I never heard of it either. I am curious about the comment that child porn was easily available before the internet. I would have thought the opposite. I grew up in the 70’s and 80’s too and looked at any porn I could get my hands given the rare chance but certainly not child porn because that is not my thing. I know they made lots of stuff back then but even mainstream porn wasn’t that accessible outside of a few magazines. Playboy, Hustler, and Penthouse dominated most of it and they certainly didn’t have any child porn. How could that have been legal back then?
When Denmark legalized pornography in 1969 they neglected to make any specific restrictions, effectively made it legal to sell child pornography during the 70s. It wasn’t until 1980 that they made it illegal again. The Color Climax Corporation took advantage of this loophole and produced a considerable amount of commercial child porn that you could buy off the shelf during this time.
According to the one person I know who would have real insight into the scene (a police investigator) the thing that kept the culture going and expanding was model railway clubs. Seriously.
Ah, I see. I didn’t realize that others were talking about outside the US. I apologize for being do American-centric.
Thanks to everyone for answering my questions.
I think it was actually quite similar to the ways in which any trangressive people find each other. I overheard a couple of muslim lads getting to know each other’s attitudes to alcohol while we were all waiting for our take aways. It went something like “I had a sip of my mate’s uncle’s beer this one time” “Yeah? I drank a can at a wedding” “Oh yeah I’ve drunk beer at weddings too.” “This one time me and two friends holed up in the woods with a couple of six packs…” “I got really drunk a couple of weeks ago …” Yeah, they both liked their beer.
It occurred to me that this was just the same pattern as the pot smokers’ conversation which usually began “This one time in Amsterdam…” Anyhow I speculate that the paedophiles’ conversation begins something like “This one time I saw a picture …” If the other party doesn’t escalate then it stops there.
That makes a lot of sense. Prior to Friday night, it had been years since a gay man tried to pick up on me out in public but it was always something similar to that. I was in the market grabbing something in the frozen section and he complained to me that it’s a shame that they don’t make packaged food for single men and that everything was made for two people. I said something polite and walked away but had I been interested, the conversation could easily have led to making a meal together. This dude was totally old school wearing a purple velvet shirt and a hat with a red sash held on with a brooch. I was pretty surprised because he could have just gone on craigslist instead of skulking around the market on Friday night. It reminded me of attempts from years ago and they’d bring up their nephew in conversation and oh by the way he’s gay and what did I think about that.
Here’s a little historical vignette on Color Climax. I’ve dumped most of the whole post paragraph vs linking since I don’t know how safe for work the MB link it came from is. Per the below you do have to wonder where they found Scandinavians willing to pimp out their kids.
Really? I can;t see how that was ever legal.
EDIT: I read the rest of the thread and understand now.
Are you serious, you mean model railway clubs were actually covers for pedophiles?
But what about the guys who just liked trains? Seems like they might get real uncomfortable real fast…
Well, I do remember that, in the pretty far past, hanging around with children exclusively was often seen as a quirk, rather than a possible sexual deviance. I can think of at least a couple children’s authors whose actions would at least make people suspicious today. Under a less watchful eye, it would be easier to seem innocuous while saying things that other pedophiles would easily pick up on.
I’m pretty sure I accidentally revealed one of my fetishes on this board to someone who has the same fetish just by the language I used when talking about a specific person I found attractive. I’m sure pedophiles, when not being watched as closely as they are now, could do the same thing. Guy in the group notices someone using language or even notices body language clues, then tentatively invites the guy to join. They talk at a superficial level until they are sure he is one of them, and, bingo, he’s in the club.
I remember reading something by a science fiction author (for some reason, I think it was Harlan Ellison, but it might have been Jack White who edited some magazines…). He had always heard that kiddie porn was freely available, the same urban legend we get today about the internet; this would have been the late 60’s or early 70’s, since he was writing IIRC in the early 80’s as if it were some time ago. Like “pot leads to heroin”, this was a mantra of those in favour of strong puritan laws.
He said he decided to check this out - some people have a lot of gall - so he went into the scuzziest porn stores in the Times Square area, back when that was what it was famous for. He said when he outright asked for stuff with children, the operators of these establishments looked at him like he was dogshit tracked into their stores (and did not have any). His general conclusion was that if there was such stuff somewhere, there was no such stuff easily available. My guess is that like today, you can only find it if you already know how to find it.
My guess is that the Danish company mentioned sold “nudist” magazines, not explicit sexual activity kiddie porn. (Not that I care or need to find out). Of course, a fine North American publisher put out the book “Show Me”, allegedly a sex education book for children…
Nope, it really was hardcore child porn.
Well, it seems nowadays that model train clubs are now mostly old men with very few younger people (Yes, I’ve been to a few local ones). I always thought that it was just a popularity thing and that fewer and fewer young people nowadays join. Is there a cite for model railroad clubs being pedophile fronts? I never saw it that way and haven’t suspected anything. Do you have to affect an odd pronunciation of “caboose” or something to let people know you are ‘in’? Lol.
I’ve always thought it was photography clubs – being as how people who take certain kinds of picture didn’t want to have to send them off to be developed.
I think you, and others, have hit it. Sometimes a phrase is understood only by people “in the know” and for others it is completely innocent.
A completely simple and safe example happened to me 20 years ago when a guy was saying something and said “six-sided die” and everyone had the “well duh, how may can there be” look, he’d revealed himself as a D&D player, when there weren’t 100 in my country.
Lewis Carroll, for one. Apparently he was extremely socially awkward (hey, he was also a math geek!) and the only people that he really felt comfortable with were little girls, and he spent lots of time hanging out with his little-girl friends. Whether or not he had a sexual interest or not, I don’t think anyone can know.
I lived in Amsterdam for a while in the late 70’s-early 80’s and child porn was openly on sale then. In the UK at the time even adult hard core porn was illegal and hard to come by ;).
I can remember the first time I walked to the newsagents shop on the corner to get cigarettes and English newspapers and being astonished to see all manner of porn on display. Children, beastiality, gay, WS, scat, disabled, pregnant, SM, it seemed anything you wanted was freely available.
Mostly I thought oh well, if you’re a consenting adult and that’s what floats your boat go for it but I always had reservations where children or animals were concerned as it seemed that they were hardly in a position to consent.
After being there for a while and talking to a lot of the prostitutes (I was working in an all night bar in the heart of the red light district) I came to the conclusion that quite a few of the adults in the sex trade were not there by choice either which soured the whole idea of porn for me.
Of course, the fact that he took pictures of them naked (with their mothers’ permission!) probably was another indicator. IIRC he destroyed all the photos later on in life; someone found and published a set back in the 70’s. No evidence he ever took advantage of any, but as Alice approached marriage age apparently her parents did not want him around her any more…
This sounds like an exaggeration to me. A search for “model train club pedophiles” doesn’t really turn up anything. There is this:
" An unusual interest in children is commonly displayed. Their hobbies and interests can include collecting items revolving around children such as model cars, trains, airplanes, etc."
From this site:
Police have been known to spread myths and misinformation (Satanic Ritual Abuse scare of 1980s). I have no real knowledge or expertise on this but this sounds like an overstatement, at the least. Of course I could be completely wrong. 