I’m saying that a hundred years ago, both pedophiles and homosexuals were regarded – about equally, as far as I know – as “sexual deviants” who ought to be locked up in mental institutions. We even worried about the homosexual man who might “act on his impulses” and molest a non-consenting adult male, much the same way we worry now about a pedophile who might “act on his impulses” and molest a child (“consent” not being an issue where children are involved in sex with adults.)
Over the past half-century or so, we’ve finally come to understand that homosexuality is not the scourge we once thought it to be. Before then, however, we were sure – absolutely sure – that homosexual feelings were “wrong” and “immoral.” We were mistaken.
What if our current stance on pedophilic feelings turns out to be equally mistaken?
Um … my proof is that NAMBLA episode of South Park. Yeah, that’s it. That’s the ticket.
(Seriously, though, I’d like to hear your data. I was probably confused by those articles that said, “pedophilic men who are interested in little boys tend to be heterosexual in their preferences toward adult sex partners,” and erroneously extrapolated from that to conclude that about half the male pedophiles preferred boys.)
Not really weighing in with an opinion, because it’s difficult for me to decide how I feel about this. I can understand why it bothers people, that’s not difficult; but I also think that because this subject bothers people so deeply, it’s extremely easy to jump to assumptions/conclusions and not see the entire picture. What I will contribute at this point are words from the webmaster of several of these sites, and let him give his side of it: Amber_Tech Speaks.
So he does porn sites as well? Probably not the best choice for doing children’s websites (if only because of the implied association), but I’ll bet he knows how to make them turn a profit. As for the “these sites shouldn’t be, because pedophiles will ‘use’ them” argument: I’m having trouble buying that as a justification for banning such material. Rather like saying “guns shouldn’t be, because homicidal maniacs will use them” or “cars shouldn’t be, because drunk drivers will use them”. If there’s a crime committed, prosecute that. If there isn’t, then there isn’t. Just because these sites (and the motivations for frequenting them) can be viewed as not-so-innocent doesn’t mean they have to be. There’s a lot more kinds of people than slobbering pervs.
Men are programmed to be attracted to young females for the sake of duration of reproductive ability… so it seems to me these folks just got the callibration tweaked a bit during assembly. Just gotta flash the BIOS and recallibrate.
Seriously though, who else is paying for these sites? I really am curious, cause I can’t see why anyone would give a shit about these girls all sexed up unless it was for scandalous reasons. Is it baren women who longed for children of there own but couldn’t produce? Is it other little girls who want to see how pretty someone their age can be? Is it 13 year old boys as somebody brought up? Why would these last two have access to a credit card, and if somehow they snuck it out of their mom’s purse wouldn’t she notice “Li’l Amber Website” on the monthly bill?
These people on the Yahoo! club are also disturbing… Sending clothes for the girls to pose in and that sort of thing… If I was a dad I sure as hell wouldn’t let my daughter wear clothes some stranger sent her, but then again I wouldn’t be putting her in this situation in the first place.
Is this comparable to the little-girl-beauty-pagents? I’d say so. The main difference is that in the beauty pagents, most of the people watching I would assume are parents who are interested in their kids being victorious (which of course can be dangerous in its own rite). Of course I’ve seen stories about random pedophiles acting like parents and videotaping the shows for their own purposes, but this isn’t the majority of the audience.
I dunno, this isn’t the kind of thing you can solve with legislation or something, but that don’t make it right.
Does anyone recall, a few years ago, a story that circulated about an alarming “fad” in Japan concerning “schoolgirl” photobooks & videos? I’m not talking about adults who dress in school uniforms, I’m talking actual schoolgirls. Apparently Japanese men (and probably in other countires, as well) collected these books. In the books, the girls were photographed in uniforms as well as “regular” clothes. Unfortunately, they also posed in various stages of undress. In the newspaper article (it was in the Atlanta Journal), one Japanese man even had the nerve to say he only collected books of girls over the age of 8 since anything younger that was considered sick!! I don’t know if this still goes on. I find this very disturbing considering the image we normally get of the Japanese people. (I’m not trying to make generalizations here. I know very little about Japanese culture. I DO know that pornography for sale in Japan can not show pubic hair (is this still the case?). That’s why this whole schoolgirl thing is unnerving)
Hi Dijon. Thought I might find you in here. that link was classic… not that I’m a stickler for spelling, but you’d think he might have looked it over before making such a, er, statement.
