Karen Fletcher has plead guilty to charges of obscenity stemming from her “fantasy site” Red Rose Stories. On this site, Karen published pornographic stories depicting sex and violence committed on young children. By pleading guilty to the charges brought by federal U.S. Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan, Fletcher sought to avoid a public trial.
What is especially interesting about this story is that this gives authorities the precedent to go after text-based pornography as opposed to the easier target of video and photographic pornography, which may troubling to some writers. And it doesn’t help that if Karen didn’t plead guilty the authorities would have a very difficult time convincing a jury that this site with fictional stories that only are available to paying members is a danger to the public at larger, regardless of how appalling the content is.
Established porn authors such as Peter Sotos and Dennis Cooper had better watch their backs.
Link. Additional commentary from AVN. (via Reverse Cowgirl)