It seems like a lot of people think obscenity equates to child porn an Loli, but that is false. Obscenity is restricting a lot of creative expression outside of Japan such as many of the best Hentai categories.
Good old obscenity, forcing one group's morals on everyone else.
Sorry this might be a little long, I do have a few specific questions I would really like from the community, but first I want to explain why I am asking. I first got into Hentai maybe 20 years ago when I saw the good stuff, like tentacles, nonconsensual, submissive teachers, private investigators, etc. And just about 6 months ago I wanted to learn how to create my own similar doujinshis, but after getting into it and learning the art for a while I slowly discovered the possible legality issues that US artists have to worry about that Japanese artists don't. A lot of people think Japanese porn is more censored than other countries because of the visible mosaics. However, as an artist I would much rather have to use mosaics than deal with all the content restrictions that we have in the west. I really want to draw the same type of content as Japanese artists, but am scared to do so because of the grey area in obscenity laws.
Fun fact: US rate of rape crimes is 27.3 per 100,00 people, while Japan's is 1 per 100,000 people. Yet the main argument of people that want to ban Hentai is that it promote rape culture. This is while all the Japanese are free to make all the good Hentai worry free. It could be argued that these stats prove the hentai actually lowers real-world instances of rape.
US artists are pretty much free to simulate any type of crime imaginable in their art except sex related crimes. Murder: OK, Hostage situations: OK, Robbery OK, sex: OH NO I'm OFFENDED! We already have laws protecting real-world instances of these simulated acts in art, so why do we need to limit our expression when there is statistical evidence that this type of art prevents real crimes?
This is my State's super vague definition of obscene material: "The word "obscene" where it appears in this article shall mean that which, considered as a whole, has as its dominant theme or purpose an appeal to the prurient interest in sex, that is, a shameful or morbid interest in nudity, sexual conduct, sexual excitement, excretory functions or products thereof or sadomasochistic abuse, and which goes substantially beyond customary limits of candor in description or representation of such matters and which, taken as a whole, does not have serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value."
As for Loli. I don't like it, but I don't think it should be banned. You can see I like full developed women with big jubblies on my gallery. The only law I really agree with is the distribution of art with real child actors, which I don't think many people can disagree with.
This leads me to my questions:
1) Am I being too paranoid? Am I misunderstanding US laws, and I really am allowed to create and distribute hentai related to submission, rape, tentacles, etc?
2) If I am correct and distributing this type of material could get me in trouble do you have any good suggestions of content I could create that would keep my interest? Creating entire manga and doujinshis is a huge task, and I could never possibly complete one if I am not passionate about the content.
3) Has there been any movement in repealing obscenity all together since obscenity has no scientific backing, and it is just stacked on top of other 'good' laws that protect real people.
4) Why do we even have laws based on one group's morals?