So we’ve been talking about creating a softcore site where we don’t show nudity or sexual acts. However I can’t find anything about what they actually consider pornographic and what needs age verification.
My question is, would blurred out or images censured in some way count as pornographic or would it be enough to not require age verification?
If you find out, you can let us all know 
thats what i feared…
These days, it is so hard to say. Two fully clothed men kissing could be considered pornographic by some, but is it really? You do see the images all the time on TV even during the family hour. The men are not naked and there is no contact other than kissing. Hmmm. It isn’t to me, but then I am a Finn. What is normal here would never fly in conservative places like Utah or Louisiana.
On my mainstream porn softcore site, nudity is okay but no touching and certainly no penetration of any kind. I do have a friend that does SFW softcore, and he doesn’t allow nudity of any kind, ie no racier than then old-school pinup pics. The more conservative the better, and the better odds you will have of being able to pass through. Is it intriguing enough to garner clicks?
I think softcore can sell just as well as hardcore, if done right.
But my issue is more what counts as pornographic. For example in our case it’s screenshots of tours of different sites on our reviews. We could just blur out parts of images and “make it safe” as it’s a lot easier than trying to find non-pornographic or non-nude tours. Very few if any sites have softcore non explicit tours that we can use for screenshots. In fact so far when we have asked lots of different sites most say they haven’t even thought about it or do not currently have plans to create any.
Belamionline.com Tour we have one ready for use as we are testing the age verification already. will be in NATs soon too if you want to use it.
thanks, will check it out
In the very few law definitions I saw on the matter, pornographic is very vaguely defined by “If most people in normal circumstances would consider the content sexual, lewd or pornographic, it is pornographic”.
And that is the part that makes it so hard - “most people in normal circumstances”. That can be very different in say, San Franciso than Los Angeles or points in between. It varies so widely from jurisdiction to jurisdiction that it is almost impossible to legislate. My old rule was, “Can you show this picture/video to your mom/dad/grandmother/boss without blushing?” If so, it is softcore and should be save in most places.
(My cringe-worthy accident. I was flipping channels last week and came across one of those Naked Suomi episodes. I know the UK has them too, and I think Sweden does. Finland has a couple different ones. This one had a semi-naked couple laying in bed together. You would NEVER EVER see this in the US outside of a cable channel. Definitely not pornographic. A couple of years back one of the personalities here did a 6 part “documentary” on porn sites. Yes, it was broadcast during the family hour. It was actually quite nicely done, too.)
I’ve been thinking about this for quite a while now. I would want my sites completely softcore. But I need to link to other sites (which are mostly pornographic) and that would probably kill my efforts. If I can’t link to pornographic sites, I can’t earn money (or at least not enough). I would also have to constantly watch my links if something has changed to the worse. At this time I can see only one solution, and that would be that all (most) porn sites offer a softcore tour. I don’t see that happen any time soon.
It shouldn’t be a problem to link to site, the only thing you have to worry about is your own site being softcore. The destination of your links is then up to them to verify age, not you.
I don’t think it’s that easy. If I link to a site which content is illegal (pornographic without age verification in this case), and I know about it (which is easy to prove), as website owner I could be held liable when I set a link to that site. At least that’s how I understand the comments and explanations I find on law sites. I think in that context it’s called to espouse or adopt something.
That’s new to me and I think that’s different than the age verification issues.
I don’t think it works that way. As long as you are not pulling anything in the way of a feed from the site, it would be the destination site that would be responsible. Also remember, there seems always to be this ‘threshhold’ % where these rules kick in. as long as you are majority G rated, I think you would be OK
I don’t think it works that way. As long as you are not pulling anything in the way of a feed from the site, it would be the destination site that would be responsible.
Just to add weight to BelAmi’s comment here, after reading extensively everything I can find on the matter, I have to concur 100% with what BelAmi is saying, whether our interpretation is correct though is another matter 