Is it sick and wrong? Or a clever way to pay for your kid's college education?

Great Debates
81

If I had a daughter, she would NOT be parading around in outfits like Tiffany’s at thirteen-even at the beach.
They claim Amber WANTS to do this. So? When I was 11, I wanted to stay up late, skip school and eat all the chocolate I could get my hands on. Where would that leave me?

Another thing-when I was thirteen, I was insecure as all HELL, and the idea of anyone seeing me in my underwear would have had me shaking and screaming. Yes, kids are not asexual. HOWEVER, at the age Tiffany is, 13, she is also going through puberty, a very emotional period. Sexually, kids that age are all over the fucking map. They don’t KNOW what they want…this is scary.
And tracer, you said, what if what we found out about pedophilia was wrong? And then you turn around and say, “it’s just the ACTIONS?” So, carrying on with your homosexuality comparison, could we just say that the ACTIONS, not the feelings are wrong?

Hmmm?

erislover-what circumstances do you “support” pedophilia?

82

erislover, I fully understand that point of view. I see a personal distinction between things I consider undesirable, and things I think should be illegal.
To recycle the example above, I personally think that “fundie camp” is undersirable, and I wouldn’t allow my daughter to go there. However I realize that this is a personal prejudice of mine, and don’t favour making “fundie camps” illegal.
In your case, it seems like you’re saying “this is a harmless activity, but I still wouldn’t allow my daughter to do it”, hence my puzzlement. Do you mean “it’s not a good thing, but I don’t think it’s bad enough to make it illegal?”

83

sick sick SICK. anyone know how to go about getting those sites off yahoo?

84

I would just like to mention that, for the first time in SDMB history, there is not a single word in Freedom’s posts to a thread with which I disagree.

:eek:

wring rocks as usual.

This stuff is sick, people. Selling children to pedophiles is a very, very bad idea, even if the pedophile never gets within 100 miles of the child.

85

Arnold, I’m not sure how you mean “wrong” but IMO no, it isn’t wrong, I just find it a little distasteful. And that is largely because we are referencing my hypothetical daughter. As well, I think this situation is as harmless as other victimless crimes (drugs, prostitution); that is, victims still seem to turn up anyway.

I think there is a tendancy to picture children as more innocent then they are, I don’t ever want to underestimate my children, and I am very worried about presuming I know their desires in theoretically harmless affairs like sex and sexual activity. Perhaps my lower-class upbringing does not represent many children, but everyone I knew, whether they were friends or not, were some rotten little bastards :smiley: The good ones never got caught. (okay, a little exagerration there) I do have a bit more understanding in matters because I have a bit mor experience. It is the experiences that I want her to have, as fun, scary, and exciting as I had (but hopefully removing the bad stuff!). I was probably ready for sex at a younger age than when I did have it, but that is really speculative and is likely fogged by hindsight. At any rate, every child matures at a different rate. The way I plan to pamper my daughter (or son, but i would rather have a girl) she won’t be ready for sex until she graduates! Ah, ok, so I can picture myself being the (typical?) father who protects his daughter from young men he views as similar to himself at that age. Perhaps I watch too much television.

Guin, I seem to remember your vehement disagreement to my opinions in the pedophile thread (Mary Kay I think it was called). But, to make a long story short, I cannot in advance predict whether or not a situation will be erl-acceptable or not. I just don’t find anything fundamentally wrong with pedophilia (after a bit of puberty…most likely from 14 on, to put a semi-arbitrary age to it). I found sex to be very enjoyable when I was that age, and it was a beautiful thing for me. Had one of the teachers I had a crush on felt the same way I can guarantee I wouldn’t have turned it down. But, I cannot say that that sort of decision can necessarily be made well by all children in our society, and I cannot say that situations with children and adults don’t lend themselves to easier abuses of power than normal situations (because they do). So, take of that what you will.

wring, it was the “exploiting” reference that I was skeptical about. I do believe a child can flirt, as we have at least two different people here who testify to that—personally.

Geez, assume expoitation to come to this opinion? Is the girl some vegetable without an opinion on the matter? It isn’t hard to imagine, given what news I’ve seen on TV and what papers I’ve read, that she may be getting exploited. It also isn’t hard for me to imagine, given personal experience and the testified experience of others, that she is absolutely getting exploited.

And the mother had said,

This, to me, does not indicate a strict interpretation of exploitation or original intent of paying for college funds.

86

I’d like to disabuse anyone of the notion that just because a site “cracks down on” certain language or postings, it means the webmasters have the purity of heart of the members on their minds, or that discouraging such posts keeps out those who visit those sites for the wrong reasons.

It’s just as plausible that the message board administrators put the kabosh on that stuff because posts about sex relating to pre-teens is a damn quick way to attract unwanted attention from authorities. I can only guess, but I would bet the parents (if there are any parents involved) know on some level that a portion of their proceeds come from men with a thing for little girls. They just don’t want the men to talk about it online. Maybe because they can continue to tell themselves those men are few and far between, but most certainly because they don’t want to get in trouble.

