The Edges Of Child Pornography: What Should Be Legal, What Shouldn't?

[The Atheist]

And on and on we go. Isn't this fun?

Sling, I know this is a horrible subject for you. Just let it go. While the Darth Rotors, The Atheists, the Gurdurs, the Varwoches and the DrBuzzos (and all the others on this side of the fence) are still drawing breath, the chances of a law, or attitudinal change, playing into the hands of paedophiles is just NOT going to happen.

In fact, I fancy that between Darth and myself and his baseball bat, we could take care of half a dozen with consumate ease.

As I said to Kevin earlier, if he's serious about changing the law, he can go start up a petition. Same goes for anyone else who wants those laws changed - go tell people face to face and see what kind of reception you get. It's easy to put these brave statements about lack of harm on a discussion forum. Betcha none of them ever try it out in the real world.

As Gurdur pointed out earlier, even the worst crims still hate paedophiles and they are marked men in prisons in every country. They have nowhere to run, nowhere to hide and no friends.

 

[Gurdur]

It is clear that an anecdote, no matter how tragic it may be, or how little reason there could be to doubt it, cannot be a substitute for evidence.

You are talking absolute dishonest garbage here. The point made was we know many children have been harmed. You were given firsthand testimony as to that, and that is evidence, whether you like it or not. Suck it up.

I am not denying that children have been harmed,

You just did above. Get honest.

And if we should find that there are something that aren't as bad as we thought, then personally I think that is a good thing, because it means there is less harm done in the world than we previously thought.

Once again, you are willfully evading the point of the actual harm done. Since we have much testimony from firsthand accounts, tested in lawcourts too, we know many children have been harmed.

I refer you back to the points you so willfully evaded before. Do let me know what you cannot understand. And I'll add again just how amused I am when pedos go to prison.

• children are automatically by virtue of relative power at risk of exploitation by adults
• we know for very certain that pedophiliac acts have harmed many
• there is no need to tolerate pedophiliac acts
• so whether some acts are non-harmful is irrelevant; the fact that enough acts are harmful and that it is automatically from very different positions of relative power -- i.e., exploitation -- is enough to ban the entire area.
• so the bloody point, yet again, is that there is no need whatsoever to indulge pedophiliacs, nor is there any need to tolerate pedophilia -- anywhere.

 

[Gurdur]

It's a large, smelly, mangy dog chasing its own filth-encrusted tail.
.....And on and on we go. Isn't this fun?

Slingblade,
On the board I run myself (for nontheists), I simply made it a cast-iron rule that advocation of pedophilia or kiddie porn is an instant banning offence, and I apply that rule very damn hard. I see no reason why we should tolerate the pedos trying to parasitically ride piggyback on the skeptic or atheist movements.

On a personal note, all respect to your courage, and I wish you all the very best.

 

[dann]

Ifound this, via Wiki:

" (...) I want to hold a little girl in my arms, and tell her I love her, and that I'll keep her safe, and protect her, that appeals to me greatly."

Wow! Is anybody else reminded of J.D. Salinger's Holden Caulfield in The Catcher in the Rye?

I would advise you to go easy on the baseball bat, however:

In fact, I fancy that between Darth and myself and his baseball bat, we could take care of half a dozen with consumate ease.

In Denmark a man was recently killed because two psychopaths persuaded themselves that he was probably a paedophile. If I recall correctly, the motive of protecting the daughter of one of the men was part of it. In reality he was guilty of nothing more than being a bit of a loner.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

It's a large, smelly, mangy dog chasing its own filth-encrusted tail.

I see the argument you described as more of a large straw man you would like to burn at the stake.

May I put some words into your mouth? You put an awful lot in to mine so I feel free to return the favour.

A: "What's the evidence child pornography causes harm?".

B: "It must cause harm! Underage sex is bad!".

A: "Actual evidence indicates that sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't, depending on the cirumstances. But let's get back to the original issue, fictional depictions of underage sex".

B: (fingers in ears) "Underage sex is badbadbad always! This one person had underage sex and it was terrible for them!".

A: "These eight hundred people filled out surveys and they had underage sex and sometimes it was bad and sometimes it was not, depending on the cirumstances. But let's get back to the original issue, fictional depictions of underage sex".

B: (fingers in ears) "We know underage sex is bad because we have all sorts of purely theoretical arguments! People under X, where X is the local age of consent, cannot consent, and are at risk of exploitation, and they don't need to have sex, and they're emotionally unready for it, and they might catch STDs!"

A: "If that were actually the case surely it would be terribly easy to find evidence of this harm in epidemiological studies? Although we're still a long way off the point, which was regulating fictional depictions of underage sex".

