On Child Pornography in Manga

Thoughts on Child Pornography in Manga
by Deathworks



Reasons for Writing this Text


In recent years, Europe, and, to a lesser extent, as far as the author can tell, the United States, have been influenced by the aftermath of several cases of children getting raped and murdered. One of the results was an increased sensitivity about child pornography and related to this an ongoing campaign to fight child pornography rings. Among the things said in the media were also references to Manga artwork that seemed troublesome to the author. In this text, he will try to explain the reasons for that uneasiness, hopefully causing the reader to have a critical look at this and other issues. However, this entire matter is connected with several other aspects of society, which has made it very difficult for the author to find a working argumentative order. Thus, he bids you to read the text in its entirety before passing judgement on what he has to say.



What is Democracy?


First of all, the term "democracy" should be examined as this is the basic social structure for which the following text has been written. Other forms of society may have different views on some aspects which may cause any or all of the arguments to lose their value.

"Democracy" means "rulership of the people". The basic idea of it being that the state is controlled and created by the people in order to further their interests. The modern definition also implies that all people are equal without anyone being able to claim superiority above the others. As far as the author knows, this latter statement holds true for all European states as well as the United States. "People" refers exclusively to the adult citizens of the respective state. Seeing how current day politics are shown in the media, it has become quite easy to forget that all organs of the state, be it the police, the fire department, or politicians, are merely representing and serving the wishes of their respective people. Thus, the president of the United States is no more and no less than a common human representing the will and strength of the adult citizens of the United States. Similarly, the Supreme Court is nothing but a tool of the people.

Which brings us to the next issue, namely what the goals of a democratic system usually are. The details of what the policies of a specific state involve vary due to circumstances, of course, but there are some elemental points that seem so inherent to "democracy", that they could be called its basic goals. To find them, it makes sense to start from the definition given above: The state is created by the people in order to further their interests. This sentence shouldn't require any explanation as such, as it reflects a well- known truth. The question is, are there interests so basic that everyone is likely to have them? Many people would probably answer that "wealth" is the thing they want to acquire most desperately. It makes sense as money, its most common representation, enables you to buy the goods and services you want to enjoy. However, before "wealth" there should be "freedom" as the most primary desire. All your "wealth" loses its value if you are not allowed to use it as you see fit. What use is "money" if you are not allowed to spend it? What value is in a precious picture you are not allowed to view? This basic nature of "freedom" carries on even into the animal kingdom. While awareness of "wealth" tends to be generally low, there is no animal that does not suffer when put in a cage or otherwise deprived of its freedom. Thus, the author believes that the primary goal of democracy is defending the freedom of all its citizens, as implied by the equality principle.

Even though we may not notice it all the time, the most pervasive influence the state has on our everyday life are its laws, which are in effect restrictions deprieving us of some aspect of our freedom. Having said that, it might seem as if laws were undemocratic as they are directly opposed to democracy's primary goal. However, looking at that goal's definition again, there is the word "protect". In order to understand the role of laws in a democracy, let's have a look at an easily understood example. Basically, everyone of us has the ability to kill another human. Without applying any social restraints, this could be called the freedom to kill someone else. Thus, laws forbidding murder would deprieve the would-be killer of one of his or her natural freedoms and would be counterproductive as seen from the stand point of democracy. This chain of thought fails however to consider the freedom of the prospect victim. Getting killed deprieves you of all your freedoms, as a dead person can not interact with the world. The killer's freedom of killing therefore impairs all of the victim's freedoms, creating a conflict between those two individual's interests. This is where democracy needs to solve the situation by protecting the freedom of everyone as well as possible. For obvious reasons, it is more efficient to remove a single freedom from a prospective killer rather than allow all freedoms of the victim to be threatened. Thus, laws play a constructive role in the defense of our freedoms.



Democracy and Institutional Religions


Having discussed the basics of democracy, it is necessary to examine how it relates to another major influence on the lives of most people, namely institutional religions. If we are to compare the characteristics of most institutional religions which the definition of democracy and its goals, results can be reached rather quickly. All institutional religions the author knows are incompatible with the basics of democracy and may not become part of the democratic state, lest its democratic nature be threatened. There are two main reasons for this conclusion:

1. Violation of the rulership of the people. Most monotheistic religions claim that a being of superior power, often referred to as God holds supreme power over all of the universe, especially humanity. People are usually expected to obey its commands which effectively puts it into the position of an authoritarian leader, comparable to an emperor or king. Needless to say that rulership by the people and rulership of a king contradict each other and if you try to have both, one of them will of necessity become a farce.

