YAOI NEWS: Handley Sentencing Postponed

If you remember correctly from my many prior posts regarding this case, Christopher Handley is the man in Iowa convicted of possessing manga drawings of children being sexually abused. How does this pertain to us and yaoi? The manga were shipped from Japan and although it appears the content was of young girls, this same issue could be applied to any yaoi featuring young characters so it's a big deal for us. Anyway, he plead guilty and we have been anxiously awaiting his sentencing since he's facing some potentially heavy jail time. Unfortunately (or fortunately perhaps), his sentencing has been postponed for now while the defense and prosecution do some further discussion about an agreed upon sentence. There is much more detail over at ANN where I heard about the sentence postponement.

4 Comments

Cait January 25, 2010 at 2:42 PM

Oh, my God. Why won’t this just end? I feel like I’m developing my own little Chris Handley ulcer sitting here waiting for this thing to be over with…

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Jennifer LeBlanc AKA Asami's Girl Reply:
January 25th, 2010 at 2:45 PM
I know! I mean, I want him to get a good deal so I’m willing to deal with it but it’s still hard to wait. (“I’m willing to deal with it” HA! Like I’m somehow involved. I’m so silly.) XD

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Vito January 25, 2010 at 7:15 PM

In my opinion, while pedophilia (male or female) is deplorable and disgusting, I feel as though pictures where there is no actual victim isn’t exactly something deserving a jail time. Quite frankly, there are worse crimes going on and many cold cases that need solving. I’d rather the courts deal with the murder of so-and-so rather than some creepy dude with manga drawings of kids.
As far as yaoi is concerned, at the moment the audience for shota is fairly small compared to loli. At most, America might never allow the licensing of shota, and even then most yaoi fans get their material through the internet.

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Jennifer LeBlanc AKA Asami's Girl Reply:
January 25th, 2010 at 8:28 PM
I think the big concern is that it doesn’t have to be shota to be a problem. It’s all based on how young they perceive the character to be and we all know yaoi characters tend to look really young. As far as fans getting their stuff on the internet, child porn offenders are found through those means as well. Plus, I know a lot of fans who buy stuff direct from Japan (myself included). I’m always worried when I have a shipment coming.

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