It’s interesting to speculate in what ways showing sexually arousing materials to people under the age of 18 can be harmful. You have a good hypothesis that it’s because young people are more likely to act on content they see in the media, even if it’s not in their best interest. That would be something that would be interesting to test to see if it were so — and as it seems like there are plenty of people who have viewed pornography when they were under 18 who are now adults, I believe you could look for correlations there without having to expose minors to porn to do the test. You’d have to somehow try to nail down causation — are young people more likely to engage in risky behavior because they had access to arousing material or are people who would have engaged in risky behavior anyway more likely to seek out porn? — but that seems doable. If your hypothesis were shown through actual evidence to be correct, that would be a solid reason to have these laws in place.

Alas, at least here in the United States, I don’t think that reasoning is behind these laws. One reason I think that is, is that it is legal to show any kind of violence or torture to minors, so long as it is not sexual. If the reason for minors not to see this material is because they are more likely to act on it, you would think you wouldn’t want them to see media depicting decapitations and murder! Yet time and again when legislators try to ban violent video games, etc, the Courts strike those laws down, arguing that non-sexual violent content is protected speech.

Again, if there were scientific evidence of actual harm being created by minors viewing violent media, then the Courts wouldn’t be able to do that. Much like the classic example of shouting “Fire!” in a crowded movie theater, the right of free speech in the U.S. has limits when it causes physical harm. But as of yet, the studies don’t support the argument of opponents of violent video games. And I would imagine the same would be the case for minors viewing media designed to sexually arouse. But, as I said, it would be a worthy area for study!

At least here in the U.S., I think a primary motivation for the specific ban about sexual content has more to do with our Puritan heritage, general discomfort about sexual content and the fears and discomfort of some parents about their young people becoming adults. I also think that’s why the definition of “obscenity” — which can make media illegal even for adults to create, view and own! — requires an appeal to “prurient” (sexual) interest. I don’t think at least in the U.S. the government is actually basing the law on the reasonable (and testable) hypothesis you offer here. Thus, you get bad law like the PROTECT Act.

Anyway, I really appreciate your comment — it’s a great springboard for discussion and thought! As a creator, just as when I wrote this article, I still would like clearer guidelines — if for no other reason than to make creating art safer and to further the discussion of what is actually, testably appropriate and safe for minors to view.

Alex

P.S. Growing up in Vermont, I have a lot of positive associations with Québec. Very nice folk there!

I live in Quebec – the francophone province on the East side of Canada – and despite the fact that we have a certain access to american comics, most of translated japanese comics we have here come from France, and there, it gets REALLY obvious that they’re not that severe with it. To give you a better idea, Viewfinder is labeled as «not suited for children» or «for an advised audience only», which means that not only could I by french versions of No Money and Viewfinder at the age of 17, but nearly anybody could. And that’s the part that bugs me: I believe like you do that comics should be given a fair rating. As an example, with Viewfinder, the first volume should be sold to people over the age 18 only, while the rest of the series surely should not be sold to anybody below 15.

As I understand it, this is a Japanese legal requirement — that, in Japan, you cannot show uncovered genitalia. When you see yaoi here in the U.S. with penises that have been obscured or even not drawn at all, this is the reason. Now, from what I’ve seen, usually the letter of the law is followed, but not the spirit. For example, you will often see drawn penises that leave nothing to the imagination, but will have a very thin, black line crossing it — technically obscuring it and thus keeping the work in legal compliance.

In the United States, there is no problem with showing adult genitalia — it falls under First Amendment protection — so long as the work is not “obscene”, which in the U.S. means that it would fail the Miller Test. For the most part, in this day and age in the U.S., so long as all your characters are adult, you don’t really have to worry too much about what you can show. Go take a look at the work of Class Comics to get an idea what gay comics publishers in Canada can get away with – and as I mentioned before, things seem to be more restrictive there.

Where you need to be careful — or at the very least aware — is if the characters you draw engaging in sexual activity are minors, and minors is defined as anyone under the age of 18. You can have two 18-year-olds do whatever you want. Throw in a 17-year-old and you could face prosecution for creating or “pandering” child pornography.

Whether cartoons and comics where no real children were ever involved should be considered child pornography is a subject of much debate. There are continued attempts on the part of Congress to make drawings of minors engaging in sexual activity illegal. The Supreme Court continues to act as the voice of reason* (PDF), but I would be remiss if I gave you the impression that creating such stories carries no risk. For a good example of the risks involved take a look at How To Keep Manga Fans Out Of Jail.

So the short answer (from my non-laywer, layman’s opinion — continue doing your own due diligence!)? So long as minors aren’t depicted, there are virtually no limits to what you can show. It is only if you want to show minors engaging in sexual activity that you are exposed to serious risk — and then, according to the current view of the Supreme Court, only if the material could be judged as “obscene” and/or is believed or promoted as actual child pornography.

