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Virtual Child Porn: Is It Illegal?
pcosta writes "Today's LA Times has an article about a Supreme Court hearing on wheteher or not 'virtual' child porn created with computer generated images is illegal. In a previous ruling, the federal appeals court in San Francisco agreed 2-1 that the 1st Amendment prohibits the government from making it a crime to generate "images of fictitious children engaged in imaginary but explicit sexual conduct". But prosecutors said this kind of pornography can whet the appetite of pedophiles, and therefore is dangerous even if no real children are involved." This will be one of the major free speech cases of the year, and I think there's no telling how the Supreme Court will decide.
It seems that many posters are looking at this from a viewpoint that's slightly too abstract. Many replies have been in the vein of, "Child pornography is vile, but nothing is so vile that our rights should be abridged to prevent hypothetical events."
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I vehemently agree with that sentiment, but only up to the point where it smacks face-first into reality. My opinion would likely have been different a few weeks ago, before CNN slapped this article on its front page (which then linked to the second article, from last year):
From http://www.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/europe/UK/01/10/lon
Members of the club, who described themselves as "the cream of paedophiles", had to send in at least 10,000 indecent images of children to join.
A library of 750,000 computer images of more than 1,200 victims and 1,800 computerised videos depicting children suffering sexual abuse were found.
"The youngest victim was about three months and other victims aged up to about 18 years."
From http://www.cnn.com/2000/WORLD/europe/italy/10/28/
A police operation specialising in Internet crime and based near the port city of Naples reported that the Russian paedophile ring ran an operation to kidnap children from orphanages, circuses and public parks and film them while they were forced to commit sexual acts.
The material cost between $400 and $6,000 for each video or disc depending on the type of film the customer wanted -- the more horrific, the more costly. The service was divided into several categories. "SNIPE" was the term given by the ring for videos of children filmed nude without their knowledge. "CP" was the code word for ordering an item from a paedophile's "private collection." The most gruesome, police said, was coded "Necros Pedo," in which children were raped and tortured to death.
These are obviously extreme exceptions. I imagine almost all "pedophiles" do nothing but collect child porn, and those few who aren't satisfied with just porn were already run-of-the-mill molesters and abusers (who can be caught and convicted the usual way). But there is clearly a subset that is orders of magnitude more dangerous, with a "market" large enough to sustain significant organized crime.
It's worth noting that 750,000 images of 1,800 children comes out to about 400 images per child. I have difficulty reconciling these numbers with the idea of consenting minors having sex for pleasure, so I'm inclined to believe the articles' claim that majority of this material depicts sexual abuse of unwilling children.
So what does this have to do with virtual child porn? As many have said, it's much too easy to diddle a few pixels in a real photograph to make it look edited. Suddenly, serious sex offenders cannot be convicted, and enforcement goes down the tube. As much as it violates my ideals, I cannot bring myself to look favorably upon anything that makes it harder to convict child abusers! This position has been already been stated several times, and the usual response is, "that's a problem for the police."
Nothing is so vile that our rights should be abridged to prevent hypothetical events?
Allow me to submit the opposite opinion: I am willing to cast my rights to the wind, if there is even the possibility of sparing ONE child from such revolting abuse.
Is this naive? What about the slippery slope? Censorship and Big Brother? Giving up essential liberties for temporary safety? Well, I'd rather take my chances with that, when the time comes. It's much easier to fight runaway legislation than it is to fight organized crime... especially organized crime that isn't even motivated by profit, but by lust -- perhaps the most powerful and irrational of biological drivers. Most posters have characterized this slippery slope as "dangerous," which it certainly is. But child abusers are also dangerous, and it's fairly clear to me which is the greater evil by far.
In a similar vein, we can also invert the slippery slope. Is it not equivalent to ask, "How many children have to be abused before I should accept an abridgement of my rights?" If the answer is more than "zero," then I've already hit the slippery slope.
It's easy for me to sit here, safe in my house, and say, "I will not give up my Constitutional rights!" I would love to bury my head in the sand and just leave it at that -- many sex offenders will be acquitted, with or without this law, so what difference can it make if I hold to my high-handed principles and oppose it? Well, let's suppose we can look into the future and see that the difference is exactly one child -- a single pedophile is acquitted who otherwise would have been convicted, and proceeds to rape a single child. Is that a fair price? Let's make it less abstract: would you be willing to watch a videotape of that child being raped, in exchange for quashing the law? Is that a fair price? What if the price were eight children? Eighty? 1800?
Let me restate my position thus:
This law might prevent hypothetical child abuse. Eliminating it might prevent hypothetical rights abuse. Both abuses are certain to continue, but it's possible to reduce one of them. Pick one.
Now, before anyone does so, don't take this and apply it to, say, murder. I'm quite aware that it doesn't apply universally. Yes, that means I'm making an exception for children! Yes, I'm being inconsistent, damn it! But then again, so is the body of law in this and most other countries: children are treated differently, and they deserve to be. If you do not have children of your own, it may be very difficult to understand this at the overwhelmingly visceral, gut-wrenching level that a parent does.
(In any case, there's no pending legislation that would suddenly make all murderers significantly harder to convict.)
Now, having said all that, I do not necessarily believe in the good will of those behind this legislation. Orthogonal to ethics, it's obvious that this legislation is overbroad, and should not criminalize anything that is provably fake (such as digitally signed images from known sources, as one poster mentioned), to say nothing of drawings or text. The aforementioned idea of pursuing those cases through tort law is one of the best ideas I've heard in a long time. To go one further, I'm not even sure I would oppose, on legal grounds, consensual underage pornography if the minor could demonstrate sufficient mental and emotional capacity to make such a decision. (On moral grounds I would certainly oppose it, but that's neither here nor there.)
Of course there's great potential for abuse of the law, but even then, I don't think we're going to see people being arrested for having pictures of 18-year-olds who look like they're 16 -- or even pictures of 16-year-olds who look like they're 16. IANAL, but I don't think a jury is likely to convict with that kind of reasonable doubt. Incidentally, the challenge before the Supreme Court is being brought by the adult porn industry, which is worried about exactly that and nothing else... I seem to remember that they are not challenging aspects that deal with children who are obviously underage. Perhaps that makes much of this discussion moot.
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Freedom is not the license to do what we like, it is the power to do what we ought.
I think you've found the best and simplest statement that sums up this entire huge debate as well =)
to quote from a mind that said it all, and rather succintly (roughly quoted) " I may not believe in your faith or ideals, but I will fight to the death your right to belive them" and as such is this.. I don't agree with the need to show such things as 'simulated' violence, pornography, etc (or the real thing for that matter) but I'd still fight for the rights of others to show and create such things, as creativity, and imagination should not be infringed upon, no matter the end result. We are talking about liscencing thoughts here.. imagination, creativity. Have we come so far as to say 'you can not think that'? 1984 wasn't just a book.. it was a warning
.sig under construction
The purpose of outlawing child porno was to curtail the exploitation of children for making pornography. No the federal government is making a psychiatric diagnosis that animated porn with subjects that look under 18 could entice pedophiles. This is an irrelevant and nonsensical assertion brought to us by those who want us to give up our freedoms to deter a few irresponsible folks. The real perverts in this case are the prosecutors in the so-called Department of Justice.
The CNN article linked a few comments above states that actual images of children were altered to make them appear in sexually explicit scenes. I don't know if this means taking a 12-year old's head and photoshopping it onto some porn star's body, or taking an artistically-done nude photograph of a child and inserting that whole image into a sexually explicit scene. Either way, the legal case in question deals with actual photographs of children put into sexual scenes, and not CGI or anime style pornography.
You're right. But I was looking at it from the point of view of prurient interests rather than describing something that did, or could happen to someone. I'm sorry I didn't make myself more clear.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
In my world the reasons for any legislation must be the thing to focus on. In this case, we want to protect our children from abuse, right?
So, let's say I'm a sexual deviant who likes kiddie porn. Like most sexual deviants, I realize that the sexual abuse of children is illegal, and considered morally wrong.
So, in order to satisfy my pornographic needs (should I choose to do so) I have two options: a)'fake'-porn, which is indistinguishable from the 'real' thing, except in that matter that I get it from a legal source, and b) the 'real' thing. The first option involves no legal risk to me, and is in it self not harmful to other people.
Which would I choose?
Furthermore, let's say I'm deeply involved in my porn-addiction and I'd like to start making this kind of stuff myself.
Again I have two options: a) the 'real' thing which requires a supply of real children to abuse (which is, from a purely practical standpoint, time-consuming, expensive, and involves a huge risk), and other facilities needed to maintain 'human-resources', such as _good_ privacy (don't want the neighbours hearing odd sounds, don't wan't anyone to die on me (or, if so have to hide bodies and stuff), etc. etc. etc. Or option b): Buy a $1500 workstation, and spend $1000-$10000 on software, and start modeling (most people learn this by ripping of other peoples work, and doing their research on the internet).
This involves no risk and no hassle, and would be a lot cheaper.
Which would I choose?
Maybe a few pedophiles will be more likely to commit acts of violence against children as a result of legalizing virtual kiddie pron, but I'd think in the end, fewer real persons would be harmed.
-- Computers are not intelligent. They just think they are.
Yikes! So that any twent-five year olds who look prepubescent aren't allowed to pursue a career in porn if they want to? Sounds kind of funny but it really is disturbing.
I'll be damned if I want to be "protected" like a child just because I might look like one.
"Prefiero morir de pie que vivir siempre arrodillado!"
Well,
BUT do you see signs beside the road encouraging you to run someone down in your car? Do you see how-to books and magazines about running down pedestrians for sale (even in opaque wrappers and/or under the counter) in newsagencies? Would it really matter if the signs or magazines made their point using crash-test dummies or mannequins instead of real people?
IMHO, if the signs/books should be illegal, so should child-based or violent porn - and where do you draw the line? Is tickling violent?
Your point would be valid if justice were actually done. It would also be valid if we were not holistic in nature: if our thoughts truly were separated from our actions. They aren't. If you see (hear, smelll, whatever) or do something virtually or in fun often enough, it will be easier to do it for real. This is why athletes and other sportsmen practice things over and over, in reality and in imagination.
THE QUESTION WE SHOULD BE ASKING IS
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
no it wouldn't be legal. the editing and distribution wouldn't be the problem. the filming of a minor who isn't old enough to give consent is the problem.
I see many people injecting their opinions (as Slashdotters are prone to do), but have yet to see one question be addressed. This question must be answered before any larger debate can commence.
What is pornography?
Is the modeling in Playboy magazine porn? How about Hustler Magazine? Where is the line between artistic expression and pornography? Is a photo of a nude 13 year old porn just because she is nude, or must she be engaged in some sort of sexual activity with another person to achieve porn status?Where is the line?
There is, in my opinion, a question to be answered before even discussing the previous question. This question is perhaps the most important of all......
Who decides where to draw the line?
Sounds like you haven't been punched in the nose lately.
No relation to Happy Monkey
My dick looks SO BIG!
Free speech does not invalidate the right not to listen. Wearing such T-shirts comes dangerously close to doing just that.
The way it generally works is that one has the right to view/listen to "distasteful" subject matter but not to force others to view/listen to it.
IMO, this case really is "cut and dried" provided that noone is forced to view kiddie porn (and even then, the blame lies with whoever is doing the forcing)
Actually this is about real children. This particular case focuses on real children, who are either "artistically" posing nude, or are clothed, but then are "photoshopped" into sexual situations... other forums of virtual images such as drawings or erotic stories are not being ruled on at all.
You know this is reminding me of another hot topic that also comes down what is law and what happens in real life. Think it is as easy as what people are talking about? I know a guy I used to work with. He was busted with child porn on his hard drive download logs from AOL showed him downloading it with his screen name. Floppy disks with images dated over a year ago. The cops showed up at work and wanted to look at the servers at work. The CEO heard the words child porn and told me to give them root access and answer any questions work was clean. Point is in court after 14 months of pretrial wrangeling the first and only time he ever had to show up in court. The defence lawyer showed the DA he was going to drag the case out four a minium of four years and fight on a free speach issue. The DA simply gave up. Walked away droped the case and his reccord was cleared. He was gulity. He admitted he was gulity. He walked. What differance do you think this proposed law would make?
Well at least in the one that they showed at school there is the famous "ass" scene where R&J are getting out of a bed in the morning after a night of wild passion. Considering that at the time that this was made R&J would have been around 14 and possibly as young as 12 that seems like child porn to me. And they showed this to me in high school no less.
Pithy, yet ultimately meaningless, phrase expressed with gusto!
Lolita
Or the Bible?
All opinions are my own - until criticized
Does this make putting a mirror over the bed illegal? Or is it (still) just in bad taste?
"You saved 1968." - Ms. Valerie Pringle to the crew of Apollo 8
You clown. Do you not see the contradiction in what you just wrote? Alcohol is an example of a drug that you claim is not safe, but is legal so therefore your argument that only unsafe drugs are illegal is disproved by yourself!
But this is all off topic.
Cheers, Robert.
Yeah, but more drunks commit crimes than non-drunks (statistically speaking, on average). More crimes are commited by humans than by non-humans (so far as the human frame of reference goes). Nobody said all drunks are criminals. Equally, this doesn't mean all humans are criminals. It just means that a) drinking and b) being human predispose one towards higher likelihoods of (certain types of (for beer)) crime. Do you insist that 100% of people who see virtual kiddie porn are pedophiles, because that would have to be your counter-argument for consistency. Of course not!! The idea they are trying to ban it on is that it "might predispose" people towards pedophilia, i.e. people who view it would have a statistically higher likelihood of commiting a certain crime, just like people drinking beer. Might as well ban beer.
Ever get the impression that your life would make a good sitcom?
Ever follow this to its logical conclusion: that your life is a sitcom?
"I don't care about the Constitution!" --Bill O'Reilly, November 17, 2009
The person with this content on their hard drive should be able to prove that it is infact CGI by providing the models used for the production, or a like item. A checksum of the characters, etc. Which could be included in the image and/or movie which would prove it was CGI and not real.
In fact, we are getting to the point where the images will be made on the fly from 3D models and such. As such it will be clear it is CGI since real people can't be converted into 3D models (yet). Printouts for posters, banners and such could include a checksum barcode, or even a licence number for that work.
There's a lot more pot-smokers who aren't hitting up convenience stores than ones who are. It's the "armed robbery" part that should be illegal, not the pot-smoking. See my point?
Ever get the impression that your life would make a good sitcom?
Ever follow this to its logical conclusion: that your life is a sitcom?
"I don't care about the Constitution!" --Bill O'Reilly, November 17, 2009
First, I'd like to thank you for a detailed, interesting, and genuinely thought provoking reply. I'll respond line by line:
What constitutes pornography is certainly not easy to determine.
As I said: "For me, in most cases, it's not at all difficult to determine what constitutes pornography" I qualified that statement in two respects by using the words "For me" and "in most cases". In other words, although I generally find it a good rule of thumb, I don't expect it to be a simple matter for everyone and, in some cases, I find my own standard difficult to apply meaningfully. NYPD Blue is a good example: although the program contains scenes depicting nudity and sex, and they're certainly intended to titillate (if mildly), those scenes are merely footnotes to a thoughtful and well written program. Does the inclusion of a small portion of mildy pornographic content demand that the entire program be labelled pornographic? Of course not.
But we're not talking about programs like NYPD Blue, are we? For the moment, let's stick with the question at hand: Is it acceptable to depict real or virtual children in a pornographic manner? Pressing on:
First of all, a work may very well be sexually exciting to some, or even all, of it's audience, but that doesn't make it pornographic unless the intent of the work is to cause sexual excitement.
I agree.
You touch upon it yourself, by interjecting the "presented merely to tickle the libido".
I tried to do more than "touch upon it". The Mirriam Webster definition was included to support the case for the importance of "intent" when determining what constitutes pornography. As you mention, I used the word "presented" towards the same end, and used the word "depict" when describing a hypothetical pornographic production of "Romeo and Juliet"
How do you know if that's the intent?
Good question. Pornograpy is, usually, anything but subtle. I think I can percieve intent, generally, and I think most others can too, whether or not they're willing to admit it. However, the more important question: how does society determine intent in these matters? Of course, it's up to the Courts to split that hair.
How do you know if the intended audience would be turned on by seeing it?
The question of whether or not it's effective pornography is beside the point.
And you draw lines based on your moral standards
On the question of the pornographic depiction of children, virtual or otherwise, I draw the same line that the vast majority of people in this country do. I'll say for the record, here and now, that, despite the examples of ancient Athenians, various Roman Emperors, the occasional Pope, and other pederasters throughout Occidental history, in America, sex between adults and children is wrong, depictions of sex between children is at the very least, troubling, and any obviously pornographic depiction of children is as wrong as anything in our society can be.
And you have no right to say that any set of moral standards "right" or "wrong".
I certainly do have the right to determine for my self what is right and wrong. I assume though, that you're referring to the application of my belief-set onto society. Of course, I modulate my beliefs somewhat when applying or projecting them onto society, because I recognize that there can be, and is, disagreement between reasonable people as to an abolute standard of right and wrong. However, as to the question of the morality of pedophiliac pornography, virtual or not, I believe that there would be very little disagreement among most Americans.
But don't you even see the paradox presented in this case, revolving around simulated child porn?
I do see that this case circumvents at least one of the standard arguments against pedophiliac pornography, which you mention in your next sentence.
It does not hurt children in it's production.
Exactly. That fact removes the most inarguable impediment to child pornography. Other arguments are more difficult to make: the moral question, the question of whether or not media encourages viewers to mimic the things they see and hear, etc.
And it is a work of fiction.
I'm not sure why that's relative.
Where do you draw the line, if you don't allow this?
I've told you where I, personally, would draw the line. For our society, it will be drawn in a Court of Law.
If your reason is that the depictions are revolting...
Although I mention that the practice is "disgusting", in no way did I use my disgust to make my case.
If your argument is that the pictures can incite pedophile behaviour...
I'm not sure why you mention that, I certainly didn't. That's the Prosecutor's argument, not mine.
Let's move this issue from the theoretical to hypthetical: Would you support the legalization of movies that depict virtual children having various forms of consensual sex with other children or adults? Movies with titles such as "Kindergarden Gangbang" and "Playground Rape"? What about bestiality? If pedophiliac porn is OK, why not pedophiliac bestiality? How about pedophiliac 'snuff' films? Another possibility: pictures of the faces of real children, modeled in 3D, placed on a virtual child's body and used in pornographic movies.
The sad thing about that last sentence: some readers, rather than being horrified by the thought of someone's child being used in such a manner, will immediately argue that it would be illegal to use someone's image without their consent.
If you think these titles and subjects unlikely then consider the titles of the porn videos (actaully, these are series, not single titles) currently available, and legal, in this country, titles such as "Cherry Poppers", "Hardcore Schoolgirls", "Young and Anal", "Bring 'em Young", and many others all depicting adult females acting, more or less believably, as adolescent girls engaged in EXTREME sex acts.
If you're incapable of completely endorsing the legalization of pedophiliac pornography,in the forms that I've described, I'd like to know why.
There is a moral standard in this country that the vast majority of it's citizens share. People who have forgotten that fact, or would like to, will be reminded of it when they bump up against issues such as this. Look in your heart: do you really believe that legalisation of virtual child pornography is a good thing? Is this what the Creators of the Declaration of Independance, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights had in mind for America?
Once again I say, if pedophilia isn't wrong, then nothing is. Like it or not, there is a standard of right and wrong in America. Imperfect as it may be, this Country was founded on a set of Moral principles, and has prospered by them. Many people in this country would disagree on the fine print. However, I think it very safe to say that the overwhelming majority of Americans would vehemently oppose the legality of pedophiliac pornography. Thank God for that.
MSK
but it would be nice to see a positive turn in the "morality" of our country (US) rather than the opposite. I'm not sorry for offending those who get their sexual highs from such things as child pornography. So your opinion should be law? Let me get this straight..... You believe that a "god" created the world and left no evidence and that you or anyone can guess the desires of such a being. And anybody that dissagrees with you is wrong... Ok you suffer from delusions and want to say what is right and what is wrong? Your shitting me right? That is a troll...right? BTW I don't mind offending delusional people who want to controll my thoughts. And I don't care what YOU believe. It is what the most people in the US believe that is supposed to matter. Hint if you need a wake up call there is many more non -christians then christians.
The question should boil down to whether child porn laws are there to protect the children that are the subjects of pornography, or whether the laws are to protect those of us being exposed to it.
Either way, it's about as appealing as goatse.cx.
Mr. Ska
I slit a sheet
A sheet I slit
Mr. Ska
And what about thoughts? Those dirty fantasies about children. Those should be banned also, right?
The point about such laws which prohibit rape/murder, theft etc is not to legislate against immorality but to protect the individual in a society. This is not a moral issue as such. If somebody breaks into my house and steals my stuff, I am not morally outraged but I am pretty pissed off that my stuff has been stolen. Likewise if I am raped or a family member is murdered then I am still pretty pissed off that I was not protected by the society in which I live. ;-)
Stealing/raping/killing are morally wrong in that they are "bad" or "evil" if you have a moral code which prohibits these things. If you have a moral code which considers certain people to be less than human (for example) then doing these things to them might not be morally wrong to you. However in a society which protects the individual, these acts are clearly against the ethics of the society and are illegal.
On the other hand certain people hold that swearing or using the Lord`s name in vain is immoral, but it sure as christ shouldn`t be fucking illegal
Getting back on topic for a mo, sick though these puppys are, if no illegal act has been commited (ie abuse of a minor) then you can`t outlaw something based on morality (assuming we have a common morality in the first place, see above).
A crash reduces
Your expensive computer
A crash reduces
Your expensive computer
to a simple stone.
What about a BOOK, for crying out loud, that depicts any of these things (including fictional sex acts involving fictional children)? Lolita
...or "Songmaster" by Orson Scott Card, which also depicts pedophilia. Sick to be sure, but I didn't need an anti-kiddie porn law when I threw the book back at the library in the 9th grade. Better to have these GGWK types jacking off in front of their monitor instead of sitting at a playground bench.
-lux (xhtml free comment)
No your logic must be very warped if you think banning child porn (in any form) is similar to banning Doom. In fact I'd say that was totally illogical.
Doom is not there for people to enjoy virtual killing, it is a game for people to enjoy winning. It just so happens that you have to do some virtual killing in order to get there.
The object of child porn is to...lust over little kids. That's it. Can you think of another use for child porn?
Sorry if this offends your free speech morals but life is a bit more complex than "Anyone who bans anything is a prude and just doesn't like someone else's cartoons".
Without free speech we'd not be here discussing this, but there are, in my opinion, reasonable limits like child porn.
They say that you shouldn't write about things you know nothing about. Here, lemme take a minute to tell you about myself before I get to my point.
First off, I'm a pedophile. Yes, I have a rather sizable collection of pictures (PGP-encypted and with non-descriptive file names, naturally). I look at them sometimes, but I don't obsess about it. I have a far larger collection of "normal" porn.
And yet somehow, through it all, I manage to lead a fairly normal life. I've been in a stable, loving relationship -- with someone who's actually older than I am, before you ask -- for over two years. I have a steady job (techie for a small company). Oh, and sometimes -- brace yourself -- I sometimes volunteer some time at the elementary school. You may be surprised to learn I don't spend my time staring at the kids' asses.
I've never been arrested, let alone convicted of anything. Yeah, I got in my share of trouble as a kid, but who didn't?
Having said all that, I think you can see I'm not only a fairly normal citizen, but I'm probably more qualified than you are to talk about pedophilia.
Your assertation here:
is, frankly, false. I'd love to hear what kind of evidence you've seen that child porn has any kind of adverse effect on the "addict." (In quote marks because I am no more "addicted" to child porn than I am to "normal" porn.) I have no doubt that it's true for some people, but I give it no more credit than claims that all homosexuals are child molesters (I have a few gay friends, btw) or that all blacks are criminals (my best friend is black, and his family are almost model Christians, in fact).
So anyway, what kind of effect does child porn have? Well, I get hard, I get my rocks off... and I wipe the files off my hard drive, "just in case." Then I forget about it. I don't think I've touched my archive in months, in fact.
It has absolutely no effect on me when I'm not looking at it (or for it). Really. None at all. I glance at little kids at the beach sometimes, yeah. You can't blame that on the porn. Cause and effect, buddy. Do I sometimes fantasize about -- how to say this without being crude -- 'having my way' with kiddies, maybe even the same one who caught my eye at the beach? Sure. Do I do the same thing with older people? You bet. The same way almost everyone else does. Can't blame that on the porn, either.
Would I ever actually molest a kid? Well, if we lived in a society where it was accepted, I would have done it already. But we don't -- it's illegal and immoral, on a level where almost no other crimes have managed to sink to. I would never molest a child, because as much as I'd like to, I can easily see that it's just not right. Yes, that's right, I've been blessed with that thing called "self-control."
So, hey, let's recap. If you'll excuse my "perversion" for a moment, I'm a pretty normal member of society, am I not? Job, friends, healthy relationship. Now, let's add my "perversion" into the picture. What have we got? Job, friends, healthy relationship...oh, and when I jerk off, sometimes -- sometimes -- I think of little 9-year-olds.
I defy you to prove that I've hurt anyone, including myself. I continue to lead a healthy, normal life, so my "perversion" certainly hasn't damaged me yet. You probably think about it more than I do, if this is the kind of reaction you give every time it comes up. And the only other people you could possibly argue I've damaged are the kids in the pictures. Well, for one, they weren't taken for me -- they'd still be out there even if I hadn't been looking for them. And I don't own any pictures of kids involved in sex acts -- they're just not wearing clothing. So...where's the damage?
And to go back to the headline -- what happens when the porn I look at doesn't involve real kids? Who are you going to say I'm damaging then?
I agree, but I don't think that's rational.
The main fear of child abuse/molestation, including child porn, is the psychological damage to the child that may not be reparable.
I'd say that the damage caused by murder is pretty irreparable. And of course not just to the murdered party.
Serial murderers certainly seem to repeatedly commit crimes without an outside party noticing. It's got one big advantage, crime-wise, over child abuse: the victim can't turn you in.
So if there's going to be a "special case", shouldn't we start with the worst crime we can think of? Is that really child molestation?
What if was legal to make and distribute virtual kiddie porn, but it was illegal to sell it?
My thinking is that if someone wants to create this stuff because it's an expression of their imagination or fantasy, so be it. What really worries me is some unscrupulous "business" person saturating the market with it and putting money into it's promotion - potentially giving it mainstream appeal (I personally believe this is responsible for much of the hype surrounding anal sex (not to say that is wrong)).
Thoughts?
This is a specific instance of the perennial question "How old do you have to be to reach majority?" There's really no easy answer, and there's a large grey area around the upper end of the adolescent age bracket, but you have to draw the line somewhere.
When the CG is so good that the product is indistinguishable from the real thing, it will be easier, cheaper and faster to use CG to produce the porn. The market will be saturated, and the incentive to risk obtaining, photographing and disposing of real children will evaporate.
Perhaps virtual child porn actors can fill the small market for this material and reduce the risk to real children.
Sure it would be nice if everyone was a perfect person just like you ... but does that mean you should *force* them?
Child pornography is illegal because it was created by exploiting a child, and invades the privacy of that child. "Virtual" child pornography doesn't exploit anyone. They haven't commited the crime yet. Should it be illegal to fantasize about committing a crime? If not, then why should it be illegal to put your fantasies on a paper or a computer screen? Isn't there something in the United States called "Freedom of Speech"?
I would have thought that the real agument against with virtual child pornography is that it would allow pedophiles to believe that sexual acts with children were socially acceptable.
I assume (having not encountered any child pornography despite being on the net since 1990) that the pornography depicts the acts in a favourable light where there are no signifacnt bad consequences.
Rather than wheting a pedophiles appetite I would think it more likely that it allows them to justify their actions by considering their acts to not be harmful and not uncommon.
I'm no expert on free speach but personally I would not like to have this stuff allowed. On the other hand I don't like the idea of peoples free speach being constrained. By locking out virtual porn you create the potential for many more restrictions that I would disagree with.
