Pornography

:This article is about pornography, material created with the purpose of sexual arousal. For alternate uses, see pornography (disambiguation).

Legal status

The legal status of pornography varies widely. Most countries allow at least some form of pornography and softcore pornography is usually tame enough to be sold in general stores and (in some countries) to be shown on TV. Hardcore pornography, on the other hand, is usually regulated. Child pornography is illegal almost everywhere and most countries have restrictions on pornography involving violence or animals.

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Some people, including pornography producer Larry Flynt and the famous writer Salman Rushdie, have argued that pornography is vital to freedom and that a free and civilized society should be judged by its willingness to accept pornography.

Related Topics:
Larry Flynt - Salman Rushdie

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Most countries attempt to restrict minors' access to hardcore materials, so that it is only available in adult bookstores, via mail-order, in some countries over special satellite TV channels, and sometimes in gas stations. There may be an age limit for entrance, or the materials are displayed partly covered, and/or customers can not browse the materials. More generally, disseminating pornography to a minor is often illegal. Many of these efforts have been rendered moot by the wide availability of Internet pornography.

Related Topics:
Adult bookstore - Disseminating pornography to a minor - Internet pornography

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There are recurring urban legends of snuff movies, in which murders are filmed for pornographic purposes. Extensive work by law enforcement officials to ascertain the truth of these rumors have been unable to find any such works.

