'Virtual' Child Porn Act Ruled Unconstitutional

wiredog writes "The United States Supreme Court, in a 6-3 ruling, has found the Child Pornography Prevention Act to be unconstitutionally vague and far-reaching." You might read the Act. There were a number of cases challenging the constitutionality of the Act; I believe three Appeals courts eventually upheld it, and one ruled it unconstitutional, guaranteeing that the Supreme Court would take one of the challenges for review. A summary of the decision is available, and see that pages for links to the majority opinion and dissenting opinions.

Comments

Seems like the right decision

[terrymr]

I hate child pornographers as much as the next man - but the language in the act was so broad as to make teen movies like American Pie possible targets for example.

I understand the difficulty of proving that an actual child was involved in making a picture / movie / whatever - but isn't it always necessary to prove that a crime has been committed before you can get a conviction ?

Re:Seems like the right decision

[phil reed]

>but isn't it always necessary to prove that a
crime has been committed before you can get a conviction ?

Sure. The point of the (now overturned law) was to turn the act of creating child porn, even simulated, into a crime. Since regular child porn is already illegal, the idea here was to extend it. (For example, photoshopping a child's head onto the picture of a naked grownup would be illegal even though no child was harmed.)

Re:Seems like the right decision

[terrymr]

Sure. The point of the (now overturned law) was to turn the act of creating child porn, even simulated, into a crime. Since regular child porn is already illegal, the idea here was to extend it. (For example, photoshopping a child's head onto the picture of a naked grownup would be illegal even though no child was harmed.)
The court didn't overturn that portion of the act. Read the decision

Read the Article (RTA)

[blankmange]

This should become part of our lexicon, just like RTFM... If you would take the time to read the article, along with the Court's decision, you would have noticed that the law that was struck down was done so because it was too broad, not because we are trying to protect child molesters/pornographers/pedophiles. The Court struck the law because of the law's ambiguity and too-broad definitions of what is "child pornography".... This was actually a victory for free speech and freedom of expression. Please do not misunderstand me or my posting here; child pornographers/pedophiles should all be eradicated from the face of the earth by the most horrific/painful means possible, but that is not what this is about....

Re:Read the Article (RTA)

[Khaed]

Wouldn't that be RTFA?

child porn

[spookysuicide]

I work on a porn site. Everytime we shoot a girl we get two forms of ID from her, almost always a drivers license and a social security card. We then photocopy those IDS and take a picture of the girl with something that has a date on it (newspaper most of the time). We file all these documents away so that we can prove when we shot the girls they were over the age of 18. I never complain about this extra work. Ever. It's the right thing to do. Girls under 18 should not ever be depicted in Porn. Period. They are for the most part not capable of making a decision that may have ramifications on the rest of their life.

That being said, the part of this law that always terrified me was that part that stated you can't depict an adult as a minor in pornography. We shoot girls who like to wear their hair in pigtails. Could they have come after me for that?

I am very against Child Pornography, but this law really worried me that I might go to jail sometime for someones interpertation of something.

Re:child porn

[Telastyn]

This is the problem with modern law:

Law cannot be 'up for interpretation'. This is why the drinking age is 21, why the pr0n age is 18. Once you make things open for interpretation, cops are suddenly 'biased' and governments are suddenly tyrannical.

When things are clear cut there is no argument. You either broke the law or you didn't. There will always be the few extrordinary circumstances (is abortion murder or self mutilation? one is illegal, one is not.) which is why the judicial system exists. Not to interpret.

Re:child porn

[Ionized]

right, because the day they turn 18, something magical happens and suddenly they understand all the possible repercussions that getting naked on camera could have.

that one day's difference is enough to teach them a whole lifetime of moral and social implications, and they can suddenly make that choice that they could not have made 24 hours previously.

what a bunch of bunk. i'm all for the protection of innocence, but the meme that 18 is a special age is complete nonsense. teenagers have sex across the country, and to pretend that people under 18 lack sexuality is ignorant and harmful. the fact that an 18 year old male can be placed in prison and permanently branded "sex offender" for having sex with his 17 year old girlfriend offends me. i know that when i was 16 years old, i was damn well smart enough to know what pornography meant, and that if i got naked on camera it would last forever.

this is a bit of a touchy subject for me. the current laws on child pornography and statutory rape are closeminded and plain wrong, and need reform.

