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My goal is to simply highlight the issues and allow people to form their own opinions.

Meet Sam King. He's a talent and model agent running a business that even has an entry in the Yellow Pages (no fixed phone or physical address given though...??)

Sam seems to specialise in younger models -- pre/early-teen girls in fact.

If the number of websites he operates is anything to go by, he's probably the pre-/early teen model king of New Zealand.

Of course the modeling business is a legitimate one. There's always a demand for young girls to appear in commercials, model clothing, and perform any number of other "assignments."

It would seem that Sam is providing a valuable service to the advertising and fashion industries.

But is he (perhaps inadvertantly) also addressing the needs of another market through the publication of sites such as Bianca Carmen Angel and Tiny Gina?

These websites offer a variety of pictures of 12 or 13-year old girls in "scanty" attire. Virtually all of them show exposed navels and lots of other skin.

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Hey, let's not be prudish, there's nothing wrong with pictures of young girls in bikinis or short tops and jeans is there? You only have to to the nearest shopping mall on a summer's day to see that much of the fashion being worn by such kids shows a fair bit of skin. It's pretty fair to assume therefore that no laws are being broken by posting similar pictures to the web.

But look carefully and you'll see that both these sites have a "members" area which is accessible only by the payment of a hefty $19.95 per month (it's not stated whether this is NZ$ or US$ and, since the billing is done through a US-based service, there's no way to tell until your credit card statement arrives). One of the sites is a dot-com and there's also no mention of GST for Kiwi subscribers so I assume it's US$19.95 which is NZ$40.

So what are subscribers going to get for their money and just who is going to pay NZ$40 a month to look at pictures of scantily-clad 12 or 13-year-old pubescent girls?

Well, according to the "join up" pages, those who part with their cash will get to see Bianca or Gina "in natural New Zealand surroundings doing things such as swimming, diving, shopping, visiting places with family and friends.".

The next paragraph on that page is hilarious -- it seems that the site's owner got confused and didn't know if he was talking about Gina or Bianca -- read it carefully.

So exactly what is the target audience for these websites?

Is it other 12 or 13-year-old girls who just want to vicariously share Gina and Bianca's exciting lives and can afford to spend $40 a month using mom or dad's credit card for the privilege?

Surely if the sites were attempting to attract an audience of peers then the price would be a whole lot less than that being charged?

Or, could it be that the *real* audience for these sites consists mainly of adult men with a fetish for scantily clad pre/early-teenaged girls?

Of course, as the "Legal Information" bit clearly states -- this is all within the letter of the law. There's no "objectionable material" as defined by the Films, Videos, and Publications Classifications Act, is there?

Well that depends on whether you consider the intended audience for these sites to be deviant adult males seeking sexual gratification from the images and virtual "pen-pal" relationship they get for their subscription. If this were the case then perhaps it would fall under category defined as "The exploitation of children, or young persons, or both, for sexual purposes".

Could it be that just as a screwdriver can be deemed a simple tool or an offensive weapon, depending on the context in which it's used, perhaps the intended audience and use of an image might affect the way in which it is classified?

While it's certainly not for me to pass verdict on that -- if the material were considered "objectionable" by the DIA then I am also in big trouble for linking to it (see yesterday's column to find out why.)

As mentioned at the top of this page, the man behind these sites appears to be is one Sam King who, if the advertisement on this page (use your browser's "find" command to locate the term "aardvarkdesign") is correct, is a 37 year-old Hamiltonian with a penchant for Russian girls.

Sam also runs another teen-model site over at ModelTeenVision.com.

This site offers a little more for your membership dollar, stating:

"some of our shoots will be fashion, some candid and some in 'nature'". The exact meaning of 'nature' is left open to interpretation.

Would-be members are further enticed to sign up by the promise that "we have two video productions that have been filmed already and planning others such as a Pyjama Party"

It then goes on to add: "We are keen to hear from members for suggestions for shoots".

So, Sam King certainly seems to be a busy guy who is well represented in the pre/early-teen modeling marketplace. He doesn't appear to be breaking any laws -- yet most of the people I've spoken with feel decidedly uncomfortable at the way in which some of his websites appear to present provocatively posed images of young girls to an adult audience for commercial purposes.

Given the fact that we know there are all manner of deviant individuals lurking out there on the Net, is it really a sensible idea to potentially fuel their obsessions with material like this? Would you want images of your daughter to become the possible object of sexual gratification for such people?

Are these girls being unreasonably exploited? That's not for me to say but there's certainly a hot discussion taking place on the matter in the nz.general newsgroup where opinion seems strongly divided.

What do you think?

Oh, and I guess I should be annoyed that, by presenting himself as a web-designer under the title "ardvarkdesign", he is clearly infringing my trademark -- the name Aardvark having been associated with my own professional Internet activities since 1995.

Note: If anyone from other media organisations want access to more research on this matter they are welcome to contact me.

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