It's a bit of a problem really.
-- That which does not kill us has made its last mistake.
Enough braindead stupidities voiced here already.
An interesting by-product to observe though is that people who defend the pedophile's rights with regards to use, produce and broadcast and promote virtual child pornography the most passionately, are the ones who at the same time think that child molesters should be castrated, shot, executed and what have you. I mean how much more can you reveal about your twisted frame of mind than that ?
Just read the article in the WP and look what people mix up together in violent perversities.
Sarcasm-on:
Of course, "artistic expressions" like THAT really need to be protected by the first amendment.
Sarcasm-off.
plonk !
do they have any/similar legislation about anime/cartoon porn especially relating to children, not to mention mutilation, bondage etc.
shooting is not too good for my enemies
looks like we'll have to ban all pornography now, because that obviously whets the appetite of rapists. oh, and can't forget racist propaganda, that makes people commit hate crimes! whoops, don't forget explots! people who read some C code want to go out and 0wn a system!
get real.
...producers right where it hurts, eh? :) I mean, what will this do to shows like Sailor Moon?
Seriously, though...what sort of restrictions are really created by such legislation? As you know, the definition of "child" varies from locale to locale (such as between states), making the creation of child porn comparatively subjective. Think about how terribly complex this sort of a law can get; how can you judge the age of a "virtual child?"
What'dya mean there's no BLINK tag!?
Wholly misconceived. It's not the underlying bitstream that's being banned, it's what you describe as the "implementation details", which is the human-readable meaning of a given bitstream in a context that includes the display of images.
It's perfectly possible to read the bitstream of a .jpg as a very, very large number devoid of anything other than its sui generis meaning as a number. It only becomes harmful (select your own value for harmful here) when the implementation of that number is as a jpg of a kind readable by an appropriately-configured machine as an image.
Our hypothetical large number is noise in the context of pure number, but signal in the context of a session with - say - paint shop pro.
-- AndrewD
A Maze of Twisty Little Laws, All Different.
The idea of monitoring intentions is not what the USA was founded on. However, if an act or object can be utilized to fuel a crime against another, beyond a reasonable doubt, then monitoring is to be taken place - not in a "1984" fashion, but to keep peace. Because we cannot get inside the heads of others and see their thoughts, understand their interpretations of right and wrong, we can rarely stop a crime before it happens and are left to pick up the pieces and punish the perpetrator after the crime has been committed. Therefore, we have laws that deter such crimes. It is true that pedophiles are indeed responsible for their own actions, but outlawing virtual child porn is not all about pedophiles. It is about children. In general, the common belief in America is that children and young teenagers may very well have a sense of sexuality, as immature and innocent as each child may have, but because they are not adults and generally cannot cope with the emotional and psychoogical strings attached with sex, we do not perceive them as sexual beings, and this is what child pornography does, whether or not the child is photgraphed while performing a sexual act. Because we do not want our own real children to be perceive and dealt with as sexually active beings, why should anyone want for a pedophile to be able to indulge his or her fantasies on a fake child? Pedophiles rarely are ever "cured" of their desires...remember Megan's Law? We do not need to encourage those who lust after children to continue to do so, whether those children are computer generated or flesh and bone.
Let's say you've got a 50k GIF. That takes up 50k, obviously. Let's say it took 10,000 different brush strokes, mouse moves, tool uses, undos, layer effects, selections, etc. For each one, you'd have to record mouse start, mouse end, foreground color, background color, tool in use, tool options in use, layers that were affected, masks that were employed, filters applied, texture bitmap used, and probably a few other things I forgot about. Plus, if it was 3d rendered, you'd have to include wireframe models, texture mapping instructions, camera angles, lighting statistics, transparency, opacity, reflectivity, x/y/z rotation, etc.
In essence, you're saying that any computer artist has to keep all source material, copies of the project through each stage of evolution, samples from every step (in case that step is questions), as well as complete event logs, just so they can prove they created it *if* anyone ever asks.
Have Fun.
Not necessarily. If only noncommercial distribution (say p2p file sharing) were allowed, it should be possible to destroy the market. I don't see how anyone could profit from producing kiddie porn under that kind of scheme.
Does intent really matter? I'm sure it wasn't Stephen King's intent to have a kid in my high school (~1990) bring one of his horror stories to life by holding his class hostage with a shotgun.
Child pornography is disgusting to most of us. I'm sure you don't believe that any "normal" person will become aroused from watching virtual child porn, just as no "normal" person will decide to rape someone because they saw it in a movie.
No form of visual imagery should be illegal other than preventing the sale/viewing of it to minors. That's my take on it anyway.
I have been skim-reading the thread [Virtual Child Porn: Is It Legal ?] and there is one question or situation that springs to mind, it does not bear direct relevance on whether this law should be passed or not, but make me question how we should take the future.
My point is this, and yes - I know that it's hypothetical - at the minute. It relies on technology that is not available, but I believe that at the current growth of computer virtual reality development, that it is something that may well be possible in the future.
{cut to chase}
What if I have a virtual reality machine, a piece of computer hardware, a totally generated environment with responsive feedback etc. Am I allowed to do what I want inside this environment ?
I am not very knowledgeable in law, and have no idea what the court systems of any country would make of these examples, but they illustrate my point and raise some serious questions on our future.
I am allowed to create a beautiful environment for me to explore, but the problems come when I put things into that reality.
Suppose I put a virtual recreation my ex-girlfriend in there, does she have rights to object to living in my virtual reality ? What if I start to portray some of her characteristics differently, or suppose I use the recreation for sexual purposes ? Suppose we were role playing something and I killed her accidentally, is this manslaughter, and if I did on purpose can I be convicted of murder ?
All these things are heightened versions of what I can create in my own virtual reality machine that is my imagination in my own head. We know I cannot be convicted for the thought crime, but is putting something into virtual reality something that I should be allowed to do as a responsible citizen ? Or is virtual reality a playground where the consequences should be dealt with as in our perceived current reality (i.e., the world we currently live in), after all, we only believe that the world is the way that we see it. Surely everyone must admit that there is a slightly different reality for everyone.
(Are my thoughts that different to yours ? and I will see every color slightly differently to you, just because of the intensity or variation in the light receptors in my eyes.)
I'm not going to try to answer my own questions now, but whatever, the future is bringing manipulation of virtual worlds that we could (theoretically) do anything we wanted.
One last thing springs to mind, if I put someone in my virtual reality machine without their knowledge, and then committed the most awful traumatic crime in front of them, would they be able to convict me ? If so for what, for the crime, or for the event that they experienced, bear in mind that this event never happened apart from in the computer.
What if I committed the crime on them ? Would they be able to have me convicted of murder of themselves, even if they were in the courtroom as a witness to their own virtual murder ?
The point of my virtual reality machine is that we should not be able to tell the difference between the real world and what the computer environment generates for us.
Should we just outlaw anything that is capable of creating a virtual anything that is indistinguishable from the same thing but in the real world.
p-pp-ppp-pickup a penguin.
(http://www.debian.org)
Your point of view, as a parent, is interesting.
However, I want to ask a question about a broader topic:
Is it a good idea, in order to deter the sexual abuse of children, to allow pedophiles to not only become part of mainstream sexuality, but to feel as if the world, at least the capitalist market in the United States as a whole, accepts them just the way they are by providing them with a "safe" alternative to abusing children?
We are not painting a picture here of what a common pedophile really is - usually, it's an adult white male engaged in a romantic and sexual relationship with a minor, and less often the serial killing, clownsuit-wearing maniac. This man is not only attracted to females under the age of accepted sexual maturity (generally 17-18 in the US) but wants to have a relationship with them much like a normal romantic relationship between two consenting adults.
All of the serial abusers who repeatedly assault and rape different children already know they're sexual preferences are not accepted in our society and this will most likely not change anytime soon.
Before the 1960's, it was still generally believe in Western society that children were the property of their parents to be treated as the parents saw fit, and children were to always mind their elders, no matter what would happen to them because they were not people until they were adults, and not allowed any control over their lives and bodies. Unfortunately, this attitude still exists somewhat.
After all, one child being protected from sexual abuse is not worth the cost of one pedophile's freedom to view whatever he or she wants.
Do we want to take a step backward?
Christian perspective inside; if you're adverse to that sort of thing, skip this.
I agree that it's our responsibility to remove sin from our own lives, otherwise we're not sinning because we're afraid of man, not because we fear God. I can't agree with the argument that "porn does me no harm" (for most people): Porn (as generally combined with masturbation) causes a feedback loop: porn is associated with masturbation which is associated with a sexual gratification, which then increases the desire for porn. Based on my understanding of how sin works, and based on personal experience. Unless your purpose for looking at porn is NOT sexual gratification (then what is it?).
Suprisingly (or maybe not so) a lot of pedophiles work with kids, and you'd never expect them to molest children. But they still do. Would giving them access to kiddie porn help? Those who argue "yes" argue that they could satisfy their longings by looking at porn, but honestly how many of you would be happy having no sexual relationships outside of looking at porn? So if your PRIMARY sexual gratification comes from imagining sex with children, the only thing that's going to stop you from actually molesting a child is the fear of the law.
The problem is that the thought leads to action, action leads to habits, habits lead to attitudes, attitudes lead to character, character leads to destiny. Lust after children needs to be fixed at the thought level. We can't legislate that, and we shouldn't, so...
For example, I have a friend who struggled with homosexuality. The way he beat it is by removing masturbation and porn from the feedback loop (and controlling his thoughts/resisting the devil).
Back to the point of the case, which is the legal (not ethical) perspective: I believe that the law should be that computer modified images should be legal, but subject to carrying "proof" (basically a list of Photoshop {re,un}doable commands) that it's from non-sexual sources.
Paedophilia is sick, it does not matter if people are looking at pictures of children, or a "depiction" of a child, it will still get them off. With the way people are embracing computers and the artistic skill of people, it will soon become dificult to differentiate between a genuine image, and a manufactured one. People have cited that in movies such as American Pie, that there is simulated sex between minors, but the actors are not minors, and the whole thing is in a totally different vein. It is not people getting off on blatant "pre-pubescent kiddie porn" but a comedic look at teenage life. This is going to be a hard one for the courts to rule on but it should be made illegal. It is just fuel for a sick mind. I am unsure as to if paedophilia is an actual sickness of the mind that can be treated, or a disgusting thrill that can't be cured. If anyone so much as looked at my girlfriends two kids in the wrong way, they would be strung up by the scrotum. If I found an image on a clients computer that had been manufactured, it would turn my stomach as much as a geniune photo. Just my 2cents Cya
- SigKill -
This does NOT make sense! In the past our children were being abused to satisfy perverted desires. Society saw this as very bad and banned child pornography to protect our children.
Soon, perhaps already, perverted people will be able to make virtual child porn that looks so real that you can't tell the difference.
Once we reach this stage, if we are not already there, police will have difficulty catching the perverts that are actually abusing our children. The guilty could claim only virtual child porn and get off unjustly.
Child porn certianly harms children. Images indistiguishable from real child porn allows real child porn to exist. Simulated child porn, therfore, harms children.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Fantasia Perhaps?
I never said it wasn't offensive of morally bankrupt, I just said it wasn't the part of the government to regulate it.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Technically, you can't do this in Canada either. Under the law (a different law than the "virtual child porn" one), any more than two participants is equivalent to "in public", and therefore illegal.
I'm puzzled how they'd enforce it, though.
Taco you really need to stop posting as AC
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58.0% slashdot corrupt
Simple answer, because depiction of the action is NOT the same as actually PERFORMING the action.
Actors portraying rape hurts no one. Actors portraying murder hurts no one. Images of non-existant children engaged in sexual activity hurts no one.
Laws should punish those who actually violate others rights, not attempt to prevent those violations from occuring. Men are not hanged because horses are stolen, men are hanged so that horses will not be stolen.
Studies can show anything you want them too if you try hard enough when it comes to people's reactions to situations. In my oppinion if I want to draw pictures and put them on my website of cartoon characters doing whatever I happen to have in my mind, I think I should be allowed. You don't have to look at them! If I push them in your face or post them all over town, then we will talk.... But last time I checked people were not canvasing cities with printouts of virtual girls in compromising positions.
And as far as the "Studies showing" depictions of illegal acts provoking reactions from those with a "fetish", "illness", whatever you want to call it is bullshit. If somebody is going to commit a crime, in most cases they are going to commit the crime. For us to start changing the definition of freedom of speech to try and reduce such acts is retarded. Has anybody stopped to think that it might be good to allow such material to exist.
Have you ever come home from a hard day at work and been full of rage? As an experiment next time you have a horrible day at work and feel as if you are on the edge of snapping and taking out your neighborhood with some kind of deadly force, pop in "Falling Down" or "Office Space" and tell me how you feel by the end of the movie? From those I have talked to they feel as if watching that movie is an EXCELENT way to relax after such a day.
I've used a lot of pornography in my lifetime, but even I steer away from child porn. Deep down I feared that I'd like it too much. It's a slippery road, and if I start down it I'm not sure I could stop. It may be legal, but virtual child porn is dangerous.
Check out Chad's News
With that in mind I'm for increasing the penalties of crimes against children.
Do you know what the current penalties are?
Do you know what happens to people in prison who are convicted of crimes against children?
Do you know what happens to people who survive prison and must enroll in Megan's Law-type programs?
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I think you've proven this point, at least.
--
All men are great
before declaring war
A government is a body of people notably ungoverned - AC
It's a tricky line, and you're drawing it in the wrong place IMHO. It's an interesting topic you raise. Suppose I were to take a picture of a girl I found attractive at work [if only such a girl existed ;)] and Photoshop it onto a picture of some porno model with her legs spread. Who does that harm?
I would say it harms no-one, initially. The point you raise is that if the girl were to find out, she might be upset by it. It might be tantamount to sexual harrassment - if I showed it to her.
So let's keep the legislation at the point of action: in this case, showing the picture to the girl would be actionable as sexual harrassment. Just making the picture and having it wouldn't.
Although I don't know what would happen if she somehow innocently found such a picture. I guess this would be a case of misadventure. I doubt anyone would be seriously harmed by such an act, but they wouldn't want to be my friend again ;)
The free speech issue is important. Nazi propaganda, in and of itself, does not harm anyone. Speech doesn't hurt people, only people can do that. And that's what the law is there to protect us from.
I didn't pay for my operating system either
Hmm... but if I make a `virtual' (=fake) press release, it must be just as "good" as the real thing then, eh? So how about a `virtual' newsbyte about freedom of speech prevailing?
--TheOrangeSquid Is it any wonder things seem so awry? We swim in a sea of confusion and don't have to think to survive
There certainly does appear to be double standards regarding the abuse of children - there are many countries in this world, such as parts of Africa and the Middle East, where its common for girls as young as 12 or 13 to get married to much older men - and these marriages are usually arranged without the girl's consent. Are we then to label a significant proportion of the worlds population as paedophiles?
It's not just a matter of sex & children being disgusting and child porn being dangerous - there was a case a few years ago involving a revered photographer in the US (sorry can't remember his name, maybe someone else recalls this), whos style was very dreamy, nude, black and white photos. Nothing pornographic, these photos were exhibited in gallerys and in magazines. Occasionally he took photos of children under commission from their parents. He was arrested and all his property relating to his photography was confiscated, even the special film he used to give his prints their unique style. Was this right or wrong? Is the very act of taking pictures of children nude, when the child consents, the child's parents consent, and there is no abuse involved?
If I write a note wherein I describe my thoughts on the pleasures of child molestation, should I be arrested?
If I have in my posession a graphic, well-written description of child molestation that I find arousing, should I be arrested?
If I have in my posession a graphic, well-written description of child molestation that somebody else finds arousing, should I be arrested?
If I have in my posession a videotape of excerpts from the gymnastics competition at the 2000 Olympics, and a child molester finds the images of little girls appealing and arousing, should I be arrested? (Should women's gymnastics be banned from television?)
How exactly would you prove, or what proof would convince you, that images of children engaged in sex acts (photographs from life, VR images, pen and ink drawings) drive borderline sex offenders to commit crimes of child molestation that they otherwise wouldn't commit?
Yeah, I agree with that. As a practical matter, if it looks like someone is seriously getting ready to flatten my nose, I don't wait around for them to do it before I try to stop them. It's a judgement call, as you say.
Free speech, of course, for all that we bandy the term about, was never intended to be an absolute, but rather a guarantee that those in power would not be able to suppress opposition to themselves. Still, the general idea behind it, and most of our Bill of Rights guarantees, is that generally people have the right to decide how to live their lives without interference provided others are not harmed in the process. When there is a question of where the line has to be drawn, I feel that it is usually better to err on the side of freedom.
No relation to Happy Monkey
Haven't we proved that prohibition doesn't work. fact of the matter is 'some' people are always going to have these feelings (be it pedo, homosexual, beastial or psychotic or whatever) and making it illegal to even think or write or paint about it means that they will simply go underground. Everyone has a darkside and a safe, consensual means to deal with these emotions is the only long term solution.
Making something illegal doesn't make it go away, nor does it make so called sick people better. Just like taking guns away won't stop people killing each other, but dealing with the issues which made them want to kill eachother just might find a solution.
--
Steve Jobs: We're better than you are.
Bill Gates: That doesn't matter.
'Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson...'
By my morals, of course. I said I believe the act to be morally wrong, but everyone is entitled to their own opinion.
No one gets to be the moral jugde, but the supreme court judges get to decide what's legal and what's not.
(P.S. Is oral sex really illegal in some US states?! Which ones?!)
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Never underestimate the bandwidth of a 747 filled with CD-ROMs.
That's a good one. You'd have to treat it like smoking or drinking laws, which make it illegal to damage yourself until you're old enough to fully appreciate the consequences.
So yeah, exploiting yourself should be illegal up until the age of 18 (or whatever age you've got to be to get wasted, vote and gamble in your jourisdiction).
As an aside, I was interested in this issue when I saw the headline on the Slashdot front page. It was one of the first things I thought of when I got a grip on the CG power of the PS2. This is not some hypothetical future question, this is a real issue now, or at least as soon as the PS2 developers get to grips with the machine's power.
I'm all for it, by the way. As long as kiddies aren't harmed in the production, go for it. It makes an interesting thought experiment with which to confront free-speech advodates who also happen to be parents, in any case.
PS: The, um, girl you mentioned with the tripod and timer camera... what's her URL? ;-)
Cheers, Robert.
Well put. I wish more people had your level of understanding.
Rick
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
My argumentation is based on my personal opinions and my (sometimes lacking) knowledge, but I do not claim them to be morals and should work for others, too. /.).
Everybody can still do whatever he wants to do. He just has to live with the consequences. My neighbour can, of course, throwing shit in my house, and it is unlikely that I can prevent him from doing this, but he has to think of me not liking it and taking the in count actions I might do in response.
Any personal or human rights are illusions. You say central African people have the rights of having food and not being slaugtered and raped, too. But what is it for, when there is no food there, but thousand of people who want to slaughter and rape are there?
I know I'm a winner just by the fact that I'm born in central Europe. And it pisses me off.
BTW, why is being insane bad? Who judges insanity?
Why complainig to anyone special? I either complain to myself or to anyone who is interested (such as at
Just because I can imagine doing a hippopotamus, doesn't mean I'd like to do it.
You had me until the last third. Your argument would have been stronger if you hadn't mentioned homosexuality, considering its lack of relevance to an illegal action against an innocent verses concenting adults (male homosexual urges shouldn't be any more dangerous or encouraging towards illegal activity than heterosexual urges.. Yes there are violators in both camps, but we must single them out). I understand the Christian swing, but there it is.
The problem is that the thought leads to action, action leads to habits, habits lead to attitudes, attitudes lead to character, character leads to destiny. Lust after children needs to be fixed at the thought level. We can't legislate that, and we shouldn't, so...
What you say about feed-back loops makes a lot of sence to me as an EE. Though I don't think your conclusion about destiny is as logical. If I had to make one up, I'd say: thoughts lead to desires (habbits), desires lead to attitudes (viewing their sexual prey as sluts who desire your gratifying "punishment"), attitude leads to character (possibly molding how you act, but in general, who you are), and only at the very end is action. Not all the steps are always present (such as with initial experimentation with masterbation). The key difference is that once action is taken, all the damage is done.
I agree with you in that I don't think violent sexual activities should really ever be _encouraged_. Obviously it's unwise to indulge in fantacies about your work-place. There is strong practical reason for why you should never date at your work place.. Should fanticizing about your students be any less stupid?
I respect that you say regions should have the right to evict undesirable elements, provided the offenders have the right to move. I remember Hero's Quest III or some such beast where there was this society based around honor.. And if you were caught committing a non-violent crime, your punishment meant a declaration of a lack of honor - that was it.. Of course the practical side effect is that nobody would sell to you. I always thought that mentality was kind of cool, though largely impractical.
Still the horrors of 1984 lead me to dislike any sort of thought police. Pre-emptive action such as this is a pandora's box that we don't want to open. If some cunning spam causes me to inadvertantly open a porn-web site that's been flagged by some watch group, my life could silently be ruined.
-Michael
-Michael
Ooh, somehow I hadn't thought of that. You're exactly right, that is the same sort of thing.
I'm all for it, by the way. As long as kiddies aren't harmed in the production, go for it. It makes an interesting thought experiment with which to confront free-speech advodates who also happen to be parents, in any case.
Wasn't it GWBush while campaigning who said something like if his own daughter wanted to have an abortion he wouldn't stop her, even though his party is officially anti-abortion? Amazing how people's minds change when it suddenly becomes personal.
PS: The, um, girl you mentioned with the tripod and timer camera... what's her URL?
I have no idea, but I do recall seeing a Web site somewhere that had porn pics of underage girls - hosted somewhere outside the US - and insisted "you must be 18 or older to enter!" I just about died laughing.
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Sorry, I tried to check my facts, but I couldn't find it. I appreciate it. The RHPS was a stupid sidebar to add to my comment, because it was filmed in a country with 18+ laws.
Yes, but that makes the actual filming of the movie itself illigal.
No, I haven't, and no doubt it's worse, but both would elicit a strong reaction and I think people have the right not to have to experience either.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
Sure you can, but to do so requires a chain of custody from production to courtroom.
This affects all evidence these days. It used to be that you could (mostly) take a photo as evidence that the scene depicted was real, though it would be nice if you had someone to either say ``Yes, I was there, and it looked that way'', or have an expert testify that the photo wasn't tampered with. Now, you need the photographer to testify that she took the photo, and everyone else who had access to the negative (if available) or print to testify that it is unaltered, otherwise you can't assume it's a reflection of reality.
That's the sort of thing the OJ jury saw as introducing a reasonable doubt: the various items of evidence had suspect chains of custody; it was all too possible for someone to have tampered with them. The deal with computerized photo-alterations is simply that they raise the chain-of-custody requirements for photographs to a level not previously needed.
Thus, it's still possible to convict, just harder, because the photo is no longer irrefutable evidence of the event depicted.
And that, boys and girls, is why the cops must bag and label the evidence, keep it under supervised lock and key, and be able to testify that it's unaltered in court---without that it's too easy to convict someone who's the victim of a vendetta. Of course, that's still possible if the vendetta is prosecuted by the cops....
I refuse to believe corporations are people until Texas executes one. -- desert rain on http://www.dailykos.com/user/
(Regardless of law it's against the terms of service of most Web hosting companies, but not all, especially outside the United States.)
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If I had moderators points I would moderate you as "Insightful".
Banning child sex depiction (even if consentual!) and not banning child murder depiction says a lot about the state of minds in some parts of the US..
It reminds me of a case where a mother is prosecuted for buying condoms for her 13 year old child (he had a 15 year old girlfriend).
It is maybe because I'm French, but this sort of thing always amaze me..
There are lots of things that are blatently unconstitutional that have somehow made their way into law.
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I do not believe this is the case. In fact, I do not believe that viewing virtual child pornography would even contribute to turning someone into a child molester (be careful of correlations here!). Therefore, as it does not harm any real children, virtual child pornography should be legal.
Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia.
Prosecution must convince jurors beyond a reasonable doubt.
Unfortunately, it's not that hard. Child pornography is one of those hot-button issues that gets people all fired up. It's the old battle cry of, "Won't somebody please think of the children?!" Rational, decent, otherwise intelligent human beings check their IQ at the door. When it comes to child porn, any evidence is evidence of guilt. Somebody has "teen" porn (you know, the stuff that says teen but the models are all verifiably 18+)? Shows their predilication for underage porn. Somebody possesses dirty stories with kids under 18? Must mean they're child molestors. And God forbid they should have any pictures of kids under 18, pornographic or not (for instance, nudist colony photos).
And, unfortunately, few people want to be the person that says, "Hey, that ain't right" for ANY reason, lest somebody starts accusing them of favoring the legalization of child porn or advocating the abuse of children.
Suddenly, the case shifts. No longer is it on the prosecution to "prove beyond a reasonable doubt," because nobody on the jury has, or is willing to voice, their doubts. The only way your average Joe can win that trial is to exonerate himself ("I never lived there; I've never used that computer; during the time in question those pictures were downloaded, I was stranded in the Alps with no food, no water, and no 'net connection...").
--
An "ignoramus"?
So you are saying that the families and nuns and orphans and Superbowl VIP's in my examples are not victims? Maybe my examples are a little exaggerated for effect, but the logic still holds.
Before you insult me, perhaps you should read my post a little more carefully. Furthermore, I don't recall anyone ever stating your definition of "victimless". It is very possible to be a victim of yourself when you harm yourself due to ignorance, stupidity or poor judgement. That doesn't mitigate your culpability in any way, but the idea behind the illegality of drugs is because people harm themselves and others when they use them. I think the term "victimless crime" is a rationalization created by people that really don't have a good argument for the legalization of drugs.
Here's a similar example. If you don't want to wear a motorcycle helmet and you are hurt more because of it, that's your right, but when you affect me because more insurance money goes towards fixing your fractured skull, then society has a responsibility to consider on my behalf whether it's worth it to _me_ that you don't want to wear a helmet.
In your example, you mention a grieving widow. Now bungie jumping is not a crime, but if it were, how could you argue she's not a victim.
When someone OD's and dies, he or she most certainly affects other people, even if it's just because someone has to haul his or her sorry carcass away. People do not live in a vacuum, and anyone who argues that harming yourself (especially seriously) affects no one else has an overly simplistic view of the world.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
I can't believe it. Over 100 years past Nietzsche there are still discussions about morality!
Let me say it again: Morals are arbitrary, and completely (group-) subjective.
BTW, does anybody even think of the ancient greek pederastic educational system being the origin of our western culture? ;)
Basic rule: As long as all involved have no problem, there is no problem at all.
Just because I can imagine doing a hippopotamus, doesn't mean I'd like to do it.
But did you do it in the living room, with the test equipment?
--
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
If you're trying to back me into a corner, it won't work. I _agree_ that there's a double standard for alcohol with respect to other harmful drugs. However, there are differences.
People can and do die accidently from overdoses even when they know what they are doing or know the purity of what they are dealing with. Illegal drugs are _dangerous_, which is why they are illegal. If you apply the logic of why drugs are illegal to alcohol, it's almost (but not entirely) an open-and-shut decision that it should
be illegal, too. People die from alcohol. People cause others to be killed through use of alcohol.
However, it's not exactly the same. While it is possible, I hardly think there's a significant risk that someone will keel over after having a glass of wine. No one ever got in a fight at a Catholic Mass because he was suddenly drunk from Communion.
The problem with alcohol, in contrast, is that using it responsibly confers a trivial, if any, risk to the user or those around him. This is not true for illegal drugs, otherwise they wouldn't be illegal. I know this point is debated with some drugs, such as marijuana, but I think that is the driving force behind drugs being made controlled substances and makes for a legitimate and convincing argument.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
Not depicts. Insinuates. Since fae never look 18+, it would be illegal to insinuate that they ever had sex -- ie: ever procreated -- ie: ever had any children. Any animation (Disney, anime, et al) that showed any Elf, Fairy, Sprite, Dryad, etc -- having children -- would be illegal due to insinuation of child-looking (since they LOOK under 18) pornography.
http://www.google.com/profiles/malachid
Let's not forget that in Canada, even the *written word* can also constitute child pornography.
