Free Speech Doesn’t Include Fiction
From The Red Rose Stories Homepage:
Date: October 3, 2005 06:24PM
I am sorry to inform all interested parties that Red Rose Stories is a DEAD site.The FBI has suceeded in closing me down.
I am being charged with ‘OBSCENITIES’ and face charges for having posted fantasy stories.
They are trying to say fantasy stories are illegal.
The men in black (FBI) took ALL of my computer equipment, and many of my diskettes, and have access to ALL my files and site information. They came when I was NOT home and seized my belongings, I had no choice, and no recourse.
I am terribly sorry for the trouble, and for you subscribers, I am DEEPLY sorry, for I can not do anything to refund your monies to you, as the FBI has everything connected to the site…
Yes, some of those stories had to do with taboo subjects, but according to the owner she had no pictures to do with them. More importantly, they’re fiction! You know, Georgie, ‘make believe’ (kinda like thinking Republicans are still fiscally conservative at the national level)! Are they more graphic than some of the stuff you’ll find in the library (Lolita comes to mind as do the works of the Marquis de Sade)? Probably (I just heard of the site today so I can’t say how graphic they were), but if we’re going to ban everything close to pornographic let’s chop Song of Solomon out of the Bible at the same time. Maybe we should also consider hauling in the Gideons and everybody else who distributes a Bible to somebody under eighteen with that kind of filth in it. For an adult editorial on this, you can Click here to go to AVN.
October 9, 2005 - 11:54 AM on October 9th, 2005
October 9, 2005 - 12:26 PM on October 9th, 2005
Here is how the US Dept of Justice defines “obscene”, as it relates to sexual depictions.
http://www.usdoj.gov/criminal/ceos/obscenity.html
While the test of what is considered “obscene” is based on the 1973 Supreme Court case Miller v. California – which dealt with pictures and drawings – it appears Gonzales and the US Dept. of Justice is expanding this test to written word.
I think the Whitehouse is still pissed about the anti-sodomy laws being overturned and are looking for any other way they can censor, through law, Americans diverse sexual appetites.
I liked Rosie’s comment:
October 9, 2005 - 01:00 PM on October 9th, 2005
As I do not know the content of the site, I will only speak in hypotheticals. If the site included stories that could be reasonably expected to incite someone to pedophilia, I would be hard pressed to defend it on free speech grounds. There are sites out there, and they do need to be shut down. A pedophile in North Carolina was found to have pornographic photos of an underaged boy that was traced back to a scout leader here in Phoenix.
October 9, 2005 - 01:05 PM on October 9th, 2005
Well, astro – normally i’m totally against the censorship of pornography among consenting adults.. on the net, or otherwise. But a quick browse through google’s cache of red-rose-stories.com reveals some stories on that site that dealt with erotic fantasy stories invovling adults and minor children.
Fictional? I hope so, but I suspect that is perhaps why the FBI would have such an interest. All sorts of possibilities come to mind as to why they’d yank it … we probably don’t know the full story, only the face of it.
October 9, 2005 - 01:25 PM on October 9th, 2005
3- “A pedophile in North Carolina was found to have pornographic photos of an underaged boy that was traced back to a scout leader here in Phoenix.”
How does that relate to the issue of written fiction?
“reasonably expected to incite someone to pedophilia”
Could a Tom Clancy book be reasonably expected to incite someone to fly a plane into a building? Certainly contains the idea.
October 9, 2005 - 02:12 PM on October 9th, 2005
October 9, 2005 - 03:17 PM on October 9th, 2005
If one needs to fantasize about sexual acts with children, they are in need of something other than their “constitutional right” to free speech. I would have defended the site had the kids not been brought into it.
October 9, 2005 - 05:22 PM on October 9th, 2005
I didn’t know anything about the site before it, so I can’t say what type of children stories they were, whether it was about a high school freshman or a kindergartener. According to a couple articles I read, they ‘allegedly involved bestiality, water sports, scat, bondage and domination, S&M, slavery, threesomes, orgies and sex with children.’. Regardless, as long as they weren’t “how to get away with sex with children” stories, I think it falls under that pesky first amendment. It also irks me that the feds go after a website for erotic fiction rather than going after people who are actually committing the acts.
October 9, 2005 - 07:38 PM on October 9th, 2005
Do you think stuff like that can be a gateway/desensitizer/enabler for the people actually committing the acts?
October 9, 2005 - 08:33 PM on October 9th, 2005
11 – it might be, but if that’s reason to throw somebody in jail here, what should we do about violent movies and TV shows? Should we be going after Best Buy for selling box sets of The Sopranos and all the things it desensitizes people to? For that matter, look at the graphic nature of the CSI shows…
October 9, 2005 - 08:37 PM on October 9th, 2005
8- You might want to check again on what is actually protected under the 1st amendment. Reilly posted an article about 3 years ago in the discussion forum that fell into the category of this very type of thing. The site very well may not have been targeted had they not brought up the kids. Can I go into a library and get a book on sex with kids? Can I go to a porn shop and buy a tape showing adults having sex with kids?
October 9, 2005 - 08:47 PM on October 9th, 2005
11 – That depends on what type of sex with kids you mean. Sex with minors is illegal because they aren’t old enough to give consent, so for that reason no you can’t buy that tape, but at the same time you can get one with an eighteen or nineteen year old girl dressing down like a schoolgirl.
A book on sex with kids? Once again, the act is illegal so that would be contributing to a criminal act. If you mean it as a work of fiction, that’s why I brought up Lolita in my original post, which IIRC was about a teacher and his seventeen year old student.
October 9, 2005 - 09:00 PM on October 9th, 2005
Astro, I’ve always been of the opinion that there’s too much sex and violence on TV and not enough at home.
I’ve also always believed there’s a smart way to watch the idiot box.
Getting back to the area of pornography, you’re supposed to be over a certain age to view it, and you’re not supposed to show it to minors or anyone not wishing to see it.
With regard to porn involving minors, it may be within a person’s right to do it, but at the same time, that person is feeding someone’s habit, reinforcing an undesirable behavior, and possibly bringing one more kid that much closer to becoming a victim in real life. The news is full of cyberstings, where men and women have been arrested for soliciting a minor (cop posing aa a kid) for sex online.
Just because I have the right to do certain things, doesn’t mean it is right for me to do those things.
Ugh, this is starting to remind me of that whole NAMBLA thing.
October 9, 2005 - 09:04 PM on October 9th, 2005
13- don’t even bring them up Sasha!:mad:
October 9, 2005 - 09:09 PM on October 9th, 2005
Consider them not brought up, peejz.:cool:
October 10, 2005 - 08:33 PM on October 10th, 2005
Tofu, you need to get out more, or at least stop jumping to the defense of the indefensible. Child molesters are generally not mentally stable, and to give them any impetus at all is too much. It’s like handing a bottle of beer to an alcoholic. The difference is that unlike the alcoholic, the child molester isn’t destroying his own life, he’s destroying someone else’s. Child molesters are considered so despicable that even criminals in prison want nothing to do with them.
As for Lolita being about a teacher and a 17yr old student, while 17 is underage for pornography purposes, it is above the age of consent in most states. One of the members of our high school band married one of the history teachers of graduation.