Re:child porn

[Derkec]

I believe that in most states an 18 year old can have sex with a 17 year old legally. A 30 year old could not do the same. These laws tend to say something to the effect that if either partner is under-age there can not be more than a 2-5 year age difference between the partners.

Re:child porn

[Graymalkin]

Where do you live, Louisiana? Law is supposed to be up to interpretation, that is how the legal system in 49 out of 50 states work. Interpretive law is a good thing and its merits are far too numerous to list here. Use some neurons to imagine yourself making a defending arguement against a law that didn't use language like "construed" or "reasonably infered". Questioning what can be construed or what is reasonable is like 80% of all defense cases. A reasonable inference is the difference between intent to use and intent to distribute which is the difference between a misdemeanor and a felony.

Re:child porn

[Derkec]

True about the decision making. Same thing goes for 20 years 360 days can't drink. Basically, we guess at the age when people should be mature enough. Then you put in a line at an easy to see point. For some people, they won't be mature enough, but you hope for most they will be. As stated in other threads, laws need to be clear and precise. Citing specific dates you can do stuff is the most straightforward way to be clear and precise. Ideally, someone could shoot a beam into our head and easily determine our maturity to make decisions about doing a porn. Since we can't do that and have decided (as a society) that very young people can't make this decision, we need to pick a date. 18-21 is our range where we start calling people adults so picking an age in there ames sense. So no, it's not perfect, but do you have a better solution?

Re:child porn

[Rogerborg]

• Law cannot be 'up for interpretation'. This is why the drinking age is 21, why the pr0n age is 18

And that's exactly the problem with our legal system. An adversarial system, presided over by an allegedly impartial judge, that demands a binary verdict, is neither social, nor natural nor just.

All legal systems are just formalizations of mob rule. No? Then why do we have juries? The trouble is that we allowed lawyers into the system, then we allowed lawyers to decide what the law would be. 50% of both Congress and the Senate are members of the American Bar Association. If that doesn't scare you, then it should. We will never see meaningful legal reform, or a streamlining of our bloated system, as long as our laws are written by lawyers, for lawyers.

Re:child porn

[Sancho]

Child pornography is illegal for a number of reasons.. exploitation of children being the primary one. But unlike most laws, this one has a second, more obscure reason for existing. Pornographic pictures of children creates a market for..pornographic pictures of children. Even if the images come from another country where such depictions are legal, the transmittal and possession of them in the US are illegal.

It's that secondary statement that is the basis for "virtual" child porn laws. No actual children were exploited, but some government officials think that the fake images might create demand for real images, or even lead to molestation. "We have to protect the children!"

That said, setting a hard age limit for anything doesn't do justice. There are plenty of naive 18-22 and beyond year-olds who don't fully realize the consequences of their actions, just as there are "children" (usually on the upper end of what's considered a minor") who are more than capable of understanding and cognating the consequences of their actions. There are also differing levels of physical development--I've know 15 year olds who were more physically and biologically developed than 20 year olds[1]. It's completely arbitrary and is only in place this way because psychological evaluations in every case would be nigh impossible for the government to handle.

[1] Background. When I was 18 and just entered college, I met a 15 year old girl through a group of us that played Magic: The Gathering. Her entire family played, and we all got to know each other. She was more physically, biologically and emotionally developed than just about all of the girls in my freshman courses. I ended up dating her, with the complete approval of her family, when I was 20 and she was 17. Does that make me a pedophile? I don't think so. Physically she looked much older. Emotionally she was much older. You see the problems...

Re:child porn

[Squareball]

I'm 19 and trust me, most teenagers are idiots who cannot make informed decisions. With that said, I don't care about the decisions of others as long as they don't affect me. Have sex, shoot heroin, pierce your body parts. Go for it. Just deal with the consiquences. Oh you're pregnant? Oh you've been kicked out of your house? Oh your new piercing is infected? Boohoo. This is what we call, the school of hard knocks. 17 year olds might not know any better but ya know.. this is why they say "You live and you learn". right?

Re:child porn

[gwernol]

This is the problem with modern law:

Law cannot be 'up for interpretation'. This is why the drinking age is 21, why the pr0n age is 18. Once you make things open for interpretation, cops are suddenly 'biased' and governments are suddenly tyrannical.

First this is not a "modern" problem. The debate about absolute laws versus interpretation has been around for at least a thousand years.

