It appears that the Latin legal term for this reasoning is malum prohibitum. It does violate the principle of "where there is no victim, there is no crime" (wh

It appears that the Latin legal term for this reasoning is malum prohibitum. It does violate the principle of "where there is no victim, there is no crime" (which seems to derive from malum in se). Perhaps modern reasoning might be that becoming desensitized and attracted to such imagery would lead to the same in the realm of real action. "'Public welfare offenses' are a subset of malum prohibitum offenses as they are typically regulatory in nature and often 'result in no direct or immediate injury to person or property but merely create the danger or probability of it which the law seeks to minimize.' "...Examples of offenses that are generally regarded as mala prohibita include disorderly conduct, gambling, possession of a controlled substance, prostitution, public intoxication, resisting arrest, speeding, and vagrancy." https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malum_prohibitum https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malum_prohibitum