Torimoto

This is their legal statement from late 1999 or early 2000:

LEGAL STATEMENT, PLEASE READ!

It is up to you to determine if these kinds of images are legal in your own area. We can assure you that it is legal under U. S. federal laws and under California laws. As far as we know there are no State laws against this kind of material. But maybe your county or town has a law against it. Images such as the ones displayed can be purchased at large bookstores all over the USA and Japan. Photo Artists such as David Hamilton and Jock Sturges have made careers photographing nude adolescent females. At one point Jock Sturges was raided by the FBI. He won in court because material such as this is constitutionally protected. We are totally against "child pornography" and this ain't it. There are very specific guidelines called the Dost Factors, they come from a 1986 case: U.S. vs. Dost, and were later affirmed by the Ninth Circuit U.S.Court of Appeals. The Dost factors are used to help determine if an image contains the "lacivious exhibition of the genitals or pubic area" as referred to in United States Code Title 18 Part 1 Chapter 110 Section 2256, and which would make an image "child pornography".We pay careful attention to these factors when selecting images for our site. For a further discussion of the current state of the law in this area see Newsweek magazine, March 10, 1998, p.58. It is our position that all of the models in this web site posed willing and are currently OK with the fact that their images are publicly displayed. Not all cultures are as uptight as we USA Americans are about the nude human body. If we ever received credible information that any image in this web site was produced under questionable conditions which disrespected the model, we would remove it.