2. Violation of the equality principle. Most religions have a hierarchically ordered professional clergy which is said to have a special relationship to the respective superior power and are often said to be imbued with mystical powers based on their place within the hierarchy. As high- ranking officials are closer to the religion's ruler, they have authority over lower ranks and the believers. None of that authority is based on people choosing representatives from among their midst but rather determined by a hierarchy that is not representing the common people which are usually considered inferior.

For these reasons, the author wishes to ban any religious arguments from this text as it deals with a problem of democracy.



Democracy and Censorship

Another general topic which is touched by this text is censorship. Therefore, it seems necessary to have a look at the role of censorship in a democratic society.

First of all, censorship is not to be mixed up with age restrictions. The latter limits access to media or services based on a non-adult individual's age. The reasoning behind age restrictions is that an individual who has not reached adulthood lacks in experience and understanding and is therefore more vulnerable than an adult. This inequality does not contradict the equality principle which only applies to adult citizens to begin with. The author believes that the validity of age restrictions should be obvious enough if we have a look at the probability of a four- year- old understanding all implications sexual intercourse would have, for instance.

Censorship, on the other hand, means that adult citizens are deprieved of their freedom to review and evaluate information and/or enjoy works of art. Therefore, it is a restriction basically contradicting the goals of democracy. The question would then be, whether there be a freedom that is protected by censorship, just as in the example with murder. In order to find such a possible cause, it would make sense to look at the arguments brought forward by pro- censorship groups. One of the most common arguments would be morals. Although popular, it usually does not belong into this discussion, as people are referring to the morals defined by the institutional religion they subscribe to. Another argument brought forth especially by censorship groups on the internet is that children may come into contact with material unfit for them. This, however, is a problem of age restriction and not censorship. If adult material is not marked as such, children may accidentally come into contact with it and indeed suffer harm.
The added argument that children like to ignore the warning disclaimers of sites fails when the parents are asked why they are allowing the child to serve the internet on by itself. As long as parents take care of their children and watch over them, age restrictions will work sufficiently to protect them. Then there are those who claim that people's behavior is influenced negatively by certain material. The author wishes to address this topic later in the text. For the moment, it suffices to say that empiric data does not seem to confirm those theories, thus leaving this argument stranded as well. Finally, there are those that claim that certain political ideas threaten the integrety of democracy. Analyzing that claim, we get to those people fearing that the adult citizens of a state might conclude that another form of rulership is better in order to further their interests and such abandon democracy. In other words, they are afraid that the citizenship finds that democracy fails to serve its purpose when compared to some alternative. Looking at the definition of democracy, however, we find that democracy is not the purpose itself but rather a tool, which can therefore be exchanged for another one better suited for the task. Thus, this argument lacks any real value.

Therefore, the author concludes that censorship has no legitimation within a democracy while it harms democracy's main goal. In other words, there is no place for censorship in democracy.



Child Abuse and Democracy


The last preparation that needs to be made is to examine the relationship between democracy and child abuse. Please note the difference between child abuse and child pornography, the latter referring to representations of the former in texts, pictures, and the like. As mentioned above, democracy generally considers children unable to reasonably evaluate sexual situations. Therefore, they are not able to give consent to any form of sexual interaction, as such consent would require all parties involved to fully understand what they agree upon. Continuing that line of thought, any sexual interaction with children automatically occurs without consent and can therefore only be called rape. Rape, however, violates the freedom of self- determination of the victim to such an extent, that it is necessary for democracy to defend the victim by forbidding rape just as in the case of murder. In other words, the author believes that democracy can not tolerate child abuse.



Child Pornography in Manga and otherwise


Finally, we can have a look at child pornography and especially on its relationship to adult Manga of the "rorikon" variety ("rorikon" is the abbreviation the Japanese pronunciation of the term "Lolita complex" and refers to erotica focusing on minors).

