Author of pedophile book arrested.

In My Humble Opinion
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ETA:
[aside] Drat, while I was writing my post the thread is being dragged away into another debate with Diogenes on the morality of underage sex. Jesus on a rollerskate, really, people… IMO from various earlier threads and he can correct me (elsewhere, please) if I’m wrong, his position is one of absolute condemnation and hatred of even the notion of pedophilia, as heinous per se, and he will NOT concede to the contrary EVER. Nor does he really have to. Can we move on?
[/aside]

I could “actually depict” any entirely imaginary event (see: every novel ever written) so that just reverts to the comparisons with crime fiction.

The difference in these cases is more of a legal juggling act: As it stands there are two rules of law extant per US Supreme Court rulings: (1) Obscenity is not protected speech. (2) *** if there is NO real child *** involved, it isn’t under what the law strictly defines as “Child Porn”, and no you can’t broaden it to include anything you dislike.

So instead what’s done currently is to seek to apply the test for obscenity – community standards, patently offensive, appeal to prurience, cultural/artistic value, etc. etc. – to references to or depictions of minors. Obscenity is independent from actual representation, BUT one of the pitfalls in this application is that to a large part of the population, the very idea of any reference to minors makes it obscene a priori in their minds.

As a practical matter for the last 30 years or so the de-facto situation has been that material consisting of mere text, however twisted, has not been targeted for either CP or obscenity prosecution anyway. To a large degree this was a backlash to a historic record of legitimate literature being declared “obscene” just because the Establishment found it disturbing (Joyce, Lawrence, etc.). The authorities have been focused on representational materials (which in the case of CP photos and video is much, much more urgent to intervene).

(Heck, there is even debate on whether porn cartoons should be considered under these obscenity-depicting-minors statutes. You draw an image of Wonder Woman getting it on with Batman, you’re merely a copyright infringer; draw Lisa Simpson and Milhous getting it on, do you deserve 10 years in the clink and a lifetime in the Offender Registry? They are both merely pencil lines. But that’s not really the point with this guy)

Like I said, to me it seems the interesting part is whether the claims the authorities are making are really about obscenity vs. incitation to commit a crime, and I believe Crazyhorse has a point in that they may seek to show that the descriptions in the book would appeal to the prurient interest of a pedophile, who even if he would be sane enough to not even dream of taking it as marching orders, he still would take it as wank fodder.

And of course if the jury is not sure if someone who ever experiences a pedophilic ideation should allowed to live in the first place…

Probably. But then again, we are going into policing motivations. You could argue that the latter book, by encouraging something that a large fraction of the population seems to support, has a higher possibility of leading someone to take improper action (specially if they get it WRONG who is the pedophile).

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Something Awful wrote a piece on a pedo message board in one of the Weekend Web segments. Be warned – it ain’t pretty.

But it seems to prove what I’ve been saying – that pedophiles don’t think the way you and I do. Many of them are severely deluded and are absolutely convinced that their feelings are 100% fine. It’s only society that’s messed up, and that children are traumatized because society tells them they should be. (Again, shades of Cesario)

Sage Rat, while it’s true that most child molestors were molested as childen, the vast majority of children who are molested don’t become molestors. And it’s not because “it feels good.” :rolleyes:
And it shouldn’t matter if it does – rape victims sometimes have orgasms – does that make it okay? Yes, sometimes molestation does feel good, physically. That doesn’t mean a person isn’t fucked up by it.

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I agree with everything you said here. If I spend four paragraphs talking about theoretical – but unlikely – possibilities and statistically irrelevant anomalies doesn’t mean that I believe those to be anything but theoretical, but unlikely, possibilities and statistically irrelevant anomalies.

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Nerves are nerves. Some rape victims will become aroused or even orgasm. A girl I know once confided in me about being molested by her step-father when she was a young child. It was only kissing and fondling and she found it physically pleasant.

Later when she understood sexuality more and the fact that as a girl she was expected to be “pure” and the sexual gatekeeper (very religious mother) shame and disgust kicked in. She said she still struggles with the guilt over it, specifically because she had found it physically pleasant. It makes her feel as though she doesn’t have a right to call herself a victim, because at the time she had enjoyed it.

She was eight when she was molested. It does people like her no good to say that molestation is wrong because it’s unpleasant. For some it is, but not all. It’s also wrong because of the power difference between an adult and a child, because children are trained to listen to adults, and because children cannot consent as an adult can.

From what I understand, child molesters often “groom” children and seduce them into it. It’s rape, but it doesn’t fit the mental image of violent assault most people have. By assuming that if it felt good it was okay, or that all child molestation is physically violent, it only increases the shame of those who were molested in more subtle ways.

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Bingo. The molesting of children by pedophiles is OFTEN pleasant on a physical basis - OFTEN. That’s a huge part of the shame that the children feel: “I liked it, it felt good, I’m bad.”

It’s extremely important that this be acknowledged and talked about, precisely because of the misplaced shame issue. It’s especially difficult for boys, because, being boys, it’s even more frequently the case that they experience pleasure and even orgasm and since it is usually from stimulation by a male pedophile, that just quadruples the shame “It felt good I must be gay!”

I was molested when I was 9 years old, multiple times, by a local barber. It was pretty mild, I wouldn’t let him go below my waist, but I liked it when he stroked my back and my little flat chest, it felt very good. And I felt ashamed about it. And I was NINE - I had nothing to be ashamed of. He did.

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Exactly - and I sincerely hope this was talked through with you by your parents/care providers. As you say, what had you done wrong? Nothing.

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I don’t think freedom of speech is defined anywhere as meaning that you can literally write whatever you like, without restriction.

A lot of countries draw a line at writing a book that describes how to commit crimes, and urges its readers to do so (I’m not sure if this book does the latter).

In America, because of the whole first amendment thing, the law is somewhat confused IMO. Because, ostensibly, all speech is constitutionally protected, the only exceptions are where it’s glaringly obvious that there needs to be, rather than clear lines of principle.

When it comes to writing about crimes, my understanding is that urging readers to commit a crime at some specific time is punishable. But saying “Commit a crime…do it when you like”, is FA-protected.
Seems an odd place to draw the line.

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HAS this book been acknowledged to do such, though?

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That would have to be determined upon trial, if the prosecution pursues that angle and can gather enough admissible evidence to take it that far.

That is probably also why the authorities went for the distributing-obscene-materials charge and not for the incitement-to-crime charge. The latter requires examining whether the text actually encourages the actions and endangers public safety, while the former, realistically, can count on a large part of the Polk County jury pool already predisposed to find that if it even mentions sex with kids, it must be obscene per se and nevermind the Jury Instructions about evidence, that’s just sick.

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Glad we’re on the same page with that.

Well, Christina Ricci resembled a 12yo boy in Monster, and I’m sure plenty of men out there would’ve loved to “come inside with a high hard one,” if’n y’know what I mean. And yeah, perhaps for some that was part of their attraction…but consentual sex with any adult is perfectly legal, so who gives a fuck?

I wouldn’t always call it rape, unless you mean rape of the spirit and mind. Young child brains think in black & white terms, and any sort of sexually-based connection (even if it seems like pure love) is waaaayy too early for them. And furthermore…wait a minute…umm…

…did I just agree with Diogenes the Cynic THREE TIMES IN A ROW??? Holy shit, that’s a new one! :eek: