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Transnational Thursday for February 12, 2026

Transnational Thursday is a thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or international relations history. Feel free as well to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.

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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)?

Oh hey, here's a fun one.

So yeah, these laws are terrible and judges do convict on them. However, it should be noted that police forces don't generally come after you for them. I'm not 100% sure what got this lady punished - seems to have been public pressure on the police from operating commercially and getting noticed - but fanfic authors/readers and VN pirates are generally pretty safe (I wouldn't try to bring VN packages through customs, though).

Citation: four years ago I full-doxxed myself and publically confessed to possessing like 12 illegal VNs and having written an erotic Madoka Magica fanfic, and I wasn't even questioned let alone charged.