This is all hypothetical - I do not now nor have I ever had child porn, but I was wondering.
Everytime I have heard an arguement against child porn one of the most damning has been that it corrupts the small children involved by using them in such a way.
What if someone finds some child porn from 1910 and puts it on a website (no I haven’t)? Is the individual who put it there still subject to all of the punishments of the laws against it? It sort of defeats the whole protection aspect of the law if those involved have been dead from old age for decades.
But at the same time it seems a person is being rewarded for having it if he or she is not punished.
The argument is that the existence creates demand. Whether or not these kids are around, other kids are around and the demand will drive new production.
Well, there’s the Roman kiddy porn goblet which the British Museum bought for $2.8 million a couple years ago, and nobody’s arrested them yet. Though I guess that falls under the auspice of “virtual porn”, which is not illegal in the U.S. Same goes for the works of such classical masters as Carravagio, etc.
In regards to ‘virtual porn’, is there a company that produces virtual porn featuring underage ‘actors’?
I ask this as when I first read it was in fact legal, I was torn between thinking it should be available so real children don’t get hurt and whether it would encourage paedophiles and the like to go one step further, thus causing more damage.
There is a genuine General Question in the OP with a factual, legal answer (I would guess). If someone would like to speculate on all the permutations of finding ways to bypass the existing laws or discussing (and challenging) the reasons for such laws, that poster should open their own thread in IMHO or GD.
Given the nature of the topic, let’s focus on providing the factual answer to the OP’s question in this Forum.
What if someone finds some child porn from 1910 and puts it on a website (no I haven’t)? Is the individual who put it there still subject to all of the punishments of the laws against it?
Yes, it is still illegal. Don’t confuse the intent of the law with the law itself. Also, Mathochist has the correct interpretation as I see it.
I think this is the cause of Paul (Pee-Wee Herman) Reuben’s latest legal troubles. He’s supposed to have a vast collection of vintage porn, some of which included underage persons, tho from the early 1900’s.
But supposedly, the investigation into this also led to prosecution of Jeffrey (Ferris Bueller Principal) Jones for photographing a mid-teen boy nekkid.
One thing to consider is the difference between porn and non-porn. I heard of a book about nudist families that was published in the late-1960s or early-1970s, and which included photos of underage boys and girls going around starkers. Since the book was not meant to appeal to prurient interests, I think it is legal.
The problem is that ‘kiddie porn’ has been defined more broadly in recent years. Photos that would have been seen as innocent a decade or so ago, are now likely to result in a police investigation.
Was there kiddie porn in 1910? It seems to me (as was pointed out in a thread about Charles Dickens, IIRC) that naked children were seen as symbols of innocence and purity back then.
In Japanese x-rated anime, there’ll usually be a disclaimer saying that all characters who appear in sexual situation are of legal age. This is fairly ridiculous because many of these characters are appearing in roles that are supposedly younger - what are they saying? That a cartoon character who appears to be a fifteen year old schoolgirl is actually an eightteen year old? That seems as ridiculous as claiming that Donald Duck doesn’t really talk that way; he just uses that voice when he’s in character on screen.