This all very simple.
It is parents selling their children for sexual purposes.
Reading that sick fuck’s account of how Amber (she’s got a fake go-go name at 11) got started, and how SHE views this, only makes me sicker.
I can only imagine the problems she is going to have when her fantasy world comes crashing down.
What do you do when you think that you are the shit, and everyone loves you, and then one day you find out that all your fans were pedophiles jerking off behind a computer? To top it all off, it was your own parents that sold you down the river?
freedom, not to sound condescending, but I think that the idea that 11 year olds are innocent little kittens and puppies (depending on sex :)) is a bit more neive than we are accusing the parents of being.
I wasn’t a virgin at the age of fifteen, and that was ten years ago. All of my friends and I knew about sex long before sex ed in sixth grade. I don’t think this is going to be a huge shock to the girl, and that’s only if trends have stayed the same. By reports in the media and parental activists on the subject, I am inclinded to believe that children learn about sex even earlier than I did (which was third grade, incidentally).
Something tells me she knows what she is doing. Call me crazy.
Okay, now I don’t know how I feel about this, either…:eek:
Have to disagree with you on that. It isn’t that simiple. It is parents selling images and videos of their children (not the children themselves, a distinction I would hope everyone can make) with their children’s knowledge and cooperation, and evidently at their children’s request. Whether or not those pics-n-vids are for sexual purposes is determined by the buyer, which is where the responsibility for that decision should lie. That being said, it would be pretty far-fetched to contend that the adults involved in these sites don’t realise this is probably the motivation for a lot of the purchases. It probably is, but that’s no reason to conclude that it’s the only motivation. So would it okay with you to sell them if people aren’t jerking off to them, but simply find them aesthetically appealing? Maybe have the buyer take an oath of celibate interest only?
He’s sick. You’re sick. Got it. (How do you know her name is fake, by the way?)
She turns into Macaulay Culkin…?
All her fans? Really?!? And you know this how?
(Not to mention which, according to that link, it was Amber herself who wanted to do this. How does this constitute her “parents selling her down the river”? Because they approved it? I’m not quite following your logic here.)
Good point. I wonder about this a lot, too. Sure…blinding, venomous hatred is quite in fashion when this subject comes up, and indeed almost socially mandated (look what happens when someone doesn’t manifest it: they “creep people out”). But what if we’re wrong? Then who’s the predator?
Apparently not. The club I was looking at, specifically the one Mr. cum_ta_papa is a member of, was:
Again, I saw a total of three messages there. I believe you were looking at Molli’s site.
Err…so far the message text you’ve quoted is from undisclosed sources who want to purchase matching swimwear for the child in question. In all honesty, I can’t say that I found anything particularly provocative or threatening in the messages you quoted. Allow me to quote from the list of reasons to be banned:
Looks like they’re trying to keep a fairly short leash on the participants to me.
I won’t go into what I think is going on in the minds of those buying or selling these videos and pictures. In fact, that was my point: You’ve jumped to a conclusion seemingly without any reasonable evidence. I’ve read some of the messages there, and while I found them to be mildly disturbing, again I didn’t see them as threatening in any way. Indeed, the fact that I was disturbed made me wonder why I felt that way. I can’t pin down a reason. It’s partly because I have no desire to look at these children, and therefore don’t understand why others might. The closest experience I have is of looking at adult women in the same fashion, where there is an element of sexual tension. So this is my basis for comparison with others. But, I don’t know for sure, and nothing I’ve yet seen has indicated that there is sexual intent here.
Who wants to look at a little girl in her underwear? I don’t know, but I know who likes to look at adult women in their underwear (me), and I know what I’m thinking when I do it…
THE PARENTS ARE EVIL!!!
THE CUSTOMERS ARE PEDOPHILES!!!
BURN THEM ALL!!! BURN, I SAY!!
–too strong a reaction? I think so.
