Another recen thread in IMHO got me thinking about men who are caught with child pornogaphy on their computers. Many of these men are not charged with other real life charges of child molestation.
Isn’t it entirily possible then, that these men are not into child pornography for it’s own sake, but have associated sex with “bad & depravity” and so they are looking for the most depraved, taboo thing they can find?
If nothign else, that would be a relief for all concerned that they aren’t molestors, and just need more self-acceptance and a more loving view on sex.
Two decades ago, these men would have been caught with pictures of nuns fucked with crucifixes on altars by guys dressed up as Satan. Now such stuff can be found in videoclips by Lady Gaga.
Heck, rape is another taboo in US culture, and as a woman I could be arrested for the stuff I sometimes think about during sex. It is a good thing I am not that visual and don’t need to download pictures of the stuff that turns me on.
I think it depends on if you’re talking about real or simulated child porn. There is a lot of cartoon porn out there involving children. A lot of that is parody of stuff like the Simpsons. That kind of stuff is unreal and disconnected from reality enough that maybe it could be explained as people just looking for weirder and weirder stuff.
Porn that uses images of real children being abused can’t be explained away like that, though. That’s not fantasy. It’s not disconnected from reality. It’s derived gratification from watching harm being done to real victims.
The idea you’re looking for is transgression. It’s where people are more interesting in breaking social boundaries than they are in the specific content that breaks those boundaries.
But, if they’re into child porn because it’s taboo and depraved, who’s to say they might not abuse actual children because that’s taboo and depraved? It’d be no relief or mitigation that they weren’t pedophiles as such.
On the other hand, if they would never molest an actual child, Diogenes’s point about real vs. simulated porn stands. (If you’re turned on by rape fantasies, do you feel differently about watching real rape vs. simulated or fictional depictions?)
Anyone stupid enough to save images of* real* child abuse should be able to learn more about the thrill of transgression in one of our fine correctional facilities.
I think you are working overtime to dream up excuses for the child porn criminals.
Personally, I believe people should be able to have what they want on a private computer, but that’s not the law. Downloading 10,000 images suggests at least the possibility that someone would go further. Hence, it’s against the law.
I disagree with your “hence.” We don’t arrest people for what they possibly might do. At least, we shouldn’t. Downloading 10,000 images is illegal because it supports the actual harm done to actual children when the images were produced (and perhaps also additional harm from having those images widely distributed).
Right. With real CP the crime is in the creation and circulation of the material, not dependent upon the subjective motivation.
And the notion that “if you have a lot of such material it suggests the possibility one may go further” is one of the justifications often given for attempts at outlawing cartoon or CGI *non-real *material. Which IMO leads to wasting resources that should go to combatting the real deal.
Which is not to say that someone who simply has a transgression obsession could not engage in the OP scenario with real CP, while being someone who’d *never himself *commit the acts – BUT, then there would have to be a degree of… sociopathic? …disconnect, to enjoy that you’re “looking at something so nasty” w/o caring that the nastiness involves an actual act of victimization happenning, even if secondhand. To elaborate on Dio’s first response, that would be like the difference between enjoying staged slashergore vids, and enjoying clips of Al-Qaeda beheading actual hostages (except of course that neither of these are crimes in themselves while downloading CP is).
Except all of the examples above involve consenting adults playing roles. We’re not talking about adults here, we’re talking about kids being abused. I don’t find it a “relief”, because they’re still exploiting these kids, even if it’s not for sexual gratification.
Why do so many people seem to take pleasure in the idea of other people being brutalized? People who are attracted to children can’t do anything to change the way they are. They have a mental disorder and they should be given help. It does not make me feel any better to imagine someone being abused in prison because he had the wrong kind of images on his computer.
Isn’t that the appeal of manga, which some guy got arrested for a couple of years ago? I read that orders of manga went up after the guy got arrested in Iowa.
They have a choice about what they have on their computer, and they don’t deserve sympathy. These are animals who derive pleasure from seeing children get raped for real. They’re not misunderstood victims. They’re the worst kind of evil, criminal scum.
All of this may be true - I don’t think it’s that black and white - but even so, two wrongs don’t make a right, as cliched as it sounds. Prison should be about rehabilitation (and keeping society protected from criminals), not revenge.
By downloading a child porn photo, a person is a part of creating a demand for a product that can only be produced by causing harm to an actual child. No demand, and the suppliers would go out of business.
Whether or not said person would “go further” is irrelevant. Whether said person is a pedophile or a transgressor is irrelevant. The damage has already been done. Said person has materially contributed to an industry that exploits kids.
Play rape/simulated rape is not even in the same solar system as child porn. I don’t personally feel any sort of relief at all that people, whatever their justification might be, are contributing to the harm of children.
What part of CP is actually children being sexually harmed? If I make a picture of my toddler playing naked in in his kiddie pool in my backyard, I can’t see how I possibly can have harmed him. Yet such pictures can end up as part of a CP collection.
Anyway, now I am hijacking my own thread. My point was indeed the phenomenon of “transgression”. And possession of CP, serves both the feeling of wanting to be depraved, but at the same time, it is (or can be considered by the perp) as a victimless crime.
Do you really think that child porn is pictures of your toddler playing in his kiddie pool? Try pictures of your toddler being raped, or being forced to perform sex acts on 60-year-old men. The demand for child porn drives the creation of child porn. Obtaining child porn is not a victimless crime.
In the eighties, I was a volunteer for the NVSH. A Dutch idealistic group advocating the rights of sexual freedom and the responsibility not to harm anyone while exercising that freedom. I attended members evenings of transvestites and exhibitionists. In the course of that volunteer work, I also spoke with a few pedophiles and once read their Dutch members magazine. And yes, all of those pictures were prepubescent (but generally over the age of seven) boys and girls playing in pools and beaches.
I don’t deny that there is a lot of CP out there that does consist of children being harmed. It is just that we don’t know, if we read that someone is caught with CP, how much of it is violent and sexual and how much of it is basically nude pics. The term CP covers all of those categories, and all of them are equally offensive by law.
If someone is motivated by looking for the ultimate depravity, do you really think they’re looking for cute pictures of kids in kiddie pools? Besides, if they’re putting out a magazine publicly, it would be pretty stupid to put actual child rape in it. They’d be arrested. Plus, if they were affiliated with some sexual freedoms group (I’m not even sure what the point of such a group is), of course they’re going to want to put out a good image. Plastering a photo of a raped toddler on their magazine isn’t very good PR, is it?