So have they banned the Shakesphere play "Romeo and Juliet"? What about "The Bible". Or are we talking selective enforcement here...
I notice in may posts references to basic liberties. It bears repeating that there are no basic liberties or rights. A society must keep it members safe, and this is what the citizens want from the society. In our US society our safety is primarily insured by the expectation and practice of "commom decency." Namely, you can do what you like just so as you don't harm others. When the "common decency" breaks down, ultimately the society will "violate" the basic rights of citizens in order to keep them safe. Our rights are not fundamentaly irrevocable, they are privleges. If you disagree, then answer the question, to whom or to what do you turn when you have been harmed? What would you do is such harm were commom place?
Um, first you are reiterating the last paragraph of my post.
Second, I am talking about "sick" which is not the same as "should be illegal", nor did I ever state that.
Furthermore, I'm not entirely sure you read my previous posts either, or you would see that my original thesis was that under the First Amendment I reluctantly agreed that this should be Free Speech.
Before you accuse me of being an out-of-touch computer nerd, perhaps you should respond to what I say, rather than what you want to pigeonhole me into believing. Didn't 400 years of American history teach you anything about prejudice, or were you too busy playing computer games?
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
Yes, you're absolutely right. And while I have explained myself elsewhere in this thread, I should have chosen my words more carefully.
If no one talks about these things, no one can fix them. I never meant to say anything different.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
You have a point... but yes, it *does* need to be available. Why? Slippery slope.
Next, someone decides that they don't like tentacle-sex, so that's banned. Next, someone decides that they don't like sex with latex or rubber, so that's banned. Next, someone decides that they don't like oral sex, so that's banned (it's already illegal in some states). Next, someone decides that they don't like gay sex, so that's banned (ditto). Next, someone decides that they don't like whatever it is you're into, and that gets banned. Then what will you say?
Naw, it was kinkier than that.
Hay thar.
But as the technology reaches and surpasses that stage, the tools for making virtual porn (child or otherwise) will eventually become so affordable, and the production so much cheaper, and the "creative possibilites" so much greater.. who would bother to risk making the "real" stuff any more?
Look at how computer graphics have revolutionized moviemaking. If anything, virtual child porn might, if permitted, actually supplant and eliminate real child porn and the criminal acts that it entails.
besides all the theorical issues (free will, free speech) there are a couple of practical issues that I'd like to point out. It seems to me that we have to adapt rist our ideas to what is doable, instead of trying to adapt reality to our phylosophy. :)
first: computer generated graphics is going to be not distinguishable (by the typical perv-end-user who trolls online), so it will be hard to prove that one downloaded *real* child porn intentionally
second: generating child porn will at least 'start' from "real" images: or are all pornographist so good in CG that they won't even need a start point and will create a child image from scratch? third: what is the problem here, pornography as a concept or child abuse as a real fact? if the problem is pornography we could argue that it's just a form of expression. Sick, whatever you think. But still a form of expression for lonely people. If the problem is child abuse there's no issue here.
fourth: you are discussing this point under an US point of view. What if virtual child pr0n will be declared illegal in the us but legal in another country. Are you americans going to bomb them? Or even worse, to sue them?
fifth: In my opinion, a children who grows up in an "all-smiley-and-light" environment will be much more shocked when he/she'll face reality.
-- There are two kind of sysadmins: Paranoids and Losers. (adapted from D. Bach)
Throughout a society, there is always a thin, yet beneficial and usually very controversial and sometimes sick line which must exist. This line is the line filled with the pedophiles, KKK, extremists, racists, bigots, etc. which have an antagonistic stance. That is, most people at populous random wouldn't agree with their ideas, and some might even want to control them or stop them completely.
However, it is this line which presents a great wall from the flood of the great beast which is government control, censorship, and "mind control" (not by implants, unfortunately) from crashing through with well known affects. I think we all need to except that this line needs to exist.
I am reminded of a children's book which attempts to explain the whys of the worst hate of all (IMHO) -- censorship -- "silencing". It starts out by eliminating groups of not well liked inhabitants of an imaginary forest (worms and toads). Everyone didn't like them anyway and thought they should best be left out of the forest and thought the place might even be better without them (who wants slimy worms and toads anyway?????). After all, they're not like me. So they were eliminated. It was really easy to do with so much support, and pretty soon there was a new replacement for the ugliest and the dirtiest. You can see where this is leading. At the end, there, (of course) was only one group left, and who was left to speak? Was this group the best? Had we finally "cleansed" society? Probably not, since the methods are arbitrary at best anyway, and related solely to a minority anyway -- what we set out to eliminate in the first place!
I think everyone can see the moral to this story, and the need for that barrier, which mad parents and hypocritical politicians try to cross everyday, in the pursuit of a "safer" community.
Which kind of community would you like to live in?
but of course this would extend to actual child pornography, and so back to the conondrum. Well, not exactly. Actual child pornography is wrong and should be illegal because creating it involves exploitation of a child. Creating "virtual" child porn exploits no one, and, although I personally find it disgusting and depraved, I don't think there is any good reason for making it illegal, since it doesn't hurt anyone. DennyK
Where I come from (=Austria) child pornography is explicitly forbidden, including virtual cp. But the age of consent being 14, pornographers could easily make moves with such young actresses.
To make a long story short: They don't. (Not that I would be aware ouf, at least.) Why? There's simply no money to be made that way. (I don't think "Barely Legal" would be a success if they featured 14-year-olds.)
So, in closing: I don't understand why virtual cp should be illegal, provided that no children get molested.
What's next? Art? Literature? (Hey, "Lolita", anyone?) Will I be allowed to take pictures of my own children, runing around naked in my back yard? Will I be allowed to show them to anyone?
This is a specific instance of the perennial question "How old do you have to be to reach majority?"
Or even "is age a sensible metric for this in the first place?"
It's illegal in Canada, that's for sure. You can't, for instance, pick out an especially young-looking 21 year old woman, do her hair in pigtails (why is it always pigtails?) and have her portray a 15 year old in a porn movie. Of course, Canada's child porn laws are extraordinarily repressive and are in the process of being re-made. (for instance, it is illegal to argue that the law itself is wrong)
Then there is also an issue with how realistic the special effects make your characters look. Face it, eventually we won't be able to tell the difference between a real actor and a computer generated one... how are you going to say "well, that's *clearly* a 9 year old girl who's being exploited by this producer?"
---
"No problem. I have the capacity to do infinite work so long as you don't mind that my quality approaches zero."-Dilbert
If memory servers, this would be illegal, and seen as no different than any other type of 'real' child porn.
In the eyes of the law, a hermit living in the middle of the arctic who writes child porn erotic fiction and never shows it to anyone is still breaking the law.
Yes, it's extreme. No, the hermit probably woudln't get charged.. but the law has decided that anyone doin ganything that depicts or promotes sex with children, whether they are real or not, is illegal.
Here are some very interesting articles on the subject.
l
l
Turns out the US government is the prime kiddie porn
dealer on the net!
http://www.zolatimes.com/V4.34/kiddie_porn1.htm
http://www.zolatimes.com/V4.34/kiddie_porn2.htm
You believe that a "god" created the world and left no evidence and that you or anyone can guess the desires of such a being.
I cannot speak for the original poster, but I believe a god created the world and left ambiguous evidence with which to discern the details of his desires. That is why it is called "faith" instead of "knowing".
It is obvious (to me) that He does not desire for us to physically harm each other, but yet there are secular reasons why we shouldn't, also. Although I think He doesn't like us imagining nasty things, not everybody might come to that conclusion. Until everyone does come to that conclusion, outlawing this (as perverted as it is) would be punishing thought. Punishing thought would serve to take free will away from people.  Whether you believe He gave you free will or not (I do) we can all agree on secular grounds that taking it away will only lead to unjust situations.
First of all, whilst it sometimes requires defending with one's life, freedom of speech is not an absolute right. If it was, there would be no libel laws. In other words, other rights can override freedom of speech.
What is at issue here is the right of all children everywhere not to be turned into sexual objects. I do not believe for one instant that looking at child porn, virtual or otherwise, is going to increase the liklihood of child abduction and rape, but the act of producing such pictures itself serves to legitimize seeing children as sexual objects. For that reason alone I have no problem with making the production of such material illegal.
However, making such stuff illegal does not in itself lead to a solution. What we need to do is question what is it in society that warps some people's sexualities to this extent. If we can find an answer to that question, maybe we can do something about the occurence of paedophilia.
An interesting example of this, it is rumored that Columbia in RHPS is only 15 :) makes you feel all dirty now doesn't it :) (btw if you can find a place to confirm this rumor please let me know :)
Well, according to the IMDB, the Rocky Horror Picture Show was made in 1975, and the actress who played Columbia (Nell Campbell) was born in 1953, so I guess the rumour is false.
But you could have figured that yourself, if you'd invested the 60 seconds or so of effort that I just did..
What's wrong with masturbation, other than some religions believe it damns your soul? What if my religion doesn't believe that? Is it okay for me?
Which religion gets to set the laws of the USA? Of the world?
I'm a furry. That means I love to look at and think of anthropomorphic intelligent animals -- Bugs Bunny, Mickey Mouse, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Joe Camel, Brer Rabbit, centaurs, satyrs, not to mention an endless number of original creations.
I have lots of erotic pictures involving furries (these anthro animals). Some is purely for sexual stimulation and would be "porn"; some is truly fine art that just happens to be erotic to some people (whether displaying genitalia or not).
Obviously, since these creatures don't exist yet in real life, as far as I've seen, I enjoy my particular kink via masturbation and erotic imagery (actual images, stories, role-playing, and my own thoughts).
Who am I hurting? And what exactly are you going to ban? Paintings? Storytelling? Role-playing? Thinking?
Prove it. An avowed pedophile already posted to this topic and said that was not true.
So... ? What's your solution? Legislating Christian morality on all non-Christians?
Keeping the discussion on this issue curtailed for now, it does raise the question of whether someone can be conditioned to resist certain sexual impulses that we don't want them to have -- in particular, pedophilic ones. I too have a gay friend who became a born-again Christian and willed himself into "straightness", but it didn't take away his homosexual desires, it's just that he denies them now.
That's an interesting proposal, though, for many pieces of original artwork, the list of each brush stroke, undo, erasure, change, color selection, texture mapping, etc., would be immense and probably take up more electronic storage than 10 or 100 of the actual pictures. Is that the intent?
Any kind of manufactured image depicting children in a sexual situation is illegal in the UK, even if it can be shown that the image has been manipulated and no actual child abuse occurred.
-- BtB
With all due respect, you're what the Constitution is there to protect us from. Should everyone be constrained in what they can read or see by what might set off the most unstable among us? I admit to not having researched the matter, but I wouldn't be surprised if pedophiles can also get some jollies from Underoos ads, or the child models in the inserts in the Sunday paper. Should those be made illegal as well?
I think you hit the point I was making on the head when you said "reaction." That's what this is about. Not the original action, but the reaction.
Where my opinion differs from yours is that, while I feel that a punch in the nose (or any physical assault, for that matter) causes uncontrollable damage and thus requires a reaction, non-physical disturbances exist primarily in the mind of the person having the reaction. You're the only one who can control how you react to something and I shouldn't have to police my thoughts and words just because you might have a negative reaction to them. I think it's amusing that you say "...I think people have the right not to have to experience either." It's easy to give the right not to be physically beaten (if difficult to enforce). But the right to not feel uncomfortable? The right to not be nauseated? It should be obvious to you how ridiculous this is. Different people can have different reactions to the same words or images. If someone flattens your nose, you got hurt. If someone shows you porn, you might be disgusted, you might be titillated, you might be whatever.
In general, I would say, just walk away. If someone's harassing you with the stuff, that's a different matter. But if it's just out where you can see it, don't look--and if you do, look away and don't think about it. If you can't do that, then the problem is one of self-control, not public hazard.
No relation to Happy Monkey
I don't think that'll be entirely necessary. You're doing a great job on your own.
there's a number of professional counselors out there that are basing their careers on false doctrine.
Yes, there are. False doctrine is more common than you might think.
This law specifically makes the digitally altered evidence LEGAL
If it does, it's extremely badly worded.
You're getting out of your depth again, digital evidence and forensic analysis is one of my areas of expertise, one of my primary job duties for over 4 years.
I'm out of my depth because that's your speciality? How does that work, exactly? You might know how to operate image processing software; I know how to write image processing software. So now we've ascertained that I'm not actually out of my depth ... did you have a point to make?
Again you show your ignorance, as the prosecution is required to demonstrate 3 images
Oh, OK, three images. Not 50,000, as you originally claimed. Glad we got that one straight.
I guess you'll have to be a victim to understand how callous that last statement is.
This is exactly what's wrong with your entire outlook. You're not THINKING. You have a bleeding heart for all your victims and that is coloring your judgement so badly that you're incapable of making a sustained rational argument. Are you implying that all laws should be passed this way - as a knee-jerk reaction to emotive issues? You should run for President.
When it's your child, or your cousin
When it's my child or my cousin, I won't be in a position to make rational judgements. Like you clearly aren't. If your job makes you this irrational and emotional, you should quit and do something where lapses in judgement don't hurt people.
You have this unwavering picture of jack-booted thugs out to destroy innocent people
If you say so. You should know, obviously. I have a picture of you that includes swastikas, I must confess. But I do know that not all policemen are idiots.
"probable intent"
I said provable intent not probable intent. Only one letter difference, so I can see how you would get confused. Who's the "STUPID STUPID FUCK" now? ;) Sending people to jail for "probable intent" is horrific. It's a shame you can't see that.
If it becomes legal to posess digitally generated child porn, there will be no effective difference between "virtual" porn and any other porn on a computer screen. That means no enforcement
It's your job to deal with that within the constraints of the First Amendment. If you can't do that, we should fire your sorry ass (you're our employee, remember?) and get someone who CAN. Many policemen clearly think that the consitution is just something that gets in the way of their fine work. It isn't. It's the basis of American society. Policemen who can't appreciate that SHOULD BE IN JAIL THEMSELVES, or at least kicked out of the republic.
Are you really associated with linux.org?
No I'm not. I think that much is obvious, to the initiated. Are you really in law enforcement? I take it you are. Man, that's so sad. Law enforcement really is filled with all the wrong people. Their reward system is so badly designed, though, that it's a predictable outcome.
Why are you even reading Slashdot? Are you also investigating hackers as part of your job? Or is the child abuse section so underworked that you have time for this? Maybe this is why you want to create work by creating yet another victimless crime?
Now, I think this conversation is over. Your ad hominem arguments are really not working. You're obviosly VERY upset, so I would go and have a nice cup of tea and a cigarette and calm down.
I wouldn't want you taking it out on some poor guy who you've decided is "likely to commit crimes against children".
I didn't pay for my operating system either
I don't want to go too 1984 on you, but ideas have consequenses.
Some ideas are harmful - even as ideas. No act occurs unless it was first a thought.
For example, if the thought of sex with children was eliminated, the act wouldn't happen either.
Unfortunately, some will not only concieve of such a concept, but will obsess about it, and act out on it.
As a society, we should discourage people from dwelling on ideas that are destructive to society.
There's no social benefit to promoting the idea of sex with children. It's not an idea which should be promoted.
In fact, sex with children is quite detrimental to children, and the risk is so great that I think it makes sense for us as a society to suppress that kind of fantasy.
You don't have to like it, but this is America, and I can believe it if I want.
Exposure to movies and video games has an impact on us - otherwise, no movies could be described as "important" or "moving" we are changed by seeing and experiencing things.
Banning expression of ideas is a slippery slope. There's no question about that, and if there's no objective standard for evaluating whether something is right or wrong then really I have no basis for saying that sex with children is wrong.
I think we should be very very careful about what things we choose to eliminate from public forums - things like making jokes at the airport about hijacking and screaming fire in a public theater are already impingements on free speech - but we as a society believe that this is for the public good.
I believe that a ban on child pornography - using real or virtual people is ok because our society is better off without people fantasizing about sex with my infant son.
There is an external standard for right and wrong - one established by the one who created the entire universe.
God loves you and longs for relationship with you.
If you want to know more about this, please contact me at tom_cooper at bigfoot dot com
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?
I'm not saying that Christian morality should be legislated; I'm using (my) Christian theology and worldview to understand the problem of child molestation and the role of porn in it. You're free to agree or disagree with two parts of Christianity separately: (a) the worldview and (b) the realness of the relationship with Christ. If you agree with neither, then it's pointless for you to respond to my post unless you have some evidence against what's presented here. Furthermore, had you bothered to read my conclusion, you wouldn't believe that I'm trying to cram my worldview down people's throats.
If Christianity is true, then porn does you harm whether you like it or not. Most major world religions don't work with "it could be true for me but not true for you." I'll just leave it at that, since it's not my job to convince you of the accuracy of the Christian worldview.
Incidentally, you didn't answer the question about sexual relationships through porn alone, in spite of the fact that you quoted it.
Your avowed pedophile actually said that he would molest children, were it accepted by society (in other words, the only thing stopping him is the fear of the law). Is that a strong enough barrier? Clearly it isn't for many people. (see how many people jaywalk, or speed? Obviously the level of fear is escalated from moving violations to felonies, but there are still a large number of drug offenders in jail) The pedophile goes on to say that child molestation is immoral, though he admitted he would have done it anyways!
There are two questions in your issue of "conditioning;" reinforcement is one and the indwelling and conviction of the Holy Spirit is the other. You probably understand conditioning, but if you've never experienced the presence and indwelling of the Holy Spirit, you're not qualified to say whether his "willing" away his homosexual desires is him at work or the HS at work. "The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned" (1 Cor 2:14 niv). If he believes he willed his homosexual desires away on his own strength, I have a long line of people who would like to talk to him about improving their self-control. If it's your view that he did it in his own strength through his own denials, then perhaps you're being too closed to the spiritual matters here.
Finally, I'm curious where your "10-100x storage" number comes from; that seems really inefficient to me, since I can't imagine that either someone would spend that much time touching up a photo (if you track mouse moves at 30Hz, and each sample is 20 bits deep, you'd have to work on something for 4 hours to get 1 MB of uncompressed samples). The intent is to protect actual children; using the presence of child porn as prima facie evidence of abuse makes it hard for the average user of child porn to defend themselves; "beyond reasonable doubt" is too hard to prosecute (and disadvantages defendants without good lawyers). Hence, using the lack of this carried "proof" to be prima facie evidence clears up the speech issue (mostly) and retains most of the protection to children.
By your morals, or whose morals? What if it is a drawing of two 100% heterosexual adult humans, one male, one female, totally consenting, married to each other by church and state, having oral sex? That's an act that's against many people's morals and is even illegal in some US states.
The bottom line question is this: Who gets to be the moral judge for all the rest of us?
"Destiny" is a Christian worldview thing, though you can secularize it as "something that winds up happening to you," ie a prison term.
Desires and habits are quite different:
I'm not asking to expel people/call people dishonorable; I'm not perfect either. (Jn 8:7). And I have inadvertantly opened whitehouse.com while trying to find whitehouse.gov.
You're absolutely right, but I would bring up that Free Speech protections do not apply when you are inciting people. Again, "inciting people" is yet another in a long list of vague words that the courts and legislature must rely on. If I wear a sandwich board on the streets of that says " should be shot.>" Is that an exercise of Free Speech. Absolutely! However stupid it might be, you have the right to do it. Of course, there's the whole issue of "hate crimes" where a crimes severity depends on who the victim is, I won't go down that road, because there lies madness. But if you gather together a bunch of -hating bigots and say "Let's go shoot some !" and get them fired up in a frenzy that they might actually do it, is that Free Speech? Yes (because all speech in the country is Free), but there are legitimate reasons for it _not_ to be protected anyway. There are legitimate reasons to make narrow exceptions to many, if not all, rights as granted in the Bill of Rights, but it doesn't affect the fundamnetal nature of our form of government. Of course, vigilance is necessary because even well-meaning people can abuse rights.
Where to draw that line is difficult to decide.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
Sorry, here's the readable version....
You're absolutely right, but I would bring up that Free Speech protections do not apply when you are inciting people. Again, "inciting people" is yet another in a long list of vague words that the courts and legislature must rely on. If I wear a sandwich board on the streets of <insert your favorite ethnic minority neighborhood> that says "<ethnic minorities> should be shot.>" Is that an exercise of Free Speech. Absolutely! However stupid it might be, you have the right to do it. Of course, there's the whole issue of "hate crimes" where a crimes severity depends on who the victim is, I won't go down that road, because there lies madness. But if you gather together a bunch of <ethnic minority>-hating bigots and say "Let's go shoot some <ethnic minorities>!" and get them fired up in a frenzy that they might actually do it, is that Free Speech? Yes (because all speech in the country is Free), but there are legitimate reasons for it _not_ to be protected anyway. There are legitimate reasons to make narrow exceptions to many, if not all, rights as granted in the Bill of Rights, but it doesn't affect the fundamnetal nature of our form of government. Of course, vigilance is necessary because even well-meaning people can abuse rights.
Where to draw that line is difficult to decide.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
I don't understand what you mean. I was referring to the chemical reactions which take place in the brain when exposed to a particular stimulus. In this, I hope to convey the thought that it is something not influencable by one's congnitive process. I don't see how experience - that is, a collection of memories - can have any influence on the chemical reaction I'm referring to. They operate at different levels.. and shouldn't be confused with each other.
If I seem picky, it is because I believe it is important to think clearly about these things, and to use the right words, so that we, as a collective body, can think clearly about them as well.
You don't seem picky, you seem confused.
I chose to express my thought in the manner I did so that I could cleverly condense two thoughts - one, answering to the question posed by the original poster, and two, suggesting that being a chemical reaction, it is beyond the mental control of one's self. I thought I did a good job.. apparently not. :)
I think technology is about to give us a passport to enter a moral, experiential and psychological wilderness. (If you think about it the way I do, then this case is only the very beggining.)
Agreed. If it weren't for technology, you and I wouldn't be able to anonymously have this interesting exchange. :)
Technology will allow people to question traditional thought without suffering the traditional consequences.
It is in order to navigate this wilderness that I believe it is so important to think clearly.
Agreed.
--
All men are great
before declaring war
A government is a body of people notably ungoverned - AC
An amateur Poser artist is arrested on child pornography charges for using underage Poser models in his erotic artwork. "Look, I didn't know!" he pleads. "She -said- she was over 18, and her timestamp checked out!"
my thoughts are that I want money
my actions then are to gain in dishonest ways
See,I don't understand where you're comming from. This stage is the end all be all, as far as I'm concerned. Once you have committed wrong doing, what does it matter where you go from there? Again, if you have religious convictions, it's of your own accord.
I also didn't claim your argument was irrelevant.. I just meant that you were making a strong case until that point.
-Michael
-Michael
You lost me there. If someone is so weak-willed that knowledge of a concept can significantly affect their ethics, they're dangerous for that reason alone. I tend to put more faith in people, myself.
--
All men are great
before declaring war
A government is a body of people notably ungoverned - AC
Does this mean that depicting or writing about anything illegal will now be made illegal since it might motivate you to commit these crimes yourself? And will that mean the depicting things or writing about them also will be illegal since the content of today's movies and book will make writing, drawing and movie making the most common crime on the planet? Oh, will it be legal to say the words representing criminal acts since it might produce images in the listener's mind that might be illegal and could possibly motivate him to break the law?
(Dang, I liked "Gone in 60 seconds")
Don't forget Alexei Panshin...It's only a small part of Rite of Passage, and not at all explicit, but I'm sure that won't stop would-be censors.
Where do you get this misinformation from??
I live in Japan, and I assure that, at least as of 1999, child porn is illegal. All actresses have to be at least 18 years of age. Furthermore, an adult who has sex with a woman under a certain age (either 17 or 18, I forget which) is guilty of statutory rape, although this is another rule that only recently came into affect (to combat all the enjo kosai cases of old men paying money to high school girls so they can buy more designer bags)
The point is, five years ago Japan was still one of the most backward countries in the world in terms of cracking down on child porn, but even they are finally starting to realize that it is wrong.
Now "virtual porn" is another story. If someone who gets off on kiddie porn gets his kicks out of his system this way rather than by abducting some kid, then I have no complaints about that. Anyone who goes from kiddie porn comics to moving on to a real child has other problems far above a simple fetish.
No, that is a crime, flying under the influence, or some such. The smoking of the crack should not have been a crime. The only person affected was the user, the other people were only affected afterwards. In fact, I think the punishment for this particular offence(the plane crashing, not the crack smoking) should be worse. Some jobs require a higher level of responsibility than others, i.e. a doctor/nurse/pilot/commercial driver/etc. should be held to a higher standard than a ditch digger/migrant farm worker/general manual laborer.
If the OD victims were paying for their insurance, what is the problem again? I think there would be a lot less OD's if people had access to accurate info about drugs and had access to sources of known quality.
No, the junkie is the victim. The widow and child are affected because of their ties to the junkie, but this doesn't make them victims(unless you are talking about the Politically Correct definition of the word victim, or the broadest interpretation of definition #3 from the link above).
The supply of those drugs would now be taxed and regulated. No more OD's because of poor quality drugs; less crime because drugs would be less expensive; a country that doesn't spend billions of dollars putting a large portion of its populace in jail; better, more complete information about the effects of drugs on humans due to the ability to study them in controlled environments; I could go on and on.
The only victims I see described above are the plane crash victims, and that has already been addressed.
file:
Of course not, but he could become one. I don't buy your argument that a pedophile would choose more likely not to act upon his desires if he had a chance to come out of his closet in public.
In order to identify any real pedophile he must have revealed it to someone, most probably to a scared kid somewhere threatening it, if it would tell anyone.
What is the reason for you to believe that by coming out of the closet the pedophilic desires would disappear or diminish? Gets a gay person less gay, because he came out of the closet telling everyone he/she is gay/lesbian ?
Let's say you would tell me you have pedophelic desires. What do you think that will do ? Most probably I will _think_, get the hell away from my kids, lurk behind your every step in order to see if you act upon your desires. Your coming out would incite manhunts. Of course, most probably I would _tell_ you, go see a doctor, get treatment (is there one ?).
I would foresee a huge complication in coming out of the closet with it. Under the assumptions your arguments are right and a pedophile _can_ choose _not_ to act out his phantasies, well then in my mind he is not a pedophile. The only things which are really completely free are your thoughts, and an inactive pedophile is allowed to think whatever he wants to. How often have you wanted to almost kill someone in your mind without acting it out ? Just because you phantasized about it, doesn't make you a killer. Just because you got some weird
thoughts, which might even scare yourself, when looking at children, doesn't make you a pedophile.
The discussion is not about morally judging a pedophile's desires, it is about allowing to broadcast to millions violance in combination with sexual encounters with "virtual children" and accompanying sound. It's about allowing mind-feeding/brain-washing people due to easy access.
These broadcasts have nothing in common with books artistically describing the issues of humanly possible sexual desires. Literature or a one time movie consumption has a completely different weight with regards to mind altering effects than continous, addictive consumption of violent pornographic videos in combination with sound. Why else would they be made like that, if it were not for the subversive addictive power they have on some people on the long run. Drugs sell well, you know.
I would argue, that if someone detects in himself a sensational attraction to children, then for God's sake I would NOT want to burden that person with easily reachable material, which could further pervert his desires into such heights, where he would kill or torture the child to get the results he wants.
I assume that those cravings for sex with children have an addictive part to it. Feeding an addict, makes him want and need more and barriers to look for the "drug" go down (as with any other drug addiction). I would not play with a human mind, fragile as it is.
Any psychiatrist, who studies addiction to pornography on the net, will tell you that his patients need to get cut off the "drug" the same way any other addict has to get off his drug.
Cold turkey is a must. There is no way to stay sober and drinking at the same time, so to speak. There is a difference of quality in pornography.
If it's just the usual stuff between two consenting adults without violence - ok forget it. If it's anything which needs violence and torture to promote the desired effect in the consumer, that's a whole other issue.
