Sunday, November 13, 2011

Is "The First Time" An Example of Soft-Child-Porn?

Glee -- Episode 3 of Season 5 -- "The First Time" part 3...

Over the past week, we have been inundated with pictures of Joe Paterno and the horrendous scandal at Penn State University. Everyone is outraged at the horrible sexual abuse Jerry Sandusky allegedly inflicted on kids under the age of 18. Why is everyone mad? Because the vast majority of American's, regardless of religious or political persuasion, agree that taking advantage of a minor is morally wrong.

Think about some of the laws that are currently in place to try and protect kids: child-pornography is not only immoral but it's also illegal. If you want to view a porn website you have to be older than 18. And if you want to get into a strip club or bar you have to have a valid ID proving you're an adult (even this was not out of bounds for the episode -- Blaine and Kurt receive fake ID's to go to a gay bar on diva night).

Yet the producers, directors, actors, and actresses of ‘Glee’ are representing underage sexuality on prime-time TV. Granted, the actors and actresses themselves are older than 18, but they are representing and targeting kids under 18 years old with the show and their marketing campaigns. Is this a form of child-pornography? Is it promoting soft-porn to those who are underage? Should Fox be held accountable for their representation of child-sex or are they simply utilizing their right to free speech? Something seems inconsistent here...

What do you think? You may comment below…

7 comments:

  1. Child porn: Not the same as teenagers engaging in consentual sex. How you reached the assumption that teenagers having sex is exactly like children being molested by adults is beyond me. I suggest you read some articles regarding child porn, its effects on the victims, and its perpetrators and rewrite this post.

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  2. E.to.the.H,

    Thank you for your thoughtful comment. We really appreciate your feedback. We agree and disagree with some of your statements and assumptions. Let's keep talking ... *

    We encourage you to look at the definition of child pornography from The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children here - http://www.missingkids.com/missingkids/servlet/PageServlet?LanguageCountry=en_US&PageId=2451. You can find other definitions on various government and private agency websites, but we thought this one defined it pretty well from a recognizable/valid source.

    We disagree with your premise (or at least the premise is incomplete) that child porn is not the same as teenagers engaging in consensual sex. If there was porn (image, video, or even art) with two 17 year olds engaging in consensual sex, image or otherwise, it would still be qualified, from a legal standpoint, as child-porn. A teenager, just as much as a young child, can be a part of child-porn, even if the teenager has consented to participate.

    We don't think this post is irresponsible as you imply. Notice the title is a question. It was intended to illicit a response or begin a discussion, not necessarily to make a blanket statement.

    To your credit, we will post a counter argument that you could make based on the information on the website referenced earlier:
    "Federal law (18 U.S.C. §1466A) also criminalizes knowingly producing, distributing, receiving, or possessing with intent to distribute, a visual depiction of any kind, including a drawing, cartoon, sculpture or painting, that ... depicts an image that is, or appears to be, of a minor engaging in ... sexual intercourse, including genital-genital, oral-genital, anal-genital, or oral-anal, whether between persons of the same or opposite sex and such depiction lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value."

    There's an issue of semantics here. Unfortunately, we don't necessarily have a term for what is mentioned in this post because the Glee episode is artistic in nature, and the argument from the producers of Glee might be that it is depicting a sexual act between teenage characters as a form of social commentary.

    With this in mind, we agree that one of your assumptions is valid. Regardless, should the last line in the above quoted section of the federal law be allowed? Allowing for free speech is important, but this issue toes a fine line that is worthy of a conversation. What's going to stop another TV show from depicting consensual sex among an adult and a 12 year old or even two 9 year olds in the future? Couldn't they just site this part of the law and say it is of "literary, artistic, political, or scientific value"?

    There might be some who would say that pornography where an older teenager who is not yet a legal adult but has consented is something that should be legal. However, the legal line has been drawn at 18. (Keep in mind we haven't even mentioned the moral issue -- which is a whole other component of this discussion). With that said, shouldn't the legal line of what is depicted on television also be drawn? This seems to protect under-age viewers, and might even protect the victims of child pornography.

    Please keep in mind, we at Axis see our job with this blog as not to take official stances on issues, but to instead, encourage thoughtful discussion of unquestioned answers in our society. We believe it is the responsibility of parents/influential adults to have these conversations with their students and to come up with responsible answers as community units (i.e. families, churches, schools, clubs, etc.). We hope that our blog can simply serve as a trigger for these kinds of conversations.

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  3. May we also add that while we agree that teenagers engaging in consensual sex is not the same as children being molested and abused by adults, that is not the issue. Teenagers across America engage in consensual sex all the time, but these acts are not filmed and then displayed for millions of viewers to see. The issue, rather, is whether or not it is moral to depict teenagers engaging in consensual sex and then televising it to these viewers (which includes other teenagers and perhaps younger children) as social commentary or even art.Is it possible that doing so does more harm than good? Is it possible that doing so simply adds to the pressure and confusion that teenagers already feel? It begs the question: just because we have the ability to do something, should we do it?

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  4. This is really an interesting article. I like reading this. I also agree with some of the points that you mentioned in there. porno

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