Law has to be open to a certain amount of interpretation. This is a fundamental principle of government and one of the reasons the American constitution is framed to separate the judicial and legislative branches. The framers recognized that there has to be interpretation in the system and put an explicit procedure in place to allow the judicial branch to interpret the laws written by the legislative branch.

If you didn't allow interpretation lawmakers would have to anticipate every possibility both present and future. This is at best an absurdly optimistic requirement. In the real world it is impossible to write a law that will never require interpretation. The system needs to be able to adapt to changes in society. Look how much the interpretation of the first amendment has changed since the second world war.

The system must retain some flexibility or it will become obsolete, inappropriate and eventually so out of touch it will be overthrown. The only questions are how much interpretation should be allowed and where and who should be responsible for interpreting. These are good and important questions and are widely debated in the legal profession and elsewhere.

When things are clear cut there is no argument. You either broke the law or you didn't. There will always be the few extrordinary circumstances (is abortion murder or self mutilation? one is illegal, one is not.) which is why the judicial system exists. Not to interpret.

This is clearly not true - go back to the constitution and the founding of the American judicial system. Take a look at the roles of the courts of appeal, especially the Supreme Court. The judicial system exists both to interpret and to rule based on law.

Re:child porn

[Chris Y Taylor]

What I want to know is why you pay Adult prices at the movies when you are 13, but you can't see Adult movies until you are 18?

Re:child porn

[debrain]

The debate about absolute laws versus interpretation has been around for at least a thousand years.

Quite right, and good post. The consistency we have is reflected by precedence - those judgements that have come before us are those to which we will adhere. The precedent system has problems of its own, but it reduces the amount of arbitrary judgement that cannot be overturned. It makes the relevence of past cases apparent, the reduces the likelihood of apparently unfair or inconsistent decisions based on interpretation, and eases the necessity of judges to really think about the judgement. Most lawyers before a judge appeal to precedent, because that is where judgement is made.

Some believe that in precident, the word of the law itself becomes moot, and the spirit of the law lost.

Re:child porn

[MikeyNg]

right, because the day they turn 18, something magical happens and suddenly they understand all the possible repercussions that getting naked on camera could have.

that one day's difference is enough to teach them a whole lifetime of moral and social implications, and they can suddenly make that choice that they could not have made 24 hours previously.

Sarcasm noted. But how would YOU propose we handle the situation? Create a morality and ethics test for people to take? This is the same argument with being 21 to drink and being 16 (or whatever) to drive. Nothing magical happens.

There are very mature individuals who are under 18 years of age who probably could make these decisions. There are also very immature individuals who are older than 18 who really shouldn't make those decisions. But you need to draw the line somewhere. I agree with you that age is not the best line. We should have tests to take, people can read a person's history, etc. However, there is such an increased cost involved that it's just plain not worth it.

An 18 year old having (I'm assuming consensual) sex with his 17 year old girlfriend is fine by me. Your statutory rape law should be looked at so that it compares the difference in age. (A 35 year old having sex with a 17 year old may be a different story.)

Maybe you are smart enough to make those choices for yourself. I'm sure alot of people here are. However, the line has to be drawn somewhere. Yes, it's arbitrary and it's not perfect, but it works better than alot of other things out there. It also makes practical sense.

In other words, deal with it. You live in a country where you have a say in the laws and the law-making process. Use it, as you are currently using your right to speak about it.

Re:child porn

[sansoo]

We could have a test, like they do on Vulcan. Call it... Oh, I dunno, high school graduation. You get your diploma, you're an adult. I seem to recall Heinlein suggesting that US citizens couldn't vote unless they had a year of calculus. So some would adult at 15, some never.

Re:child porn

[CaseyB]

because the day they turn 18, something magical happens

Hahaha, yes, that's ridiculous!

The magical date is of course 17. Or was it 6? I'm pretty sure that 12 year old girl over there knows what she's doing... I mean the age is irrelevant really, it's all about how mature that 8 year old is.

There are 30 year old mentally challenged people less capable, and mature 11 year olds better capable, of making responsible decisions than an "average 18 year old". What do you propose be written in the law books if not the arbitrary 18 that's there now?

Re:child porn

[Prior Restraint]

Pornographic pictures of children creates a market for..pornographic pictures of children.