Because consumption is addictive, consumption of material which promotes torture is dangerous. There is no telling when it could spill over from inactive virtual consumption to active real execution. There is no way to deny that - it has happened and will happen again and the link between constant consumption/immersion of such material and inciting actual execution of a crime has been documented). There is no way to argue that the right of a person to have the freedom to step from consumer to executer needs any kind of "first amendment protection". This is IMHO just plain bullshit.
It's a question of broadcast, distribution and access control, not an issue of morality and not an issue of free speech.
If artwork could tempt pedophiles, and if such things known as fantasy can't be allowed and need a Law to gorven, why don't just simply forbidden children in public places, doesn't a pedophiles not have the imagination to think up those sexy things when s/he see the real thing instead? The point is, any grown adult should has the ability to distingush between fantasy and reality, and should be able to control oneself not to act out the fantasy wrongly. It is also the responsibility of a society that encourages free-will also encourages consideration, and care of others. Adult may be tempted, but s/he will not fail if there are supports from other selfs. Sometimes, wars cannot be fight alone, and many times, war is not necessary at all.
Whilst I think I'll be in line with the majority of people here by saying that child porn is wrong, sick and best left out of any society, there is a point here that needs raising.
In any society, there will be one section of people who appear as "unacceptable" or "twisted" to another section. Whether these sections are the minority or majority, who has the right to say what images (or sounds, experiences, smells etc) we are not allowed to generate electronically?
If it is possible for the powers that be to dictate what is acceptable to generate using technology, then where will this dictatorial power end?
The question is: is it right to decide what is and is not "acceptable use of technology", thereby setting a precedent for the future? Or should we say "there must be a morally defined limit for the application of technology" ? Who would decide on such morals? Who could veto such morals?
----------------------------------------
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Religious war: fighting over who has the real imaginary friend.
No matter how lame-ass it is, it is virutal porn. The question is whether it should be legal, or not, in case of virtual child porn.
I feel it's morally wrong, but you'd be hard pressed to find legal justification for banning it, since no children are actually forced to do anything against their will.
----------
Never underestimate the bandwidth of a 747 filled with CD-ROMs.
I worry that this law (which will accomplish zero) is worded generally enough...
________________
________________
Private Essayist
Sorry, this is a bad analogy. It is not illegal to have a picture of an actual murder. It IS illegal to have a sexually suggestive or explicit image of a child!
Please mod me up. My grandma might not make it to the weekend and she always wanted me to hit karma cap.
We've had this sort of thing on the books for a long while. I did an article on the subject a couple of years ago, and the situation has changed little.
The upshot here is that in Canada it is illegal to create art of two people having underaged sex, or even who look underaged. And it doesn't matter if it is made clear that the characters are not underage, the only test is that they look underage. So disclaimers mean nothing.
Laws do not exist simply to make the job of law-enforcement easier.
well I really dont think the children consenting or not is an issue (and I definitely dont think whether they're enjoying it or not is), the fact is that children do not have the right to choose in the affirmative (let's clarify that!) to be a part of sexual activities with adults in our society.
How we know is more important than what we know.
If this "virtual kiddie porn" is a purley fictional representation of nonexistant children how the hell do you determine wether or not they are underage? The creator could simply claim that he was drawing people who looked young or something - right? No one has a bith certificate for Lara Croft do they?
"Prefiero morir de pie que vivir siempre arrodillado!"
Is it illegal to draw one?
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
i just think it's really sick.. i'm not for or against whatever happens at the supreme court level. omg, horrible to think people like this sh!t
----
Right,
everybody jumps in when it smells like a common sense.
- Well, do accept to remove any FPS from your computer? You KILLING weirdo?!
- Do you like to KILL people?
I think people should be free to speak to themselves, even when it disgusts me.
Do you think, goatse.cx should be banned, it's a joke, right?
or this is not the common sense, which seems to me the real question.
Moderators really moderate based on your sig. but they don't realyze this
Then it should be illegal. It seems the same as the guy who tries to shoot an unloaded gun at someone, he intended to kill them, therfore he is guilty of attempted murder. The fact that pedophiles intend to view and masturbate to child pornography doesn't make it any less sick.
Anything pornographic and relating to children should be banned in some way, this is the kind of stuff that made the internet how sleazy it is today. The internet used to be pure, and good, filled with cultural exchange etc..
Simulated murder in video games, movies, et. al. are not done with the intent of arousing murderous feelings in the viewer.
Simulated child pornography is done with the intent of arousing pedophilic feelings in the viewer.
The former does not seem dangerous to me. The latter is sick.
----------------------------------
"We're sorry, but the website you're trying to reach has been disconnected."
But this isn't "Child Porn of any type", computer images aren't people and they can't be exploited. I'm just as disgusted by child-porn as you are, but I'm also watchful for anything which may open the door to inproper First Amendment legislation.
You would be hard pressed to back up the arguement that child porn somehow exploits children that weren't even involved in the process. One could even argue that artifical kiddie porn would keep children from being exploited because real kiddie porn would actually involve real photography of a real child, where computer generated porn is created in some pervert's den, sans children.
The word is "whet", and one could say that it would do so to the pedophile's appitite, but a pedophile is going to obtain child porn either way.
Should we save the artifical child at the cost of real children? That sounds like society cutting off its own nose to spite its face.
aÍÍ©ÍÌÍ£Ì'̽ͩÌÍzÍYÌÍÌY
(except, some would say, the viewer of virtual child porn)
Do we care? Is this actual physical harm? No, then go right ahead. If this is actual physicial harm, is this self inflicted? Yes? Go right ahead.
How we know is more important than what we know.
This topic really bugs me because of my own inconsistencies. I am OK with "wholesome" porn, wish there wasn't sick porn, am dead set against child porn, and consider the First Amendment to be sacrosanct. Logically I think that computer sims of anything can't/shouldn't be illegal, but on a gut emotional level I'm willing to go along with a ban. The thing that really bothers me, tho, is that once you say that a sim crosses a line, then defenders of anything real but borderline/controversial on first amendment grounds have no leverage against those who can point to banned sims. Once anime is banned, how do you cope with attacks against selling old Coppertone Girl ads in a mall antiques booth, or the Calvin Klein ads with sexy waifs, or news documentaries showing video of JonBennet's beauty contests? The problem with this issue is that it redraws the old line of crimes of action (taking sick pictures of actual kids) with crimes of thought (moving a mouse around in a certain pattern). With the conservatives / Christian Coalition / George W using this as the starting point, what else will be a thought crime by 2084?
While I agree that *ANYTHING* involving the harm and violation of children, like real child pornography does, should be stopped, I don't feel it right to ban VIRTUAL (read: FAKE, NON EXISTANT, ETC) explicit content.
Where is the line drawn? What about the book "The Colour Purple" which was standard reading when I was in high school? It depicted the sexual abuse of a minor. The person who looks at fake child porn may be sick, but no children are actually being harmed. It is distasteful as hell, but it shouldn't be illegal.
To put another spin on this; What if I, as a 19 year old male, decided to write a story about my first sexual encounter? Of course I'd change names and obvious details to protect the woman's privacy, but that could still be classified as illegal under this. That isn't right. (PS. I'd never do that, I have more respect both for women and myself.)
Fiction is not real life. People need to learn that. Hell, I grew up with guns, was taught how to use them safely, and play Quake all the time. I have NEVER pointed a gun (loaded or not, since any responsible person ALWAYS treats a gun as loaded) at person in my life, and hope to god I never have to.
Cheers,
Matt
Don't take life so seriously; it isn't permanent.
maybe in japan dude.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Posted by polar_bear:
I've never had cause to regret the First Amendment or the advances that computers have made in my lifetime...now I do.
It's possible that the Supreme Court could rule that this material appeals to "prurient interests" and has no artistic value and therefore allow it to be banned. However, this is unlikely because it opens up the possibility of banning books like "Lolita" which are considered classic works. (I think the book sucks, but many people think it's a brilliant work.)
However, if that is the case, special laws do not need be put on the books - existant laws concerning child porn and obscenity should do. This is similar to the acts that try to make porn on the Internet illegal - if something is truly obscene it does not matter what medium it is distributed in, special circumstances don't apply to something stored in electronic format rather than on paper.
Frankly, I think we've become too civilized if this sort of thing is allowed to exist. Another poster made the comment that people who sell such things should be shot and I have a hard time arguing. There are some things that a society should have no tolerance for, and this is one of them.
It's an odd dichotomy, though. Our societal advancements have had both positive and negative effects -- things that once weren't acceptable, homosexuality for example, have become accepted in our society and that's (at least in my opinion) a Good Thing. The same laws and movements that have made homosexuality acceptable have inadvertantly opened the doors to loopholes for child porn and the KKK. (Although I believe the KKK should be allowed to voice their opinion, repugnant though it is. If it's voiced then people know it's out there and can react...) Also, we've only developed our modern concept of childhood in the last couple of hundred years. 200 years ago it was not uncommon for 10 year olds to work more than 40 hours a week and sleep in the same common room (possibly the same bed) that their parents had sex in. 14-year-old girls were married to 30-year-old men all of the time and no one blinked an eye. Today a 30-year-old who tried to date a 14-year-old would be strung up. (Which is also a Good Thing in my opinion.)
Frankly, I don't think legal means are the answer. I the only answer is to ostracize - or outright execute - people who perpetuate child porn. I know it sounds extreme, but any society that isn't capable of enforcing its values will not keep them. If the punishment is severe enough it will prevent people from doing it and to seek counciling.
Yeah, I have strong opinions about this...oh well.
While I completely disagree with the act of doing so, I have to grudgingly agree that a person does have the right to create CG child-porn, as much as they would have the right to paint it. I also agree with you on the extrapolation to VR.
The next question becomes: Where is the onus of proof? If a piece of porn is obviously computer generated, it is one thing. However, if it is virtually indistiguishable from the real thing, does law enforcement have to prove whether or not real children were involved, or does the person owning the porn. Our current system would say law enforcement, which translates to no way that they can crack down on child pornographers without catching them "in the act".
Perhaps, Congress should pass a new law that requires any producers of virtual child pornography preserve proof that the image/movie/VR in question was created without models. If they have CG wireframes, etc. They might be able to show the origins. This is a heavy onus on producers of this crap, that still allows law enforcement to nail real pornographers without ending free speech. Unfortunately, this solution might be considered undue limiting of free speech itself and the Kiddie porn guys might just find a way around it.
All around, this is a pretty sick group that we are talking about, and there is no easy answer for someone who values free speech and loathes things like child porn.
B. Elgin
B. Elgin
"Read at your own risk; feel free to ignore."
Completely neglecting the minor inconvenient detail that it's impossible to define 'porn', let alone 'Child Porn'. Anyone under 18? Sorry, perfectly legit to marry under that age in many places (in the US, too). And those terrible art museums, hundreds, even thousands of paintings of nekkid people!!!
I don't agree with porn period.
Geez, it's only got a history going back several thousand years. I guess you've managed to find a way to clearly define what qualifies as 'porn', and have great ideas about what punishment to inflict on those who dare to contravene your idea of correctness. No? Then shut the f$ck up until you realize the total hypocracy, not to mention stupidity of your position! Taking your point about 'wheting the appetite' apart has been done so very well by others here, but I think your statement shows another facet of the same mindset: stupid, really stupid, ignores facts, and f$cking stupid.
P.S. This comment contains more than the usual amount of profanities, in celebration of the 1st amendment.
P.P.S. BTW, did anyone catch the bit at the end ... that no-talent Bolton _still_ has to pay $5.4 million for plagarism!
Cool. So like because access to material about Hitler can encourage the Eric Cartman's of this world, perhaps we should ban that too. I dont want to risk my freedom on maybes, you shouldn't either.
How we know is more important than what we know.
I'm sorry, but I haven't gotten far enough down my 'Things to Do Before I Die' checklist to hit 'contemplating the facial expressions of fictional aliens' yet.
It's Item # 4,203, and I'm still working on # 6, 'meaningful relationship'..
.sig: Now legally binding!
'nuff said. (what IS that sound of chisels i hear? or is it the sound of hammers in the junkyard??)
if the 'child' in question is under 18. How can a digitally-created being have an age, unless specifically assigned by the creator? So Joe-The-Pediophile creates 'Jenny', a girl who looks surprisingly young, but says she's 18. How can we justify prosecuting that?
There is a good reason for having it. I'm pretty much undecided on the whole issue, but I can see a few issues and some good reasons.
Mainly, it's a lot easier to prosecute somebody for putting what clearly looks to be a minor in a porn vid by just stating that it "looks like kiddie porn" than trying to dig up the creator of the vid (hard), and then proving the age of the person in the vid (also hard).
So by making it illegal to even LOOK like there is a minor in the vid, you therefore save the afformentioned effort.
Now, I will say that, either way, there's a lot of holes in this. What is the difference between a 17 year old person before their 18th and an 18 year old person after their 18th? A few thousand dead cells here, a few thousand cell divisions there, and a few new neuron patterns established.
And I'm not sure what to think of all of this. I mean, people need to distinguish between the truly wrong -- an unwilling 12 year old girl getting graphically raped on camera -- the merely sick -- a girl who may be 16 or 20 that some guys find attractive dancing around naked -- and the artistic -- the boatloads of paintings from ages past that involve naked people of all ages, from 1 to 80.
Gentoo Sucks
is the justifiable reason that child pornography is illegal. It's not because it's offensive or disgusting, although it happens to be both in my and most other people's opinions. It's because a child cannot, under our law, consent to the acts involved in the creation of child pornography. If no child is involved, there's been no harm. If the court tries to enforce a ban on virtual child porn because of the type of thought it might inspire (as in the argument about wetting appetites) it will have done something very dangerous indeed.
In japan, the age of consent is only 14. Does this make them all perverts? No. It just means that they have a different value systerm than I do. And while people might be upset by casses with younger girls, what about a picture of a young woman who I claim to be 16? Something like this of a developed woman would probably fall outside what people call 'pedophilic' but would still be considered illegal here (but not in Japan.)
We have to remeber that the justification behind pedo-porn laws is that it necesaraly required the use of someone under legal age who was incapable of making decisions (according to the law) about their sexual conduct. CG images have no such requirement. The 'Encouraging pedophiles' argument is very shakey and not the motivation for the law anyway.
How many of you would object on moral grounds to an artfuly done nude with a matured body if the artist claimed that she was 17 (in his intent when he made the pattern of bits on the hard disk?)
"You saved 1968." - Ms. Valerie Pringle to the crew of Apollo 8
Oh, don't forget Tipper. You know, Mrs. I-Am-Morally-Superior-To-All-of-You-So-I-Should-Te ll-You-What-You-Can-And-Cannot-View-or-Listen-To.
I think it is time to punish the person for the CRIME and stop trying to prevent the crime by taking everyone else's rights away. If cancer appears in an organ, you remove the affected cells in that organ. You don't remove all the organs because they MIGHT be affected in the future.
...and your point would be?
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
It really is a tough call. i think I feel as many parents do, I don't want any kind of child porn real/fake to be legal. I've seen alot of argument that acting murders on tv fall into the same catagory as this fake child porn. Let me say that I can see where these people come from, but it really is different (specialy if you have a child of your own).
I know it seem bias but murder unfortunalty has become almost socialy acceptable to see on tv/read about/see pictures of the sceen in the paper. Yes, people that murder have underlying problems just like pedophiles. But we are already feeding one psycho catagory with tons of media coverage, why start feeding another? Why possibly help create more of these kinds of people. I say, the hell with making fake child porn legal. Our kinds don't need this kind of thing being unleashed.
Trying to be different, just like everyone else.
One scenario I've been kicking around for a while now... if a teenager were to distribute explicit photos of himself via the internet, what do you imagine the legal repercussions would be? Hopefully he'd have his record expunged, being a minor and all.
I think the following quote sums it up.
"The interest in encouraging freedom of expression in a democratic society outweighs any theoretical but unproven benefit of censorship."
- 9th Circuit Court Judge
If you can't prove direct harm, supposed, unproven indirect harm is not enough to remove a right to free expression (or any other right in my opinion).
That said, this particular subject is so inflammitory as to make it amazingly difficult to have a rational discussion on the subject. Most people can't do it. Maybe that's best.
"There are laws that enslave men, and laws that set them free. " - Sean Connery as King Arthur
I've heard the reasoning before from law enforcement types that just by the fact of its existence, simulated child porn creates demand for the real thing. But what about FBI agents who frequent IRC pretending to be minors, in channels of an explicitly sexual nature? By the same token, wouldn't their presence there be contributing to demand by encouraging those with whom they interact?
Don't get me wrong... I'm a father of two and believe castration is a reasonable punishment for child molesters. But the idea that someone messing with Photoshop could be guilty of a felony without causing harm to anyone is absurd.
I remember something someone once said about snuff films... that law enforcement simply doesn't come across real examples because the risks from being caught are too high and it's so easy to make a fake. Wouldn't the same apply here? If legal simulated material was available from known and regulated sources, would it not drive out of business those who DO exploit children?
Forget freedom of speech... the whole thing borders on freedom of thought.
That's a line we'll cross when we get to it. Judging from the big budget CG I've seen recently it'll be a while.. They spend $40 million on CG effects and still end up with a plasticene Jar-Jar (Gumby had mre beleivable facial expressions!) that wouldn't look realistic drunk AND on acid, for crying out loud..
As of RIGHT NOW, the illegal part of kiddie porn is the exploitation and abuse of children. I can simulate a murder on film right now, complete with plunging knife, squirting blood, dismemberment, etc, and for all intents and purposes it is indistinguishable from the real thing. Does that make me guilty of murder? Nope. No murder, no crime.
Same thing with simulated 'kiddie porn'; No child, no crime.
.sig: Now legally binding!
IIRC, the case involved none other than Larry Flynt, publisher of Hustler. Flynt also publishes a magazine called "Barely Legal", IIRC. In "Barely Legal", young looking 18 and 19 year old girls are depicted in various pornographic settings and actions. It's fairly easy to find 18 year old adult women who look like 14 year old girls (and, unfortunately, vice versa).
I'm pretty sure that Larry Flynt already took this one to court (the Supreme, IIRC) and won. So if it *IS* legal for a young looking adult to depict a minor LIVE *in real life*, I don't see why a completely fake CGI minor would be any less legal.
(But then again, you can be sure that the shrub is salivating at the chance to stack the Supreme Court and various other federal judicaries with uber-conservative x-tian righties, so who knows what the future will bring)
Everyone proposing or supporting such censorship would do well to watch "The People vs. Larry Flynt". There's an important message there.
john
Resistance is NOT futile!!!
Haiku:
I am not a drone.
Remove the collective if
Imagine all the people...
err.. doesnt the prohibition of the (real) image make it harder to find the perpetrator of the sexual abuse of the child depicted? If possession of these pictures was free and unpersecuted (by the state) wouldn't it be easier to track down victim if not the actual perpetrator? Correct me if I'm wrong here but if the pictures are illegal to possess then wouldn't it be suicidal to take these pictures to the police? And if the police dont have the pictures, how can they find out who the victim is and who the perpetrator is? So once again, I call for the actual criminal act to be illegal and the posession of the images to be legal.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Guess I am not sure of that either. But I know how it is in Minnesota
Of course, that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.
How about hand-drawn imagery. Should that be legal, and computer-generated imagery be illegal? What about a collage? It can be made with computer, or with paper, scissor and glue! Or is it realism that counts. Some good artists can create very photo-realistic paintings on a canvas. Should that be illegal as well? How about bad computer-generated images. How about parody? How about unrealistic computer-generated images (hand drawn in windows paintbrush?)
And what exactly does it mean that something depicting children in sexual activities is porn? How about teaching materials (for parents, teachers and children about paedophiles)?
I think it is time that we stop thinking about paedophiles as the worst evil of our time. The witch-hunt for paedophiles is most likely creating a lot of victims that doesn't deserve the label (much like the witch-hunting did!). A convicted paedophile today will have very much trouble to adapt to society after his sentence is finished, because he will have to live with the fear that someone finds out about his past and decides to do whatever they find appropriate (starting a lynch-mob, fire him from his job, kick him out of his apartment, whatever...)
I am not to say that paedophilia is ok, because it certainly isn't, but today I think we are going too far. Treat paedophiles as humans, not monsters! They are humans that need treatment (and perhaps punishment), but they don't need a witch-hunt. And please don't judge anyone in advance. Many accusations that come up against a "paedophiliac" are false, but yet it is very hard for the person accused.
We don't need to get medieval just in order to feel safe about our children. The good, old, normal system of justice is just fine. I am not even so sure that child-porn increases paedophilic activity. Maybe it is better for them to get their steem out through pornography than through real life. Anyone know of some good studies of this?
Well, maybe not the very last. I bet it's upheld because of a conservative majority on the court and a general lack of regard for free speech by this court. And it will only get worse, I'm sure.
Let's remember, though, that freedom of speech is not an absolute, unabridgeable right. And we're not talking about tasteful, artistic, and explicitly non-sexual nudes of children, which are still legal in the US, though you take chances beause if the moron at Wal-Mart turns you in when you develop them and Officer Bubba arrests you for it, you spend your life savings defending pictures of your kid in the tub. The courts, the military, the executive and the legislature all have powers to curtail speech, not to mention the power to discourage it held by them and corporate america. Much to libertarians' chagrin and displeasure, almost all the rights granted in the constitution also have methods or power for revocation descibed in there, as well.
On another note, let's not split hairs about "children" and their associated sexuality. AFAIK, the pictures in question depict children and toddlers, NOT older teens who may or may not be legal depending on your jurisdiction.
"No real children were screwed during the making of this film"
Will that simulation software become illegal under the same principle as DeCSS?
"Rub her feet." -- L.L.
It's a scary idea, because the obvious extrapolation on this idea is virtual reality, but from a legal point of view, no children are being harmed in its production, so I don't see how it could be illegal.
I'm sure anything along those lines would be considered illegal under any number of obscenity laws. Too bad people keep framing this as a free speech issue...
DrLunch.com The site that tells you what's for lunch!
God didn't say "if you do these things" he said thought, word and deed. IIRC, Mary was only 12 or 13 when God knocked her up... fscking child molester.
---------
I take drugs seriously.
Are you really so ignorant to think that either is ok? I personally don't believe that we need either in our society. Why does there have to be one or the other? Have we not heard of morality or decency? Someone who 'creates' via computer a fake picture of something so grotesque has a serious problem. Then again, I have a little girl and I know how I would react to someone even drawing pictures about something so inconceiveable concerning her.
Of course, that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.
As for crypto, well, it's obvious to me that it will be used to hide kiddie porn and terrorist messages. If we can't open a file, I say convict on both charges, just to be sure.
Remember, a crime-free America comes first!
This next song is very sad. Please clap along. -- Robin Zander
Fantasy in troubled individuals often leads to acts.
Do you have any studies to indicate this? Perhaps you're a psychologist. Either way, what does this have to do with me wanting to cruise around as Adolf Hitler in some future artificial VR game of the future? After all, if we assume that people are "troubled individuals" then obviously a game where you get to play Adolf Hitler should be outright banned because it may encourage another global war.
How we know is more important than what we know.
This is such a funny case. It brings about one of the more astounding questions in living wherever you happen to live. What does it mean to be an adult. The US magically makes this to be on a person's 18th birthday. I wonder what is so magical about this date that dictates whether someone is a child or someone is an adult. I've seen many people under 18 who act maturely and responsibly and I have seen many older people act irresponsibly. And it is not just the magical 18, it is the magical 21, the magical 25, etc...
I have seen many people who on their 21st birthday, in America, go out for a week straight and get plastered each night. It is not that they haven't been drinking before this, it is that now they can do it by government standards. Imagine, though, if the drinking age were at, say 10, an age where most kids aren't too interested in alcohol. Also imagine a parent who did not deny alcoholic experiences to their kids, but let them make up their own mind and try it for themselves. It may seriously curb the problems of binge drinking that we have in this country. People need to realize that alcohol, sex, and porn are not evil, instead it is the drunk driver, rapist, and pedophile who is evil.
Tired of sitting at that karma cap? Start a flame war today! See just how low you can go!
That's the line in Britain.
The simple point being that maintaining a ban on the real thing is impossible if the virtual is legal. We've all seen photoshopped spoof images of all sorts of types (no, not necessarily porn...) and they're by no means always detectable. If you can't prove an image is a fake, you can't prove that an image is genuine either. At which point you can't convict for the real thing.
Greg
(Inside a nuclear plant)
Aaaarrrggh! Run! The canary has mutated!
IANAL:
Law Enforcement investigators (I assume) already
have a great deal of illegal pornography archived
as evidence from prior convictions.
All they would have to do to test the claim that
such material was CG is to compare it against the
pre-exisiting pool of evidence.
The question would them become a matter of validating
the age and creation of the materials in the database.
If it could be proven that the evidence existed in
another form prior to being found on that users machine,
that might be enough of a statement to dismiss the claim
that the material was artificially digitally rendered.
Some training could also be given to investigators to
better recognize direct scanned materials vs.
photomanipulation or 3D renderings.
Note also that some LE agencies might see fit to
create/manage special branches of acknowledges
"experts" in such materials for the explicit purpose
of better recognizing real vs fake vs mistaken evidence
in child pornography investigations (similar to what
they do for bombings, rackettering and terrorism.
I'm pretty sure that this is covered in the US Constitution. You can't arrest somebody for something that they *MIGHT* do. Unless of course you can prove a conspiracy.
Yeah, unless you can prove that somebody *PLANS* to do something, you really can't touch them. (Ooooh, sorry for the bad pun.)
Those who don't know me, probably shouldn't trust me. Those that do know me, DEFINITELY shouldn't trust me.
And here is the central question. Or more accurately, the central question is whether virtual child porn encourages people to produce more real child porn or to abuse real children. The problem is, causation has never been established. If it does not cause this, we should probably allow virtual child porn (although I'm not saying we should advocate it). Because no children are being harmed and we should not make thought crimes illegal.
On the other hand, if it does cause this, society has a right (and, indeed, a responsibility) to protect its children. In which case, virtual child porn should probably be illegal.
In my opinion, it doesn't cause real children real problems. Someone who is messed up enough to sexually abuse a child does so because she or he is already messed up. Viewing virtual child porn would not turn a normal person into a child molestor. But of course, this is only my opinion and I'm open to scientific studies proving otherwise.
Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia.
....kinda make me laugh.
i don't want to see chidren hurt or exploited, but these stories always remind me of this girl i used to work with...i swear, she looked 12 or 13, but was in fact 19.
we went out for lunch a few times and people would stare. she told me it was hell...very difficult getting dates from guys who weren't twisted, and people staring at her in college, etc.
spent a lot of time crying over it, unfortunately. we have a sick/twisted society in many ways that goes far beyond virtual child porn.
Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.
See my user info for links.
True, it was simply wrong.
However, when it is between children, the children usually are not concenting, or enjoying it in any way whatso ever.
ok so far...
In addition, having digitally created pictures of children in sexual positions only goes on to say that it is ok to have this type of thing done.
Why? Not criminalizing depictions of children having sex is no more of an endorsement of child pornography than not criminalizing violent movies is an endorsement of murder. (There are too many negatives in that sentence, but you get the idea.)
The fact that they are under the age of 18 regardless of if it is a picture or not, makes it illegal.
Except that when dealing with a computer-generated image, there is no "they".
if you post a story or something to an adult message board, you would not be permitted to post a story about children under the age of 18, regardless of if the story is true or not.
I seriously doubt that. If the owner of the forum decides that he doesn't want stories about kids, that is his right, but any law that says that you cannot write stories involving children engaging in sexual activity is blatantly unconstitutional.
How to solve most of our problems: 1.Lots of nuclear plants. 2.Cure aging.
To add to your point; If I am not mistaken, we see a glimpse of a bare chested Juliet in the film during this same scene. The actress who played Juliet, Olivia Hussey, was 17 when she starred in the film.
-gerbik
Our current system would say law enforcement, which translates to no way that they can crack down on child pornographers without catching them "in the act".
Our current system would say law enforcement, but in actuality the proof would wind up resting on the defense anyways. How?
