Slashdot Mirror
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.
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.
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.
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?
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)
Lolita
Or the Bible?
All opinions are my own - until criticized
MSK
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
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?
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
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.
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.
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...
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
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
Well put. I wish more people had your level of understanding.
Rick
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
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
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.
(Regardless of law it's against the terms of service of most Web hosting companies, but not all, especially outside the United States.)
--
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
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.
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.
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.
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...
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.
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?
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?"
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
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..
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
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
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?
----------------------------------------
----------------------------------------
Religious war: fighting over who has the real imaginary friend.
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.
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.
Posted by polar_bear:
Actually, it'd be frightfully easy -- just as easy as Pixar showing the wireframes and such for Woody and Buzz.
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."
(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.
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."
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!
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
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!
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.
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?
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.
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!
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
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
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
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
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.
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.
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!
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.
--
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.
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.
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)."
--
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
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
> 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"
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
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$
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
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?
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
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.
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.
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?
To be fair, Christianity is based on the fact that morality is absolute (at least those sects that still have any philosophical integrity left) and that laws should reflect this absolute morality.
The fact of the matter is, laws do reflect a morality, or at least a subset of morality that 50.1% of the legislatures agree with or that 50.1% of the courts uphold. There is nothing wrong with calling for these kinds of laws, but the legislators who listen to these calls must obey his or her own rules as stated by the Constitution. Nevertheless, an unconstitutional law is not necessarily a bad one, except for its unconstitutionality.
Unfortunately, the subset of behaviors that have no positive value to society and the subset of bahaviors that are not protected by the Constitution do not completely overlap. However, this is a reasonable price to pay for a system of government that attempts to minimze the restrictions of any behaviors unless they adversely affect other people. Just remember, that those Christians you so love to bash are speaking from a different, but no less legitimate, point of view. I happen to agree that pornography should be flat-out illegal, but I understand that under our system of government, as devised by men far wiser than I, this is impossible.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
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
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.
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.
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
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.
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
...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)
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?
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.
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?
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.
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?
> 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.
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"
... 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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?"
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?
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.
---
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.
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.
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.