Her novel is disturbing in the extreme, but it would certainly qualify as protected speech under the First Amendment in the U.S.
Her novel is disturbing in the extreme, but it would certainly qualify as protected speech under the First Amendment in the U.S.
L auren Tesolin-Mastrosa, an Australian author writing under the pen name “Tori Woods,” was arrested and charged with producing, possessing, and disseminating child-sexual-abuse material in her new erotica novel titled Daddy’s Little Toy, which is now unavailable on Goodreads and Amazon; police obtained copies of the book for “forensic examination.” The suspiciously juvenile book cover has the title spelled out in pastel-colored children’s building blocks, and the blurb describes the story as following romance between a “barely legal” woman and an older man. Some individuals who received advanced copies left reviews alleging that the lead male character experiences sexual attraction to the female character when she is just a toddler, and there are also graphic descriptions of a minor’s genitalia. To amp up the creepiness, the author dedicated the book to her own young children.
I haven’t read the book, nor do I want to, but I am comfortable asserting that Tesolin-Mastrosa should not be in jail, and her book would certainly qualify as protected speech under the First Amendment if this matter were being adjudicated in the United States rather than Australia. Although I do have a long list of moral objections to the book’s theme, I am a free-speech fundamentalist, and I think it is incredibly difficult to concoct a legal standard that criminalizes Daddy’s Little Toy without applying to a wide range of perfectly acceptable books. If the objection is to descriptions of a minor’s genitalia, then the government also has to censor Anne Frank’s diary, along with every book that provides guidance about puberty, like the New York Times bestseller titled The Care & Keeping of You: The Body Book for Younger Girls by American Girl.
It’s also nonsensical to argue that authors should face legal consequences if their work satisfies depraved desires, given that basically everything is eligible to become an object of desire and there’s a pretty large population of pretty weird people. (Have you heard about “autoplushophilia,” the sexual arousal resulting from imagining oneself as a plush toy?) Even if a policy specifically targeted books that satiate pedophiles, then any young-adult fiction book with teenage romance would risk criminalization.
But a detailed defense of expansive free-speech rights doesn’t provide a satisfactory answer to the following questions: Why was this book published, and why would any stores sell it? The reality is that publishing houses discriminate among the works submitted for consideration, leading to some rejections; even if a book is self-published, businesses (in-store or online) similarly judge which products to sell. Publishers and stores make decisions about books based in part on what they think people will actually buy, so perhaps the justification for Daddy’s Little Toy is that its perverse contents are consistent with everything else in the erotica genre. Consider a handful of titles similar to Tesolin-Mastrosa’s book, all of which can be found on Goodreads, where Daddy’s Little Toy has been removed: 1) Straight Daddy’s Little Toy — Explicit Filthy Family Gay Erotic Sexy Short Stories: MMM Threesome, Male on Male, Age Gap Older Men, Straight to Gay, Forbidden Dark Fantasy, by Daniel Scott; 2) Erotica: Daddy’s Little Toy — 5 Daddy Daughter Sex Stories Collection, by Sapna Patel; and 3) Adopted: Kim, The Family F*** Toy Episode One — Daddy’s Little Slut, by Brit Ducane. Even if none of these books are up for sale now, the Goodreads websites show that there are people who want to read them.
The uncomfortable truth is that Tesolin-Mastrosa’s book isn’t exactly unique in the genre. One can skim the erotica “bestsellers” lists without flipping through any book pages to realize that the morally corrupt genre welcomes degeneracy. Common themes include “gang bangs,” physical abuse, incest, and bestiality — so it isn’t clear why a story about a “barely legal” woman is categorically worse than the available erotica books.
Maybe critics would respond that the problem with Daddy’s Little Toy is that the female character has underdeveloped mental abilities as a consequence of her age and therefore lacks capacity to consent — but if that’s the argument, then all the erotica books with rape would have to be yanked from the shelves. And yes, a description of a minor’s genitalia (especially in the context of romantic attraction) is reprehensible, but so are all the sensual books with slavery themes. There isn’t a strong case for legally targeting Tesolin-Mastrosa in particular. Ultimately, if Tesolin-Mastrosa can go to jail for fictional descriptions of sexual abuse of children, then why can’t other authors go to jail for fictional stories about incest or rape? Those are all forms of illegal sexual conduct, but there isn’t a strong theoretical argument as to why one should be uniquely penalized when represented in books.
I am pleased to see outrage in response to Daddy’s Little Toy, since it proves that we condemn pedophilia as morally objectionable, even when it is fictional. But social punishment and legal punishment for speech are two different domains, and the former shouldn’t necessarily entail the latter. Putting a government restriction on speech is like putting on skis at the top of a slippery slope. Why can’t an author go to jail for a book about any illegal conduct? Should the authors of murder mysteries be arrested? Tesolin-Mastrosa has a dark mind, but I’m more afraid of the legal regimes that throw authors in jail.