[DRAFT] Virtual Girls, Real Trouble

[Sanghyeok]

Eligibility: Not applicable for countries that banned computers or the internet
This issue was inspired by recent controversy regarding fictional R18 content on online platforms and subsequent banning due to underaged characters, as well as various countries prohibiting import of erotic fictional content from Japan.

On return from the country of Yamato, your brother brought home a copy of the very popular game My Homeroom Teacher can't be this Cute! Unfortunately for him, he was stopped at @@NATION@@'s borders, and arrested. The reason? The game is banned under obscenity laws since it contains erotic content depicting fictional characters who appear under the age of eighteen. After he was bailed, a group of policy-makers and concerned parents have joined your brother in trying to convince you to do something.

1. "It's just a game!" screams your brother. "Why ban fictional content, when quite clearly they don't exist? You should remove this ridiculous legislation and let us exercise our free speech laws.....and our love life!"
Result: Games depicting questionably aged characters in risque positions are all the rage.

2. "Uphold the ban! Down with perverts!" chants @@RANDOMNAME@@, representative of the Concerned Mothers Group of @@NATION@@. "Don't you know that this kind of game is a slippery slope? In fact, don't just ban this game...ban all fictional content that depict underage minors in suggestive poses!"
Result: Drawing children in sunhats is now forbidden.

3. "This is all the problem of that damned Internet!" says @@RANDOMNAME@@. "Remove the Internet, and the good day of morality can come back."
Result: The internet is banned in @@NATION@@

4. "I have a better idea" says the @@RANDOMNAME@@. "Those people in Yamato are causing our country to run a huge deficit in trade! It's bad, bad trade I can tell you. I can make it smaller, so let's start a trade war, it'll be easy to win!"
Result: Yamato and @@NATION@@ have decided size does matter when it comes to trade volume.

[Trotterdam]

I believe the editors have expressed an unwillingness to accept issues that feature child porn in any way, even a borderline one such as this. You'd have to ask them, though, I suppose.

In any case, the options aren't very good. Both options 3 and 4 seem irrelevant to the subject at hand - manga magazines would remain as a distribution platform even without the internet or even electronics of any sort (the video game that sparked the debate doesn't even seem to be on the internet? being stopped at a border checkpoint suggests that the accused was carrying a physical copy of the game, not downloading it), and while especially associated with Japan in real life, non-live-action porn can in principle be made in other nations, including any nation that chose #801 option 4.

[Sanghyeok]

Thank you for the comments. Do you think it's better to try to fix it or just give up on this issue.

[SherpDaWerp]

Thank you for the comments. Do you think it's better to try to fix it or just give up on this issue.

Well, unless you can remove the entire bit about the underaged characters, it's unlikely to be published. If you can manage that, go ahead, but otherwise there's not much point drafting the issue when the premise itself bars it from publication.

Maybe you could ask pruder nations about whether animated porn in general is OK, considering no real @@DEMONYMNOUNPLURAL@@ have to perform obscene acts to make it. You'd have to be careful that it doesn't just become a super easy decision (i.e. "well, my nation is moral and pure so obviously there's no porn at all. Ban it, done and dusted") but I think that might work.

[Trotterdam]

Maybe you could ask pruder nations about whether animated porn in general is OK, considering no real @@DEMONYMNOUNPLURAL@@ have to perform obscene acts to make it. You'd have to be careful that it doesn't just become a super easy decision (i.e. "well, my nation is moral and pure so obviously there's no porn at all. Ban it, done and dusted") but I think that might work.

Eh, I don't think the actors are the main problem with live-action porn to begin with. In most nations that ban porn much of that stuff would still be legal so long as you're not being filmed.

[SherpDaWerp]

Maybe you could ask pruder nations about whether animated porn in general is OK, considering no real @@DEMONYMNOUNPLURAL@@ have to perform obscene acts to make it. You'd have to be careful that it doesn't just become a super easy decision (i.e. "well, my nation is moral and pure so obviously there's no porn at all. Ban it, done and dusted") but I think that might work.

Eh, I don't think the actors are the main problem with live-action porn to begin with. In most nations that ban porn much of that stuff would still be legal so long as you're not being filmed.

The point is that @@DEMONYM@@ aren't involved in the filming (either the camera operators watching other people do it, or doing it themselves). I can see a niche case that someone could make - "Other countries draw it. No true human souls are harmed - and it's not a crime to watch cartoons - so why don't we let our @@DEMONYM@@ enjoy such animated content?"

Maybe for maximally-prude/religious nations, people want to have pornographic material, so they've decided to deal with cartoons instead. Come to think of it, that sounds vaguely like how hentai etc. started in Japan - censorship restricted what they could watch, but for some reason erotic cartoons weren't prohibited, so they went with that.

If you (@Sanghyeok) can find a way to write it (and keep in mind that PG-13 is the maximum you can go to - even "adult" tagged issues aren't supposed to be more than that) then by all means go ahead, but it does look like there might be a few speedbumps.

Pity it's such a difficult topic, I've come up with a good effect line to use - "disclaimers on X rated films say 'no souls were dammed in the making of this video' "

[Trotterdam]

Come to think of it, that sounds vaguely like how hentai etc. started in Japan - censorship restricted what they could watch, but for some reason erotic cartoons weren't prohibited, so they went with that.

Maybe that's a part of it, but it's probably significant that animation is a lot more popular even for non-pornographic works than Japan than in the West, where it's stigmatized as "kid stuff".

[Australian rePublic]

You're gonna call a country "Yamato"? In Greek "yamato" means "fuck". Also, in many places the legal of age of consent is 16, why assume that it's 18? That's a violation of player autonomy

[Sanghyeok]

You're gonna call a country "Yamato"? In Greek "yamato" means "fuck". Also, in many places the legal of age of consent is 16, why assume that it's 18? That's a violation of player autonomy

I think the mod said we should use US standards, so I wrote it as 18

[Sanghyeok]

You're gonna call a country "Yamato"? In Greek "yamato" means "fuck". Also, in many places the legal of age of consent is 16, why assume that it's 18? That's a violation of player autonomy

Yamato is ancient name for Japanese people. I wanted to use it like some issues write DaGuo for China, etc

[Australian rePublic]

You're gonna call a country "Yamato"? In Greek "yamato" means "fuck". Also, in many places the legal of age of consent is 16, why assume that it's 18? That's a violation of player autonomy

Yamato is ancient name for Japanese people. I wanted to use it like some issues write DaGuo for China, etc

Maybe to remove player autonomy issues, you should say "clearly underage" instead of specifying an actual age. Also, "yamoto" means "fuck", not "yamato", so, carry on

[The Marsupial Illuminati]

no issues about children and sexuality plz + this is the work of devil

[Sanghyeok]

no issues about children and sexuality plz + this is the work of devil

I was told it was forbidden, and I already abandoned this draft. Thanks for information though.

[Candlewhisper Archive]

I mean to be fair, the issue of whether animated content that LOOKS underage while being attached to fiction that the characters are of legal age, that's a really interesting dilemma.

However, as has been noted, it's explicitly against the site rules to create issues that relate even tangentially to paedophilia, so we're going to leave it at that.

That in mind, please don't take it personally when I lock this thread. Rather, it's just in the spirit of adhering to site rules.