However, the same goes for gore, murder, self harm, etc… These are real things, real fetishes, theres a real demand, and theres a real supply. It doesn’t matter what it is, where there is demand, there will be supply. You can try all you want to stop the demand, but until you stop the supply it will always exist. I don’t believe it’s right to lock someone up for watching porn, regardless of what it is even if its child porn or gore. Yes, you’re giving the supplier a motive to supply more. That’s a problem, but locking people in cages for watching porn on their computer, I just cannot agree with that. I think we should be more focused on alternative ways to stimulate their desires. Specifically Loli and roleplay.
I think we all agree, pedophilia is just a fetish like any other fetish. Pedophiles just like homosexuals can’t change what turns them on. Society is simply not robust enough yet to handle pedophilia. Let me throw out some crazy ideas.
Let’s say we have full VR with neurolinking, so you can 100% control your own body in VR, and you can feel physical sensation in this VR. Someone designs a pedophile VR, where pedos can in a virtual reality have sex with children. I believe, our current society would make this illegal under the false premise that it’ll incentivize pedos to have sex with real life children. I’d argue that like loli, it would stimulate their sexual desires allowing them to keep them in check better.
First, pedophiles are distinct from sexual predators. Depending on the age of the individual, only 30-50% of “pedophiles” actually display sexual preference for children. The other 50-70% are not sexually attracted to children but are more properly classified as child molesters (AKA sexual predators). This study concludes that due to extreme variance in socio-cultural norms on a global basis, it’s very difficult to determine how many people actually have a sexual preference versus a different cultural norm.
Third, conflating homosexuality with pedophilia is wrong. Healthy homosexual relationships involve consenting adults (just as healthy heterosexual relationships do). By definition, children cannot consent.
Fourth, pedophiles can change their sexual preference, just as other types of sexual disorders can be treated.
Fifth, see bolded line above. I’m calling it out for emphasis. Engaging in pedophiliac behavior, even virtually, is the opposite of what should be done in order to successfully treat the disorder.
Pedophilia has no more similarity to homosexuality than it does to heterosexuality. If you consider homosexuality an “uncontrollable fetish or sexual desire” (I don’t – sexual orientation is not a “fetish”), then heterosexuality is also an “uncontrollable fetish or sexual desire”. Similarly, you can’t turn a straight guy gay.
I disagree with the conclusions you reach even if your underlying assumptions are correct. My point of disagreement is this. It doesn’t matter if whatever we’re discussing is something that people are born with. If it’s harmless (being homosexual, being heterosexual, having a fetish for feet, or any number of other things) then there should be no kind punishment because there is nothing wrong with the behavior.
On the other hand, if something is harmful (pedophilia, but also other things that are not necessarily sexual like a tendency towards violence, being a serial killer, whatever) it doesn’t matter whether or not someone is like that because they were born that way. Sucks to be them, but as a society we cannot allow them to act out their urges or fantasies. If they are celibate and want psychiatric help, then it should be provided. If they partake in whatever their harmful preference is, and watching child porn does count as partaking, then they should be punished. Being born that way isn’t an excuse, and again, sucks to be them, but that’s just the way it is.
Exactly. It doesn’t matter whether you or any one else were born that way, became that way because of your environment, or some combination of the two. What matters is whether or not your or any one else’s actions hurt others. If they don’t then it’s nobody else’s business what we do or don’t do. If we are harming someone else, then society via the legal system should intervene.
The key is “meaningful.” Serial killers breathe air just like non-serial killers, so they are like the same! That’s about the level of ridiculousness I’m seeing. The more obvious delineation is on the one side you have activity that harms other people, specifically children, and on the other, you have activity that harms no one.
FBI agent John Douglas has a chapter in his book Journey Into Darkness about the “proper” activities for pedophiles, like using children’s clothes and toys catalogs instead of porn, viewing children in public, talking to them when they are with an adult, and backing off if the child seems at all reluctant to interact with you.
In no way, shape, matter or form does he endorse using child porn or other, more gross out activities.
So you’re saying it should be legal to look at child porn? No, absolutely not. If someone’s looking at child porn, yes, absolutely they should be arrested and sent to prison. It is NOT a victimless crime.
The children who were used to make said material are being abused all over again. The idea that “it’s just pictures!” is a sick and fucked up one.
I have absolutely no problem whatsoever with someone’s computer being confiscated and them being “thrown into a cage” for looking at child porn.
That is the thin line we are talking about. I’d say it is in same bag with super realistic gore movies. Bad taste? For Sure. Anyone hurt ? Not likely (assuming author only used models from imagination).
I do not like to be seen as devil’s advocate here, but I don’t like the idea of enforcing thought crime from 1984 either.
IMO for one, if no harm, then no foul. If it’s purely virtual CG or drawn hentai with no real people used in the making, there should be no legal problem, however distasteful some other observer may find it.
Shouldn’t be any harder than if they find out being a psychopath is genetic. I don’t think we ought to be locking them up before they begin acting on it is some illegal ways.
I honestly don’t know. As long as it was a certainty that they were simulated, and that they didn’t use real people as models, I suppose. (Although it still turns my stomach)