I was not defending their business, rather I was attacking you. Well, attack is too strong, but you get the idea. To quote Dijon
That’s exactly it, that’s what I’m railing about. The knee-jerk reactionary response that’s OK, and even expected on one subject, but not another.
If I may, let us use matt_mcl (just because I know he’s following this thread) as an example. He is a homosexual (or so I’ve gathered). He posts at the Straight Dope. Ergo, all Dopers are homosexuals. Is that right? It’s an application of the same logic. And before you ask, or assume, I’m not equating homosexuality with pedophilia. I’m equating the immediate condemnation of the parents and clients to homophobia of Phelps-ish proportions.
You’re jumping to conclusions about a large segment of people with no corroborating evidence, other than being “creeped out”.
I think the parents are idiots. But I think your condemnation of the customers is going a little too far. Are the parents actions an invitation to harm? Perhaps. I don’t think they’re any worse off, danger-wise, than the Olsen twins, whose parents were idiots. I don’t see alot of railing against them, though. Those two seem to have nearly made it to adulthood without being abused, raped, killed, whatever. Yet I wonder how many of their pictures were used as, um, visual aids for people engaging in self-stimulation. I wonder how many men bought magazines with their pictures. I wonder if they’ve had any stalkers.
The key is that I wonder. I don’t know. Did they’re parents “deserve” to have them taken away? I say no more or less than the parents of Molli or Jessi. I don’t think it’s a good idea to put your kids in the public eye. I really don’t think it’s a good idea to put them on display as models only. But I don’t think it’s a crime, and I’m not about to start taking kids away just because I think the parents are idiots. If stupidity were a crime, we’d all be in trouble.
What’s the point? I’d like to see more substantial responses than “Ick” and WAGs about what the clients are doing behind their monitors.
tracer acknowledged that they didn’t have back up for their post, asks me for mine. Not usually done this way in a debate, and I could simply refer you to the several threads about child molestation etc. but in the interests of time and eradication of ignorance:
(this is from a frontline report on child abuse in general, so if the stat does not refer specifically to sexual abuse, do not assume it refers only to sexual abuse).
So, an overwhelming percentage are female, and yes, a significant number in the post puberty phase (using 12 as a rough line indicator of puberty, understanding that not every child goes through puberty at the same time, nor is it an overnight process yada yada yada)
If the photographs don’t constitute child pornography (which I hope they wouldn’t, since in the case of my hypothetical daughter I took them originally) I would have no problem with her selling her own pictures of herself.
Both tracer and now Dijon have said (paraphrasing) what if we’re wrong re: society’s current views on this issue?
I’m a bit unclear as to what we could be wrong about. What could we come to know about an adult being sexually attracted to an 8-year-old that we don’t know now?
Making any sort of analogy to sex with another consenting adult is ludicrous, by the way.
Both wring and I have presented statistics showing what the early sexualization of children is doing in this society.
A young child can’t possibly make decisions for him/herself along these lines. Show me one that appears to be mature enough to do so, and I’ll show you one whose sexuality was formed by impositions upon them by adults.
I’m following points on both sides here… but this analogy breaks down pretty quick. The board in question is not the straightdope message board dedicated to “eradicating ignorance”, it revolves around people looking at pictures of someone. So while one homosexual on this msgboard doens’t make the whole group homosexual, IF this board instead consisted of people looking at adult males in thongs, you might be inclined to think differently. So what is the difference between adult pictures of adult males in thongs and 11 year old girls in a string bikini? They’re both willing participants. They’re both nearly naked. You would have to guess that the people posting to the male-in-thong messageboard were gay, or women. That is, they’re looking at it sexually. So then why does this not carry over to the little girls?
I’m not gonna venture to guess who’s at fault here… but something’s definately fucked up.
I’m not so sure that I’d have to make that presumption. There are events like body-building type competitions in which the men are practically naked, but no sexuality is implied. I’d wager, though, that there were gay men and straigh women looking at these sights for the purposes of sexual gratification.