That doesn't make any sense. How can a market spawn itself?

The reason a market exists for the real stuff is that there are people out there who demand it. Besides, as the Court pointed out in its opinion, the only reason the government can make the real stuff illegal w/o running afoul of the 1st amendment is that a separate crime has to be committed in order for it to be created (i.e., sexual exploitation of children). Absent this predicate crime, the whole argument falls apart.

Re:child porn

[doooras]

you can drink at 18 on a military base, so that argument is irrelevant. if you WERE fighting a war, you could drink your liver away. the beer is cheap on the base, too.

Re:child porn

[TheAJofOZ]

right, because the day they turn 18, something magical happens and suddenly they understand all the possible repercussions that getting naked on camera could have.

No, that's not what the law tries to achieve. The age of 18 was picked because the vast majority of people are informed about these issues before they turn 18. That makes 18 a safe age to give them them control of their sexuality. I'm well aware that their are 15 year olds having sex - some of them know what the full consequences of their actions, some don't. I've only met two 18 year olds that really didn't know enough about sex to make a well informed decision and both of them had it beaten into their head that sex was bad so they weren't going be easily taken advantage of anyway. I know many 16 year olds that had no clue what they were getting themselves into.

When it comes down to it, this law is about whether it is better to set a conservative age of consent and have a very high probability that any legal sex is between people who know what they're doing or reducing the age of consent and having a lower percentage. Personally, I think it's better that you wait until you're 18 until you have sex in exchange for lowering the number of people who are taken advantage of. I've seen how devastating it can be to be taken advantage of (not just abused, but that druken one night stand as well), it really can destroy self-confidence and sense of worth. Sure, it shouldn't be that big a deal, but it is.

The other option is to have to a court (or some other board) assess whether or not someone is fit to make their own decisions. Apart from this being a pretty horrific experience for someone who has just been taken advantage of (ever seen how awful a rape case can be for the victim?), it also means that you can never be sure that you're sexual activities are legal.

the fact that an 18 year old male can be placed in prison and permanently branded "sex offender" for having sex with his 17 year old girlfriend offends me.

If he's mature enough to decide to have sex, shouldn't he be mature enough to know the laws regarding sex and take this into consideration in his decision? I don't know about the US, but here in Australia it is illegal to have sex when under the age of consent regardless of the age of your partner (ie: two 15 year olds having sex with each other is illegal - they are both guilty of carnal knowledge). If this is the case in the US, then your 18 year old example by law shouldn't have been having sex previously and now has at most a year to wait if he wants to have sex with his (currently 17 year old)girlfriend. Seriously, is that really so bad?

It's not easy to turn down an opportunity to have sex - it takes a great deal of maturity to realise that you shouldn't be doing it even though you know it's going to feel "oh so good", so I pity this 18 year old male who has to make that decision, but for the reasons I've outlined above, it's probably the best option that I've seen. Got something better? I'd love to hear it, heck I'd love to see it implemented. We need to find a system that allows you to be certain that what your doing is legal, protects the innocent as much as possible and allows "mature teens" (for some definition of mature) to be able to control their own sexuality. Perhaps the hardest thing though, is defining "mature teens" - when exactly are you mature enough? At least to me, the answer that your mature enough when you're 18 isn't such a bad solution as the only thing it really fails on is handling those mature teens to have sex earlier than the others and that really doesn't hurt anyone (frustrate the hell out of them maybe, but hurt no).

Re:child porn

[nathanh]

right, because the day they turn 18, something magical happens and suddenly they understand all the possible repercussions that getting naked on camera could have.

No, because there's a gray area between the ages of 15-18 when they stop being children and start being adults, but by 18 it has mostly stopped being gray.

18 isn't a "magical" cutoff. It's the "3 standard deviations" cutoff. There might still be some people 18+ who are child-like in their thinking, but they are rare.

Re:child porn

[maxpublic]

I know many 16 year olds that had no clue what they were getting themselves into.

This says nothing of the 16-year-old but rather the society they live in, and their parents.

A common fallacy among Americans is the idea that a) they know better than everyone else what the age for sexual activity should be, and b) that whatever limit is currently in place is the way it's always been.

We should note that most of the world's population lives in countries where the legal age for sexual activity is lower than 18. We should also note that it was lower than 18 in most areas of the U.S. until the last century.

