ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an outline of the laws criminalising fictional child pornography, which is followed by an overview of the yaoi phenomenon and the relevance of these laws to fans. The law in Australia and the United States dealing with sexually explicit images of children has been expanded to include fictional representations of persons who 'appear to be a child'. While the court in Sharpe ultimately upheld the Canadian laws prohibiting fictional child pornography, an exception was made for self-created fantasy material that is kept exclusively for private use. Analysis of the case law in Western countries and media reports highlights that there have been several individuals prosecuted for fictional child pornography in the form of comics. Accordingly, many mainstream yaoi works tend to depict characters who appear in late adolescence or older. As the age of sexual consent in Australia and the United States, such images may be depicting lawful sexual activity and therefore may not offend community standards.
