On Thu, 2003-05-22 at 16:38, Lee Daniel Crocker wrote:
(The Cunctator
<cunctator(a)kband.com>)m>):
Yes there are: try child prOn, indecency and obscenity laws.
Those are not restrictions on "nudity". Nude pictures of children
are perfectly legal in the US, as long as they're not engaged in
sexual acts or otherwise presented as erotic. And even some that
are clearly erotic are acceptable in some circumstances ("Pretty
Baby" and "American Beauty" come to mind).
Yep, there are no restrictions on nude pictures unless someone doesn't
like them--or does like them. Also, while there's no federal statute on
public nudity, there are plenty of local restrictions and no
Constitutional protection.
C.f. Ginsberg v. New York, 390 U.S. 629, 639-43 (1968), Osborne v. Ohio,
495 U.S.103, 111 (1990), Child Pornography Prevention Act of 1996, 18
U.S.C. ยง 2252A. But hey, this is all being hammered out by the courts.
But this
isn't a disgreement about facts, just which facts are
important. I should have said "I think it's grossly misleading".
Agreed. I just thought it a bit unfair to demonize the MPAA when
for the most part it is the American public itself that's the
problem. Our prudery is not a case of an authoritarian minority
oppressing the freedom-loving masses; it's a case of the
authoritarian masses oppressing the freedom-loving minority.
It is not a failure of democracy, but a natural negative
consequence of it.
That's one reading of the situation. Mine is that both the authoritarian
minority and authoritarian masses are to blame.