time. But you must file the paperwork in court to get it.
Writing a story about childhood rape or incest or anything dark is protected by the 1st Amendment. However no other nation gives that protection to authors. Some of the stories coming from Britain, Iran, China are scary concerning what happens to people for speaking out. Depends on what nation those authors are in whether they spend years in prison or losing their life for writing what the authorities don't like.
The lies hurt. The truth sometimes hurts even more.
always
Barb
If you're going to poke the status quo, don't forget a price will probably be paid.
Oklahoma born and raised cowgirl