rivkat: Rivka as Wonder Woman (Default)
rivkat ([personal profile] rivkat) wrote2007-08-05 09:15 am
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Not done yet, apparently

Thoughts inspired by [livejournal.com profile] cryptoxin's post, among others: No doubt where you stand on Recent LJ Events depends in part on where you sit. Here's where I sit: I don't consider myself a member of HP fandom, but my primary fandom for the last few years has been Smallville.

Here are some pictures of people the narrative told us were 15:

That's the poster advertising the show, plastered everywhere in public in mid-2001. Then there's the episode "Nicodemus":



So we're supposed to desire them -- bluntly, we're supposed to fantasize about fucking them -- but we're not supposted to say that. And we're not supposed to share our fantasies, because that would be sick. Contradictory and hypocritical are words you could use about mainstream depictions of adolescent sexuality -- which is not to accuse anyone in this debate, but to point out that the American social context is, at best, confusing. And to say that I'm basically with [livejournal.com profile] coffeeandink; one of the things I want from fandom as a community of women is the ability to say, "hey, that emperor [or in this case, kid] isn't wearing any clothes!"

NYU law professor Amy Adler wrote a very interesting piece, The Perverse Law of Child Pornography, available here, arguing that our cultural and legal discourses about child porn contribute to the further sexualization of children. I recommend it to those interested in the theoretical side of all this.

[identity profile] vashti.livejournal.com 2007-08-07 01:17 pm (UTC)(link)
The minimum age for "glamour" models in the UK used to be 16. Gutter tabloid The Sun featured Samantha Fox (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samantha_Fox) modelling naked at that age, 20 years ago.

Nowadays, of course, those pictures are illegal and the Sun campaigns for the burning at the stake of anyone who might have copies of them. Not in those terms, of course.

[identity profile] rivkat.livejournal.com 2007-08-07 01:32 pm (UTC)(link)
That's fascinating -- some of the same things have happened over here, with Brooke Shields (that desert island movie; "nothing comes between me and my Calvins").