Just in case you haven't heard about the Christopher Handley Case here are some links. [link]
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This is disturbing. Disturbing because a man may go to jail for a very long time because he had something that was deemed 'obscene'. I don't care whether it was a case they looked like the characters were underage or that they actually were, they are merely drawings on a piece of paper. All of this, though, has got me thinking about freedom of speech and the meaning of art.

Here on Deviantart, they don't do much to protect the freedom of speech, which has constantly disappointed me. The freedom of speech isn't something bestowed upon a person, it isn't something that's given to someone. It's something that every person has already, all that can be done with it is have it protected or infringed upon and more and more it's the latter. I know it's not very popular to defend things that seem immoral or perverse but hear me out first.

Now, deviantart has some very odd rules in terms of things you can submit and not. Masturbation? Erections? really? Why can't I draw an artistic interpretation of masturbation anyway? Why is an erect penis more horrible than a limp one? Does it imply sexually? What is so wrong about sexuality? How do you consider one thing art and another thing pornography? In short, in my hubmle and honest opinion? You don't, and you can't. This goes to the very nature of art itself.

The Miller test, which is used to determine whether or not something is obscene, bothers me to no end. I'm deeply disturbed by the idea of 'obscene' 'morally questionable' material. Art is supposed to be offensive, it's supposed to not cater comfortably to everyone because everyone, pornography is art. Pornography represent ideas that regular art could never articulate(I won't get into that now but maybe later) Child pornography isn't illegal because it's 'offensive' it's illegal because REAL people are getting hurt and exploited and it's unfortunate that stuff still happens. In a drawing though, to quote Neil Gaiman, "the only things hurt were ideas."

Art is truly a field of "One mans trash is another man's treasure. It's why obscenity is such a funny classification. Who's to say what's obscene except the individual? And if you don't like it look away. There are simply too many things in this lifetime that we all find offensive, I have many things I think the world would be better off without, but I'm really just deluding myself with scapegoats. Art is putting thought on to paper and when you make art illegal, you make thought illegal. I'm very disappointed in the fact that many people only see the bad and don't see the fact that the bad sometimes protects the good. If you want to defend the better parts of speech you must also defend the worst parts of speech because in the end decent and obscence can become interchangable in eyes of someone else and you might be on the wrong end of the law when that time comes.

I know not many of the people who watch me comment but if you care at all about this please let me know what you think? I'd love to hear from you and discuss this. I'd rather not just talk to the wind.

I know this is a bit rambling but I'd like to direct you to Neil Gaimans Journal where he discusses this probably far better than me.
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