Related Topics:
Urban legend - Snuff movie - Murder

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• Australia: Regulation of pornography has increased somewhat under the Howard government, but remains reasonably widely available. See censorship in Australia. Pornographic material may be bought and hired in Northern Territory and ACT, and may not contain fetish, violence or demeaning portrayals.
• Austria: It is not allowed to display youth-imperiling material or those which violate human dignity to persons under 18 years of age. As salesman selling such material you have to assure that persons under 18 years of age are excluded. Nudity is not assumed as such material.
• Canada: The only kind of pornography on the Internet that is illegal is child pornography. Laws for older media are different/obsolete, and vary from province to province, although they do not allow minors (age varies for province, usually 18 or older) to acquire pornographic material, and has resulting in most material being sold in adult stores, despite no actual law controlling the distribution.
• Denmark: In 1966 the ban on written pornography was lifted, and in 1969 Denmark was the first country in the world to legalise (hardcore) picture pornography.
• France: Movies containing extreme violence or graphical pornography are considered X-rated, may not be seen by minors and are shown only in specific theaters. Pornographic services incur special taxes on revenue (33% for X-rated movies, 50% for pornographic online services). Whether or not some movies should be X-rated is controversial; for instance, in 2000, the explicitly violent and sexual movie Baise-moi was initially not considered X-rated (only "restricted") by the French government, but this classification was overturned by the Conseil d'État ruling on a lawsuit brought by associations supporting Christian and family values.
• Germany: Illegal for anyone under 18 to pose in porn and to watch porn. Magazines like Playboy can be bought with the age of 16. Child pornography is forbidden. By law is a child a person up to the age of 14. Hardcore pornos can only be sold in special stores and the seller has to make sure that the customer is 18 or older.
• Greece: Light pornographic magazines, calendars, and decks of cards are sold openly at roadside kiosks and tourist shops. Extreme or graphic pornography is generally restricted to adults or X-rated.
• Hong Kong: Illegal if sold or shown to children under 18 of age.
• Ireland: Pornography was illegal until the mid-1990s.
• Japan: Until the mid-1990s no genitals could be shown, but there is no taboo regarding sex and violence and also much less general concern about portraying teenagers as sexual beings (this applies to both out-and-out pornography and works dealing with other themes). Until recently, Japanese law prohibited the depiction of pubic hair in depictions of any forms of nudity, whether it be pornographic or not. For example, Japanese editions of men's magazines such as Playboy had to have any photographs with visible signs of pubic hair airbrushed out. This prohibition may explain some visual characteristics of many manga or anime where pubic hair is absent from nude pictures. Anime and pornographic photography are available for all people of all ages to buy reside in Game Magazines and other Japanese media.
• Malaysia: It is illegal in this country. However, these materials are being passed around and sold on the black market (pornographic video)
• Netherlands: The Netherlands has the most liberal rules governing pornography. It is sold openly at normal newsstands and material involving animals is legal.
• Norway: Hard pornography is currently illegal De jure but legal in practice; it is illegal to sell hard pornography but one is allowed to buy it on the Internet or take it abroad. Additionally, it is illegal to show hard pornography on cable TV while satellite TV remains a grey area and graphically demonstrates the legal ambivalence Norway shows towards hard pornography. When it is shown, digital text is used to obscure the screen, but this is easily circumvented by turning off the "Subtitle" function on the channel.
• Russia: Illegal production and distribution of pornography is explicitly prohibited, but because State Duma has repeatedly failed to pass a law regulating sexual materials, these issues remain in a grey area. De jure all pornography is allowed (including child porn), but de facto there are some limitations on where it can be sold and zoophilia and child porn are de facto prohibited. Openly sold erotic magazines usually do not display nipples and pubic area on covers. Most of the pornography is filmed in Saint-Petersburg where a law defines pornography as materials including rape, bestiality, necrophilia or child pornography, making all other subject matters legal erotica.
• Singapore: Pornography is illegal; even soft-core publications such as Playboy are banned.
• Sweden: Material involving animals is de-facto legal but subject to animal-welfare laws. Porn movies can be viewed beginning at age 18, there are no age limits for magazines.
• Switzerland: Pornography is legal, subject to exceptions: Making it available to people younger than 16 or to non-consenting audiences is punishable by a fine or up to three years in jail. The same penalty is applicable for the possession, sale, import, etc. of pornography involving sexual acts with children, animals, excretions or violent acts. There is an exception for pornography with cultural or scientific merits. See Article 197 of the Penal Code.
• United Kingdom: Hardcore pornography was illegal until 1999, when trade-barrier difficulties with regards to European Community membership ensured the relatively free movement of such goods for personal importation only. Legally, R18-rated videos are only available in licensed sex shops, but hardcore pornographic magazines are available in newsagents in some places. Purely textual pornography has not been prosecuted since the Inside Linda Lovelace trial of 1976. The Home Office plans to introduce legislation to ban violent pornography.
• United States: Hardcore pornography is legal at the Federal level unless it meets the Miller test of obscenity, which it almost never does. Local prosecution of and tolerance for pornography vary from state to state and city to city. Certain types of material/acts have been self-regulated out of mainstream porn so as to avoid legal problems. Pornographic materials may not be made available to persons under 18 years of age, or 21 in some jurisdictions. Some attempts at restricting pornography on the Internet have been struck down by the courts; see: Internet pornography.

The potential ability to create realistic images using computer graphics or digital manipulation led to some debates on its legality. For instance, the Supreme Court of the United States struck down in 2002 the Child Pornography Prevention Act of 1996 that prohibited, among other things, simulated child pornography. The court ruled that it violated the First Amendment to ban material depicting fictional illegal conduct when no such conduct had been involved in production. However, in the UK, the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 reached entirely the opposite conclusion, that if an image creates a convincing enough impression that it sexually depicts a child, it becomes an indecent pseudo-photograph of a child and is equally prosecutable under the law as an actual photograph.

Related Topics:
Computer graphics - Supreme Court of the United States - 2002 - Child Pornography Prevention Act of 1996 - First Amendment - Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 - Indecent pseudo-photograph of a child

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The Internet has also caused problems with the enforcement of age limits regarding performers. In most countries, women and men under the age of 18 are not allowed to appear in porn films, but in several European countries the age limit is 16, and in the UK it is legal for women as young as 16 to appear topless in mainstream newspapers and magazines. This material often ends up on the Internet and viewed by people in countries where this constitutes child pornography, creating challenges for lawmakers wishing to restrict access to such material.

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