Man photoshops his pictures of his daughter's head onto porn

In My Humble Opinion
1

This bugs me quite a bit, and I don’t just mean the disgusting act itself. I cannot resolve in my head what exactly is wrong with this. I can’t state that it should be illegal, but I can’t see how it is protected speech, either…

I don’t think he should have been prosecuted for child pornography, (although he certainly deserved getting sent up for the drugs) but somehow I think he should be registered as a sex offender… Or at least monitored by child services forever…

Here’s the link:

http://articles.sfgate.com/2011-06-09/bay-area/29637140_1_simulating-sexual-conduct-child-pornography-joseph-gerber

What did he do wrong? No poll, as I can’t see a black and white answer, and I am not going to make a 50 option poll…

What should happen to him? Do we need to make a law to cover this? Is it free speech of some kind? I am more for libertarian ‘small government’ than anything else [in my head, mostly, in the voting booths I am pretty solid (D) ], but in the libertarian enclave I picture in my version of Utopia, this guy would likely get shot for behaving this way.

What say you, fine fellow citizens of heavily armed, light on judges, Utopia, USA?

2

He violated the Dad code. Should lose his parental rights. I’d even be up for castration and forced feeding of his nuts.

3

There’s a famous quote, that for the life of me I can’t remember. The jist of it is something like this:

Freedom tests us. Which means sometimes we have to accept things we don’t like.

I think the mother and child have a strong civil case. But criminal? No.

4

Relatedly, (pardon the pun) Dan Savage recently ran a column about a guy who found gay porn in his brother’s room, with a picture of their father’s face glued onto one of the nude models.

Granted, some of the letters that get sent into Dan are probably pranks, but still… eeewww. I’m not sure which is worse, this, or the story in the OP.

Eeewww for both.

5

Suil Dubh, you’re kidding, of course. One of these stories is about a kid grappling with his emerging sexuality and the associated norms, and one of them is about a grown man sexualizing his daughter.

Anyway, as I said about what I assume (hope) was the same case some times ago – the prosecutors, if their degrees are worth the paper they’re printed on, knew this was a loser. They didn’t bring the case to put the guy in jail – they brought it to shame him in the public square. Not a punishment I’m in favor of as a rule, but I’m on board with this one.

–Cliffy

6

I think I would donate money to get this up to the state’s Supreme Court. I would hope this man never gets to see his daughter again, or, if he has that right, never sees her alone.

7

Earlier thread.

I had to search because, really, what are the odds of this type of thing coming up twice in recent memory?

8

So it is the same case- that gives a little bit more hope for humanity, as there are not two separate cases- I didn’t see the other thread, and I had searched for it… I just used the wrong terms, it seems.

Thanks for the link!

9

I agree- I didn’t want to bring it up, because I didn’t have the words.

I think you did a great job of describing my feelings.

Being a dad, I would say this guy did break the ‘dad code,’ and I feel like this guy should be punished, and what he is doing (sexualizing his own daughter) seems to me to be very very different than a young man sexualizing his father- they are both uncomfortable situations, but at least the father is an adult, and not in a situation where he could easily be victimized.

The daughter seems to be in a situation where physical abuse is/was the next step, if not already taken…

If the son wants to try to have sex with the dad, it isn’t likely to go well, but it isn’t likely that the dad will end up raped or abused by the son.

10

It’s creepy and gross and he should never be allowed near kids, because he’s clearly a menace, but to convict him of child porn possession is ludicrous.

Joe

11

I don’t feel the least bit tested nor do I accept his behavior.

12

Being a dad, I am stunned that there’s even a provision dealing with this in the Code.

13

This.

I don’t think he should be convicted of any crime, but he should definately be put on a certain register to warn local parents

14

If a man had a sexual fantasy involving his daughter and admitted to having that fantasy, though he would never act on it, should he still be castrated/jailed/registered as a sex offender/have his daughter taken away from him? I would never defend this guy because after reading the article I see that in this case he also gave her drugs and tried to get her to pose for lewd pictures for him, so he does deserve punishment for that crime/intent.

But from a purely philosophical perspective of whether Photoshopping of that nature should be punished I disagree - it smacks a little too much of “Thought Police” for me. If someone did that and then publicly distributed the pictures, that could cause obvious harm to the victim and would also be a different case. But stumbling upon private wank material of that nature and then screaming bloody murder about it? Totally Thought Police territory.

15

That one just screams fake. I mean, it takes all kinds, but I’m guessing it’s more likely some teenagers having a laugh.

16

Jeepers, they guy’s a thorough creep, but that was the wrong law to go after him on. Aren’t there “contributing to the delinquency of a minor” statutes that would be better?

17

Ditto.

18

Seems like the law is on his side. “This, this is quite nasty. But we can’t arrest you for it.”

At the Federal level, *after *the 2002 decision, a new legislation was passed (within the PROTECT Act), where the specific case of transmitting or distributing (or “causing to” be so) an image made by modifying or altering a minor’s picture to make it appear to be porn was defined as an offence in its own right, not “child pornography” since the decision made clear that has a specific meaning.

Myself I’m of the position that creating or beholding a depiction of something that *never happened *should not be a crime in and of itself. I have no right to be protected from being creeped out.

19

Underlining mine. Exactly how would you know that part?

Especially because in this case, he did act on it, even aside from the stuff about getting her to take drugs and trying to get her to pose for pictures in nothing but her underwear. Like it or not, taking your daughter’s face and photoshopping it into porn is a specific action, a taking of initiative, that goes beyond a fantasy existing only in his head.

Not knowing anything else besides the photoshopping stuff, wouldn’t you have to say that this daughter is at greater risk of being sexually abused by her father than the average daughter is? Surely.

In a perfect world, I think that should be sufficient evidence to at least give the daughter the option of being raised by someone who didn’t masturbate to pornographic images of her. Whether it would be enough evidence in the world as it is, I don’t know; IANAL and all that. In this particular case it’s moot, because the father never had even partial custody of her to begin with.

20

I hope this sicko’s visitation rights were stopped. He’s openly admitting his sexual attraction to his daughter with those pics. There’s no other reason anyone would fake nudes like that.

The same thing happens with a lot of celebrities that never pose nude. Fans create their own. There’s fakes of almost any decent looking celebrity you can imagine. It’s all a sexual fantasy. Except these are basically harmless. The fans own manufactured pleasure material.

I wouldn’t want this sicko and his homemade daughter porn within a mile of my daughter. Gross