Porn's Fine Lines (IB Art) - Karishma, Tiff Lay, Sonnia

This podcast illuminated the case of men possessing  Japanese comics that depicted underage characters engaging in sexual acts. The speakers argue between freedom of speech and artistic expression in regards to the controversial nature of these creations being harmful to society, particularly children. There was a recent update in policy stating that nay kind of child pornography, real or fiction, would be prosecuted. Christopher Handly (age 38), the man in question, possessed over 1200 comics, graphic novels, and DVDs but was only prosecuted for less than a dozen of them that included controversial content.

This issue boils down to the battle of freedom of expression versus the good of society. In this, the concepts of reason/logic and the arts. Reason, the voice of society, is saying that this form of art is inappropriate and unacceptable by the established standards. They would say that the artists of these works are simply creating child pornography and trying to pass it off as artistic expression. But in the world of art, freedom of expression applies. The point of things like creative arts is to allow artists to express their individual voice. To condemn an artist’s work for being inappropriate could be seen as censorship.

This article highlights several questions. Firstly, what is art? What is appropriate art? What is "controversial art"? Why should people possessing "controversial art" be prosecuted? In this case, we see the struggle between freedom of expression through art versus the good of society in regards to shielding the human eye from "controversial subjects". Speaking from reason, the voice of society's point of view, it is important to censor certain types of art because they can lead to larger problems. However, isn't art supposed to open the eyes of society? Aren't artists always trying to paint new concepts in order to help the mind spread its horizons? Although some subjects may seem wrong, from an artist's point of view, it is not right to restrict them because art can be interpreted in many ways. There is no one way to look at art; therefore, it can be argued that "controversial" subjects are simply interpreted wrongly by society. Thus, to preserve one of our greatest values, the freedom of expression, it would be going against our principles to condemn someone’s artistic depiction, and prosecute someone for possessing that kind of artwork, especially seeing as he had not showed that it had influenced his behavior in any negative way.
Visual art like what is depicted in this article is not limited. But should visual art be limited in some sort of way because it may lead to potential illegal behavior. Some other forms of art like movies or even some books are limited and are rated accordingly. However visual art is a bit different because it is just an way that someone is expressing what they are trying to say or just a feeling. Should we have the right to control these expression? Where should the line be drawn? The truth is we can't ever prove that art is harmful without harming anyone. But if some form of visual art is potential harm then should that be limited. We think that art should be a freedom of expression. None of the artist out there is trying to harm someone. Although some things may be potential harm but what is potential harm, potential harm is harm that has not yet happened.  Going deeper into the issue, what is it that makes the involvement of children in sexuality such a heinous crime? Sexuality is a primal instinct. What sets us humans apart from animals is our ability to restrain these primal instincts. Over time, our society has become more and more open with sexuality itself. However, we have remained protective of our young when it comes to these ‘adult’ matters. TO BE CONTINUED......