"Your Honor, look at these pictures. Obviously they use real children."
"How about it, Mr. X? Can you prove you didn't (ab)use real children?"
"Uh, no, your Honor. I created them on my computer."
"So, in other words, you can't prove real children weren't involved."
"No."
Voila! Despite the fact being unable to unequivocably prove a negative is next to impossible, you have now successfully translated the burden of the prosecution to prove children were involved to the defense to prove children weren't.
In other words: assumed guilty until you can prove you're innocent.
--
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
This is, probably the clearest item in the Bill of Rights. There's nothing wishy-washy, no qualifications. It says, plain as day, "CONGRESS SHALL MAKE NO LAW ... abriding the freedom of speech or of the press." And of course, Congress has proceeded to make tons of them and the Supremes have held them up. Why?
---
DO NOT DISTURB THE SE
The prosecutor in this case is 100% on target. If you allow this as a form of "expression" or "art," where do you draw the line? In an age where computer graphics can generate near-perfect images, what's to keep a CRIMINAL from taking a (clothed) picture of your son or daughter and modifying it as they please? Furthermore, what's to keep someone from running an exploitive picture of your child through a photoshop filter and calling it "art?" ref.
And what exactly is uner 18? It is possible to have a youngish woman and claim she just hasn't matured as quicly as others. Or someone could claim that that CGI picture of yours relay looks like a more mature 17yo. instead of a normal 18yo. (Who get's the final say, the artist or the cops?)
This doesn't even touch fantasy art, which could depict non-human fantasy creatures (nymphs, faries, etc.) Whats to say that a farie that looks like a 12yo. girl isn't 102 (out of a lifespan of 2000 years.) Or that nymphs look young no matter what their age. And don't claim you are an authority on these creatures too.
"You saved 1968." - Ms. Valerie Pringle to the crew of Apollo 8
seriously less likely to assault a child than is a pedophile with kiddie porn?
There are exactly 2 factors that determine whether a person is going to molest a child:
1) A inclination towards molesting children.
2) Access to children.
I believe that if you don't already have (1), you aren't likely to go looking for kiddie porn anyway, and if you find it you will probably be turned off by it. If you do already have (1) then you're going to try to molest a child, whether you can get worked up with dirty pictures first or not.
The child porn laws are on the books to protect children from being exploited in these films. A work of fiction, no matter how realistic, is fiction and should not be illegal.
-"I talked to God and here's the deal/ He said to floss between each meal" -- Uninvited
Are you implying that some disney movie depicts sex between fairies(or between anything at all)?
I cannot believe that this comment was rated "Flamebait". In a discussion about free speech, one does not have the right to state his/her opinions? Oh, I guess they do, as long as they agree with the posters/moderators. Some lively duscussion here.
Slashdot - Supporters of free speech as long as you agree with us.
This whole mod system is a joke. All it does squash the voices of the minorities. Kinda funny how liberals uphold the minorities only when it suits them.
So, if you have mod points left, do yourself and Slashdot a favor, and MOD THE PARET OF THIS POST UP!!!
+-- (Score:-1, Moderator on Power Trip)
The great moralist would have all of society moving at a snails pace. How many laws go - it might affect some people badly, so therefore it should not be allowed. Never mind the 99+% of the poulation who would be able to cope with it without rushing out to run over pedestrians, go on a killing spree or rape a child. We are trying to make laws for the least common denomiator, instead of having a system where the majority of well adjusted 'normal' people have access to any information they may need/want, and providing support or restrictions for the populous deemed unstable. There is no such thing as a perfect system as far as humans go, but who really believe's that if the law gets past it will make any impact into child sexplotation, just as banning Video nasties will not make an impact in the amount of murders.
My point would be that there are reasons for writing fiction which involves children having sex that are not at all sick. And that the line between "sick" and "not sick" is so fine as to not exist.
Become a FSF associate member before the low #s are used
So, you're objecting to the thought that the government might actually have to make its case?
In the US, a movie depicting two 17 year olds having sex on prom night is child porn. It does not have to show any graphic details, just show them rolling around under a cover and bragging to friends the next day (don't want to get too detailed, then this post itself might become child porn).
Now, ask most americans if they'd think such a movie is child porn? Doubt you'd get many to say yes. Heck you can rent examples of these at the local video store.
What about the old film version of Romeo and Juliet which even goes as far as to use underaged actors? Is this child porn? God no.
Now, what about virtual porn. It get's even more difficult to legislate. Suppose the maker uses a body frame which is barely mature, say it looks about 12, then in the film has the actress say she is 18. Who is to say otherwise - its virtual after all? You might say no 18 year old looks that young, but I am sure you could find one. I once knew a 20yr old that looked about 10 if you put a 'care bear' sweatshirt on her.
My point is this, its impossible to legislate this. Most people would 'know it when they see it', but it is extremely difficult to make hard and fast rules. Let common sense and local standards sort this out - just as we have left the definition of 'obscenity' very vague in the US.
This might produce a hodge podge of standards, but I think that is better than where this is currently heading.
-josh
There is yet another way of looking at this
A while ago I read an article discussing a similar vein, but a long discussion on psychology played a large part. Why? Because if children can be shown images of (for all they know) real children performing acts they may be leery about, they'll be less inclined to say "No." It's the whole, "They did it, it can't be that bad," type of thinking.
An innovative child pornographer would make virtual pictures to draw in real children, so he/she/it can perform *actual* sex with the children. That's the only real danger I can see in realistic simulations of child-porn. I say only, because there may come a day when hollywood or some other entity makes a film depicting just what we're talking about here, as a documentary of some sort. You can only know the true horror of a situation when you see it first hand, no matter how much it sickens you to watch. It's a way of raising public outcry when there might not be much.
Admittedly, child-porn already has almost the entire free world signed up to see it destroyed, but the option is still there. What if a victim of child-porn makes the documentary, for instance? What then?
--
Shaun Thomas: INN Programmer
Read: Rabbit Rue - Free serial nove
next months ruling: all art involving children is banned and all thinking about children is banned (and the thought police will get you if you even try to think about them) because both of these things might allow your pedophilic appetites to be whetted.
Are you sure no children are harmed? By that I mean, if someone fosters a person's desire to sexualize children, doesn't that create a dangerous environment for kids? If we allow people to treat children as sexual objects, even virtual children, how long is it before we feel a real impact? We're setting the bar pretty low for deviant behavior -- before, you had to cross a line just to view the stuff, but now, you'll only cross a line if you do the stuff.
In addition, how virtual is virtual? Are we talking about complete art and fabrication? Or does taking the Gerber baby face and pasting it onto nude baby bodies count? Will this make it legal for someone to use real baby faces on fake baby bodies? Or vice versa? If my daughter's face is scanned and used for something like that, and if my daughter stumbles across it when she's a little older, what does that do to her then? How sick and vile can it be and still be considered harmless in multiple scenarios?
I'm not convinced I want to make it comfortable or easy for people to "dip their toe in the water" of child porn.
My Greasemonkey scripts for Digg &
What about those of us who would like to look at some virtual kids having some virtual fun?
Question for you. If you rob a bank and are caught, will you be thrown in jail? Answer: yes, so why is it that the thought or imaginatory act, or in this case the depiction of it in 'cartoon' format is OK? It just doesn't make sense that we can't draw the line.
I can repeat your example with murders, other attacks, or, heck, how about something like describing an abortion in graphic detail on anti-abortion site? If abortion should be illegalized (which I'd guess you want, given your Bible thumping), should descriptions of it be illegal, too?
-jon
Remember Amalek.
This is a ridiculous reason to outlaw something. I think I have a good analogy here. If I have a home-burned CDR with music on it in my car, should I be arrested if I'm pulled over and a police officer sees the cd? He can't immediately tell if it's legal or not - he doesn't know if I have the originals at home. Does he arrest me because it could be illegal? Or maybe it's a better analogy if we say that burning any music cd is illegal because it may be difficult to tell if it is legal, or if the music is pirated.
Usually in the USA, you give people the benefit of the doubt. No doubt that child pornography is a "bad" thing, but that doesn't mean that we should squash people's rights just because we might not be able to tell the difference between the fakes and the real thing. (not that I really know how I feel about this issue, it's just that this is the wrong reason for faking child pornography to be illegal).
You could easily prove you _did_ use real people. I don't think you could ever prove you didn't.
And when these virtual images become indistinguishable from the real thing, that is worth considering.
The other idea I had is that I'm sure part of the appeal of these pictures is that they _are_ real. So I don't think the real thing will ever die out. Of course, IANAP, so I can't say for sure.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
Question for you. If you are 25 and you have sex with a 14 year-old, will you be thrown in jail? Answer: yes, so why is it that the thought or imaginitory act, or in this case the depiction of it in 'cartoon' format is OK? It just doesn't make sense that we can't draw the line. God didn't say "if you do these things" he said thought, word and deed. Maybe I just hope for something a little more 'moral' and I'm on my own soap box, but it seems we have to draw a line someday, and who knows, maybe we don't.
Of course, that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.
although it is a compelling argument that simulated child pornography should be ok if simulated murder is ok, (because of some sort of double standard), for that logic to stand, one must agree that child pornography is the same as murder are, and should be treated, the same.
yes, they are both illegal, but thats where the sililarities end. they must be treated as different entities. yes, this would be a grey are aof interpretation left up to lawmakers, but that is where it belongs.
There's nothing Intelligent about Intelligent Design.
The right wing lost all right to hide behind that pretense long ago. "Protect the children" has been the rallying call to give them an excuse to attack those they disapprove of for quite some time now. They don't really care whether any children are hurt, and it's not as if arresting some guy in Hungary with 50 gigs of kddie pr0n will save a helpless little girl in Alabama from being molested. They just want to attack the sort of people who view the pr0n. I concur with others above in this thread, where I say virtual child pornography is to the real thing as DOOM is to Columbine, and we ALL know how unrealistic both comparisons are. Good luck getting the christian fundamentalists to see a freedom of speech issue in their anti obscenity rampage, though.
-Kasreyn
Kasreyn: Cheerfully playing the part of Devil's Advocate to hairtrigger
"but it could also give the crazies what they want in a harmless matter." the determination of what is considered "crazy" is exactly what such a precedent would be useful for. 90% perspiration/ 10% inspiration i think is the ratio for invention, and i can only imagine that this is the same for behavior. the government would not be happy with what i am thinking right now...
If virtual child porn were legal, it would be difficult to prosecute actual child porn. Anyone who was charged with creating child porn would simply have to say no, that's "virtual" porn, and the police would have to find the child to prove that the porn wasn't virtual.
It is also illegal to own child pornography. If virtual child porn were legal, a defendant in a real child porn case could claim he thought he was looking at virtual porn, and the police would have to demonstrate that the defendant did not believe the porn was virtual.
My other sig is extremely clever...
If you can prove beyond reasonable doubt that an image is a fake and not genuine, I can see your argument even if I'm not sure I agree.
If you can't (which seems to be the position right now) then if the fakes are legal you can't prosecute for the real thing - which I don't think the majority of slashdotters (or the community at large) wants.
Greg
(Inside a nuclear plant)
Aaaarrrggh! Run! The canary has mutated!
Eh? Why can't you prosecute for the real thing if the fakes become good enough? If it's real, surely there's evidence over and above the images themselves--someone seeing the child and filmmaker heading into a hotel room, etc.
Similarly, but much further down the road... a cop pulls you over, suspects something, searches the trunk, finds a dead body. You just claim you replicated her, so it wasn't murder.
--
What's grey about it? No kids involved in sexual acts means no kids involved in sexual acts.
This next song is very sad. Please clap along. -- Robin Zander
Not only this, but it's more than implied. We watched the Zeffirelli classic last year in my Honours English class. Juliet [played by Olivia Hussey, who was only seventeen at the time of shooting] is topless after the "sex scene." Shakespeare makes it clear to us, in the play, that sex did indeed occur.
[sarcasm]I say we ban this absolutely disgusting piece of literature, as well as the film, and protect the children![/sarcasm]
Perhaps people are forgetting the fact that animated characters are whatever age they say they are. Most fae (elves, fairy, etc) in ANY cartoon (anime, disney, etc) look much younger than they supposedly are. If the Fairy is 2000 years old, but looks 12 -- wouldn't that make some issues for Disney as well?
http://www.google.com/profiles/malachid
I remember a while back that there was an extremely controversial book that contained real photos of nude persons under the age of 18. It was declared art, and book stores continued to carry them. This was several years ago so I can't remember the title of it.
Of course, you are right. But I was only talking about production and not distribution. Personally, I hope it would remain illegal, as long is it doesn't compromise legitimate rights.
You know, "Fire!" in a crowded theater is illegal too. So is libel and slander.
Freedom of Speech is really a rather vague concept and I think it is possible and even easy to extrapolate the idea too far in trying to determine how far to protect it.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
Although I do agree that the distinction between simulated porn and real porn is valid on the point of one having no immediate and real victims. The technology of "simulation" is improving all the time. The situation becomes problematic when you are unable to distinguish between copies of real acts and simulated ones. Right now, you can prosecute someone in possesion of an incriminating video tape without the victims being identified. What do we do when we cannot make a clear determination on whether or not children were involved in the making of the porn?
And here is the central question. Or more accurately, the central question is whether virtual child porn encourages people to produce more real child porn or to abuse real children.
The article also mentions the problem for law enforcement in determining if the pictures are real or generated. Not saying I have an opinion on the subject one way or the other, but I think that's also a central question.
I don't know about anyone else but I don't want to live in a world where thought and virtual acts are illegal.The dictating government here in the US has outlawed whatever they feel will take power away from Big Brother.Any business with deep enough pockets can buy their way past laws and come after anyone that might create something that could make their product obsolete.Also how long until the religious wackos abitrarily make anything their "almighty" says is bad ilegal.We better fight back for our rights before watching Gladiator,listening to Eminem,or reading any text they say is a detriment to their idea of society is deemed unacceptable.
Name a game where the object is murder? In all of the games I've seen, people are trying to kill you, and you are defending yourself. A lot of games penalize killing innocent bystanders(which would be murder).
My other sig is extremely clever...
Huh? I thought our criminal system worked the other way around. See, I thought the state had to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that a criminal has indeed committed a crime. As long as the first amendment covers artistic expression (and really, how is this different from painting realistic images on a canvas?), then virtual child-pornography can't be criminalized. In that case, the burden would be on the prosecutor to prove that a real, live child was indeed exploited to create the images.
if the fakes are legal you can't prosecute for the real thing - which I don't think the majority of slashdotters (or the community at large) wants.
Sure, let's follow that logic out. Give me a break! Where does that end? You outlaw any fictionalized image or document with a subject that's vaguely criminal? Or do we just throw anyone who posseses an image into jail, unless they can prove that it's fake. Lawyers would have a field day if you tried that.
Lolita isn't pornography, though, and therein lies a big distinction.
Ooops, so now we're into a big art vs. porn thing here. The issue here isn't child porn real or fake (which very few want to defend) but a question of portrayal of underage individuals in explicit acts, for any purpose.
Fantasy in troubled individuals often leads to acts.
Then how about punishing those people that commit those acts? If I drive over somebody in a car, then I am tried, convicted, and sent to prison. Yet the other, responsible drivers on the road aren't required to hand in their licenses and freedoms because one person did something stupid.
Why should this be any different? Rather than punish people for something they might do, and in the process take away some essential liberties, how about punishing people for the crimes they actually commit?
What you're saying is the equivalent of, "It's OK to punish as many innocent people as possible, so long as one of them might commit a crime in the future (possibly)."
--
You seem like someone who has a feeling of accountability and responisbility. I am not going to sit here and say I have all the answers, but I do believe that if many of the people who are choosing to tear into me had children, or perhaps a wife, they would definitely think twice about these ideas. Then again, I could be wrong. I (personally) don't see how someone would think that this is in any way right. I don't expect everyone to have the same ideas as me, but it would be nice to see a positive turn in the "morality" of our country (US) rather than the opposite. I'm not sorry for offending those who get their sexual highs from such things as child pornography. Call me what you will, but that's what I believe,
Of course, that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.
No, not flamebait...conside this...
DeCSS, as expressed in the form of writing, has been declared "illegal" by the law (DMCA). Child porn, as expressed in the form of pictures, has been declared "illegal" by the law (CPPA).
So DeCSS tries to escape the law by moving from text to pictures. Paintings of DeCSS, songs of DeCSS, shirts of DeCSS, etc. All to blur the lines between what is protected (pictures of code with artistic value) and what isn't (copies of code with purely technological values ).
Likewise child porn tries to escape the law by staying primarily text. Stories about underage sex, stories about incest, stories in books like Lolita. All to blur the line between what is protected (the idea of kids having sex) and what isn't (pictures of kids having sex).
We have heard all the arguements presented by people like Professor Lessig on the legalities of the various forms of DeCSS. But consider how the same arguments apply to child porn...
Child porn pictures are illegal. So are cartoons illegal? How about ASCII art (images composed of letters and numbers)? Is it a picture or a strangly written story? What about ANSI art (adding color codes)?
Child porn pictures are illegal. Is describing a child porn picture illegal? Is describing how to draw a child porn picture illegal ("Arc from 12,3 to 14,2 radius 2.5...)? Isn't that what vector format picture is? Isn't that what a cartoon is? When enough details are given, isn't that what a JPEG is?
Assume the courts declare even fake child porn pictures as illegal just like the courts declared even linked DeCSS is illegal. If you have a Photoshop filter that makes it look like semen is on someone's face, is that illegal because it can be used on pictures of kids? What if it has non-illegal uses like parodies of "Got Milk?" ads? What about distributing three pictures that can be combined to form a depiction of child porn?
This is not an argument in favor of child porn. I'm merely trying to point out the absurity in a society trying to declare Form A of something legal and Form B illegal. If a society wants to ban child pornography it would have to do it at all levels, from books like Lolita to videos showing children being abused.
But if total censorship is unpalatable, then maybe child porn is a symptom and not a problem. DeCSS came about because the laws concerning fair use of DVDs were so completely out of touch with reality. Likewise, does anyone really think that 18 years old is a suitable standard for judging moral capacity? Nursing is natural and acceptable but when the kid is six it's abuse?
Ideas can only be censored, not controlled. Society needs to change more than just its laws.
- JoeShmoe
-- I wonder which will go down in history as the bigger failure: the War on Drugs or the War on Filesharing
Well, to be fair to me, I said that "virtual child pornography" is sick, not a fictional account, which might or might not be depending on the author's intent.
Appealing to prurient interests is the sine qua non of pornography and falls into _my_ definition of sick. I don't speak for anyone else.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
I am 28; I sometimes see girls in school uniform (in the UK that tends to mean 16 or less) that are sexually attractive. I also tend to look away and not admire in the same way I would a 28 year old woman.
Girls that have gone through puberty are physically old enough to carry children; it is therefore only logical that my reproductive organs recognise this fact and express their desire in the time-honoured manner.
The fact that I do nothing about this desire is indicative of my acceptance of the artificial rules of the society that I live in - I accept that society has deemed sex with girls under the age of 16 illegal, and so I steer clear. If I'm going to be honest, I've never had sex with a girl under the age of 25..
I believe the age of consent in Holland is 12 (feel free to correct me) - so pretty much any girl I'm attracted to in Holland is legally old enough for me to have my evil way with. But I still wouldn't - I want more from a girlfriend that raw wanton sex (although I want that as well).
~Cederic
because in american culture violence is good and sex is bad. period. (most ausies are so happy they got the convicts and we got the puritans.) and there's something about the vaguest possibility of it involving children which throws people into a tizzy. think back to the witch hunts and ruined lives of people prosecuted for child molestation in the eighties, many of the high profile convictions of which were overturned in the nineties. ironically, a lot of the overturned convictions invovled a crusading prosecutor from florida named reno.
Sorry, this is a bad analogy. It is not illegal to have a picture of an actual murder. It IS illegal to have a sexually suggestive or explicit image of a child!
You're right, a better analogy would be whether it should be illegal for an actor to pretend to kill someone rather than whether it should be illegal to own a videotape of someone pretending to kill someone. But the point is the same: it's silly to make it illegal to fake something that is against the law.
Oh come on, how sick is this? If you can't have the real thing, let's make virtual kiddie porn???
Real or fake, child pornography should looked down upon, whether virtual images are legal or not.
This isn't a question of free speech, but a question of morality.
In light of Katz's article, I wonder what effect Bush will have on this...
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
Second warning - a dear friend is on medication partly because pictures that were taken of her twenty-five years ago are now circulating forever on the Internet, some in altered condition. The photographer died in jail over ten years ago, but this crime goes on and on and on.
There are three questions here:
- Does virtual porn harm any actual living children?
- Does virtual porn either encourage or discourage the genuine sexual abuse of actual children?
- Where do the first-amendment rights of free speech end? In other words, where does the fist (no pun intended) of pornography bump up against my child's nose?
The answers are:- Yes, if the virtual models are based on photographs of real children. Often, in photorealistic virtual creations, an original model was used. When I mentioned the friend who was in therapy, part of it was learning that her image is now the basis of some very sick virtual scenarios. Unless this child was not based on any living model in any way, there is provable harm. Even if the model is an archetype, such as "Harry Potter" or "Cindy Lou Who", there are many small black-haired boys with glasses or blue-eyed blondes who bear such a close resemblance to those archetypes that they could be harmed as well. The harm is not just in the creation of the pornography, but also in the dissemination of the images.
- The research isn't out yet. Some say it encourages child molestation. Others say that it acts as a substitute. I am not capable of judging. Any genuine studies would be unethical; it could only be either after-the-fact questionaires or blood-pressure/arousal studies.
- I can't do thought control. If some sicko wants to imagine sex with my child, I can't stop it. If some sicko wants to publish a fantasy of sex with my child, I won't try to stop it, as long as all possible identifying charicteristics are left out. The moment some sicko to publishes fantasies, either written or in images, of sex with my child, or of another child, or of a virtual child that can be easily confused with my child, my child has been harmed.
I'd much rather use tort law to get at this than the hammer of censorship. Take a look around you, though. Ask yourself how you would feel if that were your smiling face on top of the most disgusting act you can think of. (Not the most sexual - the most disgusting.) Now, ask yourself about the disemination of that image for the next fifty years.There is no good solution. There should be no thought control. Eat rage and weep for our children
As the quality of CGI grows, people will be able to make artificial movies that are (almost) indistinguishable from real life. Limiting child pornograpy is done for more reasons than just protecting children from exploitation. Fantasy in troubled individuals often leads to acts. for a moment here, let's pretend that you believe in free will. fantasy and reality are two separate things, and most people have the ability to distinguish between them. if seeing a depraved act causes us to somehow automatically commit that act, then we'll have to start banning newspapers, television, and any other medium that might accidentally poison our fragile little minds. Go burn your books somewhere else... the rest of us know what's real and what isn't.
[Judge Donald Malloy]noted that the Supreme Court in the past has said that child pornography is not protected as free speech because it involves the sexual abuse of children. Although pornographic computer images are "unquestionably morally repugnant," the judge said, they cannot be turned into a crime "when no actual children are involved."
I'm in total agreement with Malloy. The argument from opponents of virtual child porn that it "adds fuel to the underground child pornography industry." and that "This kind of pornography can whet the appetite of pedophiles, prosecutors said, and therefore is dangerous even if no real children are involved." are completely invalid and have little to nothing to do with the current legislation on Child Pornography.
Child porn, despite what right-wingers and censorship-proponents would like us to believe, is not illegal because it is distasteful to the vast majority of Americans, or that it is morally wrong. It is illegal because it involves the exploitation of a segment of the population which is unable to protect itself. Children.
The notion that animé or other forms of digital child porn will encourage pedophiles to go out and rape some poor kid is outlandish. Pedophiles are mentally disturbed individuals. They don't require, on the whole, something as cut-and-dried as porn to "whet their appetites." Such a disturbed person could potentially gain motivation from something as innocuous as a children's show on PBS or reading a book, such as "Lolita," or even by something as simple as a child waving hello to them at a grocery store. I think it is naive for lobbyists and attorneys involved in this matter to think a ban on digital child porn would actually have a statistically noticeable positive effect on anything.
Digitally generated child pornography exploits no children, so therefore, by our own legal standards, as stated by Malloy, is not a crime and cannot become one if we still wish to maintain a society where our laws do not impose morality on our speech.
"We don't stop playing because we grow old. We grow old because we stop playing."
The court should obviously rule against the state's attorney in this case, because while kiddie porn is objectionable, it is only legally objectionable because of the damage done to the children involved and not because it "looks" bad.
Whoever cooks that shit up, though, deserves a kick in the balls.
If a 16 year-old boy takes a picture of his 16 year-old girlfriend in the nude, or if he draws a picture of his girlfriend doing it with him, is that child pornography?
blessings,
"Only in their dreams can men truly be free 'twas always thus, and always thus will be."
--Tom Schulman
In the US, you may see censorship as a sign of the rise of socialism. You are wrong.
A generation ago all your "Draft Dodgers" were censored by the media. Thye were seen to be part of the communist threat. There may have really been one then. There sure isn't now!
Further back than that the Nazis, Facists etc burned books theye didn't like and smashed up newspapers that said things they didn't approve of.
In Europe today, many people see censorship as a right wing way of fighting imaginary socialism.
I'll see your Constitution and raise you a Queen.
To whoever moderated the above post as flamebait:
It is an personal opinion that is reasonably expressed. The only way it could possibly be viewed as flamebait is if it makes YOU real mad to read it. If that is the case, YOU have a problem and YOU need to learn a little tolerance for the opinions of others. (Show a little "free speach" attitude and let him express his thoughts.)
-Derek
> That was not flamebait!
It most certainly was...whether you intended it to be flame bait (which would make it a troll) or not is certainly open to question.... I am willing to believe that it was not your intent though.
> Adult pornography is between two consenting
> adults. However, when it is between children,
> the children usually are not concenting, or
> enjoying it in any way whatso ever.
No... pornography doesn't require consenting adults, or even humans. Pornography is any sort of imagry made with the intent of sexual arousal. (Yes I am including erotica. As far as I can tell, the accepted difference between them is "Erotica is OK because its what you like, Porn is wrong because its not the stuff you like" - at least thats what it seems)
Whether children consent, or enjoy themselves during sexual acts has nothing to do with the issue at hand.
Here is the question.... WHY is child porn illegal? I see two possible answers.
1) Child porn is illegal because children are harmed.
If this is the case (and I think it is), then it is illegal because making child porn involves sexual activity with a person who has not consented to that activity (and legally cannot).
With this reasonaing, no children are harmed if I draw a picture of a naked child or a child having sex. So it shoul dbe legal.
2) Child porn is illegal because it is disgusting and we don't like it.
This allows for your veiwpoint. I don't share it however. I don't like the idea of making things illegal because some, nay, even most people don't like them. "Dislike" is not enough, if there is no harm, them there is no foul.
> In addition, if you post a story or something
> to an adult message board, you would not be
> permitted to post a story about children under
> the age of 18, regardless of if the story is
> true or not.
Or more correctly your post would be removed (in most cases I imagine) since its hard to stop someone from posting something (assuming most boards are not moderated...as is my experience with message boards in general)
That said.... so? Any message board is allowed to make up its own rules. Some of them may be made in fear of retribution (legal or otherwise, real or imagined), as such, I don't see how their rules have any bearing on this discussion.
In summary, I say "No Harm; No Foul". If a person gets off on looking at pictures of children having sex...thats fine with me. Just as long as noone gets hurt in the making of those pictures. I think drawing them, or generating them with the GIMP is a perfectly viable alternative, and I applaud their ability to find non-harmfull means towards satisfieing their needs.
-Steve
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
So it's ok if they make something illegal as long as it's something _YOU_ don't want? (May I remind you that innocent until proven guilty is not an excuse to make everything suspicious illegal...)