B: "Evidence? How dare you ask us for evidence? Firstly our position is self-evidently true as demonstrated by our purely theoretical arguments. Secondly we have anecdotes, which are better than large surveys. Thirdly we are parroting current cultural values, which exempts us from ever needing evidence. We have the right to clog the thread with vile accusations and fantasies of extreme violence as much as we like, and we need never even look for actual evidence".

A: "So you're never going to discuss the actual evidence you have been presented with?".

B: (fingers in ears again) "You're a bad person!"

A: "Are you going to address the awkward issue that the definition of underage varies from eleven to nineteen depending on location and situation, and that you have no evidence any one age is better than any other? Thus activities you violently condemn in some jurisdictions are held harmless in other jurisdictions?"

B: (fingers in ears) "You never post any rational arguments and you ignore all of my rational arguments. That's why this thread is not going anywhere."

A: "So you're going to ignore the original issue, fictional depictions of underage sex?".

B: "Of course we are. How are we supposed to work ourselves into fits of self-righteous rage about that stuff?".

 

[Gurdur]

"Of course we are. How are we supposed to work ourselves into fits of self-righteous rage about that stuff?".

You seem to be quite expert at generating self-righteous rage yourself.

Too bloody bad the pedos won't get indulged. Too bloody bad pedophilia or kiddie porn won't be legalized. Too bloody bad so many realise you don't need to advocate legalizing either to be a true skeptic. Suck it up, live with it.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

You seem to be quite expert at generating self-righteous rage yourself.

Too bloody bad the pedos won't get indulged. Too bloody bad pedophilia or kiddie porn won't be legalized. Too bloody bad so many realise you don't need to advocate legalizing either to be a true skeptic. Suck it up, live with it.

Some posts make it all worthwhile. I couldn't have supported my own point better if Gurdur was my sock puppet.

 

[Skeptic]

So in other words: You and a 16 year old can have all kinds of sex, you can look at her (or his) naughty bits, and do all other kinds of things that I don't care to go into. But if you dare take out a polaroid camera...well then you're in trouble, because apparently "consent" applies to everything but photos/videos

I don't see why that's a problem. Take consensual sex between two 30-year-olds: it's perfectly legal, of course, and there is nothing wrong about it. But it might well not be legal to post photographs of the act in public places. It's the publicity of the act, not the act itself, act itself, which is the crime.

 

[Dave1001]

Do you have an opinion on what you think the law should be?

What I think the law should be?

Hmm. *ponders*

If you have sex with my under 16 year old child, and you are an adult, I get to have you to myself in a room, for 5 minutes with no interference -- oh, the me includes my favorite baseball bat.

You get to live if your body can withstand that counselling session.

That isn't what the law is, but what I think it should be.

DR

okay, how about the law regarding pseudo child pornography that depicts adult-child sex but doesn't involve any actual children in its production? Should it be legal to own? To distribute?

 

[Dave1001]

"I see. So what's the drawback? Why aren't you scouting out nubile young third-graders right now?"

"Well, because it's illegal."

"And why would that be?"

"Social taboos! Artificial social taboos!"

I don't think anyone in this thread claimed the reason they don't have sex with 3rd graders is because it's illegal.

 

[69dodge]

What I think the law should be?

Hmm. *ponders*

If you have sex with my under 16 year old child, and you are an adult, I get to have you to myself in a room, for 5 minutes with no interference -- oh, the me includes my favorite baseball bat.

You get to live if your body can withstand that counselling session.

That isn't what the law is, but what I think it should be.

I can easily imagine a kid being more traumatized by this reaction of yours than by what it's a reaction to. Presumably, if she likes a guy enough to have sex with him, she likes him at least enough to prefer that he not be severely beaten.

 

[Earthborn]

Do you think that cultural activity is ipso facto harmful to the kids? I don't think so (but I can be persuaded otherwise by experts who derive their position through empiricism). That's why I think that particular type activity isn't harmful to kids in and of itself, but rather it's likely harmful to kids that grow up in Western environments because it probably creates socialization problems.

I think this is where your argument goes off the rails. Not only attitudes towards sex differ from culture to culture, but also attitudes towards what constitutes as "harm". It could be true that some behaviours towards children have a predictable influence on them regardless of cultural background. But one culture considers that influence as harm, while the other does not. Not too long ago it was common in the Western world to consider beating children as good, while it is now more often considered to be harmful. The influence it has on children has not significantly changed, just the moral judgement on whether children should fear adults has.

Therefore, you cannot use the fact that something is accepted in another culture as evidence that it is not harmful. What we see as harm may not be considered as such in that culture. You also cannot use the fact that whether something is 'harmful' depends on cultural value judgements as evidence that there is no real reason to consider it harmful; it may very well be true that -- within our culture -- there are good reasons to consider it as such.

 

[Dave1001]

I think this is where your argument goes off the rails. Not only attitudes towards sex differ from culture to culture, but also attitudes towards what constitutes as "harm". It could be true that some behaviours towards children have a predictable influence on them regardless of cultural background. But one culture considers that influence as harm, while the other does not. Not too long ago it was common in the Western world to consider beating children as good, while it is now more often considered to be harmful. The influence it has on children has not significantly changed, just the moral judgement on whether children should fear adults has.

Therefore, you cannot use the fact that something is accepted in another culture as evidence that it is not harmful. What we see as harm may not be considered as such in that culture. You also cannot use the fact that whether something is 'harmful' depends on cultural value judgements as evidence that there is no real reason to consider it harmful; it may very well be true that -- within our culture -- there are good reasons to consider it as such.

I'm not sure where you stand on pushing for a global ban or not on the cultural practices outside of the US described in post #179 but you do make a great clarifying point here. Not only do cultural norms of adult-child sexual contact vary in parts of the world, but also cultural norms of what constitutes harm.

However, we as the West have to come up with some sort of model and standards for interaction with non-Western cultures operating outside of Western nations. For example, in 2006 many of us agree that it's not appropriate to try to convert the world to Christianity --yet, the urge to proselytize came from a similar place as the current urge to get non-western societies to conform to Western adult-child sexual norms.

I think a good starting point is non-proselytization against elements of other cultures that aren't even harmful by our own, Western objective standards. The type of adult-child sexual contact described in post #179 may empirically show to not be harmful to children if they grow up in their own culture where it's considered normal --not harmful even by the Western standard meaning no bad psychological, physical or other effects.

The tougher case is a cultural behavior that is harmful by the Western standard but not by the standard of its own culture. It's tough in part because the West itself is full of those type of behaviors ourself (personal automobiles, 14 year olds enrolled in tackle football)-and they don't just harm individual Westerners, some may be having impact on many non-Westerners (pollution, weapons-testing, over-fishing, over-logging, etc.). It's a thorny area, that probably won't yield to an easy answer that feels right to most of us, such as "leave non-Western cultures alone" or "make non-Western cultures respect the individual rights and liberties we consider to be universal".

 

[Roadtoad]

I see the argument you described as more of a large straw man you would like to burn at the stake.

May I put some words into your mouth? You put an awful lot in to mine so I feel free to return the favour.

A: "What's the evidence child pornography causes harm?".

B: "It must cause harm! Underage sex is bad!".

A: "Actual evidence indicates that sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't, depending on the cirumstances. But let's get back to the original issue, fictional depictions of underage sex".

B: (fingers in ears) "Underage sex is badbadbad always! This one person had underage sex and it was terrible for them!".

A: "These eight hundred people filled out surveys and they had underage sex and sometimes it was bad and sometimes it was not, depending on the cirumstances. But let's get back to the original issue, fictional depictions of underage sex".

B: (fingers in ears) "We know underage sex is bad because we have all sorts of purely theoretical arguments! People under X, where X is the local age of consent, cannot consent, and are at risk of exploitation, and they don't need to have sex, and they're emotionally unready for it, and they might catch STDs!"

A: "If that were actually the case surely it would be terribly easy to find evidence of this harm in epidemiological studies? Although we're still a long way off the point, which was regulating fictional depictions of underage sex".

B: "Evidence? How dare you ask us for evidence? Firstly our position is self-evidently true as demonstrated by our purely theoretical arguments. Secondly we have anecdotes, which are better than large surveys. Thirdly we are parroting current cultural values, which exempts us from ever needing evidence. We have the right to clog the thread with vile accusations and fantasies of extreme violence as much as we like, and we need never even look for actual evidence".

A: "So you're never going to discuss the actual evidence you have been presented with?".

B: (fingers in ears again) "You're a bad person!"

A: "Are you going to address the awkward issue that the definition of underage varies from eleven to nineteen depending on location and situation, and that you have no evidence any one age is better than any other? Thus activities you violently condemn in some jurisdictions are held harmless in other jurisdictions?"

B: (fingers in ears) "You never post any rational arguments and you ignore all of my rational arguments. That's why this thread is not going anywhere."

A: "So you're going to ignore the original issue, fictional depictions of underage sex?".

B: "Of course we are. How are we supposed to work ourselves into fits of self-righteous rage about that stuff?".

Unfair, Kevin. And you know it.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

Unfair, Kevin. And you know it.

You're probably right. I was grumpy, and I think justifiably so, but I shouldn't have taken it all out on Slingblade.

Sorry.

 

[Gurdur]

You're probably right. I was grumpy, and I think justifiably so, but I shouldn't have taken it all out on Slingblade.

Sorry.

Doesn't really make up for your dumping all over someone who has firsthand experience of being molested as a child, Kevin, does it? Your self-righteous little rage doesn't seem to care one little bit about the victims, and as said, your post was a massive strawman, as well as deeply nasty to boot.

And too bad for you; many people realise one does not need to advocate legalizing kiddie porn and pedophilia to be a true skeptic, the point you evaded before; so live with it.