And we should also be aware that girls and boys have been able to have sex at an age earlier than 18 ever since the race evolved. This didn't become a problem until we decided it was a problem, and acted accordingly. I sincerely doubt it was because Americans suddenly happened upon a superior moral imperative that our ancestors failed to notice, and that most of the rest of the world has yet to catch on to (barbarians!). Or that it was just recently 'discovered' that teens aren't 'capable' of handling sex, whatever that means.

Max

Re:child porn

[JamieF]

I disagree with the statement that law should not be up for interpretation. Check out Philip K. Howard's book, "The Death of Common Sense" (ISBN 0-446-67228-9) which details many, many cases where extremely specific laws and regulations have prevented courts and regulators from doing the reasonable, sensible thing.

The fear is that law that's open to interpretation will be abused. True, it will be abused to a certain degree. However, law that's overly specific forces the hand of law enforcement even if they don't want to do something, and that is very harmful as well. Laws should be specific in favor of the citizen, restricting what's illegal rather than trying to enumerate all possible ways to represent or convey kiddie porn. Writing ultra-detailed laws is like trying to write source code for a regulatory body, and there are inevitably huge bugs. But people aren't as stupid as computers and can make judgements. There are other ways to prevent corruption and abuse than writing a 400 page law, or saying "anything that anyone might ever think looks like a minor having sex, even an ink blot that Sheriff Inbred thinks looks kinda dirty, is child porn".

Also, you can't solve all problems by passing a law against them.

Re:child porn

[Alsee]

is abortion murder or self mutilation? one is illegal, one is not.

A fair and open minded position. You recognize that on one side of there issue there are people who believe that abortion is murder and should be illegal, and on the other side there are people who believe abortion is self mutilation and should be legal.

-

Re:child porn

[Alsee]

guilty of carnal knowledge

Somehow that reminds me of the DMCA...

"You are not allowed to know that! Guilty of knowledge! Prison for you!"

-

Re:child porn

[Reziac]

Juries are indeed formalized mob rule, especially when the trial regards something they don't have a clue about.

Once upon a time I had occasion to ask my lawyer re a certain esoteric proceeding, as to whether trial by jury, or by judge alone, was preferable. (For some trials in some states, the defendant has a choice between judge or jury trial.)

Lawyer's response: Judge, definitely. That way you only have to convince ONE idiot, instead of TWELVE idiots.

BTW, in response to your other post about the horrors of citizen initiatives: You been reading our, um, imaginative California state ballots again?? :/

Re:child porn

[kubrick]

For the same reason that international plane flights charge adult fees at something like 10 years and over.

You're taking up the same amount of space as an adult would, so you'll damn well pay through the nose for it :)

Re:child porn

[TheAJofOZ]

This says nothing of the 16-year-old but rather the society they live in, and their parents.

Mostly that they were left to enjoy the innocence of youth while they had their chance. There's no need to be sexually active at 16 any more and there's nothing particularly great about being sexually active at a young age. Why is it so important to you that underage sex be legal? The only reason I've ever heard is that "people are doing it anyway". "It's natural" is a valid reason I suppose, but it's natural to not have sex until a certain point in life in order to maximise the chance of the offsprings survival, so the argument fails - a 16 year old mother is usually not in a good position to care for her child.

A common fallacy among Americans is the idea that a) they know better than everyone else what the age for sexual activity should be, and b) that whatever limit is currently in place is the way it's always been.

A common fallacy among /. readers is that everyone's American - I'm not. I also never claimed either a or b and was well aware that neither apply.

And we should also be aware that girls and boys have been able to have sex at an age earlier than 18 ever since the race evolved.

Whether you can and whether you should are two different things. Society has changed a lot in the past few centuries, you can't expect the same rules to apply, nor the same logic. Try thinking about things in terms of the percentage of life instead of years and you'll start to see that not so much has changed. Which way should we look at it - how should I know?

Or that it was just recently 'discovered' that teens aren't 'capable' of handling sex, whatever that means.

Look at the number of people who have screwed up their lives (by their own admition) by getting pregnant early in life and you'll see what teens not being capable of handling sex means. If you think there's no harm, you don't know enough about what you're talking about, plain and simple. This is an activity of calculated risks which has good points and bad points, it is not just good nor is it all just bad.

Re:child porn

[Merk]

Huh?