Ok, I know this won't please everyone, but how about this for a test:
If a reasonable person could be easily convinced that it is in fact real, it should be banned. This would cover photoshopping minors' faces onto the bodies of young porn models, or otherwise displaying pictures that contain at least part of a real minor portrayed in such a situation. If it looks kinda young, but the model in the picture is of age, there is absolutely no justification for a ban, even if they have her wearing a bib and sucking on a bottle for the sake of the perverts. No reasonable person would confuse Anime for reality, either. In other words, if the distributor of the pornography can't show that no real human minors are depicted in a sexually explicit manner, that should be probable cause for a warrant. Obviously the ultimate burden of proof would remain on the government.
There you have it. Maybe on the edge of the slippery slope, but I would say within reach of the railing. Keeping in mind that there are many people who would have us go all the way down the slope, I think that a little bit of compromise, clearly limited, is in order. Obviously this is not the only way we could do it, so I welcome other ideas. And of course, IANAL, but I used to live with 2 of them.
WARNING: there is a trojan on your
I disagree with this. It is these types of laws which are the greatest threat to our freedom today. Why should I lose my freedoms because some other twit is succeptable to television/video games/art/whatever?
It's the same argument as gun laws. Just because some other freak uses his gun to kill/rob someone, shouldn't mean I can't own one for hunting or self defence. Just because that freak did it after playing a round of Quake doesn't mean we should ban Quake either.
Just because one pedophile, or even many, commits a crime, doesn't mean we can take freedoms away from the ones who abide by the law.
I have no problem making things illegal that directly infringe on anothers personal rights. I have a big problem taking away personal freedoms, which would otherwise bother nobody, just as a preventative measure because of some slim chance they might provoke someone to do something wrong. If we continue in this direction we will eventually have to ban most everything.
The legal justification for banning kiddie porn in the first place, is that it necessarily involves comitting a crime against an actual, living child.
As far as I'm concerned, synthesizing images in no way involves real children, and if anyone wants to make the argument that availability of lurid material causes crimes against real people, then I want them to ban the Bible FIRST. That story of Lot's daughters is smut, pure and simple, with absolutely no redeeming social value.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
There was a ruling a while back that porn movies could not state (or imply, maybe?) that the characters in the movie were underage, regardless of the age of the performer. In fact, you'll see a lot of the young-looking perfomers explicitly stating their age (or some legal age) in the film, so as to avoid this ruling.
Fuck 'im up, Tim! His views are invalid! -Pirate Corp$
Don't Fuel Pedophile Appetites: That's the reason being given here, that such images will encourage pedophiles to abuse children. But isn't it commonly understood that pedophiles do not stop wanting to abuse children no matter what you try or do? Isn't that the whole point behind Megan Laws, that even a released pedophile is not really reformed, and can never be reformed? So a pedophile, evidently, needs no encouragement to engage in their acts.
A huge and very common mistake here: a pedophile is someone who is attracted to the young. However, one can no more assume that a pedophile has acted or will act on this desires and is a past or future child-molestor than one can assume that every grownupophile (?) is a past or future rapist.
It is possible, believe it or not, for a person to recognize the consequences of his desires and therefore choose not to act on them. Is it easy? Often, no. Does it happen? Yes, frequently.
The societal mis-definition of pedophile as child-molester might actually be responsible for molestations that might otherwise be avoided. As it is now, someone who might be recognizing himself as a pedophile might thereby assume that it is inevitable that he will be a molester, and thus will give up on even trying not to. Even worse, it might lead to that person's denial that he has such urges, a denial that might pop up later as acts and urges that otherwise could have been dealt with effectively.
I'm not necessarily calling for all pedophiles to come out of the closet, as it were, but if society were to admit that these desires happen, that perfectly otherwise "normal" people might have them, and that a pedophile can choose not to act on his desires, we might be better off, and the rate of molestation might actually drop.
a child pornographer. --What though of the person who is a pedophile? What of that person's insatiable desire to have sex with a child? Wouldn't everyone be better off if this person beat themselves silly with VR goggles on? Not every nutcase necessarily has to die, or be castrated. There are plenty of men who at some point or another thought he knew "what that bitch needs," and maybe even acted out the scene in their bathroom. The guy is a creep but he didn't actually hurt anyone. Thoughts should not, cannot equal death. --The Porn to Rape connection has never been made; so no matter how repulsed we are by child porn you as porn viewers (and what precisely do you think Buffy, Dark Angel, Popular, 90210, Melrose Place, et al really are?) must remember that you are next. Your latex fetish, your stockinged feet, cum shot, lez, cartoon women, alt.binaries.erotica is now under the gun. No one can say for certain that child porn makes pedophiles. Which makes virtual porn a safer alternative. --Yes porn calluses the moral fiber of the world reducing its participants to parts and its viewers to lonely voyeurs stuck in a pathetic unachievable fantasy, BUT it probably doesn't make rapists out of people. There are people who will watch a movie and lie in the middle of the road only to be (predictably) killed by passing autos. Those folks were doomed to some idiotic death. --However under no circumstances should any government be trusted to make moral judgments. Who is Bill Clinton to tell me I shouldn't hook up to a VR terminal and get a virtual blowjob? Or any of these other "moralists" (see also Jesse "love child" Jackson.) Humans have sex for fun. We are the only species on this planet that does so. If we choose to waste our inventiveness on 3D rendered Gillian Anderson's (replace Gillian with Pam if you like) so we can nail Scully so be it. --How far removed is child porn then? Yes, the knee-jerk reaction is a 3D rendered child is wrong. There is no "consulting age" for a pixel though. --This is a delicate and important debate. It is also very frightening. There can be no winners with this: Child pornography is so repellant that it must be destroyed and yet virtual child porn must be protected. --It saddens me to not join the chorus of "Kill the kiddie porn people," because I know that is precisely what I would do to protect my 20-month-old son. No question about it. And seeing as Duke Nuke 'Em has completely removed the "halt instinct" that plagues the US Armed Services (you have to train some one to shoot first and ask questions later) from my psyche I am certain I would kill a lot of people in the process. Unfortunately this is not in that realm, but stems from it. It simply is not the same thing.
---
This
I understand that you people have just got some new "senior management". As they have been put in by your new Pres' they will probably ban VPorn as it is sinful.
Don't worry about it though, you would never see it from your Libraries now anyway...
I'll see your Constitution and raise you a Queen.
But wait. How about X/2? Should that number be allowed? Given the fact that one can easily convert it to X (just multiply by two), if X is banned, it must also be banned or the ban is worked around trivially.
In fact, given any encoding scheme as complex as gzip or as simple as "divide by two", to really "get rid of" a number, we need to ban all possible encodings of that number.
But the possible encodings of X change, based on the possible encoders. That means that some numbers might OK today, but kiddie porn just as soon as bzip3 comes out.
Now consider that an encoder can use lookup tables. It is therefore possible to encode any number as any other number; which one encodes which is simply an implementation detail. So, for example, I might then write a gzip variant which encodes X as 17. I have the code right here; I could do that. So that would mean banning 17, in order to ban X.
I think it is pretty clear that the world needs 17.
So how you gonna ban kiddie porn? Unencrypted only? What good is *that*? Rot13 anyone?
my collection of ansi screens that I converted from .gif's to .ans's for the use on my old bbs?
Anyhow, I think it will come down to intent. The origin isn't what qualifies it as kddie porn, but what the actual nature of the image does.
Yep, I never spell check.
More incorrect spellings can be found he
Its a combination of false advertisment and not wanting to go to jail. If you cant produce proof that the girl in 'High school gang bang' was over 18 then they'll throw you in jail. Of course, saying they're under 18 and lying will get you in trouble too, first they'll come and ask you why shes under 18, you say shes over, then they ask you why you said that on the box.
FunOne
FunOne
Find the age of consent in your state:
http://ageofconsent.com/
There was a recent Supreme Court (Canada) case in which it was ruled that prohibiting possession of Child Pornography was unconstitutional (the law was deemed to be overbroad).
These are two different things.
They (the BC supreme court) did not rule that prohibiting possession was unconstitutional, but they did rule the law (Bill C-128) was overly broad.
They ruled that the law was overly broad because it included in its' definition of "child pornography" stories about fictitious characters and events, personal diaries, and drawings... it's been awhile since I read the ruling, but the judge ruled that it came "dangerously close to infringing on a person's freedom of thought."
This is essentially what the problem is. If a high school girl writes in her diary about a sexual fantasy, under bill C128, she could be arrested for child pornography.. there is something chilling about that..
you know, i can think of worse things these people could be watching -- but i'll let the trolls post the links :^)
To my knowledge, the only crime of which it is illegal to possess photographs is the sexual abuse of a child. I don't know of any laws against possession of photographs of murder. Surely one or more episodes of Fox Most Heinous High Speed Chases or whatever would certainly have landed the producers in jail if so.
You're talking about real child porn, and I never said that should be legal.
I also never claimed that it doesn't exist - I said that others have claimed this.
So next time ... try reading the article, then the post, before shooting your mouth off. I guess that's why you go a -1: Flamebait.
I didn't pay for my operating system either
Glad you can think for yourself. I understand why people are against censorship, I just can't see how this fits into such an arguement. It's extreme. When you have kids, you let me know how you really think. Any 15-20 year-old kid who thinks he has all the world's answers and that there are no lines to be drawn needs to spend some time in the real world before posting such a rediculous quote. I get it you silly child.
Of course, that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.
The original laws against kiddie porn make sense because you have to involve children in order to make it.
Virtual kiddie porn should be illegal, why? Because it encourages people to think about adults having sex with children? Because it arouses the appetite of people who lean that way anyway?
Alright, let's go on the assumption that this is a valid form of thinking. Let's see what other things fall in the category of "encouraging people to think about adults having sex with children". With this thinking, we could then illegalize:
Grown women who wear those cute little Catholic school girl outfits, or dress like highschool cheerleaders.
Grown women who wear bows in their hair (how disgusting!).
Songs like "Hot for Teacher".
The movie "Harold and Maud".
Any movie with a childhood romance.
Any "coming of age" movie.
Most Anime, especially Hentai.
The list is truly endless. Do we want to open this can of worms? I know a few conservatives who would love to.
Mythological Beast
Wake up - the future is arriving faster than you think.
While I don't necessarily think virtual child porn should exist, I don't see why it would be illegal. Actual murder is illegal, but look at all the virtual forms of that we accept - video games, movies, television, etc etc. Why should the argument about virtual child porn be any different?
-MoonSammy
Oh shit. I better go hide my Cheech and Chong collection. Come to think of it, I don't think most of that was simulated...
That image you have on your hard drive *may* be of an underage girl, so now you go to jail for five years.
I.E. Better not look at porn of people under 60!
I would consider this to be equivalent to writing a piece of fiction that depicts these acts. It's a pretty sick puppy that would do this, or want to read it, but you could theoretically do this in a locked room by yourself and for yourself starting with no one else's work, which as far as I'm concerned pretty much makes legal issues moot.
It's a scary idea, because the obvious extrapolation on this idea is virtual reality, but from a legal point of view, no children are being harmed in its production, so I don't see how it could be illegal.
Which isn't to say I don't find the idea morally offensive, but there you go.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
A better analogy for this would be selling oregano as cannabis. I believe that there are too many layers of indirection in your analogy. The gov't's stance on child porn (whether it's right or not) is that encouraging pedophiles is a bad thing. Providing pedophiles with an outlet for their desire is a bad thing. In all of the cases you cite, the government has not decreed that "whet[ting] the appetite" in some way other than doing the actual act is illegal, and that is why this is an issue.
So what you are saying is that Gary Coleman is screwed as far as making any sort of porn goes, as well as Ralph Maccio(sp?).
Not that anyone would want to see that...
Casca
I'd like to know whether this really encourages pedophiles or if it is a safe outlet for them to satisfy their depraved desires.
If allowing a pedophile access to virtuallly generated kiddie porn keeps him so busy he does not feel the need to accost real children, I say let him do it. If, on the other hand, this adds to the problem, feuling his depravity, then it might be a good idea find a way to limit access this type of material.
Did you ever stop and think that truly alien aliens might not have facial expressions that are at all recognizable to humans?
Rev. Dr. Xenophon Fenderson, the Carbon(d)ated, KSC, DEATH, SubGenius, mhm21x16
I'm proud of my Northern Tibetian Heritage
I have no desire to see child porn exist. It is vile, and the people who produce or use it are disturbed individuals to whom help should be provided. Help offered outside the free rein of society.
But where do we draw the line? Several people have draw similarities between "virtual porn" and "virtual murder." Should your last quake match mark you a murder? What about Ultima Online, is that a real relationship? Should you be accountable for it? People who have had their ids stolen think so. Ebay, even puts a price on that relationship.
While it is easy to wax philosophical and say "it's not real" and "better virtual than real", I believe we need to look at the intent. I am not a prude or naïve, but we need to start drawing the line on responsibility not medium. We do not want child pornography because it represents the most abhorrent behavior in our society. Whether it be real, cartoon, or virtual, it is still abhorrent.
While we would like to believe "this is different" because those people do not exist, is it really? Virtual drugs, do not exist. Virtual death, does not really happen. Virtual porn however does exist. Much like ordering illegal drugs over the internet, upon their arrival you have committed a crime. It does not matter how you ordered them, you now own them.
Sometimes we try to make these free speech issues, "Virtual porn now, ebooks later." However as a society we can and need to begin seeing the difference. A friendly game of quake may get your blood flowing but it is not illegal. Child-porn is illegal, and whether the medium is virtual or actual, does it matter? If not, then would only the child porn, observed first person be illegal? Those are just "pictures" and that's not the same as being there.
Consider when we put your virtual likeness into the picture of such an "encounter". Since it is not really you was any harm done? Would your family, friends, or boss agree? If harm can be done to you from the virtual environment, we can conclude the environment can be harmful to anyone.
How far do our rights have to be abridged before the self-righteous such as you are appeased? That is the relevant question. The question here is not whether virtual child porn is morally corrupt or not. It is and very few people would argue that point. The issue is whether a computer-generated image that looks like child pornography can be prosecuted as such. Outlawing such may seem justifiable, but each tap of the chisel on the bedrock of the Bill of Rights weakens the structure. At some point, the entire lattice breaks apart. This is a very touchy subject, but I am going to have to make a stand at this point and say that we could give up every goddamned right that we have and there will still be crime. The only way to stop crime is to motivate people not to commit them. Make the punishment so horrible that no-one will want to face it. You don't stop crime by censorship because, face it, the act is concieved in the perpetrator's mind and no-one can censor that. There was crime before film, radio, television, and virtual reality.
So now the government wants to step in and declare what kinds of virtual activity are and are not legal. They start with something obviously repulsive (kiddie porn) so that no one will protest. But what's next? Political cartoons that make fun of politicians? Animated depictions of war and violence? How about video games, as they quite often depict murder and bloodshed (quake, anyone)?
I'm not trying to defend child pornography here, but in my opinion this is not child pornography. This is computer generated imagery we're talking about, they can be created without involving any actual children. The precedent that could be set here is simple - computer generated images of [whatever] are subject to the same laws as real images of [whatever]. This could have very serious consequences in other areas, especially electronic entertainment.
--
www.scorbett.ca
Not hard at all. Heck, look at any book on portraiture for artists and you will see a section on how children's faces change as they mature--it won't be hard to do the inverse transformation. Presto! Baby Seka, by analogy with Muppet Babies.
Actually, apart from the virtual kid pr0n issue, this would provide porn, um, performers with some major advantages--they could have themselves digitized in their prime and sell their images for productions when they're old and gray, and all sorts of customizations would be possible that needn't conform to the laws of physics or biology...but that's another iss--er, matter.
I'm curious about where people would draw the line. If it were legal to create computer animated characters that were having sex, would it be legal to film a child and map their features on, so it becomes a sort of "skin" like in Quake?
So once again, I call for the actual criminal act to be illegal and the posession of the images to be legal.
I'm sure they'll do that...right after they declare possession of crack and pcp legal, but its use illegal.
I think the illegality of (real) kiddie porn is based on the fact that, ipso facto, it exploits children. On the other hand, drugs don't really hurt anyone but *yourself* (victimless). But yeah, they should really draw the line at real kiddie porn (where it is obvious some child has been exploited) and fake kiddie porn, which is just really sick, but cannot be tied directly to some exploitation.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
If a child that is 16 gets drunk, gets in a car and kills somebody, are they guilty of manslaughter or more? Absolutely. There are always going to be gray areas in the law, but we need to stick to our guns and enforce the laws that we have.
Of course, that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.
I agree, but they are laws on the books that real porn, produced with consenting adults over the age of 18, can not depict anyone under 18. So in an adult movie, made with adults, sold to adults, that has a fantasy scene in it that one of the adult actors portrays a 16yo high-school senior is illegal! Many movies that were produced before this law passed had to be pulled off the shelves.
This is just the latest extension of the idea behind this law. To take something on the fringe of legality and make it illegal and do it with the support of the mindless masses.
They are just gonna take our rights away a little at a time. It'll be too late when most people realize they've lost all their rights.
<--#insert file="witty.sig"--
"...therefore is dangerous..."
The issue of danger was not a factor when the US bill of rights was written. The speech that they were referring to was directly involved in instigating a revolution. More that 4400 people were killed and over 6100 were wounded as a result of the words spoken or written by the so-called founding fathers.
The American Declaration of Independence was written with the clear understanding that it would cause people to fight and die - not virtually, but in the real world. That sounds pretty dangerous and violence-inducing to me.
You never really know how close to the edge you can go until you fall off.
This is a troll: "Windows ME is better than Linux"
This is also a troll: "Child porn is wrong! It offends my views! It is sick and wrong............"
Whether or not the poster meant to be a troll I don't know, but the post is still a troll because it has little merit on its own. So I have no complaints about it being modded down, what ever it takes. Remember that the best trolls try not to appear as one.
As the quality of CGI grows, people will be able to make artificial movies that are (almost) indistinguishable from real life. Limiting child pornograpy is done for more reasons than just protecting children from exploitation. Fantasy in troubled individuals often leads to acts.
love is just extroverted narcissism
In 2050 are you going to be able to have sex with a Britney Spears robot that looks like she did when she was 12? Of course you are. What about the holodeck on the Enterprise... what the hell is that for...? Don't you think someone would have been busted by now for having underage sex in the holodeck?... it never happened folks. Why? Because everyone on the Enterprise is tossing loads all over the "high-school, early 21st century program". BTW, where does Mark Chmura weigh in on all this?
William Wordworth's defintion of a virgin: "A twelve year old girl... ugly"
"Smokey, this isn't Nam, there are rules." -Walter
Child porn has been illegal for two reasons:
1) it encourages sexual feelings towards children; the theory is that encouraging those feelings may someday lead to action.
2) the actual creation of porn involving children is sexual abuse, therefore, it's illegal.
Now with the creation of virtual porn, it looks like reason #2 is magically eliminated. #1 becomes the focus, and is being discussed elsewhere in this topic.
But I want to point out there still exists a problem with #2. If you open the gate to making Virtual Kiddie Porn legal (and the state of Kiddie Porn Technology (TM) advances to the point where it's photoreal), then suddenly, you have a huge enforcement problem. "No, sir, this is %100 virtual kiddie porn. We wouldn't deal in that REAL stuff -- that's sick."
Your ability to protect actual victims and to tell those who are breaking the law from those who aren't.
That introduced ambiguity by itself should be enough of a reason to hold back on declaring VKP legal. Add to that the possibility that KP might encourage sexual behavior towards children -- and we don't know that it doesn't -- and the better bet seems to be to keep it illegal.
--
Tweet, tweet.
Those who cannot learn through history are condemned to repeat it.
Let's get this straight: THOUGHTS DON'T HURT PEOPLE. Only ACTIONS can do that. Is that really beyond your comprehension? Most 5-year-olds understand it pretty well.
I didn't pay for my operating system either
The ONLY reason for banning child porn is the harmful effect of creating the porn on the real children involved.
Any other porn, which represents itself as child porn but does not depict actual children, should be left alone.
Only adults, who should know what they are doing, are involved.
You have the right to comment. Moderators have the right to rate it whatever they please. It is free speech. You exercise your free speech to comment. The moderators exercise their free speech to moderate. Simple.
Neither the comment nor the moderation gets cencored. (AND NO, if you can adjust your threshold and read the comment, it is NOT cencored.)
These are the post-1984 methods of the state.
KTB:Lover, Poet, Artiste, Aesthete, Programmer.
KTB:Lover, Poet, Artiste, Aesthete, Programmer.
There is no
Also, are they saying that merely seeing child pornoggraphy makes someone a pedophile? That's like saying that having gay Boy Scouts could make a child gay. (oh, wait... the Boy Scouts did say that.) Seeing naked men does not make me gay. Seeing trees does not make me want to have sex with them. These pedophiles already are pedophiles. Seeing generated pictures hurts no one, and it would seem that it only stems their appetite.
One big problem with all of the posts on this subject so far: everyone is assuming that the material prohibited by this law will in fact be child porn. That it will involve what are unmistakeably intended to be children, performing obscene acts.
The real problem is that such a law leaves interpretation of what constitutes a "crime" up to law enforcement. What if someone likes drawing Anime-style characters engaging in sex? What about the "furry" fans, who like anthropomorphised animals? Anime characters, with their big eyes etc, and typical cartoon characters, are not always easy to tell from children, especially to the uninitiated.
Will we have a rash of arrests -- even if they don't lead to prosecutions -- of perfectly lawful artists creating perfecly legal works, simply because someone thinks their characters look too young? Will we drive all sorts of artists underground, or keep them from publishing anything at all, out of fear that they might get hauled into court and labeled as a CHILD PORNOGRAPHER and publicly humiliated?
This is another case of creating an extreme law to prohibit an extreme act, which has a chilling effect on freedoms far out of proportion to the small (and debatable) amount of good that it does.
Keep the government out of my bedroom, out of my doctor's office, and off of my drawing board!
Well, it kinda sounds familiar to me, what with all the arguments about virtual violence in video games/movies/music whatever. If it's legal to go on a shooting spree and kill hunderends of unuarmed innocents in a video game, or root for the bad guy in a particularry gruesome movie, why should this be any different?
I'll be the first to argue that it's morraly wrong, and basically sick, but it's not my place to decide what people should do with their time. As long as it's purely virtual, then no one gets hurt and it's basically a private matter up to the individual.
Now it could lead to inspiring such acts agains real children, which is a totally different matter, but it could also give the crazies what they want in a harmless matter. The question, I guess, is would the virtual be better than the real thing?
Makes me glad I'm not a parent yet, but afraid of what times will be like when that changes...
-Space for rent
Let me start off with the usual : I do not believe that engaging in sexual activity with a minor is a good thing. I think most of these guys should be shot.
With that being put out of the way, it's only digital. It's not a real picture of a real kid doing a real whatever. So how would one go about dating the age of a bunch of pixel ?
Worst case scenario, one could claim that the image is the result of a complex mathematic equation (which could certainly be produced as evidence if need be.).
If the government is supplying methadone to heroine addict, why would it not supply virtual kiddie porn to sexual predators, to help them overcome the habit ?
And then again. The virtual depiction of the kid could also represent a 700 years old character. Should we really base age checking on the "looks" of a person ? If you're short, smoothly skinned, you're under 21 ? NOT!!!!!!!!!!!.
Marriage is considered capital punishment for the theft of a goat in some third world countries...
The argument that it should be illegal because it might "cause" someone else to do something is thoroughly unconvincing, especially lacking any serious studies implying a strong causal relationship between fake child porn and actual child molestation. Hell, a sixpack could "whet the appetite," and they're not outlawing beer.
By that logic, it should be illegal to posess images depciting rape, murder, theft, or any other crime; by obtaining them, you are soliciting the comission of a crime.
One of the arguments that the banners use is that modern image-editing software makes it nearly impossible to tell whether something was filmed or is artificially generated. I'm hoping the Supreme Court decides for the plaintiffs in this matter; just because it makes the cops job difficult isn't a good reason to curb free expression, no matter how twisted it is.
When the law was written, it was intended to keep people from exploiting minors to make the pictures. It was not meant to keep people from what they "might" do after seeing the pictures.
So if I draw a lame-ass picture of a kid having sex using microsoft paint, is that "virtual porn?" Or, do I have to use something better, like Photoshop... or does it have to be generated on an SGI like Jurassic Park?
Ok, after reading several other posts, I thought I'd throw in my opinion only because this is an issue I feel rather strongly about.
"Free Speech" is not "unlimited speech" or even "say/show/produce what ever you want" speech. Free Speech has several restrictions placed on it:
1. While you can slander, you can be sued for false claims, detriment of character, etc.
2. You cannot use free speech to endanger people via threats or yelling "fire" in a theater or saying "this is the bomb" at an airport.
There are others, and I think, "Child Porn" in any form, including "Virtual" falls into this catagory. Why? Because it puts at risk a portion of the population which cannot yet exercise their rights under the law. Children are in the (legal) minority and do not have their full rights (such as voting or drinking). I think as an extension of this concept that it is our responsibility to protect their interests by not considering the depiction of sexual acts with children as "protected speech."
Although the subjects are "virtual" they are still depictions of CHILDREN, a group which is dependant on society for protection.
meh.
The court said that while they found the drawings disgusting and that they should be banned, it would be impossible for them to rule that they're illegal because that's one step away from declaring that a person's thoughts are under the control of the law.
The law, however, remains on the books. There is precedent as a result of this case and Eli Langer's problems with the Toronto authorities (Langer was the first person arrested under the law, and it took him two years to get clear), but the fact remains that people can still be arrested on the grounds that they made up and drew a prepubescent couple doing something naughty.
How can you prove that a digital image is real and not fabricated????
By finding the victim(s), instead of sitting on your ass.
Yes, we all know that old-fashioned police work is just that, work. On the other hand, let's try and keep the amount of things that are illegal-if-proved-true greater than the amount of things that are illegal-until-proven-false, OK?
--
You dare compare defending our constitutional rights with defending pedophilia... why don't you wake up! I am all for protecting our children. I, however, want to make sure that they still have rights when they are old enough to enjoy them. Benjamin Franklin said that a society that was willing to trade freedom for security deserved neither. Was he a pedophilia supporter? I would rather my children die free than live in idealogical oppression. BTW... if you must resort to personal attacks to make up for your lack of reason, please don't come on as Anonymous Coward. Be up-front.
Oh, but I suppose the fact that "most people" thought that women shouldn't be allowed to vote in the 1800s made that right to?
Yeah, go ahead, campaign to have "evil thoughts" outlawed. Thankfully we don't have the technology to do it yet, so the bigotry displayed here is at least Mostly Harmless. For now.
I didn't pay for my operating system either
I think this kind of "virtual" porn should be illegal, but not for the reasons that I've seen written about. With computer graphics getting better and better every day, how long will it be before CG stuff becomes imperceptable from the real stuff? If a guy gets busted with kid porn on him computer, he can just say that he created it. We need to remove any reasonable boundries that prevent the prosecution of child pornographers. Outlawing crypo? No. Outlawing niche market virtual child porn? Yeah.
-B
Wow, I never thought of that before JesseL. Excellent point!
...I first saw Jurassic Park and saw how lifelike they'd made the CGI'd dinosaurs. At some point, animation will be so lifelike that it'll be possible to, say, make a Shirley Temple avatar dance and sing on your desktop. Or a JonBenet Ramsey one. However, there's some precedent for animated stuff being considered raunchy even if it's animated rather than live.
"How many light bulbs does it take to change a person?" --BMcC-->
What about porn that depicts a (fictional) rape? Should that be illegal because it'll "whet the appetite" of a rapist?
What about a movie that depicts graphic dismemberment of a corpse? It might "whet the appetite" of a serial killer. Silence of the Lambs
What about a movie that depicts a not at all graphic simple domestic homicide? It might "whet the appetite" of a spouse abuser.Almost any TV show
What about a BOOK, for crying out loud, that depicts any of these things (including fictional sex acts involving fictional children)? Lolita
These are all perfectly legal. I just don't see that the "simulated child porn is wrong" case has a leg to stand on. Therefore it'll probably pass unanimously...
--
MailOne
Non-meta-modded "Overrated" mods are killing Slashdot
(Hey Ryan! Here's your proof!)
