The 1978 film Felicity was promoted by its makers as a movie that "follows the exploits of a sheltered teen as she sheds her inhibitions and surrenders her blossoming body to a world of bold sexual adventure".
The 90-minute film avoided an X rating on its release and was rated R 18+ because censors believed it contained "scenes of intercourse, implied fellatio, lesbian activity and dialogue" discreet enough for restricted viewing.
Sound like a movie that was slightly pornographic then, and now certainly fulfills the criteria for child porn as laid out in the Copine scale and Dost test.
WTV [television] board member John Rapsey said the approval for release in 1978 was evidence the film did not contain material considered child pornography. TV station in ‘child porn’ row
This, of course, is a big mistake. Movies, newspaper, magazines that were main stream in the 70’s nowadays are child porn. In Germany, video stores routinely got raided for having ldft over soft core or hard core videos that formerly were legal. Most people are unaware that the child porn hysteria is relatively new.
In 1978, Britain’s newspapers had nude girls on page 3, Holland legally distributed hard core porn with 16 and even 15 year old girls, Germany’s reputable "Der Spiegel" put a 14 year old nude on their cover, and all over Germany, nudist magazines showed nude boys and girls of any age frolicking at beaches. The only reason that Video store owners don’t get arrested DVD’s of "The blue Lagoon" and "Taxi driver" is that this would cause a scandal and would expose the ridiculousness of the CP (child pornography) witch hunt. These mainstream movie films have underage actors depicting underage characters engaging in sexual activites. Pure child porography.
So I am pretty sure that the complainant was right:
The next day, a viewer complained to the station that the film breached parts of the industry code of practice pertaining to "detailed genital nudity in a sexual context, or depiction of sexual acts".
After receiving a response from the station the complainant took the matter to the Australian Communications and Media Authority.
"This movie was pornographic in content and possibly displayed children under age 18 involved in sexual acts," he said in that complaint. In a second complaint to the ACMA he said Felicity "…is by any definition and review, pornographic and depicts a child which is most likely under age 18 in sexual acts and is therefore depicting child pornography". TV station in ‘child porn’ row
The simple fact that an academy award winning film gets confiscated and embroiled in child pornography law suits world-wide shows that the hysteria can make many victims. UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS TENTH CIRCUIT Even if the motion was struck down in most countries, the harrassment effect is troublesome.
In 1979, Volker Schlondorf’s The Tin Drum was co-winner of the Cannes Film Festival’s Palme d’Or for best picture. The next year it picked up the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film. It has since attained classic status around the world, except in Oklahoma City. For now, anyone there who so much as possesses a videotape of the film–never mind watching it–risks spending 20 years in jail. A district court judge there last June declared the film to be child pornography.
The Tin Drum Meets the Tin Badge How a classic 1979 film suddenly turned into child porn | Reason.com
There are two main problems here:
1) Too many people equate nudity with sex – they are not the same thing at all.
2) Too many people assume children to be the objects of adult sexual desire.
These are relatively recent paranoias as you have said. The article refers to “The Blue Lagoon” as containing “under-age actors engaging in sexual activities”. I have watched this film and can only recall one scene in which the child actors ‘skinny dip’. Since when has skinny-dipping been a sexual activity? Nudity does not equal sex!
Most adults, if not brainwashed into thinking otherwise, view children as innocent and charming (when they are behaving themselves!), they do not view them as ‘sexual objects’. A very very tiny minority suffer from this affliction and we call them paedophiles. I sometimes wonder if the current assumption that all adults harbour sexual desires for children, that they will be unable to control if they see a naked child, isn’t actually convincing some otherwise normal adults into feeling this way!
Certainly the present level of paranoia is preventing sensible judgements of what is child pornography and what is an innocent photo of your kids having fun in the bath.
The innocent photo of the child on the beach becomes child porn, by definition, when in a collected by a guy who seems to have undue interest in little kids in these photos, if the collection seems to be motivated not by general naturism interests but prurient interests.
So child porn depends on the context. Regular department store linguerie catalogues become child porn this way. See my post on Copine Scale.
Of course, if the guy actually knows the kid and could stalk the kid, then this is creepy and I see there could be a problem.
Now if he lives on another continent and that picture collection helps him to get his rocks off and to keep his hands off real kids, then that collection is probably a good thing.
Maybe child porn should be illegal if he lives less then 1000 miles away from the child?
I really appreciate true concerns for children’s safety. But whatever does not serve the child’s safety should not unduly restrict freedom.
If the photo is 20 years old and the now grown up adult is no more in danger, that could be another criterion.