Kids under 10 years old don't go two to a seat on a plane or in a movie theater, nor do they have special smaller seats for kids... If people paid for the space they take up, then how come I always end up sitting next to some lard-ass whose belly overflows the armrest and starts squeezing me?

Re:child porn

[TheAJofOZ]

having sex != getting pregnant

Wrong. Find me one form of contraception which is 100% reliable. There isn't one. Thus, evenutally having sex == getting pregnant. If you don't realise that, you don't know what you're getting yourself into.

Re:child porn

[kubrick]

Haven't some movie theaters started introducing 'larger model' seats, and charging for the privilege? :)

Re:child porn

[TheAJofOZ]

Your other points have by and large been answered in various other posts to this story but your final comment sends chills down my spine.

Nor am I stupid enough to believe that abstinence is viable, especially for teenagers. This is the bailiwick of the religiously naive, who think that 'just say no' is both feasible and desirable simply because they claim it is.

If you or the people you know are in a position where they cannot simply say 'no' to sex, it is rape - plain and simple. If you are meaning to suggest that it is not possible to go through teenagedom without having sex then you are very sorely mistaken and I can site literally hundreds of examples that prove you wrong. I think you may need a reality check if you don't think that's the case.

Re:child porn

[maxpublic]

If you or the people you know are in a position where they cannot simply say 'no' to sex, it is rape - plain and simple.

Oh please - stop being a deceptive little shit. I never said anything about rape. Your attempt at painting me as someone who condones rape is malicious and evil. If you tried that crap in real life I'd bitch-slap your pathetic ass.

If you are meaning to suggest that it is not possible to go through teenagedom without having sex then you are very sorely mistaken and I can site literally hundreds of examples that prove you wrong.

So what? What does this have to do with anything? The problem here is that you want to impose your own narrow view of morality on everyone else, whether they agree with you or not. And I'm pointing out that even if you try people - including most teenagers - are just going to laugh at you and continue on with their lives.

Note that the average age of first sexual intercourse is still 15 in the U.S. Just as it's been since anyone's bothered to record it, just after World War 2. The religious right and their 'just say no' campaigns have had no effect on teenage sexuality whatsoever, no matter how many instances of anecdotal evidence they wish to present as poster children.

Max

Films that would be banned for "virtual" child sex

[bjorky]

Off the top of my head:

-The Tin Drum - was and probably still is banned in OKC
-Kids
-American Pie I & II
-Porkys I, II, and Revenge
-In fact, pretty much all teen sex comedies
-Lolita (old and new)

Do these films appeal to purient interests? Would we be better off without them because they portray characters that are under the age of 18?

Kind of odd though... nothing illegal about people under 18 having sex in most states, but to depict such is illegal... and before this ruling it was illegal to portray persons "acting" under the age of 18.

You're kidding!

[InterruptDescriptorT]

when we shot the girls they were over the age of 18

What? They have to be of age to be murdered? What is this country coming to? ;-)

(tongue firmly in cheek)

I wonder

[DrSkwid]

if I took pictures of myself masturbating when I was 14, is it ok for me to sell them now I'm 30?

Re:I wonder

[DrSkwid]

if I took

notice the if

tbh I wish I had then I could shock people now

I got this idea teasing one of my gay friends that as all gays are well known to be pedophiles did he want copies of photos of me when I was a kid so he could wank about me and be safe in the knowledge that I was giving consent for him to do it.

Two points...

[fruey]

On Photoshop-faked child porn (I hope GIMP isn't used for this):
The law was an expansion of existing bans on the usual sort of child pornography. Congress justified the wider ban on grounds that while no real children were harmed in creating the material, real children could be harmed by feeding the prurient appetites of pedophiles or child molesters.

Pedophiles (sic) thus have their appetite fed by faked kiddie porn? Well all those fakes of Anna Kournikova never wet my whistle for real porn... desire for real porn is just there :)

On the act:
prohibiting the possession and viewing of child pornography will encourage the possessors of such material to rid themselves of or des troy the material, thereby helping to protect the victims of child pornography and to eliminate the market for the sexual exploitative use of children;

Sorry? Because it's against the law to abuse children, I don't believe that stops them. Even less a law against pornography. After all, banning alcohol just increased consumption, and in countries where porn is illegal (like the one I happen to inhabit) it just raises the price for crap porn which really exploits the subjects.

I do totally agree, however, that Kiddie porn should be banned, it should never exists, it is repugnant and vile. But the law is not going to help sick people who abuse children...

Incidentally, where I live (Morocco) it is socially acceptable (for the natives) in some villages to offer young girls for sex to tourists. Young boys too. The law can't do squat in remote places anyway.

No

[wiredog]

Because the picture is of a 14 year old.

Re:No

[DrSkwid]

now that would be weird

be prosecuted for having child porn of yourself taken by yourself and never shown to anyone else until the day someone found it and showed the cops!

The right decision

[Rorschach1]

As deplorable as child pornography is, I'm glad to see this struck down. The legislation was way to vague, and from what I understand made any simulation of underage sex illegal. That would presumably include some of the anime that's so popular around here, if it could be argued that any character portrayed might appear to be under age 18. The whole thing borders on 'thought crime'.

Go after the real child pornographers, the ones harming innocent children. String them up by their testicles and make them read Jon Katz articles, or whatever... but don't start making artificial arrangements of pixels a felony.

Re:The right decision

[Rorschach1]

Yeah, it does happen. If I recall, though, it's relatively rare. How many cases do you know of? I've heard of one or two, in the news or in a psych textbook, but I can think of at least three cases of child molestation by a male that affected someone I know personally.

Re:The right decision

[markmoss]

String them up by their testicles and make them read Jon Katz articles

But the constitution also bans "cruel and unusual punishment." No Jon Katz articles. ;-)

Tough Decision

[Razzak]

On the one hand, you've got to protect minors. You've also got to make sure that you have the ability to enforce laws that protect minors.

On the other, you've got the natural defense of the first amendment and the argument "we're not hurting anyone." Which I feel the /. group will take.

There's a few issues I have with this (I only read the article and some of the Act) one of them being using pictures of real kids? That doesn't seem fair to the kid. I'd be kinda pissed if there was child porn going around of me out there, even if it was just my face pasted onto something else.

Then again, I'd be pissed if someone pasted my face on the guys at goatse, so what does that matter.

Re:The whole act isn't gone

[SuiteSisterMary]

In other words, a completely innocent picture of a child enjoying a lollypop or licking an ice-cream cone is still legal.

New slashdot poll!

[Maskirovka]

Possible side effects for this ruling

1)stocks in 3d imaging companies such as Alias|Wavefront and Bryce are expected to rise considerably in the comming weeks due to new demand for their imaging products.

2)Several colleges are drafting new marketing and graphic design majors to help the industry meet the pedophile's needs.

3)Playkid productions has incorporated and is considering an IPO.

4)Several grass-roots pedophile organizations are starting to make noise.

5)Thinkgeek says that this will have no immediate affect on their product line.

6)Next slashdot poll will be "what to do with a pedaphile if you catch one."

6)You don't want to KNOW what Michael Jackson is doing.

7) Cowboy Neal doesn't like kids.

Overbroad: ie Fast Times at Ridgemont High

[Carbino]

Fast Times at Ridgemont High: Jennifer Jason Leigh's character, Stacy, is a minor (17 I believe). Takes off her shirt in the baseball dugout to finally 'do it' with "Ron Johnson". This can hardly be considered child pornography. I believe under this act, it would be. Unless it is on TNT and isn't actually watched by anyone since the censors pretty much took out everything.

Kudos to the Supremes

[hubbabubba]

Even though they disgraced themselves in the presidential election, they've restored at least a small shred of my faith in their ability to look at explosive political issues like child porn and still manage to give the constitutional issues a fair and thoughtful hearing. Let's hope they do the same when all these privacy-shredding "antiterrorist" laws make it to their chambers.

Re:Kudos to the Supremes

[mmacdona86]

I'm a little upset that Rehnquist and Scalia disagreed with the decision. Those two are apparently willing to let Congress do anything it wants with the Constitution.

Re:Kudos to the Supremes

[BCoates]

Reading their opinion, it looked to me that they didn't think it was impossible to enforce the law in a constitutional way--that is, it should be decided on a case-by-case basis instead of just striking down the law. Note that even getting the supreme court to *consider* striking down a law on it's face (as opposed to ruling that under one set of circumstances, the law is being applied unconstitutionally) is pretty rare, so they might have sided with the defendants if anyone was prosecuted under the law.