Mostly, I prefer not to make this assumption because I’d rather give people the benefit of the doubt. The evidence that I’ve seen that indicates the subscribers are looking at these pictures for the purposes of sexual gratification is not that strong. Some of the evidence is suggestive, yes. The advertisements are comparable to those of “adult-themed” business in some ways, yes. Perhaps I’m biased as I’m a parent, but I find it difficult to believe that any parent would knowingly and “covertly” sell their child’s images to those who would view them in a sexual light, and I find it difficult to believe that these business would do so (apparently) well on “child-molester” business alone.
wring, can you help out? As you’ve worked with said victims before, is there a way to compare the behavior of the posters in these message boards with that of sex offenders in other chat room situations?
The messages that I read were fairly innocuous, the restrictions placed on the message-board users seemed as though they’re trying to keep the bad-element (if you will) out. When accusing people of a crime, or accusing some one of a particularly damning behavior, I’d rather have my ducks in a row and be sure than to guess based on similarities between advertisements and the occasional username.
You might as well throw out the word pedophilic and replace it with murder, rape, theft or assualt.
Would you mind explaining how you would justify ANY law since you are afraid that later on we might find out we made a mistake?
I hate to say this, but that is probably exactly what child molestors are thinking as they molest young children.
Has anyone on this thread ever heard of the age of consent?
If the kid was asking the parent for a joint or a shot of vodka, would it be ok just because the kid asked for it? The parent has an OBLIGATION to look out for their child and protect them from shit like this.
And I’m sick because…
If you want to take this to the pit, just let me know. Otherwise please leave the personal attacks behind.
Let me help you out then…
“What the child wants” is NOT the determining factor in whether or not something is right or wrong. You see, the kid is 11. Hopefully by the time you have an 11 yr. old your thought process is a little more clear. You are able to weigh the consequences of an action and hopefully avoid making your child the July centerfold.
If the parent had the kid out selling drugs, it wouldn’t matter that the child wanted to do it. Kids want to do tons of stuff they are not allowed to do.
I guess it’s the 11 yr. old girl dressing up as a little tease.
Where have you been? Let me re-cap the evidence for you:
Parents taking provacative pictures of their young girls and putting them on the web. Parents charging a subscription fee to view the pictures. A bunch of older men sitting around drooling over the young girls. A bunch of old men sending them clothes to wear in their next picture shoot.
None of this is disputed. If you can’t figure out the rest, then it is only because you do not want to.
I would guess that sexual predators make most people disturbed.
Are you really unable to stand up and say that this is wrong? Are so afraid to judge an action?
CHILD MOLESTATION IS WRONG
I don’t recall going after the customers. My anger is directed at the parents. They are the ones with the responsibility to protect their child. Until one of the customers crosses the line and actually molests a child, I’m content with leaving them alone behind their computer.
:rolleyes: They probably also speak English and wear clothes made, at least partially, from cotton. Children are aware of their sexuality at a pretty young age, and perhaps at a younger age than I did. This does not mean they have the maturity to handle it. I am not arguing about that here. The question is, is this pornography? I think one must twist to meaning of the word to come to that conclusion. The girls are wearing clothes that they could legally wear in public. I see no issue here.
I must have missed the copious amounts of evidence pointing to these girls having sex or engaging in an otherwise sexual activity.
The parent has an OBLIGATION to look out for their child and protect them from shit like this.
I thought something was strange with my latest issue of Playboy… :rolleyes:
1 and two are obviously true. 3 targets a specific group in the entire audience. I might note that the entire audience is not represented by the number of posts to a fucking message baord. 4 is just as irrelevant to the case of pedophilia that you are clearly levelling here as the main thrust of your attack.
I can figure out lots of things. One of the things i can figure out is that the girl is not naked. I’m not in any way convinced her (their) behavior is even sexually explicit. It is possibly sexually suggestive to people inclined to look for such things.
Otherwise, and let’s think long and hard on the matter, the girl is privately displaying herself in a manner consistent with how she is legally able to be seen in public.
I am certainly not (even though the question wasn’t asked directly to me). I feel that I am obligated–even if at times I am incapable of it–to judge a situation based on evidence I gather that is as free from anyone’s personal opinion as is possible, including my own personal opinion.
Thanks for the emphasis. Perhaps this will aid in getting my point across. NO ONE IS BEING MOLESTED.
This is certainly a case of ambiguous intention and ethics. I’m glad we can all discuss it without knee-jerking responses not based on the evidence at hand.