So did the thought police in Orwell's 1984. The dangers of punishing people for their alleged thoughts to me greatly outweighs the dangers of allowing free speech.
The reason why religions (all of them, not just Christianity) emphasise thought first is that they have the insight to realise that behind every ill deed lies an ill thought. But the converse is not true. Moreover, it is in practice much easier to abstain from evil deeds than it is for us to abstain from evil thoughts ( indeed, I believe very few people manage the former, and almost no-one manages the latter )
I understand your concern about "morality" in society. However, I don't believe there is as much a "moral decline" as there is an exposure of societies wrongs. As far as the morality of society goes, there is less child prostitution in America today than there was 100 years ago. Injustices such as racism and racial violence are no longer tolerated by those from the mainstream, lynchings are no longer commonplace. Out of wedlock births are stil all too common, but I'd be interested to see some proof that they're actually on the rise (these were also frequent 100 years ago)
I didn't lose my virginity until I was 27. Back in 1987.
And yes, it was with somebody who I met online.
Does that mean I'm a stereotypical geek? I had electronic test equipment in my living room at the time...
Hay thar.
Violent movies are made all the time, does this give anyone the impression that shooting random people, kidnapping or any of that is 'ok'? Not unless they are seriously distrubed. There are plenty of movies and TV shows depicting highly illegal behaviour, sometimes in a positive light. And it has been ruled again and again that it is legal.
And I just don't buy this 'whetting their appetie (sp)' arguement. I won't until I see some hard data in support of it.
It may make you sick to the stomach thinking about it, but it's better to provide kiddie porn fans with a virtual outlet for their perversion, than actually make real kiddie porn.
It's like video games. It's better to vent your frustrations on a Cacodemon than it is to go postal. I think video games have a useful place in society as exactly that : an outlet for urges which may be harmful if let out in real life.
I don't see how kiddie porn is different, and anything that reduces the market for genuine kiddie porn is a good thing.
That's if kiddie porn even exists, and isn't just a manufactured concept designed to raise funding for federal law enforcement ... which some have suggested.
Anyway, as has been argued passim on this site, once the technology exists it will happen. When we have proper virtual adult porn, how hard is it going to be to load in a less mature looking model?
I say keep this legal. It harms no-one, and the idea that kiddie porn is a "gateway drug" to actual child abuse is just a bunch of weak supposition backed by moral outrage. Like video games "causing" shoot-outs in highschools.
I didn't pay for my operating system either
It seems to me the whole reason Catholic priests are found molesting little boys, or infected with AIDS, is that the church doesn't allow them an outlet on their sexual desires. And you say we shouldn't allow pedos an outlet on their desires? What do you think is gonna happen when you do that? Don't you think it'd be better to have someone jerk off to pictures of a virtual kid than go find or take pictures of a real kid, or worse?
...play Quake, get charged with Virtual Manslaughter?
Get real!
I'm a writer, a poet, a genius, I know it. I don't buy software, I grow it.
i hate for my first posting to /. in a while to be so indecisive, but man, i have no idea what to make of this. i really really really am opposed to child pornography, ficticious drawing or otherwise... and i really want speech on the web to be as free is it can be - no, infinitely free. i guess i answer for myself: as horribly as this is, etc, etc, for infinite freedom of the web you'd have to allow it. but of course this would extend to actual child pornography, and so back to the conondrum.
who decides what is moral? i really hate questions like this, darn you /. for making me think and hurting my brain, as if trying to debug these stupid Java native calls aren't painful enough.
but in all seriousness this is definately the type of issue we all have to deal with: and fight for if the price becomes too great. but remember, there are a lot of people with lots of dollars and lots of determination (read: years of christian-doctrine-induced guilt and fear of hell) to fight every step of the way... ... frknfrk!
The REAL sam_at_caveman_dot_org is user ID 13833.
OH GOD I HATE THIS STATEMENT!
Proving that lots of crimes are committed by drunks does *NOT* prove that lots of drunks commit crimes! PERIOD!
I mean hell: 100% of crimes are caused by humans. therefore, all humans are criminals. right?
** Martin
I saw this on CNN yesterday. You can find their coverage here.
-gerbik
That was not flamebait! But anyway. Adult pornography is between two consenting adults. However, when it is between children, the children usually are not concenting, or enjoying it in any way whatso ever. In addition, having digitally created pictures of children in sexual positions only goes on to say that it is ok to have this type of thing done. The fact that they are under the age of 18 regardless of if it is a picture or not, makes it illegal. In addition, if you post a story or something to an adult message board, you would not be permitted to post a story about children under the age of 18, regardless of if the story is true or not.
It's well documented now that Linda Lovelace didn't enjoy participating in the filming of the movie 'Deep Throat.' Does this mean that because her 'extacy' wasn't real, that it wasn't porn?
Hay thar.
They don't care that it takes me less time to download a Metallica mp3 than it does to rip my own CDs, or that I might want to trade songs by unsigned artists.
They don't care that I want to watch DVDs on my Linux box. And they sure as hell don't want me to be able to skip the advertisements at the beginning of the media... not that there's actually something illegal (or evan immoral) about that.
And they certainly don't care that you're not out there doing little kids -- why take chances? They want it to be illegal to even consider it.
To quote Hollywood: "We don't like what we don't understand, in fact it scares us and this monster is mysterious, at least."
--brian
If people cared about the consequences of their fears as much as their fears this would be pretty easy to decide on a case by case basis.
Most people REFUSE to allow deliberation about fending off what they most fear. Therefore there can be no case by case basis. This makes it that much easier to for me to keep my opinion in the general case.
No Censorship Of Fiction Regardless Whatever It May Contain!
The message on the other side of this sig is false.
Yes, and?
a. name the act and scene where Juliet and Romeo do the nasty.
b. it wasn't so long ago that 17 year old women who wheren't married or engaged or widowed where considered old maids.
James
a person obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices
Now it is entirely possible this person already considered this question, perhaps on another forum where child pornography was discussed. This poster has his or her own opinions, but not necessarily prejudices or interlerances. I take the original poster to task for failing to expand his or her argument, but I won't say the person is automatically a bigot.
I personally think those Fox reality TV shows are in bad taste, but not unethical. It's not like they commit the crimes themselves just to get footage.
On the topic of simulated child porn, my view is that no unethical act was committed against anybody so it's not a crime.
You are perfectly correct, sir, but you're not using the correct definition of 'virtual.' In this specific case, virtual does not mean electronic form, it (as I understand it) means computer-generated, as in computer rendered. The 'no children were harmed in the making of this picture' kinda thing: no acts had to be committed by or to anyone.
Hence, all your comments about the various distribution mechanisms were correct, but virtual child porn does not mean normal child porn in a .jpeg.
"Evil company X is threatening to restrict our rights! Let's all get together to stop--OOOH! SHINEY!!!" -- AC
You want to ban virtual child pornography because it might encourage pedophiles to molest children? What if it just encourages them to go for real child porn, continuing the demand for real child porn, resulting in the continuation of the problem that the ban on child porn was supposed to fix?
The reason for the ban on child porn is (or at least should be) for the protection of children that could be abused for the purposes of creating child porn. Saying that child porn causes pedophiles to molest children is like saying that adult porn causes the objectification of women - there is no established causative link between the two. Violence in video games is another example - am I violent because of the games, or do I like violent games because I'm a violent person? (I don't actually like violent games, so don't get the wrong idea here.)
If child porn is made without the use of actual children, then there is no link between the fake child porn and child abuse. Child abuse is wrong, but in this society we (the people, not our government unfortunately) prefer to punish criminal behavior and not anything that could in some way contribute to some criminal behavior in some people in some cases under some circumstances somehow. We allow things like alcohol, guns, knives, cars, and thousands of blunt objects, any one of which could be used to kill people, but we can't allow fake child porn so law-abiding pedophiles can get their jollies without hurting anyone? Unless being a pedophile becomes illegal, the government clearly oversteps its bounds when it passes legislation banning material that is not the result of or the likely cause of harmful activities.
Disclaimer:
I am not a pedophile, nor do I promote pedophilia, but the right to produce fake child porn deserves at least as much protection as the right to have and express racist ideas (which is more likely to cause harmful acts than fake porn), which is currently protected by the courts. And no, I'm not a racist either.
Have we all lost our sense of decency! Whether child porn is virtual or not, it's still child port isn't it? I'm a father and this kind of behavior is repulsive, virtual or not because all it does is provide a stimulous to the pervs that fantasize about having sex with a child.
when you see a pedophile, you say : - what a sick man - poor child i guess most people would say what a sick man, so i would think the child ( virtual or not) is not the point.
This whole topic reminds me of all the religious nuts that thought D&D would drive their kids insane.
There's a difference between reality and fiction. What can be more fictious than CG?
"Only one thing, is impossible for god: to find any sense in any copyright law on the planet." Mark Twain
Actually, I am advocating that society pass those laws if and only if we can prove that exposure to virtual child pornography causes regular, non-child-molesting people to become child molesters.
And I stand by that moral stance. Laws by their nature restrict some freedoms in order to promote others.
Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia.
This one is really difficult to determine. I mean, it is something that I have never even pondered! My gut reaction is that it should not be illegal and that the origional decision should be upheld, then I thought about it and realized how sick and demented this can be. The bottom line though is that the government should not be able to 'censor' any form of art no matter how sick and demented it is! I, personally, am revolted to think that people would appreciate this stuff, but the fact remains that the governement should not make the decisions for the people... (Unless the images are in public, but that falls under pornography laws anyway..)
I'm guessing the Supreme Court will rule that banning artificially-generated images is not constitutional. When/if this happens, what I expect to eventually occur is that face-recognition software will be used on the images to identify the children. The day is coming (and soon, I think) when every child will have its picture taken as part of entering school, and the digitized image will be placed in a national database. Feature-recognition software is getting good enough to match up those images with those from child-porn photos. The cops will try to identify the kids and then contact them to see if they were really abused. This is just my prediction of how this is going to play out. Personally, I'm not thrilled with having our images entered into databases, which by the way has already happened for almost any adult with a driver's license. Companies have purchased the driver's license databases from the states, including the photographs, and entered them into image-recognition systems. Big Brother ain't far off.
This well known painting hangs in a London museum. Just look at those nude minors, some exgaged in sexually explicit acts! Where do you draw the line?
Currently the Canadian Supreme Court is looked at almost exactly the same case. A British Columbia man is charged with possession of child porn and is contesting it since criminalizing possession itself is unconstitutional; secondly, he is also contesting it due to the fact that stories that he wrote were considered illegal child porn. I do have a problem with child porn created using real children because that obviously harms the child. However, imaginary works and stories really crosses the line into thought control! Look at all the other cases where artists' (-and I'm not saying that man is an artist) works that were confiscated because of "illegal" thoughts and writings. What next: criminalizing computer generated murders, drug use, etc.. While I really do not like the idea of photorealistic portrayals of child pornagraphy, I hope that both courts respect freedom of speech. Freedom is something like air; you don't notice it until it is gone.
For instance, in an erotica writing club I belong too, a woman's story was removed becuase it talked about her sexual experiences as a teen.
I realize it's mostly a moot point with the Slashdot crowd (hell, I was a 20 year old virgin), but if you had a sexual experience at 13, would you want the right to talk about it?
IIRC, part of the reason for making Child Pornography illegal was the exploitation of the children involved in the production of the material. In this case, however distasteful the images are to most people, there is none of that occuring. That's what makes this such a legal grey-area.
There was a recent Supreme Court (Canada) case in which it was ruled that prohibiting possession of Child Pornography was unconstitutional (the law was deemed to be overbroad). This seems similar, in that other than possession of questionable images, no other underlying crime has been committed.
Definitely a case to watch.
I assume Child Pornography is illegal because a child is abused in the making of it. If Child Pornography is illegal to produce, own, or view, the assumption is that you are protecting children from being abused by those who would make child pornography.
Simulated child pornography, however, does not technically abuse a child in the making of it.
The legal question (read: minor detail) may be: in these simulations, are the images in question still using partial images of real children? If so, then is that still an abuse of the child?
Sadly, as much as we hear government officials talk about "sick" people who are into to child pornography, I've never heard any of them say they are going to catch them to help them get out of their unacceptable habits. They just want to catch them and lock them up. Presumably because these are bad people.
Is child pornography a disease? Is there a cure other than isolation?
You know you're talking to a bigot when he claims that ideas in people's minds can be "sick and wrong".
I didn't pay for my operating system either
This is one of those topics that I find so very interesting to think about.
Our culture seems to have this hard wired "sex = bad" idea. Sex is dirty, sex is wrong blah blah.
There is only one thing that I have figured out. Sex feels good, and with the exceptions of a few individuals, everyone seems to enjoy it immensly (well ok, some women complain that its not as good as it could be much of the time, but thats another issue entirly).
STDs aside (they really isn't much special about them... just viruses that are not capable of going airborn. Nothing special - and no more common than any other). How can sex be harmful? Seriously, how? Ive heard it said that the psycological "harm" done by child molsstation is not done by the inital act, but by the person growing up and finding out ho w"evil and dirty" such acts are... the trauma of something that was war, loving, and fun at the time (which I realise is not true in all cases) suddenly cast in new light, siddenly is bad and evil.
All in all, I think this is indicitive of our societies unhealthy attitudes towards sex. We seem to insist on turning something that is fun, life affirming, and natural into something that is "dirty, bad, and evil".
-Steve
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
There are a lot of posts talking about how artwork could tempt pedophiles, and make them more apt to go out and commit real crimes against children. That may or may not be the case, but I think there are a lot of images out there of real children that are a lot more disturbingly pedophilic than any artwork I've ever come across.
One example: children's beauty pageants. I don't like those things, so I don't go out of my way to find images from them and so I'm not speaking from a lot of experience, but... Am I the only person who finds all those pictures of JonBenet Ramsey wearing lipstick, big teased hair, high heels, and short dresses incredibly disgusting? Doesn't that sort of objectification and sexualization of a SIX YEAR OLD girl show that there's something fundamentally unbalanced at work here?
Just a thought, so that before people start going after cartoons they might think about what sort of images real parents are creating with their real children.
actually in most states the age of consent is below 18, in some it is as low as *12* (for non virgins) so while it is legal for two fourteen year olds to have sex, it is illegal to take pictures? how can photographs documenting legal acts be illegal?
also: what about older photographs. "child pornography" is not just sexual acts. according to the law as i read it (i did a paper on US sex laws a year or so ago) "child pornography" also includes close ups of genitalia. there are any number of ways that such images could potentially be produced without harming even young children. one could even imagine a situation in which children acting in innocence could *produce* such images. i've never seen any actual child pornography -- i imagine it is fairly rare given fear of the law, but i would imagine that such non "explicit" photos would also be common enough to be a significant legal concern.
Child porn is an interesting special case with US speach laws as it is the ONLY form of speach that is universally banned. Libel is allowed in some forms - satire, critique, private conversation, and so are images, stories, movies, etc. of almost ANY other illegal act. Raping a child and murdering a child are at worst equally evil acts, one of which though, would be legal to show pictures of. It's confusing and inconsistant.
I'm not suggesting that the laws should be changed. The laws are in place to protect children... and i'm sure they do help. BUT such strict definitions of pornography hurt legitimate artists.
In Capitalist America, bank robs you!
In my ever-so-humble opinion, child pornography, though it's not my bag, should not be banned if it's virtual! The children in the situations aren't real children being harmed. It would be *extremely* dangerous for the courts to decide that things can be banned for presenting dangerous/non-conformist ideas to the reader. To ban "virtual" "fictional" child pornography because it simply depicts something society considers wrong is a horrible precedent, and can lead to banning fictions of all types. Where would this chain end ?
When discussing child porn you need to seperate the issues.
Child porn is illegal not because it is "sick" or "disgusting". It is illegal because by definition the creation of it requires a (heinous) illegal act-- the sexual abuse of children.
Looking at it this way, whatever else it is, CG pornoggraphy is definately NOT "child porn" any more then, say, porn with a 25 year old actress in pig-tails is. "No children were hurt or abused in the making of this pornography."
Once you have deal with that, all that is left is the issue of whether pornography should be illegal. Frankly, I don't see a good argument for that. So it offends you. So what? Bad movies and football both offend me, should they be illegal to protect my delicate sensabilities?
me thinks the problem here is excessive media pandering to obsessively-worried suburban parents.
but don't most incidents of childhood sexual abuse occur in the home?
Some of us have fallen in love with the notion of giving without reserve-Raoul Vanegiem, Revolution of Everyday Life
In the next couple of years (or even right now), virtual porn will look so "real" that it will be indistinguishable from actual porn images. Whats to stop people from using children and then applying a filter or two to make the image look "fake"?
this could have some consequences on /.
Je t'aime Stéphanie
Currently, you can't produce porn that even claims to have people younger than 18. (You can't take young looking 18-year-olds and say they are younger.)
I think the same should apply to the virtual. Sex acts should not be depicted involving individuals younger than 18. Period.
I'm all for free speech and I understand the touchy nature of this subject, but I think the goal of protecting kids is justified. This is minimal infringement on free speech.
A speech...
It had more to do with the ambiguity of the language. The porn industry doesn't want to deal with having to constantly face prosecution for situations where everything is legal.
For example, there was one case I read about several years ago where a distributer was shut down over accusations of child porn. It turned out that the actress in question was a 24 year old Japanese girl, but because she 'looked' underage, the prosecutors went after them.
g
YES, and there shouldn't be much to say about it either. Common sense should apply and no arguments
about riduculous extreme situations (reductido ad absurdium).
..........FULL STOP.
The real problem that this sort of judgement will create is the difficulty in prosecuting someone for child porn goes through the roof. Now police don't only have to prove that you have child porn in your posession, but they must now also prove that the kiddie porn is REAL. Imagine the headache this is going to create. This sort of judgement opens the doors for kiddie porn distribution. Now web sites can post 'All models that aren't over the age of 18 are actually digitally created' and get away with posting all sorts of obscene child pornography. How can you prove that a digital image is real and not fabricated????
What if you wrote stories without illustrations?
War is necrophilia.
> So by your logic heroin should be legal since
> banning it only makes someone want it more.
> Bzzzzzzt! Wrong answer.
So I supose you would rather I not bring up that studies in switzerland showed that when heroin addicts had legal and reasonably priced (priced at about hwat heroin would cost if not for being illegal and thus having the huge "black market markup") that they were able to lead otherwise normal lives, hol ddown jobs, and no longer harmed society by engaging in criminal activites like theft to "support their habbits.
A differnt issue? yup. Related? I think so.
> wanting sex with children is unhealthy, to say
> the least.
It is? In what way? I somehow doubt that you are going to say that desire is the cause of suffering and that they should follow the eightfold path.
Wanting is only a problem when it becomes "obtaining". Their "headspace' is their buisness. Not yours. It is up to them to decide what thoughts are ok for their brains, not you.
-Steve
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
We're all more or less sick from time to time, mentally and physically. That is no reason to throw us all in jail. Only acts which harm others should be punishable, sick or not.
It may prevent some? Hehe...umm...yeah...and watching real porno really prevents people from getting it on. Hell...some of them use it to get in the mood. Who's to say it doesn't CAUSE as many in some people as it prevents in others? Sex and violence as apples to oranges (to all but a kinky few anyways)
It's a pretty bad argument to make in it's defense.
This is also the crux of the arghument that law enforcement makes about why hemp should be illegal "We can't tell the difference between it and illegal marijuana".
Its a silly argument (even if you don't feel marijuana should be legal - like every other right thinking individual (j/k)).
It is law enforcements job to enforce laws, not to influence them. If enforcing the law is hard, then it is hard. Noone ever said that its suposed to be easy.
The law is suposed to be set because it is the right thing, not because it is easy.
-Steve
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
Logically, the only way to rule would be against the prosecution, but in a country so full of "family values", such as sexual uptightness and the protection of children, you never know.
--
Okay. Child pornography is banned for several reasons. First off, it's taking advantage of these children, and that's almost as bad as the fact that people get off on it. Child pornography bans = GOOD THING Virtual child pornography? I don't think this should even be touched with a 10-foot pole on steroids. If Jim-Wannabe-Pedofile decides he'd rather draw 3d models of people of childlike proportions doing sexual sh*t, than go out there and collect child porn, then fine. If the sicko decides to post it, hate to break it to you, that's art. it's creator may be a little f-ed in the head, but it's still the object of his effort and inspiration. Same applies to anime. As for fakes of underage actors, technically, I don't think that's child porn. disguisting as it is, that's a 30-year old big-titted lady or big-dicked guy who's wearing someone elses face or body. Screw banning virtual child porn... it's too hard to define and more good could be done destroying the *real* stuff. And no, I don't view child porn. Never have, never will. And I think I'd probably not be cool associating someone who did.
What makes me sick is that there are creeps out there that get off on looking at this, and worse yet, people that MAKE this.
Go do something with your lives, people!
Mike Roberto
- GAIM: MicroBerto
Berto
It seems that all of the major challenges to free speach comes because of something that is so incredibly hard to defend... things that touch on racism, child pornography, etc. makes it hard to be proud to fight for 1st amendment rights.
psmylie's dictionary: Godzillion (noun) Any number large enough to destroy Tokyo
So having sex with a five year old kid is morally right in some countries? Where would that be?
Of course, that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.
Nudity sex murder guilt redemption. There's a section where Michaelangelo painted snakes sucking at the balls of a local censorhappy priest.
Just when the "corrections" added to the Sistine Chapel have been removed, are we going to put them back up again?
The message on the other side of this sig is false.
My girlfriend told me the other day that I was a pedophile.
I said, "That's a pretty big word for an eight-year-old."
In a world with constantly increasing technology, who decides what is "real" or "virtual"? "Real" child pornography could get lost in a Web loaded with the photorealistic "virtual" variety.
--
PaxTech
"I've said it before, and I'll say it again : Democracy simply doesn't work." -- Kent Brockman
All movements for social change begin as missions, evolve into businesses, and end up as rackets.
You're on the right track - first post I've seen on the subject that finally hit the nail on the head.
C'mon people! No crime has been committed UNTIL a crime has been committed!
Geez, only in America! How can you "virtually" hurt someone? You either have or have not!
Sale of such a "virtual pedophile" program should be subject to the local obscenity laws, and if the community finds the program obscene, then it cannot be sold. If it is, then punish the seller or maker of the program that violated the community standard.
In this instance, the buyer has not committed a crime, unless simple possession is a crime. The argument that possession is a crime because it "might" cause someone to act on it, when no one has been harmed, is silly at best.
THINK! Don't give knee-jerk reactions because something contains a hot-button phrase.
Nitewing '98
Everything works...in theory.
Are you FUCKING SICK?!?! Giving paedophiles kiddie porn is like giving a crazed high school studing a picture of an AK-47 and saying, "Imagine what you can do with this" Some people have no idea how the mind works
- SigKill -
I have to disagree that the "only" reason is the harm it does to a child. Take, for instance, an example of someone taking your picture and manipulating it to show you having homosexual, bestial or child sex. IANAL, but defamation is the word that comes to mind. Your consent was not sought. Children are cannot consent, by law. There are other instances of harm than physical.
The government certainly has the right (and, more importantly, a compelling interest) to procescute true child pornographers. If "virtual" kiddie porn makes it impossible or much more difficult to do that ("that's not a real kid, your honor! honest! i used photoshop!") then the government has an interest in banning that, too. It's a balancing issue: the government is claiming that society's need to punish real child pornographers outweighs an individual's rights to produce virtual kiddie porn.
That's the government's position, according to news reports, at least. It's not unreasonable that the SC will agree with that position: the other federal courts (except the 9th appeals) have.
It deserves a Supreme Court hearing. Even if the Supreme Court is packed with Nazis.
blessings,
"Only in their dreams can men truly be free 'twas always thus, and always thus will be."
--Tom Schulman
Lets not start with this ridiculous moral relativism. The rights other groups have should not be extended to pedophiles just because we feel we should be consistent. Pedophiles are persecuted in every possible way in this society. AND THATS HOW IT SHOULD BE.
And to the people who argue that it will cut down on their urges, oh please. Have you done an extensive study?
Or are you, as is more likely the case, basing your position on your unqualified pop psychology instincts?
Boo yaa
... a minor was looking at pornography of minors?
I'm 16. When I look for porn, I prefer porn of teenage girls around my age. For me, older women don't do anything, and in this case older women means women of a legal age for pornography.
The girls I look at are all well within the age of consent, however.
Essentially, if I am legally allowed to have sex with someone, can it be deemed illegal for me to have a picture of them naked?
to accept the praise of personal wisdom is an affront to the very ideal i hold dear.
But when people start talking about mere thoughts being inherently wicked I definitely get a distinct odor of bigotry.
I didn't pay for my operating system either
- It provides the same end effect for the viewer looking for such material - If that's what is morally wrong (the desire to see kids engaged in such behaviour/scenarios), then this is wrong.
- Technology is advancing such that it will soon (already is?) difficult or impossible to distinguish between real and "virtual". So what's to stop producers of child porn of just saying "but they're virtual! I swear!". While this is a slippery slope argument, I think there's some validity.
- But, then, if it IS distinguishable from real life (Bart Simpson porn?), then, who is it really satisfying. Most pedophiles aren't going to settle for some lame line drawing.
Personally, I just don't like new laws when they don't even enforce the old laws. I mean, seriously, in a country where NAMBLA (the North American Man-Boy Love Association) exists freely, shouldn't we start with the laws we have? (For the curious, NAMBLA doesn't have a web site anymore, apparently. It used to be nambla.org, but, that's not around any longer...)Send your friends messages of love at fuck-you.org
I can't remember all the details, so sombody please correct any mistakes...
A Vancouver court heard a case like this a few years ago. The defendent claimed that his drawings of nude children engaging in sexual activities were both works of art and products of his imagination. While simply being "works of art" isn't a defense (photos can be art, but not if they're of nude children having sex), his argument about being products of his imagination stood up in court.
The court said that while they found the drawings disgusting and that they should be banned, it would be impossible for them to rule that they're illegal because that's one step away from declaring that a person's thoughts are under the control of the law.
The global economy is a great thing until you feel it locally.
As they have been put in by your new Pres' they will probably ban VPorn as it is sinful.
Actually, the pro-censorship crowd would have done better with Gore/Lieberman - Anybody remember PMRC? And JL is an unabashedly pro-censorship kind of guy. They want(ed) to censor rock music and Hollywood, let alone the rougher stuff like (v)porn.
It must sadden Al's heart to see one of his many inventions put to such poor use.
OT: Nobody seems to be reporting this, but they finished the Miami-Dade recount. Surprise surprise, Al Gore LOST YET AGAIN.
+5:offtopic,but anti-American
Obscenity is not speech! That means the bill only really covers non-obscene pictures of virtual sex with minors. (It is sorta lost on me how you get into a "non-obscene" version of this stuff, but there we are!)
Well, we do have something to go on: the Communications Decency Act ruling in Reno v. ACLU.
In that decision, Rehnquist and O'Connor dissented in part, making for a 7-2 decision. The question would seem to be, is this an easier case, harder case or about the same as Reno? Seems to me to be about the same. Also, this problem, kiddie porn, isn't addressable easily by the "zoning" logic of O'Connor's concurrance. I think that we could easily get an 8-1 with only Rehnquist (not a big first amendment champion) dissenting.
A better analogy here would be me selling you what I clearly state to be tasty Italian herbs and spices as a cheap 'n' healthy alternative to pot -- "the high's almost as good, man." No foul, no laws broken, far as I know. That line gets crossed the moment I misrepresent the bag of oregano as being an illegal substance (in this case, cannabis).
By the same token (and all moral considerations aside) the material under review in the court case is CG and is marketed/sold as such. The crime wouldn't be in the production of the flicks themselves, but the misrepresentation of them as real-life kiddie porn.... and that's something that seems to be outside the scope of this case.
----------
I too believe it is abhorrent. But are you prepared to start throwing people in jail who have never harmed anyone, but who have written or drawn things that you find offensive?
Virtual drugs, do not exist. Virtual death, does not really happen. Virtual porn however does exist.
