At the risk of turning this into a hypertechnical discussion of the overbreadth and vagueness doctrines developed by the Supreme Court, I think that this law is a good thing, and should remain in effect. For decades, the courts, Supremes included, were concerned mostly with the direct harm of child pornography on the children who are abused to make the films/magazines.
In this case, however, we are dealing more with the issue of the effect of pornography (or, by extrapolation any type of media) on the consumer. I believe that when some pedophiliac dolt makes a completely computer generated film of himself having sex with a 13 year old “girl,” that should be illegal. There is no direct victim in that case, but the creation and distribution of these materials does have a societal cost. I believe that having this kind of material legal, will lead to more “real” child pornography. I would also go the extra step and say that having these kinds of materials legal, will lead to more molestations, more “active” pedophiles, and an increase in the sexualization of younger and younger children.
I have been hard pressed to find anyone to say that, yes, virtual child pornography is a good thing, so I figured I’d throw this out to the “civil libertarians” and/or “pornographers” out there and see what is up.
I think this case has the potential to make a very interesting statement about the media in general.
The movies *TaxiDriver, Pretty Baby, Lolita, Something about Emily {?} * all contained varied levels of implied, simulated, suggested etc. underage sex.
While TaxiDriver & Lolita were both fictional stories, Pretty Baby and the other one (it was a made for TV staring Ted Danson) were both at least about real life events - child prostitution and molestation. Should film makers be prohibited from making movies where such topics are dealt with? I’d say no.
WHile to me there may be a clear dividing line between Pretty Baby and young hot pre teens, others may disagree.
No, no–no civil libertarians are allowed to answer. Only “civil libertarians” are allowed to answer. Or should I say, only “civil libertarians” are allowed to “answer.” :rolleyes:
Ohhhhh. Yeah, thanks stoid. Well, thats that I guess. Mods please close this thread.
pldennision:
Replace “adult-entertainment producer” for pornographer. There is a reason for the quotation marks around those words in my OP. The point wasn’t to mock pornographers, or to slight civil libertarians, I was merely referring back to the original news report, as well as other news stories I had read regarding who was suing.
For those who are actually interested in a debate:
I think wring brings out an interesting point. What, if any, is the differences between “13 year old Lolitas in Heat,” and Lolita? Should virtual child pornography be considered per se obscenity? The Supreme Courts rulings in obscenity cases imprecisely boils down to: We know it when we see it. Should this be the standard we adopt for virtual child pornography?
In an open society like the United States, should ALL forms of speech be allowed? How much speech and of what kinds should be regulated, if any? Beastiality? Any form of obscenity? All open to DEBATE, and I’d be interested in people’s responsees.
P.S. The irony of Stoid’s post here and his starting of a thread called “Debating Debating” is not lost on me.
Despite the fact that you think little of the response by andros it is in fact quite valid. Pick any word and put it in for child pornography, and it is just as valid an example of the absurdity for your argument.
Violent movies have been shown in some studies to encourage violent behavior, should we ban all violent movies? Britney Spears is underage and flaunts her sexuality, should she be barred from performing? Should catholic school girl outfits for adult women be barred because they induce thoughts in men that could be construed as pedophile in nature?
Your idea that things such as this treads on thoughtcrime, and your question:
The law as it currently reads makes it illegal to show or suggest underage people having sex. A strict reading of the law would make owning this version of Romeo and Juliet illegal since an underage Olivia Hussey is seen to be topless at one point.
From what I understand, the SC wants ‘real’ child pornography to stay illegal (no arguments here, I suppose) and they want law enforcement to exercise judgment when it comes to things like computer generated art and videos like Romeo and Juliet. Unfortunatly, I can see some DA cracking down on child pornography to make a name for themself and not exercising any sort of judgement.
IMO, there are five kinds of speech the government has the right to restrict or prohibit:
libel/slander
live child porn
speech intended to encourage harmful activity or that has serious and unacceptable potential to cause harm (inciting a riot, etc.)
unauthorized distribution of classified data
false advertising
Anything else is none of their business.