 

[Dave1001]

You're probably right. I was grumpy, and I think justifiably so, but I shouldn't have taken it all out on Slingblade.

Sorry.

Doesn't really make up for your dumping all over someone who has firsthand experience of being molested as a child, Kevin, does it? Your self-righteous little rage doesn't seem to care one little bit about the victims, and as said, your post was a massive strawman, as well as deeply nasty to boot.

And too bad for you; many people realise one does not need to advocate legalizing kiddie porn and pedophilia to be a true skeptic, the point you evaded before; so live with it.

Now you're the one excercising bad form Gurdur, in my opinion. Kevin basically just did what was done to him (except more mildly), but still rightfully apologized when it was pointed out that that type thing, even when done tit-for-tat, doesn't add positively to the discussion. In contrast, Gurdur, I think you're using Kevin's contriteness on this particular point to try to smear his entire contribution to this thread, and I think it's an unfair and unhelpful move on your part.

 

[AWPrime]

Ok... So then you're saying that there is a "proper" way of initiating sexual contact with a child? What? "Sometimes people, when they like eachother, they think it feels good if they touch eachother in different ways..."
I suppose that's honest, right?

That is a bit more honest, but it needs to be even more honest. Then they will say 'ewww' or 'what?'. This shows that they lack the ability to understand the workings and desires behind the act.

Therefore they can't give consent. But that doesn't stop pedos from telling themselfs that the children actually want it.

 

[slingblade]

I see the argument you described as more of a large straw man you would like to burn at the stake.

And I care that you don't know a strawman fallacy from a hole in the ground...why, exactly?

May I put some words into your mouth? You put an awful lot in to mine so I feel free to return the favour.

I did? Really? It's funny that I don't see your name anywhere in my post, yet you eagerly run forward to claim the ideas as yours, and then blame me for ascribing them to you.

Interesting.

A: "So you're going to ignore the original issue, fictional depictions of underage sex?".

B: "Of course we are. How are we supposed to work ourselves into fits of self-righteous rage about that stuff?".

Kevin.

I happen to have written this editorial this semester:

Karen Fletcher, a 54-year-old woman from Donora, Penn., writes fiction. She might go to prison for it.

Fletcher's subject matter is, without question, unpleasant. She writes fictional accounts of the kidnapping, torture, sexual abuse and murder of children. She posted six of her stories to her now-closed website, where they could be read only after payment of a $10 monthly membership fee. Excerpts were free, and could be read by any visitor.

On Sept. 26, after an FBI investigation, a federal grand jury indicted Fletcher on six counts of obscenity, one for each story.

In announcing the indictment, U.S. Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan stated: "The law does not prohibit an individual from thinking or writing about their own thoughts within their own home. But when they go beyond that, and distribute that through interstate commerce, then they violate the law."

How absurd. To require objectionable or offensive speech or writing be kept private is not protection of that speech, but clear censorship. Is it speech if it is not expressed? Is it authorship if the writing is never read?

Equally absurd is Buchanan's assertion that such writing "emboldens sex offenders who would target children." Just when did personal responsibility for our choices become this passé, this easily excusable? If we're going to set foot on that slippery slope, we must then at last declare that video games actually do make teenagers steal cars, that rock music really does make people commit suicide, and that watching violent movies does indeed make people kill.

Buchanan's final claim is the most outrageous: "This case is a very important part of our efforts to prosecute people who exploit children."

This is wonderful rhetoric, and an undoubtedly necessary goal, but problematic in that no children were exploited in these works of fiction. "Lolita" author Nabokov may not be spinning in his grave, but surely the earth above it must be shaking just a bit from ironic laughter.

If fictional torture, abuse, and murder of children is forbidden, what of non-fiction? Once we censor the imagination, we likewise must forbid true accounts of the kidnapping, rape, torture and murder of children, because they, too, might "embolden" sex offenders. Indeed, who is to say an Ann Rule-style "true crime" novel might not titillate such people even more than fiction? Yes, we can say "nanny state," and it leaves a very bad taste in the mouth.

"Acceptable" speech and writing needs no First Amendment guarantee. It is already protected by our acceptance of it. Americans must protect the uniquely American right to say and to publish the unacceptable. To do any less makes purest fiction of our rights.

Depicting me as a child with my fingers in my ears was quite insulting of you, Kevin. I have decided I must put you on my ignore list. I know your heart is broken by that, but I am sure you will recover.

 

[slingblade]

I also appreciate those who are sympathetic, and encouraging me to protect myself. Thank you. I'm grateful for your concern.

But everytime anyone wonders if sex is harmful for children, I'll be there to tell them it most certainly is. I don't really care if my personal story is a fallacy, an anecdote, or whatever. I was silent for 40 years. I wonder how many children got hurt because I said nothing?