A writer whose stories include graphic depictions of the sexual abuse and murder of children is being charged with violating obscenity statutes, even though she only posted text and not pictures to her website.
Federal obscenity case singles out Internet writer
PITTSBURGH – Sometime early next year, Karen Fletcher, a 56-year-old recluse living on disability payments, will go on trial in federal court here on obscenity charges for writings distributed on the Internet to about two dozen subscribers.In an era when pornography has exploded on the Web almost beyond measure, Fletcher is one of only a handful of people to have been singled out for prosecution on obscenity charges by the Bush administration. She faces six felony counts for operating a Web site called Red Rose, which featured detailed fictional accounts of the molesting, torture and sometimes gruesome murders of children under the age of 10, mostly girls.
How Fletcher came to be selected for federal prosecution among the countless pornography purveyors is a vivid illustration of the fractured and uncertain state of the enforcement of obscenity law in the nation.
Most prosecutors are generally reluctant to bring obscenity cases, regarding them as both difficult and a diversion of resources better spent on other crimes. Moreover, the explosion of Internet pornography from sources around the world has convinced many law enforcement officials that it’s all but impossible to have a significant impact on the issue.
[snip]
What has attracted the attention of First Amendment scholars and lawyers is that Red Rose – which Fletcher says is an effort to help her deal with her own pain from child sexual abuse – was composed entirely of text without any images.
Considering that child molesters are considered wholly, uncomplicatedly evil in this country, it makes sense to me they would appear as villains in lots of fiction. Are we now to start censoring how well - how realistic, how explicit, how detailed - writers show the minds and actions of their characters? Are we to ban any portrayal of child molesters as “main characters” or even - gasp - partially sympathetic characters? Should I revise my fictional villains to be, oh, I don’t know, fighting dog trainers or something?
Note that I am not one of the 29 people who visited Red Rose and saw Fletcher’s stories so I can’t say anything for sure about her work. Am merely speculating as a writer who understands the process of writing and storytelling — and who knows that Fletcher’s explanation that her stories are cathartic and helped her deal with her own childhood abuse is very likely true.
5 responses so far ↓
1 Nobilis // Sep 28, 2007 at 3:55 pm
Writing can definitely be cathartic. I think this is beyond question.
I have some other questions, however, some of which can’t really be answered.
Is it necessary that such writing be distributed to other people in order to be therapeutic? Would giving it to a therapist be as helpful as a stranger?
Is the concept of “obscenity” truly possible?
2 mystica_incognita58 // Sep 29, 2007 at 6:31 am
Thanks Regina for posting about this, I read the same article yesterday in the NY Times. Considered posting a thread about it on over in the Forum, btu wasn’t sure if it would be a good item for discussion, given it’s potential to start a firestorm or become disruptive.
Also noted in the same article, near the end, that these prosecutors have not targetted Lewis ‘Scooter’ Libby’s “The Apprentice”.
~~
http://www.nerve.com/dispatches/libby/dirtypolitician/
The book is about a young Japanese man who runs a remote mountain inn and becomes embroiled in a world of intrigue. “A world of intrigue,” in this case, involves:
* a scene of incest between two uncles and their niece;
* a hunter asking his companions if they should fuck a freshly killed deer while it’s still warm;
* the description of a prepubescent girl’s painted “mound” and pleasing lack of vaginal odor;
* a story about a girl who’s kept in a cage and raped by a bear to train her to become a prostitute.
Thanks, Scooter, for reminding us — once again — about the healthy sexual psychology that lurks within the political party of “family values,” abstinence-only education, restricted reproductive rights and opposition to same-sex marriage! Below, some selections penned by the vice president’s former right hand
~~~
3 Xylitol // Sep 29, 2007 at 6:37 am
I was kind of wondering when this would go about happening and how the legal scholars would attempt to reconcile taking action with general freedom of expression. In theory, it’s not vastly different from other things that are banned (either by legal precedence in obscenity cases or outright), some even not crimes to do in private (fisting, a lot of aspects of BDSM, age play involving only adults and so on), some completely fictional (realistic portraying of child assaults by SFX, drawing/painting, etc).
The law machine has generally shied away from text only, probably because it really boils the issue down to what it is - censoring fiction or semi-fiction. It’s hard to argue that combinations of a number of characters wouldn’t fall under freedom of the press. It’s not easy to argue that a drawn picture on a press isn’t, but it appears they went for it and succeeded at this point. Indeed those into it take advantage of this, much of the writing involving children around the place is clearly not “therapeutic” or “showing the mind of a villain” but simply unabashed erotica aimed toward pedophiles and/or rapists, no less so then “normal” erotica aimed at any other kink.
But then it becomes hard to define what constitutes that then, it is fiction after all. Even non-fiction descriptions by victims (in the A Child Called It style) could, potentially, be read by someone from the other direction so to speak. It very much crystallizes the issue - do we have freedom of speech or not? Is there truly no combination of letters I can push on this keyboard that would be illegal, so long as I made them up myself or is it a case of “well, yeah, of course but.. not.. those ones you just pushed”?
4 Nobilis // Sep 29, 2007 at 7:02 am
We know we don’t have absolutely complete freedom of speech. Other rights limit that freedom.
We’re not allowed to publish lies about people (libel and slander laws).
We’re not allowed to publish other folks’ work as if it were our own (copyright laws).
We’re not allowed to publish certain government secrets.
We’re not allowed to publish incitements to crime.
So no… we do not have complete, unfettered freedom of speech, or of the press. That right, like every other right we have, has limits.
The question of whether the right to publish sexual fiction should be limited is therefore an open one. Should there be any limits? If so, what should they cover? Can a line be drawn, such that depicting this kind of event is allowed and that kind is not?
Speaking as an erotica author myself, I find myself conflicted over these questions, but in this particular woman’s case I have suspicions. Again, I want to know whether she truly believed that writing this fiction and distributing it the way she did was in fact as therapeutic as she says, and whether she was in the care of any sort of professional when she did it. Personally, I think her actions were perhaps not so much a crime as a symptom of illness.
5 FS34000 // Oct 2, 2007 at 6:04 am
Gosh, I’ve read a lot of different writing - subjects and styles - and I must say that hearing this story only makes me ask one question: where can I go to find a copy of the stories? I mean are they *that* bad, are they *that* good (in the Baudelairien sense - http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Baudelaire ) the courts can thank themselves but I need to know right about now.
- It takes all kinds to make a world
J’ai plus de souvenirs que si j’avais mille ans. http://fleursdumal.org/poem/159