Metafilter discussion: Can your own private written journal be considered obscene? A guy in Ohio is given 10 years in prison for writing [
fictitious tales of sexually abusing and torturing children
] in a 14-page journal.
Your thoughts are still your thoughts, even if you write them down--only when you give them to someone else does communication (or pandering
) occur. The guy did sound like trouble, considering he was already on probation at the time, but convicting anyone of pandering
when there's no publication involved sets an uneasy precedent.
