I think your point and mine passed one another like ships in the night. It's not a matter of our varying ideas of expression vs societal expectation, the defining feature of "barely legal" content is that it's legal. That puts people in a really interesting position where it's illegal to follow the law in a way that the people who wrote the law didn't intend and don't care for. For me, it's hard to tell the difference between that and just making the law up on the fly, and that's what I wanted to illustrate. One can imagine the "pieces of flair" scene from the movie Office Space in this context.

"She's eighteen."

"The law says she has to be eighteen."

"It says she has to be at least eighteen. We'd be more comfortable if she was twenty one. Or if you'd at least stop mentioning that she's eighteen."

"But...the law says she has to be eighteen."

"Do you really want to just the bare minimum? Look at Jim over there, he exclusively makes GILF content."

camera pans to Jim, chatting with a lovely older lady

"So she has to be eighteen?"

"Yes, but you have to tell people she's at least twenty one."