As for virtual child porn, I’d be more inclined to agree with Hamlet if there existed objective evidence in favor of his argument about its “social cost”. Until then, it is my firm belief that such material, however repugnant, should be legal.
Doesn’t anyone find it intriguing that Justice Clarence Thomas had nothing to add to this discussion about pornography? Even when Scalia asked for examples?
There are two related bases for prohibition of live child pornography.
The first is that the harm caused by kiddie porn is not harm caused by the “speech”. It is the action - clicking that photo of the naked kid, or the kid having sex, harms the child.
The second is that images of kiddie porn create a demand for more kiddie porn - that is, demand for more of the action that harms children.
The first rationale obviously does not apply to computer-generated kiddie porn. The question is, does the second?
In law, the answer is probably “yes”. Unless it were somehow demonstrated that computer-generated kiddie porn would replace live kiddie porn (in which case it would probably be a social good), the same rationale applies.
Now, does images of kiddie porn create more demand for kiddie porn? This has long been accepted by the courts, and I suspect, but do not know, that there is a psychological basis for this. (In this regard, andros, your murder analogy may not be apt. Certainly there are sociopathic/psychopathic individuals who may be influenced towards murder by film, but paedophiles are the target market for kiddie porn. So, perhaps .05% of the population of film watchers may be influenced by an on-screen murder to commit murder, but a much higher percentage of the kiddie porn audience may be influenced to watch more kiddie porn.)
So, the question is, what will be the effect of computer-generated kiddie-porn?
With respect, I think ANDROS’s post is a bit of a red herring (though unintentionally so) and takes us down a tangent.
The fact is that the Court has decided that the U.S. government has a compelling state interest in protecting children from sexual exploitation. Apparently, we as a society do not have the same hang-ups about violence that we do about sex, which I doubt anyone is surprised by. But if we put “protecting children from pornography” in one basket and “free speech” in the other, the scales have almost always tipped to the “protecting children” side. But if we put “protecting children from violence” in one basket and “free speech” in the other, then the scales tend to tip to the “free speech” side. The two are therefore not analogous, and one cannot simply be substituted for the other.
So if you want to complain that child pornography should not be treated differently than violence – well, that’s a whole 'nother debate, IMO. Personally, I think it’s entirely appropriate that child pornography be subject to harsher scrutiny than violence, if only because we are only talking about exposing children to violent imagery (in the vast majority of cases), while child pornography involves exploiting children to make porn.
Which in turn merely begs the question: If the rationale for banning child porn is not the exposure of children to it, but rather the exploitation of children in it, then doesn’t that rationale disappear if you are dealing with simulated, as opposed to real, children? Sort of a “no children were hurt in the making of this movie” excuse?
IMO, the answer to this should be “no.” I think the compelling state interest in banning child porn extends to combatting the dissemination of materials that appear to feature children, because the underlying prediliction remains the same – the desire to exploit children or see them exploited. Furthermore, I don’t think any of the courts disagree with this, from what I gathered in an admittedly cursory review of the cases. Rather, the problem seems to be that phrases such as “appears to be” a child cast too wide a net.
I think the law should be rewritten using more explicit language, because I think it arguably is vague or overbroad as written. But I see no reason why that problem could not be corrected. I have no problem with the underlying purpose of the law, nor with its infringement on the right to free speech, which I think is justifiable. Kiddie porn is not violence. It is in a category all its own. I have no problem with it being treated differently, and more severely; indeed, it seems to me it ought to be.
So what if I wrote a short text story about two underaged cousins having sex with each other? It sounds like the law would make such an act illegal – which, IMO, makes it really screwed up… :eek:
(And am I the only one bothered by Scalia’s apparent dismissal of Stevens’ suggestion of Romeo and Juliet in the article linked by the OP? Sounds like someone hasn’t been reading their Shakespeare.)
Including the examples Robodude pointed out? Including live child pornography? If your point is that there can be no limit on any kind of speech, we could go into another debate on the preceeding examples. However, the Supreme Court has held, rightly so, that speech can be limited by the government. It is just how much and how far.