Do I know what the actual case is here? No. But I don’t think anyone can claim that the prohibition of sexual posts is clear evidence of innocent intentions.

87
88

I knew you guys could get a lively debate going over this one.

I think it is silly to say that we can’t jump to conclusions about who is paying to join these sites. It’s willfully ignorant.

That said…so what? So some guys are looking at pictures of little girls dressed in bathing suits and getting their jollies behind it. In and of itself, I think this is about as harmless as it gets. It appears that, for whatever reason, these girls are being protected from having to read, interact, or deal with overtly sexual interactions with pedos. Freedom’s reaction to the postings struck me as strange…what I read was guys talking about outfits for the girls to model…not outfits for the girls to model that they would then masturbate over. Sure, we adults can safely assume that is the case, but again…so? The ONLY reason the pictures creep us out is because * we know who is looking.* Without that knowledge, there’s nothing icky going on.

I do, however, think its dicey because of the exposure it gives the girls. While I believe that most of the men who are looking at this stuff would never act out, there’s always that one guy… and why put your kid out there to be a target? THAT is what makes this creepy and wrong. Any kid could potentially be a target, but this is singling your own out for attention from people you don’t want them to be getting attention from.

The other problem I have with it is more political, and it isn’t confined to sites like these, it’s going on in a thousand ways every day, including those disgusting bueaty pageants (which I find worse than these…the girls are all tarted up like strippers): it is teaching these little girls that their value lies in their looks, and I really, really hate that.

stoid

89

Especially when they’re made up to look like adults?

Why is that? Why don’t beauty pageants have little girls in Shirley Temple style curls, or as Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz?

What’s up with the scary Whores on Parade look?

90

minty green and wring

:slight_smile: I noticed the strange alignment of posters on this issue. It just goes to show how hard it is to draw generalizations about “conservatives” and “liberals.”
Stoid

How do you reconcile these two statements:

So, do we know that there are pedophiles subscribing to this site, or do we think that there people out there talking about outfits for the girls to “model?”

In the excerpted statement form the Amber_tech guy, he says that Amber loves to get online and interact with the “fans.” In fact, he says that she considers them her “toys.”

Nope.

The thing that kills me is the parents selling their children for the sexual gratification of pedophiles.
I would consider a grown woman selling off her childhood pictures as ICKY. I would consider jerking off to pictures of 11 yr. olds ICKY.

I consider selling out your child to be criminal and beyond my comprehension.

91

It’s true that most of these pictures are no different from modeling shots from department store catalogues when it comes to content, the difference is in the intent behind them. If I had an 11 year old daughter who was offered a job modeling bikinis for a Wal-Mart catalog, I’d have no problem with it, even though I know a lot of pedophiles would probably get sexual pleasure from looking at her pictures - those same people would probably enjoy watching her play innocently in typical summer wear. Her job is to display the merchandise which is the swimwear itself, not her body. I’d have no problem explaining it to her later, not that there would be a need to explain as any 11 year old child is smart enough to understand modelling. If she at a later date felt like I was wrong to expose her to the attention of pedophiles, I would apologize, and explain that the majority of the people who were looking at her pictures were simply trying to pick out clothes for their own children. It’s a sad truth that most children have probably been leered at and fantasized about by adults, I recently saw a survey where 7% of the respondents claimed to enjoy child pornography. Anyway, she would most likely understand that the modelling was justifiable, that she was not being exploited for sexual purposes by ME, only by a small percentage of the people who saw her pictures.

I just can’t see how the parents will explain this to their kids when they get older. They will know what real models do, and realize that they were not working for a particular company, that the people who were their fans were exclusively people interested in THEM, not the clothes they were wearing. I know that I personally would feel extremely betrayed.

As to the sexuality of children - yes, at the age of 11 I knew what sex was and had a basic grasp of it’s physical consequences, if not a first-hand understanding of it’s emotional effects. I wanted to have sex myself. I did NOT know when I was 11 that there were adults who would be attracted to me simply because I was a child, and if my parents were selling pictures and videos of me in my underwear I would not understand why anyone would buy them, and accept any rationalization offered to me. These children are not truly consenting to what is being done to them - they think they are typical child models, that their fans think they are pretty in the same way that their family members think they are pretty. They are being in all likelihood being deceived, and will doubtless regret it later. If they are NOT being deceived and their parents are telling them exactly why people are buying their videos, that is probably even worse.

92

:leans over and whispers:
[sub]From what I hear, sometimes they are even fantazied about by other CHILDREN![/sub]
Now if ever a situation was that would make us cry “But What About The Children” it is the case where two kids leer at each other. What would their future selves think?!