Let's begin with the easy and clear- cut case of photos of real children in sexual activities. As shown before, censorship is a concept that is generally not applicable to a democratic society. The question then is, whether there are any other problems such material could create. The answer is, that there are indeed two main problems:

1. The crime involved in the creation of the pictures. In order to create such pictures, one or more children need to be abused. As child abuse is to be considered a major crime, all individuals involved in creating such photos are criminals either by act or by being accomplices.

2. The privacy of the child is violated. As the nude human body is generally linked to our sexuality and self- perception, protection of individual privacy outweighs freedom of representation. Adult citizens have the option of giving up that right in specific individual cases, as society expects them to be able to see the implications of such a decision. Just as is the case with child abuse, children do not have such understanding. Thus, they can't give consent to the publication or distribution of images of their nude body meaning that any and all such images violate their privacy and are therefore to be considered illegal.

To sum it up, child pornography photos of real children are automatically in violation of what democracy stands for. This means, of course, that they need to be illegal.


Now to examine Manga. The arguments given above face major problems when we try to apply them to rorikon Manga. Both points use the victim, namely the child, as the core of their reasoning. Shifting from photos of real humans to Manga drawings, that core also shifts from a living person to a created character. The question would then be, whether this new core still supports these argumentations. The author has come to the conclusion that a Manga character can not take on that role for the simple reason that the character does not exist in reality. It cannot think and it does not have any innate feelings. It is an artificial collection of ideas and concepts which has no reality outside the mind of its creator and readers. Even worse, it has no natural age, so there is no way of determining whether it is an adult or a child. Using the time that has passed since its creation is absurd, as the contents of a book will not change over time. Since form and role are determined arbitrarily by the artist, their value are equally questionable. There is nothing to prevent an artist to claim that a well- endowed female character is actually 10 years old, just as that same artist may claim that a flat- chested female character is 25 years old. In short, a Manga character can never be a real person or a child, making the argumentations on basis of violation of personal rights and child abuse useless.

Having said that, we have to look for other reasons to forbid such depictions. Although these reasons may also apply to real photos, they were not needed as the argumentation against real photos was already sufficient as it was. Personal rights, censorship, morals, and age restriction have all proven to be useless. The one last argument the author is aware of is the alleged influence of such depictions.

This final reason for banning rorikon Manga had already been mentioned when discussing the relationship between democracy and censorship. Basically, it claims that seeing depictions of what seems to be child abuse (as explained in the previous chapter, such drawings can not really depict child abuse as the characters can not really be children) increases the recipient's acceptance of real child abuse and might eventually cause him or her to enact such behavior in reality. The author is not aware of any scientifically sound empiric data that could prove this theory. Indeed, reality seems to disprove this simple "monkey see - monkey do" idea. The author comes to this conclusion based on his current stay in Japan. As an adult, it is indeed no problem to acquire rorikon Manga featuring characters of allegedly varying age (the author knows of ages given or hinted at going down to approximately 7, and he considers it probable that there are also "younger" characters). The activities depicted range from simple intercourse or masturbation to rape, bondage, beastiality, and others. In the used book stores the author has visited, rorikon Manga made up probably 50 percent of the adult section. Given the small number of stores, that figure may not be completely accurate, though there is no reason to believe that it is completely off. All in all, it can be said that rorikon Manga are readily available in Japan. If the argumentation we are examining was correct, this would automatically result in a child abuse crime rate in Japan that is much higher than the rate in Europe where such depictions are not available. There is no indication of such a high crime rate. Instead, Japan is known for its generally low overall crime rates. Mind you, this does not prove that such depictions have any beneficial effects, it merely seems to prove that there is no clear cause and effect relationship between rorikon Manga and child abuse. Therefore, this argument fails as well, resulting in there being no arguments to justify banning rorikon Manga in a democratic society.



Final Words


Summarizing the results of this examination, the author comes to the conclusion that while child abuse and child pornography are not to be tolerated, there is no legitimation for acting against rorikon Manga. Indeed, it seems reasonable to refrain from referring to such Manga as child pornography both because of that difference and because of the unreal nature of the Manga characters. He hopes that this text can at least be a little bit helpful for readers who wish to have a critical look at this topic.