When conducting the hearings regarding this bill, Congress made particular findings regarding the effect of child pornography. They found that child pornography is widely used by child molesters to seduce their victims and to desensitize the victims from their reluctance to have sex with an adult. They also found that molesters use child pornography to desensitize themselves to their own actions of molesting children. In addition, they found that frequent use of child pornography led to the progression of molesting children. Congress also found that virtual child pornography increases the market for “real” child pornography. These findings were based on testimony they had heard and read. To be fair, the ACLU’s response was that these findings were based on faulty information. It all depends what you consider objective.
I heard he was too busy looking at Coke cans.
I tend to agree with Jodi and Sua, that the effects of child pornography go beyond whether any children are harmed in the making of the movie. I also agree with Jodi, that the statute may be thrown out for vagueness and overbreadth.
As to rjungs and adam yax examples, I think there is already a place for those examples. The Supreme Court dealt with “live” child pornography in Ferber v. New York, and upheld a statute that prohibited non-obscene, child pornography. (As an aside, I think the standard in obscenity cases can and will be used to prosecute many instances of child pornography should the statute be struck down.) Although the statute in question in Ferber could be construed as overbroad, the Court held that the statute was constitutional. The statute may be applied in an overreaching standard, but these should be decided on a case by case basis. The Supreme Court opined that clinical depictions of adolescent sexual activity, depictions that have serious literary, artisitic, scientific or medical value, or use of these materials in an appropriate settings may not be subject to the statute. Many cases involving pornography have had to been decided by a jury on a case by case basis.
Personally, I’m a little uneased about the idea of a completely fictional work being illegal. There was another mention in some other thread of someone being charged and convicted of writing a fictional story of child pornography. The above example replacing violence in movies for child pornography seems incredibly dead-on, including the congress’s assesment of virtual child porn (Supposedly encouraging and increasing real child porn, much like many say violent TV/video games/movies/etc encourage and increase real violence). As repulsive as it may be to many, I can’t see a reason to outlaw -fictional- works like that. It seems like “we must protect the children!!!” obstructing common sense…
Live child pornagraphy is not free speech, this is a red herring. Live child pornagraphy hurts a child, it is rape. It’s not the recording of child porn that makes it illegal, but the act committed in the tape no less.
Just because I support unbridled freedom of speech doens’t mean I think somebody can shoot five people on tape and go unpunished.
I thought this was where your debate lied. If you have already come to the conclusion that the government can and should limit speech, then your OP can’t be debated. If we agree to assume as fact the government has the right to ban things with a “societal cost” then of course kiddie porn has to be the first thing to go. The only reason why this example should not be banned is because there should be complete freedom of speech.
Simply put I don’t agree with that assumption, although I will accept that the Supremes disagree with me.
That being said, let us assume a video of this type is banned. Isn’t it a good thing that somebody could put it out on the internet, thereby IDENTIFYING HIMSELF? Now the cops can follow him, catch him before he commits an act of pedophilia, and put him in jail. Parents can properly have their children stay away from him. Because it is banned, we won’t know where the next one is located.
Now for the examples given by Robodude
The key element here is that the speech is a lie. I suppose this means that I am not for completely unbridled freedom of speech, but the fact is that if I made shit up about you you should have a method for defending yourself. As Phoenix Dragon pointed out, the work in the example was fictional, that’s a key difference.
A child is being hurt here, as I said before I don’t view this as a speech issue.
This is a little vague, I assume he is saying things like yelling fire in a movie theatre. However I find laws like “inciting a riot” to be the type that are easily abused. This is probably another debate, so I won’t clarify here unless needed, when I can more thouroughly think through my position.
Again, I see no way to remove this entirely, however in the past it has been possible for governments to hide abuses through national security reasons.
Again the lie is the key portion here. In my opinion none of this relates to the issue at hand, which is a fictional work of child pornography. Now I have to get to work, since I am an hour late
If the recording of child pornography is not illegal, then why is it illegal to possess it? Only part of the problem deals with the children that were harmed in the manufacture of the pornography. If you were in possesion of child pornography that was made in 1900, it would still be illegal even though that the children harmed in its production are most likely long since dead.
