japonaliya, unfortunately we will never know what the grounds for calling the material "obscene" were, since the prosecution never had to make its case in court. :sigh: I've done a lot of digging on this case, and it seems like 1) Handley had lazy lawyers who were happy to help prosecutors convince him to take a plea bargain, 2) Handley was incredibly naive about the whole process, 3) prosecutors threatened with him serious jail time if he didn't take the plea bargain, 4) Handley's lawyers took the threat seriously, because, although appeals courts overturn almost all obscenity convictions, juries tend to convict anyway, so he would have been in prison until a higher court overturned his conviction. A very frustrating case indeed, and yet another reason plea bargains should be banned, as they are in most civilized countries.
As for the question of whether or not such dolls could serve as a release or as a catalyst for actual child molestation, this kind of question is unanswerable. Studies (and there have been many) of the effects of sexual and/or violent representations have invariably been inconclusive, because there is no way to prove cause and effect. It's the chicken and the egg problem. Did he r*** because he watched violent porn, or did he watch violent porn because he was a latent r**ist? :dunno:
shinta, thanks a lot for clearing that up. That was the big question for me. Any news about what eventually happened to this guy? The advice of ordering body and head separately is brilliant. (Then again, since I live in Japan, it doesn't really effect me.)
I will readily confess that I have spent hours over the past few years looking over sites that sell sex dolls (particularly
Orient Industry), pondering the possibilities. But I can't imagine ever actually buying one because, 1) the good ones are incredibly expensive--at least $3000, 2) I have nowhere secure to hide such a big thing, and 3) I would be terrified that my girlfriend would find it. But who knows? Maybe someday I'll be fabulously rich, have a big house in which to hide
bodies dolls, and have a girlfriend who thinks it would be great to have three or four life-sized sex dolls! :evillaugh:
But there is an alternative! Here in Japan there are actually
pseudo "brothels" where you can pay to have "quality time" with the "love doll" of your choice! You can also have one delivered to your door, and picked up the next day, but what could be more humiliating? On the one hand, I think it's hilarious. On the other hand, I find myself looking at their online "menus" quite intently. :secret:
uzzled:
