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PaperclipPerfector
16hr ago
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Notes -
The Guardian: An Australian woman has been found guilty of producing, possessing, and distributing illegal child pornography for writing and distributing (for pre-publication review, not yet actually selling) a 210-page book in which an 18-year-old woman engages in sexual "ageplay" (pretending to be a toddler) with an older man. It does not appear that a transcript of this local court proceeding is available in Australia's judicial database. But the article indicates that, in the judge's view, the author's descriptions of this "18-year-old woman" were just a sham intended to evoke the visual image of a child. (See also the "9000-year-old loli" meme.) Reddit comments indicate that, in addition to what is described in this article, the book also includes a passage in which the man fantasizes about the future woman while she is only three years old.
Australian AO3 users in shambles (1 2)?
Hard to tell what the actual story is, here.
The Guardian story talks about some deeply unpleasant ageplay focuses and grooming-adjacent stuff that squicks me the fuck out but would be fairly novel to get a conviction over, but the reddit comments suggest that the actual story had a mix of 'just' ageplay and sexualization of fictional children that have parallels (cw: gross-as-in-violence-to-children) to convictions in the United States (cw: gross-as-in-Simpson's porn). Now, that might just be people on the internet lying, since they point to a Goodreads listing and you're saying the story was not actually sold, but it's a mess and one I don't really want to look into deeper.
There's some philosophical and foundation of law problems even with the latter, but it wouldn't be new and Australia doesn't have freedom of speech in the American sense (instead having a mess of toothless international treaties and a limited right to political communication). In the defense of Australian authorities they tend to target people who make at least moderately unsympathetic defendants rather than those with Romeo And Juliet - Extra Spicy Edition, just as a lot of the more 'does this pass the Ashcroft test' convictions in the US tend have lots of reasons to plea guilty, but the Australian populace is generally supportive enough of aggressive policing that it might not matter anyway.
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