Christopher Handley has been sentenced to a 6-month prison term. For now, you can read all the details at Anime News Network and Anime Vice.
Edit: Had some time to digest it. Not going to go over all the legal arguments, as that’s been done to death. And you already know my stance on obscenity law in general. But a couple of things that jumped out at me regardless…
1. Handley began his manga collecting in 1992, meaning he’s been a fan for at least 17 years. He served his country in the Navy, and was a straight A engineering student. And in those 17 years, the prosecution claims he hasn’t had much sex, if at all, instead using manga and anime as a substitute. That’s… a terribly long time. In that span, he has not had a single run in with the law. If the loli porn inducement theory holds any water, how could he have been a model citizen in all those 17 years, never acting out his “obsession” with young girls?
2. A psychologist report described his obsession with lolicon manga as a “sexual deviancy,” or paraphilia. Is this solely on the basis of equating lolicon with actual child porn? 2D obsession is probably an area of almost no research, and I think it’s a mistake for the medical establishment to make such an assumption. There’s also no hint of what level of lolicon obsession should qualify as a psychological disorder; as far as I can tell, Handley’s hobby did not interfere with his daily life, or impair his responsibilities. Handley was a fully functioning, contributing member of society. If there is no disorder, what would they be treating?
3. Is the condition of being aroused by a drawing really a deviation from the norm? It may not be the spoken, accepted cultural norm, but cultural norm isn’t necessarily a true reflection of reality. And could “normalcy” be expressed in an empirical way? In other words, what percentage of the populace needs to engage in an act for the act to be considered normal behavior? 5, 10, 20 percent? (At one time, being gay/lesbian/bisexual, which is roughly 5% of the population, was considered a sexual deviancy by psychologists.) In fact, has anyone even tried to determine what percentage of internet users actually look at lolicon manga/anime? If that number is in the double digits, shouldn’t the court and medical science reconsider whether Handley is an aberration at all?
Edit 2: The Comics Reporter has a reaction from CBLDF’s Charles Brownstein.
Edit 3: ICv2 has portions of a letter from one of Christopher Handley’s friends.
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The whole thing is annoying. Oh well, I made sure to post up pages from the books he got sent to jail for.
Shit like this really makes me hate middle America, you know? This idea that just because some people don’t find a fetish appealing that it’s sick and should be banned or made illegal.
It’s a real shame this guy is being treated like that.
I think the worst part is that rather than ever thinking that he might be a normal person, they’ll just be afraid at how well these deviants can blend into society.
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/me wanders off to read 1000mm’s Re-Birthday again in Honor of today. Mmmmm abused loli…
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Gah, and I loved icv2.com’s typical inaccurate reporting about manga:
“Christopher Handley was sentenced Wednesday to six months in the federal prison system for “possession of obscene visual representations of the sexual abuse of children,” (i.e., manga). ”
Perhaps someone should tell them that i.e. is a statement of equivalence, and that they just defined manga as obscene graphics about child abuse. The sad thing is, with icv2, I wonder if they knew that and just didn’t care.
Re: the cause of this, I don’t think it’s a geographic gap so much as a cultural one enhanced by religion and political posturing. Sadly, folks like that exist from sea to shining sea. Just look at congress, almost all of whom signed onto the latest law.
His defense should have brought up your very valid points. The prosecution’s conclusions that he was a danger and deviant is so full of fail it’s a wonder they weren’t laughed out of the courtroom. But for some reason no one seemed capable of applying logic in this case.
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Just to make a point, I’d order the same manga titles, send a letter with the receipt of purchase, and a picture me holding books, and tell the prosecution to kiss my ass.
Still, wouldn’t want to tempt fate. Wouldn’t want the hassle, either.
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Pingback from Creepy guys, revisited on February 21, 2010 at 8:33 pm
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>If the loli porn inducement theory holds any water, how could he have been a model citizen in all those 17 years, never acting out his “obsession” with young girls?
While I largely agree with regards to the legality and morality of the conviction, I think this is a rather poor argument. Just because a given instance of a behavior doesn’t result in negative consequences doesn’t mean the behavior in general is not problematic- “I got home safe last night, even though I was plastered” is not a good defense of why drunk driving is okay, nor is getting home safe every night for a year.
I don’t really like lolicon from a conceptual standpoint, and personally I think that it’s a pretty obvious arrow pointing to similar (if, presumably, much lesser) issues as anyone else who is interested in underage children. However, being that it’s just pictures and there is no good evidence that it’s harmful, it needs to be unregulated. I don’t like guro or bondage or crunk rap, either, but that doesn’t mean these things are a terrible menace to our society.
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