93

I see nothing wrong with children feeling this way about each other, it’s perfectly natural. My stepdaughter has a big crush on this other 6 year old, and I think the way they act around each other is cute and harmless, and it IS sexual in a way, though I doubt either of them really knows what sex is or think about having sex with each other, but they act in ways with each other that they don’t with children of the same sex. I think it’s cute an funny when he runs his fingers through her hair and comments on how soft and nice-smelling her hair is, or when she asks him ‘Do you think I’m pretty’ and strikes poses for him. I also don’t think it’s wrong or sick that she has a big crush on a teenage boy in our apartment complex, but I would have serious problems if that was reciprocated or if she was blatantly acting in inappropriate ways to gain his attention.

94

We all know that pedos are looking. That’s a given.

But assume (which we certainly cannot in real life, this is merely for the sake of argument) that there is absolutely no potential danger of said pedos ever, under any circumstances whatsoever, getting near any of those children. We’ve got a signed contract from God saying they are safe, ok…assuming that…what is the big deal? So the kids grow up, find out that college was paid for by leering pedos. What is the problem? The kids are not naked, they are not being exposed to sexual ideas, they are not posing in a lewd manner. The ONLY component at work here is the * audience *, and if the audience can’t get anywhere near you in any way… what is this horrible harm being done?

Again…I think the harm is quite real, that it could make one of these kids the object of an obsession. But absent that… ?

stoid

95

Complete betrayal of trust by your parents.
I see that as harmful.

96

In your scenario where there is no chance that the pedophiles would ever be able to find out who or where the kids are (which is not a realistic scenario, even if the parents thought to obscure the children’s faces there would always be a chance that someone would recognize some feature of the person later), I would still have a problem with the fact that my parents profited from selling me as a sex object without my informed consent. I’m a pretty sexually liberal person, and I would have zero problem with my images being used in any kind of pornography whatsoever if there was no possible chance of my anonymity being broken IF I had been informed and had given consent, but if I had not given informed consent I would feel extremely betrayed, even if they were pictures taken of me as an adult. To tell the truth, I would sell pictures of myself as a child to pedophiles now with no moral qualms (and my parents have quite a few that would probably be prime wanking material) - in fact, I would see it as a good deed, I would be providing material to help people with a psychiatric problem that prevents them from fully acting on their desires without harming others achieve sexual release (as I’ve said before, I have the utmost respect for pedophiles who realize that they cannot act on their desires without harming others and therefore abstain), and they would be images of a child that does not exist in the real world anymore. But if someone sold those pictures without my consent, I would be angry at whoever did it, and I don’t think it’s good for people to have those kinds of feelings towards their parents.

97

Okay. I’ll buy that for a dollar.

By the way, about having respect for pedos who never act on it… I don’t know if I’d use the term “respect”, but I have a ton of compassion. What people fail to understand while they are branding such people sick bastards is that they are people who, like all of us, did not * choose * their prediliction. It is how they feel, which is outside their control. What is within their control is their behavior, and so long as they always control that, I think they deserve nothing but compassion. Imagine the torture of having what is considered the most foul sexual preference on earth? How fucked up is that?

Which, now that I think about it further, puts this whole thing in a new light. What if (and I think this is almost certainly true) many or most of these “subscribers” are men (or women) who suffer from having this * uncontrollable * sexual desire and preference. But they recognize that it is wrong to act upon, and they realize that it is even wrong to look at child pornography, because children are harmed in the creation of it and by looking at it they are creating a market and participating in the wrongdoing.

So, as a last resort, looking for some relatively harmless way to get sexual gratification, they turn to the pretty much harmless site “Mollyland” or whatever and get their jollies that way.

Think about that for a second, eh?

stoid

98

Already thought about it. I don’t think pornography is necessary for them. I was a virgin until I was 22 through no choice of my own (though certainly some of my choices were contributing factors to my predicament) but I didn’t buy pornography, nor did I feel the need to have stimulating visual materials to achieve sexual release - my imagination was and is more than enough. If I found a woman attractive, I would fantasize about having sex with her and masturbate, even if I had never seen her in a sexually suggestive pose or outfit. Got me off well enough, I’d think it would be enough for pedophiles. Even if imagination alone isn’t enough, couldn’t they use magazine catalogues, children’s programming, stuff that doesn’t require the intentional sexualization of children?

Leads me to a related question - how many of you need some kind of visual aid to get yourself off?

99

Wow Badtz… you realize that what you just said was essentially: “Whatever is good enough for me is good enough for everybody.” So you’re the standard by which all things are measured, or just sexuality?

Don’t mean to be combative, but that just struck me as, to put it mildly, unreasonable.

To answer your question: I certainly enjoy it. But being a gal, I find stories much more stimulating.

100

I realized how what I said came off, but seriously, I don’t think anybody needs pictures to get off - we’ve only had photography for less than 200 years now. I think everyone bases their assumptions on what is necessary for others somewhat on their own needs, if you take it to the other extreme and say that everybody is completely different and what is unnecesary for you is completely necessary for others, you can justify almost everything - i.e., I don’t NEED to have sex to survive, but maybe some pedophiles DO need to molest children to preserve their lives, and you can’t really blame them for their acts of self-preservation.