The folloiwng is from JFrankA. Very valid points.
Some pertinent extracts:
Adults engaged in cyber child porn are pleased to learn that many other like-minded adults exist, and they
often utilize this reality to rationalize their own behaviors—which tend to escalate in aggressive acts – to hurtcore –
over time. (Morgan, 2006)
Seems sensible to suppose that they will probably also take comfort in the knowledge that child abuse (manifest in virtual child porn) is endorsed by society generally!
That is a HUGE leap. It simply says something that all humans do: find groups of like minded people to bond with and convince themselves it’s okay. This has nothing to do with virtual child porn: this is human nature. You can say the same about Furries, Democrats, Republicans, Yankee Fans and Motorcycle enthusiasts, etc, etc.
Look: Adults engaged in cyber bank robbery are pleased to learn that many other like-minded adults exist, and they
often utilize this reality to rationalize their own behaviors—which tend to escalate in aggressive acts – to hurtcore – over time
You’ve proven nothing.
The Criminal Code now defines “child porn” as “a photographic, film, video, or other visual representation, whether or not it was made by electronic or mechanical means…that shows a person who is or is
depicted as being under the age of 18 years and is engaged in or is depicted as engaged in explicit sexual behavior…or the dominant characteristic of which is the depiction, for a sexual purpose, of a sexual organ or the anal region under the age of 18 years…or any written material or visual representation that advocates or counsels sexual activity with a person under the age of 18 years…”(Department of Justice Canada, 2002). [emphasis added]
That’s the law. You’ve been arguing, “That’s the law” this whole time. That’s fine we say yes we agree it’s the law, but some of us happen to not completely agree with it because it’s too broadly worded. Also, the bolded part: “advocates or counsels sexual activity” is very important. Once again, it doesn’t cover this point: What if someone made a piece of art in which a virtual child who was being molested but obviously NOT to “advocates or counsels sexual activity”, but to invoke anger in the molester, or sorrow and empathy for the child, for example. With that kind of picture, it cannot be child porn according to the law above. Further, in the case of Maplethorpe, for example, if one person sees child porn and another does not, who is right?
Of interest, during that election, public outcry to toughen the Criminal Code was related to the criminal case of Michael Brier, a pedophile murderer of 10-year-old Holly Jones. The accused admitted that his fantasy about having sex with minors was increased by his engaging in Internet child porn (CBC News, 2006a,b) [emphasis added].
So? Doesn’t say “virtual”. It says “Internet”. I’ve seen Internet real porn with real actors and actresses. Not virtual, but still Internet. This has nothing to do with the subject at hand.
As noted earlier, in the United States, child pornography is a category of speech not protected by the First Amendment. The federal legal definition of child pornography can be found at 18 U.S.C. § 2256. Some particulars around the definition have changed in recent years, with the latest change occurring on April 30, 2003, when President George W. Bush signed the PROTECT Act.
B.H. Schell et al. / Aggression and Violent Behavior 12 (2007) 45–63 53
The latter not only implemented the Amber Alert communication system – which allows for nationwide alerts when children go missing or are kidnapped –
but redefined child pornography to include not only images of real children
engaging in sexually explicit conduct but also computer-generated depictions indistinguishable from real children engaging in such acts. Indistinguishable was further defined as that which an ordinary person viewing the image would
conclude is a real child engaging in sexually explicit acts. However, cartoons, drawings, paintings, and sculptures depicting minors or adults engaging in sexually explicit acts, as well as depictions of actual adults that look like minors engaging in sexually explicit acts, are excluded from the definition of child pornography.
The PROTECT Act of 2000 was passed because of three major problems that still existed, despite legislation (U.S. Department of Justice, 2003). These were as follows:
• Law enforcement did not have the tools needed to locate missing children and to prosecute offenders.
• Existing federal laws did not ensure adequate, and at times, consistent punishment for those found guilty of such crimes.
• Past legal obstacles have made prosecuting child pornography cases very difficult—especially virtually-produced child pornography. For example, in the April 16, 2002 high court decision, virtual child pornography that appeared
to involve – but did not actually include – identifiable juveniles was entitled to free speech protection. To avoid conviction, defendants frequently raised the theoretical possibility that rapidly-advancing computer imaging
technology was involved in the production of the materials, not real children. (Frieden, 2002) [emphasis added]
Ah, I am so glad you included this.
It says nothing about virtual child porn telling people it’s okay to do, it says nothing about virtual child porn causing real children to be molested, it says nothing of anything you’ve been claiming about all this time. What does it really say? It says that the ONLY reason virtual child porn has been banned was because a fear of a future "theoretical possibility" that virtual models will be indistinguishable from real models. That's it.
In short, none of your points you’ve been pontificating about have been validated in any of the quotes you’ve posted.
So, does online child porn legislation appear to be working? In a report released on April 20, 2005, on children as victims of violent crime, the office of Statistics Canada said that charges related to child pornography increased eightfold over the period from 1998 through 2003. The increase in charges laid by law enforcement agents in Canada has been the result of several factors—including increased public awareness about the potential of the Internet to cause harm to children, police having increased and proper resources to conduct the investigations, improved laws having “the teeth” to charge cyber pornographers, and improvements in technology for catching the cyber criminals in their acts. [emphasis added]
Again, IT DOES NOT SAY ANYTHING ABOUT VIRTUAL CHILD PORN. Internet does NOT equal virtual.