Hope this helps! And good luck with your work!

Alex

* UNITED STATES v. WILLIAMS — this decision reflects the most current legal take on the relationship between comics and child pornography here in the U.S. It strikes down a challenge by the Eleventh Circuit to the PROTECT Act. The PROTECT Act makes it illegal to “pander” child pornography, whether or not any actual children are involved. The Supreme Court overruled the Eleventh Circuit and thus most of this decision by the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the PROTECT Act. You have to dig a fair amount to find the sanity. There is this line that offers some hope:

This was invalid, we explained, because the child-protection rationale for speech restriction does not apply to materials produced without children.

but it’s not until nearly the very end that we get this clarification:

Finally, the dissent accuses us of silently overruling our prior decisions in Ferber and Free Speech Coalition. See post, at 12. According to the dissent, Congress has made an end-run around the First Amendment’s protection of virtual child pornography by prohibiting proposals to transact in such images rather than prohibiting the images themselves. But an offer to provide or request to receive virtual child pornography is not prohibited by the statute. A crime is committed only when the speaker believes or intends the listener to believe that the subject of the proposed transaction depicts real children. It is simply not true that this means “a protected category of expression [will] inevitably be suppressed,” post, at 13. Simulated child pornography will be as available as ever, so long as it is offered and sought as such, and not as real child pornography.

If you have an interest in law or in what the limits are in terms of sexual depictions in comics, you will find the decision as written by Justice Scalia to be actually quite readable (even downright snarky in some places) and includes a handy legislative grammar lesson involving “operative verbs”. I actually would recommend folks giving it a read. Thought-provoking stuff.

Thanks for your thoughts. I actually have Brother (because I heard it was pretty explicit) so that is interesting to hear.

I need to run all my options as far as self-publishing or going through a publishing company is concerned. Luckily, I've got plenty of time to sort it all out.

Then you should probably be O.K.

Good luck with your work — when it's complete, give us a shout-out over here.

Cheers,

Alex

On the topic of varying levels of censorship, it depends on the artist, and the Japanese/English publishers. Some artists choose not to draw genitalia, and some choose to draw it, but censor it themselves. Sometimes, the Japanese publisher censors it, but I think the only english publisher that censors this, is June. Be Beautiful has only censored one of their works due to a small Shota-ish scene, not the private parts.

An interesting thing I learned from DramaQueen, is that the Japanese version of their flagship title, "Brother" is censored. However, DramaQueen requested the original uncensored art from the publisher, and that's why Brother is the most explicit Yaoi book in English. A US publisher actually wanted to release a more explicit version of Brother, rather than have it toned down, so think about that.

If you want to publish your own Yaoi graphic novel in english, you can be as explicit as you want because most OEL Yaoi is, at most times, even more graphic than Japanese Yaoi.

You can approach Yaoi Press, which specializes in Global Yaoi, they won't give you complete artistic freedom, though. Check their website http://yaoipress.com/info.htm for their requirements for submissions. Tokyopop will publish tame BL. Yaoi House, based in Britain, also accepts English manuscripts, go to their website https://www.yaoihousebooks.com/site/submit.php for more info).

Hope this helped,

Oliver

Originally Posted By Alex WoolfsonWell, that's certainly cool. One question, though. From what I've gathered from your blog, you're based in Canada, right? (Think I read that somewhere…) Now, I've heard that there are major restrictions on certain kinds of "explicit" yaoi being allowed across those borders — in particular, the titles that are contained in Adult Previews (which I believe DramaQueen and 801 have to list in, at least sometimes). Have you ever talked to your comic book retailer about this? Would you be willing to talk to your comic book retailer about this?

I'd love to hear about how real a restriction this is — particularly because there is a risk that Yaoi 911™: Firsts will be exiled to Previews Adult should I distribute with Diamond…

Speaking of restrictions, I have been curious for some time about the various levels of graphicness (if that's a word) of yaoi. Some titles show detail, some have the infamous little white dots over certain parts and other have the more graphic "bits" covered in what I like to call snow. Is this a restriction required for the US market or is this how it is published in Japan? If I were to publish my own yaoi graphic novel in the US, would I be limited by what I can show? Is there information somewhere that would point me in the right direction as to what is ok to draw/include and what is not?

Thank you, Oliver — that's good information. So it seems like the Adult Previews stuff can get through — it just take a lot longer. Good to know.

And you could do worse than sticking with June, but you'd still be missing some nice titles, like the actually mature Seduce Me After the Show by Est Em…

Thanks again for checking that out!