I totally don't understand this. Virtual porn "exists" in the same sense that virtual drugs do. Neither involves actual drugs or sex in real life.
A friendly game of quake may get your blood flowing but it is not illegal. Child-porn is illegal
Circular reasoning. You're using the current state of the law to argue what the law should be.
Consider when we put your virtual likeness into the picture of such an "encounter". Since it is not really you was any harm done?
Of course, and I could sue for defamation of character among other things. But that has nothing to do with the question of whether purely artificial porn (which your example is not) should be illegal.
How to solve most of our problems: 1.Lots of nuclear plants. 2.Cure aging.
What if we prove playing Quake causes some children to be more agressive? (I think we probably have proven this?) Should we ban Quake?
My point is that there is always someone out there who will be adversly effected by anything of this nature. Someone will kill themselves after listening to Nirvana. Someone will rape their wife after eating an aphrodesiac such as chocolate. Some kid will jump off his 30th floor apartment balcony with a bedsheet after watching base jumping on ESPN. Someone will run through their school with a gun after watching columbine on CNN. And someone will run around killing after playing quake. It is almost a sure thing that someone will molest a child after using some virtual software. The thing is, there are a whole lot of people who won't do these things, and it is not fair to remove their freedoms just because someone else will.
Can a fat person sue because a picture of virtual food made them break their diet?
Can an alcoholic be absolved of a drunk driving conviction if a virtual drinking game made him want to drink the real thing?
Can we hold the makers of a virtual driving game accountable for accidents caused by drivers trying the same stunts they see in a game?
Is a simulated or imagined injury grounds for damages?
Where does a simulation end and reality begin?
If you have a dream that your neighbor is having an affair with your wife, does that make it OK for you to shoot him in the head?
So many questions... so many clueless lawyers and judges.
I have a 3D image generating program called Poser. Two of the default 3D models included are juvenile humans sans clothing. Should I delete this program from my drive or something? Is Poser 3D a "Kiddy Porn" generating program?
OK.. sarcasm mode off. You'd think the idiots in our gov't would have better things to do.
I'm not an advocate for child porn, but if the images are computer generated, then who is being victimized in these cases? Apparently the reasoning being used to argue against said images is the fact that they "whet" the appetite of pedophiles and would potentially hurt children in the future. However, rules regarding "prior restraint" prevent authorities from taking actions against speech that would have the potential to cause harm before it actually does so. So in other words, until these pedophiles actually victimize children, there is nothing to punish them for. And as much as we disagree with their perversions, we can't penalize the sickos for them.
Love, Stu
As I don't live in the US, I'll just skip the 1st amendment discussion. Let's talk intent. The purpose of such a ban would be to reduce actual child abuse. At least from an objective point of view it should, because if I spent all day inside watching fake child porn, nobody was hurt making it, and that didn't make me want to abuse any real children, who was harmed?
It's very easy to generalize this into pornography and society in general. Noone would argue that people today are more knowledgeable and open about sex, and have more sex than say, 50 years ago, and usually at an earlier age. So fake cp would lead to more and younger children having sex, right?
Not quite that easy. In fact, I very much suspect the entire cause-effect relationship has been turned up-side down. It has become more and more socially and morally acceptable to have sex, to admit that one is having sex, and so people aren't that worried about seeing nudity and sex anymore. This isn't the case with child abuse (name pretty much says it all, doesn't it), while it at times has been legal (both in ancient times, and up to early 80s in a few places) it has rarely been very acceptable for the general public, and today it's turning into a modern witchhunt IMO (not to mention your favorite subject in order to force through RIP/Carnivore/Echelon/unique ID noumbers etc.)
Child pornography involving children above the age of 9 was legal in the 70s in some european countries (yes REAL children). Was there this big boom in child sexuality in the general population for that reason? Not that I've found any record of.
And in the end - how could this become anything more than a theoretical right. The police can probably show that there exists real child pornography in any fairly sized collection, based on past evidence. But how would any person know unless he created them himself? And this does *not* apply just to exactly life-like photos. Using CorelDraw or whatever I'd have no problem making an illegal picture into an apparently legal drawing. And any "fake" marking would only be abused by people marking everything as fake in order to avoid punishment. So, in the end this won't matter for 99% of the child porn viewers anyway, which for that matter mostly aren't abusers either.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
The most recurring theme in reading responses to this article so far is: "I hate what they're doing, but it's not doing any harm to anyone else, so let's let them do it." What would you do if you discovered a virtual child pornography artist was modeling his children off your son, or daughter? What would you do if you knew that your neighbor fantasized about your children, creating pictures and virtual models of them in situations such as rape and molestation, masturbated to these images, and then distributed them throughout the Internet for anyone, anywhere across the world to use?
You'd better be damned sure that if I ever discovered someone doing the types of things I mentioned above to my children, I'd go directly to the law. As a society, we have (over time) developed majority opinions on a number of issues regarding sexuality and what is right or wrong. I would truly hope that America is still a county that considers child molestation, abuse, and rape a crime. These are children we're talking about, who have no power of choice, who don't even understand sex, much less anything on the level of molestation or rape. Why in the world do we support these type of materials finding there way into a public, unregulated forum such as the web, where our own children at school, the library or home can discover them?
I'll be the first one to say that what a person does alone, in his own home, is completely his business and no-one elses. Many of the things disgust me, but freedom of choice is our most treasured freedom, and everything should be done to preserve that freedom, as long as an individual's choices do not infringe upon another individuals rights. When you factor in the Internet, however, it's a completely different situation. If you found someone distributing leaflets around town of virtual versions of your child, in situations such as rape and molestation, would you really be ok with that? Such a situation is a near mirror of what is being done through the web today.
As a whole, the web has done a number of amazing things for us so far, but we need to start being more conscious of how powerful tool it really is, for both good and bad.
~SunRunner~
Well, I have just spent some 3.5 hours (slow day at work) actually reading this whole damn thread. And in truth, there is not much more to say than has already been said at some point. But here's my thoughts anyway.
For the most part we all agree that child porn is disgusting, sick, and in all other ways unpalatable. Only a few of us would not agree that our freedom is more important than a couple of 'maybes'. And so I present this issue:
Pedophiles have existed for as long as the history of civilization(define it however you please) and at various times and places has been accepted(or not) to greater and lesser degrees. The point being that there is nothing that is going to 'cause' people to become pedophiles, and pedophiles will always exist regardless of what is or is not illegal. To further constrict our definitions of 'freedom' to convince the populous that our government is fighting the good fight, when the list of freedoms we have is diminishing at a disturbingly accelerating rate, is sheer stupidity. Virtual Child pornography does have the possibility of hurting some people for whatever reasons their brains may concoct, but then, so can my kitchen knives.
I think the best thing we can do is attempt to raise our children correctly so that they can protect THEMSELVES from the social evils of this world, and take that burden off the shoulders of our government so that the government can get on with making our great nation prosper, and not flounder around uselessly trying to win our favor by defending us from ourselves.
There was a slightly similar case before the British Columbia Supreme Court regarding posession of child pornography. There's an article about it on the CBC website.
However, part of the issue this side of the 49th is the definition of child pornography. The particular case before the court at the moment involves someone who penned erotic fantasies of juvenile sex for his own private enjoyment. The argument is that the definition is so broad that it infringes on basic rights.
The police, on the other hand, argue that they need a relatively broad definition, and the ability to arrest for posession, because otherwise they would be handicapped to ineffectiveness and they'd be unable to fight child pornography at all.
My take on the issue is that the two sides are arguing past each other. Fix the definition. I'm reasonably sure there's a happy medium where both sides can be equally dissatisfied. ;-)
--
Accountability on the heads of the powerful.
Power in the hands of the accountable.
And honestly, from what I remember, the ones I read were relatively tame. Certainly nothing as blatant as what one can find online at places such as the Nifty Erotic Stories Archive (whom I note have a disclaimer on the front page saying Note: All of the characters in these stories are portrayed by adults 18 years of age or older. So there. - that doesn't make much sense to me seeing as there are no real people involved, but okay).
;-).
I'd have to say my favorite story there would be Double Trouble (feel free not to follow that link if the obvious implications disturb you, but it's a tasteful story... depending on your tastes I suppose), and I fail to see how reading it should get me tossed in jail. As far as I'm able to tell, my reading it isn't harming any children (and fear not; I ain't ever planning to).
Nor is there any proof that reading such a story would cause a person to go out and act on it - which is precisely what a Canadian judge ruled before the case in question went up to the Supreme Court.
Just adding my two cents, if I don't get moderated out of existence anyway
Ozzy Man
--
"All great truths begin as blasphemies." -George Bernard Shaw
This issue is interesting as it addresses some potential "exceptions" to freedom of speech.
Child pornography has always been rightfully illegal as an inherent part of it is sexually abusing a child. So the question then becomes: with modern technology, if child pornography can be produced artificially (that is, without the abuse of children), then what is the harm? Well, apparently, the major argument is that it whets the appetite of child porn users (or observers), and hence puts children in potentially harm's way.
But then why is this issue more important than other harmful crimes? Not to lessen the tragedy of sexual abuse of children, but realistic movies and stills of violence could also then, using the same argument, cause murders and rapes. And so why not ban those as well? Of course, then the snowball rolls and suddenly fiction about hacking is illegal.
This may be an exaggeration, but the issue isn't as one-sided as many people think. But I understand the popular hesitation - it is hard to defend freedom of speech as sometimes one is defending the child pornographer next door.
The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what we share with someone else when we're uncool. -Crowe
People, including pedophiles, can normally recognize the difference between sexual fantasy (as portrayed in x-rated films, videos, magazines, etc.) and reality. Those that cannot are probably going to commit their sexual crimes regardless. If you got hold of a magazine with people being whipped with a cat-o-nine-tails, would you just assume that it must be accepted by society at large as "normal"? Of course not (I hope).
The sole, valid argument against child pornography is that it exploits children. There is no legitimate reason to ban simulated kiddie porn. In fact, giving pedophiles a sexual outlet that doesn't harm children is probably in society's best interests in the long run.
You know people who want porn are going to go out and get it somewhere, and as long as people are demanding it, people will be supplying it. You can't make porn go away. So if pedophiles want their child porn and can't get it virutally, then they are just going to get it through images of real children, just like they always have. It's better that pedophiles get it through virtual images rather than images of real children.
Outdoor digital photography, mostly in New Engl
I dunno, seems as if this law doesn't accomplish anything other than to 'get rid of the stuff' (out of sight, out of mind). Not that this would work either, since kiddie porn producers are already breaking laws. Pass this law and that will be just one more law for them to break. Won't stop them, that's for sure.
Mind you, I can't think of any valid use for kiddie porn, computer-generated or not. But free speech being only valid when you defend that which you find offensive, I worry that this law (which will accomplish zero) is wordly generally enough that the prosecution won't end with explicit kiddie-porn. Anime will be the obvious next step, and so on.
Note, I'm not defending kiddie porn. I'm pointing out that I think this is a law that will accomplish nothing good, and could be used down the road for something bad.
________________
________________
Private Essayist
Keep in mind that Zefferelli's film "Romeo & Juliet" features a bare Romeo leaving Juliet's bed in the morning. Certainly "conveys the impression" that those two minors jad been "engaging in sexually explicit conduct?"
There is no such concept as being TRULY free.
Freedom, just as pretty much anything else is bound to limits
Those limits, just as pretty much anything else happnes to be extremely fuzzy.
The real sadness is, people are so so so damn stupid they feel a need to have a straight line drawn that would delimitate the freedom. (which would be funny in fact, if not always related to so bad things as the one we are talking about right now)
So here we are... the straight line doesn't exist
There are no good laws that could garantee justice in all case, and we are always bound to human decisions in all the cases.
So why... for god sake.. why in the world do you put your so precious freedom everywhere as a pretext to justify any atrocities.
I just don't get it.. this is ridiculous !
People like you feel a need to have some kind of absolute statement, absolute law that would dictate wether this or this is legal or not.
that statement alone would last forever and would be the blade to cut between right and wrong for everything.
So, people like you are puzzled when somthing as trivial as making a difference between an 'action/violence' movie, where (many posters tried to express the obious feeling about it) there is abslutely no 'bad' meaning/intention in the making of this movie, and a child/porn movie.
if you cannot tell the difference, if you don't feel at least one of those two movies is absolutly wrong, I suggest you go seek for medical asistence before anything happens.
Many posters here say "c'mon porn child doesn't incitate pedophiles to act anymore than a rambo movie incitate to kill"
I don't believe any of them actually believes it.
I suppose there is some hypocrisy in some cases, or maybe they actually feel violent movies are also very harmful which could be discussed.
Anyway, what generally happen, is "I don't want to lose my freedom by allowing a law against child porn"
Why would it be that way ?
why would you have to lose your freedom ?
You would lose your precious freedom if, and only if this freedom is very badly expressed
Remember your freedom is already limited
It is not an obsolute concept, it cannot be expressed with absoute statements or laws
So freedom of speech, expression etc.. does not have to suffer from a decision like this one,
unless your want to preserve your freedom of watching/producing porn child
Nothing else
What must be restablished about laws and law execution, is common sense (also a big big problem, I agree, but from where we are right now, I doubdt it could get really worse)
Laws are not a substitute for your brain
Stop thinking that if child porn is baned, tomorrow you'll go in jail for expressing your politic opinion, because it just doesn't have anything to do with it
you can generalise it under a common 'expression' context if that suits your need, still, this is something different, and anybody can make the difference, we do not need a 'freedom of expression' concept that works for everything, this is ridiculous and as dangerous as we can see it here
So you can kill an animal..
Why can't you kill a man ?
doesn't that represent a major denial of your very own freedom of killing animals that enter your house your grand father has been fighting for so much ?
There is no limit to this kind of stupidity
I might want some freedom of expression, but I do not want the freedom of expression any more than I want the freedom of hunting animals
I want to protect the freedoms that I need as much as most of us need (just a matter of defining 'most of us', in the end, someone will be unhappy, let's try to minimize the harm, that's the best we can do)
The freedom of watching/producing child porn do not belong to that list
I respect your father our whoever you want fought for a great principle of some kind of general concept of liberty, that was necessary, and I'm sure he never inteded to protect freedom of pedophily, if he did, I'll go piss on his grave
Allright I do not try to offend anyone's memory really, I just don't believe whoever fought for a noble concept of freedom ever thought of pedophily as an issue, because it is just plain ridiculous
I believe you people, protecting your so called precious heritage are doing much more harm to it by twisting its roots
Freedom of expression, it it could stated somewhat 'absolutely' would not then be about allowing other people to express themselves wether you agree with it or not but would also take into account "common sense" of evil, harmfulness, etc.. (if there is such a thing)
Of course I don't pretend to create such a statement, I really don't think it's actually possible, but at least, we can do much much better than trying to put everything we can think of under a same concept "freedom of expression"
Under those conditions, I do not want freedom of expression
I don't agree with you, but as much as I think this is a silly idea, I agree you express yourself under 'that' freedom. that's what it is about
it is not about letting someone create a virtual movie of you raping your daughter and producing it anywhere. (noone's hurt noone's hurt)
I don't understand why is it so difficult to take 'special considerations' and why this would automatically take 'everything we fought so much for'
oh well.. I'm not sure I'm making a good point because I'm not fluent enough to express correctly what I want to, so I guess some will demonstrate I must be wrong if I can't even formulate correctly what I'm trying to say, but I stil hope the point wll be made:
You must not hide yourself behind a 'noble' concept to justify an atrocity!
Even if it had to be that way, even f it was really 'freedom of expression' that were in danger there would be nothing to think twice: the price is TOO HIGH how can you even think about sacrifying one child ???? in those conditions ?? what exactly are you trying to protect ?? this is nonsense !!
that child porn was widely available in this country until the late 70s. Infact it wasn't unusual in the magazine rack to see lolita magazines and nudist mags. It wasn't until a puritan movement in the 70s that stopped it. It was also legal in many europeon countries. The sheer fact is what is considered child porn. I think most peopel take it out of control and assume all child porn means some 6 year old. I don't believe a nude 16 year old girl is considered child porn, I think there needs to be the teen cutoff date. Anything over 13 is legal, because the boy/girl fits into basic pubesant reproductive stages. It's normal for a person to be attracted to someone over the puberty range, it's when we were hardwired to reproduce.
I think the main reason child porn is illegal is not the actual porn itself, but the fact that making it is a form of child abuse. I abhor racists, bigots, and child abusers as much as the next guy, but I think that it is dangerous territory to start limiting freedom of speech in cases where it is not directly harmful. For example, keeping people from saying things that might insult a race or a gender is just too damn close to keeping people from insulting an institution (such as the government.) Keeping people from publishing stuff that might incite other people to do something illegal (such as this case) is dangerous because it can easily be extended to keeping people from publishing anti-government material. Freedom of speech is taking a huge beating lately, and it worries me. The problem is that right now, its limitations are being applied to obvious things. However, such types of laws have a way of spreading out their scope, and if the current track continues, I think we could end up with the very real danger of censorship.
;) This whole child-porn thing relates to a broader group of cases in which publishing material insulting to a particular group is illegal. The problem with that model is that the conservatives get to control what is considered offensive, and eventually, such laws lead to government instilled morality. That's why Bush's ideas of "bringing morality to the country through the whitehouse" bother me so much. It is not the governments job to protect the sensibilities of the public, it is their job to protect their bodies (and implicitly their mental health.) The government should stay out of your wallet as much as possible, but moreover, it should stay out of your soul; it should leave morality and values to the parents (who, BTW, are a big failiure in this generation) whose job it is to instill them.
PS> I think a Bush comment is quite relevent here
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
There's a similar case being heard by the Canadian Supreme Court about whether a B.C. man can be convicted for possessing such pictures. Without such possession being evidence, it would be very hard to get any convictions.
--- Will in Seattle - What are you doing to fight the War?
If you want to nitpick, then I'll point out that he/she did *not* type the word style (or even soyle), the word in question is actually "still". Sorry, I just couldn't resist it.
.. of this ban.
Historically the supreme court has banned anything the resembles child porn.
Yes, minors in sexual explicit scenes in movies are illegal, but hollywood has a lot of money and can afford the fines.If someone bother to complain about it.
FYI it is illegal to go to a legal brothal(like in Nevada) and ask them to pretend to be under 18, or a relative, including step children.
The irony is you only have to be 14 to use the services provided at a brothel(county dependant). the brothels even have a special section for people who are not old enough to drink.
"hi son, what do you want for your 14th birthday?" "a hummer"
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
As I said before, how about Zefferelli's Romeo & Juliet? Or a film of "Lolita" which is not obscene because it has literary and/or artistic merit. Unless you're willing to state that all pictures & portrayals of sex are obscene, it shouldn't change if you replace the actors with virtual minors...
The biggest problem as far as I can see is that the pedophiles can just use Photoshop/Gimp/Painter etc. to make real child porn look like artistic drawings.
How do you prosecute that then? It allready happens now, and is a problem for the police.
Max M - IT's Mad Science
All computer generated figures depicted in this film would be 18 years or older if they existed. Any appearances otherwise are the result of virtual hormonal imbalances.
Trees can't go dancing
So do them a big favor
Pretend dancing stinks!
I remember a couple of years ago, I remember reading in Viz magazine (British adult humour comic) a letter, which said something along the lines of: "These computers are disgusting! I bought one last week and within minutes of turning on I was able to draw a picture of a Boy Scout buggering a guide dog!" The letter was complete with a badly-drawn stick-image, presumably done in m$ paint (which kind of begs the question, how realistic does the drawing have to be to qualify as porn?) The letter was presented as a joke, but with this possible law, presumably it would be illegal.
One thing I've always kind of wondered about in the laws of child porn, is whether a situation like this would be legal: say I, at the age of 8 took a picture of myself naked, having a wank or something (I didn't BTW), could I be prosecuted for owning it? It seems a bit weird if you could be arrested for owning a picture of yourself. How about if you created a virtual picture of your younger self naked? That really seems bizarre. Don't you have the right to own your own image?
My instinct in this issue is to side with the free speech advocates, but do we really want to see virtual childporn on sale in the high street? I know it wouldn't be quite like that, but I'm not sure I'd be comfortable with it being a legal fetish. A tricky one.
---
If law enforcement can't tell if an image of a crime is real or computer generated, they can not prosecute. It is not just pornographic art that is getting more realistic, it is video games. Nobody had a problem with Wolfenstein 3D, they are starting to have a problem with Quake, and when we all have Doom IIVIIVVVII running on NVidia NV8700 chips you probably won't be able to discern a game demo from a snuff film depicting a real murder. We still shouldn't ban this game. You can not restrict freedom because a crime /may/ be being commited, only when you can /prove/ one is.
/directly/ harmed. Molesting a child certainly should.
It's called "Burden of Proof".
You must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that a crime was commited.
Generated/Fake art, no matter how realistic, should not be illegal, because nobody is being
I know with good actors and effects I certainly can't effectively discern movie violence from the real thing. If we were to follow your reasoning we would have to ban movies simulating murder, and anything else illegal.
The LA Times writers really need to polish up on their segue skills. They went from child porn to phone service regulation in no time flat.
"Producing or selling child pornography is punishable by as much as 15 years in prison. Possession of such pornography can lead to as much as five years in prison.
Meanwhile, the court agreed to take up two regulatory cases that will help determine whether many consumers will ever have access to competitive local phone service and high-speed Internet access via cable television"
-gerbik
Virtual child porn, i.e. computer generated images or sounds, are in no way evidence that a crime was committed. They are merely the product of free expression. Granted a large percentage of the population would consider this expression disgusting and vile and do not want it in their own homes. The first amendment does not require that the vast majority of the population like your expression, just that they respect your right to look at whatever garbage you want so long as you do not infringe on their right not to.
Stuart Eichert
Stuart Eichert
is how they think this will somehow whet the appetite of child porn addicts. it's gonna end up being like drinking in college. so long as you're under 21, you'll drink like mad just because you can. once it's legal, it loses its appeal. if anything, i think actually seeing some child porn would help most sickos fill their appetite for child porn.
Violence of any type should be illegal. Not only does it invoke sick and wrong ideas in people's mind, but it can wet the appetite for individuals to go in search for real violence.
Sex of any type should be illegal. Not only does it invoke sick and wrong ideas in people's mind, but it can wet the appetite for individuals to go in search for real sex.
Cheese of any type should be illegal. Not only does it invoke sick and wrong ideas in people's mind, but it can wet the appetite for individuals to go in search for real cheese.
God Damn government. It again is trying to increase its power by drawing the line further away from our freedom. Now it attempts to control our freedom to think and imagine.
Boy, it won't be long till they tell us we can't eat more than 2 Big Macs a week because it's bad for our health.
If such works do not lead people to commit child abuse, there is no reason to make them illegal. (OK, I can think of one - see below.) I will therefore assume such abuse is increased by simulated pornography, as it is the interesting case.
Argument 1: The benefit to society of allowing this is the pleasure/entertainment of some people. The benefit of banning is the prevention of child abuse cases. Child abuse is so horrendous and crippling that the benefit of banning greatly outweighs the benefit of allowing it, so it should be banned. This is the utilitarian argument.
Argument 2: While it is (hypothetically) true that a person exposed to simulated pornography is more likely to commit child abuse, it is still a free decision by them to do so. The blame lies in the person, not the pornography, and it is they who should be banned/punished, not the pornographer. Many view the pornography and don't abuse - why should they be denied this because a few do abuse? This is the free will argument.
Personally, I tend towards utilitarianism. I am surprised at the near unanimity to allowing such pornography shown in these posts (at least, in those moderated high enought that I read them.) I would have expected this to be much more controversial.
(P.S. The promised extra reason for banning simulated porn: If it were allowed, it would make it harder to control real child pornography and prosecute pornographers, because there would be an extra requirement to determine that the images were 'natural' rather than computer generated.)
Quattuor res in hoc mundo sanctae sunt: libri, liberi, libertas et liberalitas.
"
Out of wedlock births are stil all too common, but I'd be interested to see some proof that they're actually on the rise (these were also frequent 100 years ago)
"
My suspicion is the number of out of wedlock births has gone up but the number of out of wedlock conceptions is the same. We no longer have the same 'you got her pregnant - you marry her' pressure that we used to.
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former. (Einstein)
That same argument could be used for so many things. Just replace the child-porn specifics in your statement with fill in the blanks: "The government has the right to prosecute . If makes it impossible or much more difficult to do that, then the government has an interest in banning that, too." For example: The government has the right to prosecute copyright violations and piracy. If decryption makes it impossible or much more difficult to do that, then the government has an interest in banning that, too. The end result is that legitimate actions and expressions are criminalized to make it easier for the police.
Female Prison Rape in NY
Unless you're using a different keystyle layout, how could you have possibly hit the "o" key instead of the "t" key in typing the word "style"? They're like, four keys apart!
But, guess what? You have the right to do that because of the First Amendment. As long as you don't physically harm me or commit libel, you can launch unmerciful, mean-spirited attacks on me. Why? Because I am not real. I am a bunch of words on your screen. If I were real, my feelings would have been hurt by your accusations and I probably could have sued you for such libelous statements. It is easy to be cruel to a bunch of words on the screen, isn't it? You virtually libeled me on here. Hey, you know that might whet the appetite of someone and they might go libel someone? Maybe you should be arrested for this. Libel is illegal.
Oh, just fyi and because I like you so much, safeguard is spelled S-A-F-E-G-U-A-R-D. Also, "its" is a possessive and "it's" is abbreviated for it is. Finally, you committed a comma splice on the last statement that I quoted above. I am not trying to be picky, I just want the superior intellectual content of your posts to be accompanied by superior grammar.
n/t
nmarshall
The law is that which it boldly asserted and plausibly maintained..
nmarshall
The law is that which it boldly asserted and plausibly maintained..
--Colonel Burr 1783
Unfortunately, some drugs are more prone to create victims (other than the person taking them) than others:
- Alcohol is known to make many people more aggressive. This leads to abuse of spouses etc. Many of the illegal drugs (e.g., pot) have the opposite effect.
- Alcohol is known to make many people overestimate their abilities. This leads to drunk driving etc. Many of the illegal drugs do not have this symptom.
- Alcohol is known to affect your perception and increase your reaction time. This leads to higher accident (and thus victim) rates for DWI drivers. This also applies to many other drugs, but there are also several that improve your perception.
So, of all the imaginable drugs, alcohol is among the worst when it comes to creating victims other than the (ab)user.Then tell me, why is alcohol legal while others are not? Is the lobby of the wine/beer/... producers to blame? Is it the fear of the unknown (i.e., the lesser used drugs)? Is it just history?
-Marcel
If it is just a correlation, as you seem to be implying, it most definitely should not be made illegal. To do so would be immoral.
Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia.
You're going to go to jail for that virtual child porn you've just created. Unless you can prove that those symbols represent a girl over the age of 18, of course.
I belive that perhaps we should consider people and the way they work first. Given freedom people will often emulate each other. For example if you go to a beach (which you are unfarmiliar with) and see people diving off rocks into the water you will naturally assume it is 'safe' to dive of those rocks.
I see it, other people do it without 'danger', it can be done, I can do it.
People watch the TV and see a Rugby / Footy / soccer, then go out and kick a ball. It is perfectly natural to develop an apathy towards all the effects of the activities which we observe and our subsequent participation.
No I do not want to see the material being discussed because although it represents sexual activity (which is perfectly natural), it is entertainment for adults who by phyisical development are able to use strength to take from a person, (in this case a child), something which they can never give back.
Avoiding tempting fate is not avoiding living.
Also you have to consider that the population of the planet has increased exponentially. So even if the percentage of persons who don't fit the majority definition of "wholesome" hasn't changed, there will still be more of them simply because there are more people.
If Java had true garbage collection, most programs would delete themselves upon execution. - Robert Sewell
Then the gov't does not have that particular compelling interest and the producer's individual rights carry more weight in the balancing. After all just saying a sentence like "Child pornographers explicitly depict children engaged in sexual activity" is itself a depiction of said activity (albiet a very abstract one), but it would not be covered by virtual child pornography laws. The government is allowed to write laws that are subject to interpretation and descretion.