--
Benjamin Coates

While i dont like child porn, i agree with this

[HanzoSan]

People should be free to express themselves anyway they want

Virtual child porn isnt harming any chilren so it should be legal.

In fact it will protect children because children wont need to be harmed anymore due to the virtual child porn.

Re:Good Ruling ?

[Rupert]

• People who sexually abuse children, whether or not they publish the photos, are criminals.
  
• People who enjoy looking at child pornography are sick.
  
• Child porn on the internet is just bits.
  

Bearing in mind the tendency of governments to ban tools with criminal uses (guns, DeCSS, Napster), I think it's a good thing that we're now one step further away from banning Gimp.

Understandably.

[FunkSoulBrother]

Quite simply, there is a difference between being attracted to children and acting on it.

There is no conceivable reason people should be resticted from producing computer generated child porn that causes no harm to children directly.

By the way, when it comes to speech and art, it doesn't matter what it causes indirectly. I don't care if Grand Theft Auto increased auto theft by 10%, or Doom caused columbine, or if child porn increases sickening child rape. It simply is NOT an excuse to restrict peoples liberties.

And the supreme court, even this rather conservative supreme court, understands it. Huzzah.

Re:Understandably.

[k_187]

So by your reasoning, it is ok to yell fire in a crowded movie theater? Cause banning my yelling fire in a crowded movie theater would impenge on my rights. Never mind the people that may be trampled in the process.

All of the examples you give have not been proven (and I'm not getting into that). I think that if somehow, someway, somebody came up with a proof that GTA increased auto theft, GTA would be banned. Its one thing to say that this is an expression of free speech. Its another to allow hurtful speech.

KKK members can't run around saying that all niggers should be tortured and killed. They can say that White people are better and blah blah blah, but if in a public protest they start suggesting violence. The cops are gonna come down on them pretty quickly.

If we are responsible for our direct actions, we are responsible for the indirect actions as well. Involuntary Man-slaughter ring a bell? If my actions indirectly kill somebody, I can still be charged.

Re:Understandably.

[Steve B]

KKK members can't run around saying that all niggers should be tortured and killed.

In fact, they can, unless there exists an imminent danger that the rhetoric will be translated into lawless action. That's where the law draws the line between protected trash-talking and incitement to riot.

Re:Understandably.

[BCoates]

So by your reasoning, it is ok to yell fire in a crowded movie theater? Cause banning my yelling fire in a crowded movie theater would impenge on my rights. Never mind the people that may be trampled in the process.

Does that actually work? Can we get some random trouble maker to scream out "fire! the theater's on fire" and see if people actually panic and trample each other? Frankly, the example doesn't make much sense to me, and the supreme court decision it came from is questionable at best, as it was aimed at suppressing political speech (advocating objection to millitary service in WWI, if i remember right)

KKK members can't run around saying that all niggers should be tortured and killed

It is my understanding that they can, do, and get away with it. It has to pose a clear and present danger that someone will commit a specific crime, not just advocate criminal behavior in general (iirc)

--
Benjamin Coates

Re:Good Ruling ?

[dboyles]

I am thinking that creating 'imitation' child pornography is not any better. Somewhat like robbing a store with a fake gun.

I don't think you thought through your analogy fully. The owner of the store that is robbed is victimized by the robber. But if some pervert wants to look at cartoon 12 year-olds having sex, there are no victims.

Is it right to do either of those two things? In my opnion, no. But can you punish someone for fantasizing about committing a crime? I don't think so. And if having that fantasy available keeps an individual from acting on it (and therefore committing a non-victimless crime), then I don't see a problem.

How to not post a knee-jerk comment

[billcopc]

Let me summarize for all the weak minds among us.

The law basically said "if it vaguely resembles child porn, or if we think you were intending to produce/traffic/consume child porn, then we throw you in jail just because we can".

Let's generalize to see how stupid this was : "If it vaguely resembles an act of crime, or if we think you were intending to commit a crime, we throw you in jail just because we can".

_NOW_ is it obvious enough ? Child porn disgusts me as much as the next guy, but this decision isn't so much about child porn as it is about basic civil rights. Innocent until proven guilty, someone should plaster that quote all over the parliament's walls.

Re:How to not post a knee-jerk comment

[NetSettler]

Child porn disgusts me as much as the next guy, but ...

Just look at how terrifying it has become to simply defend free speech. One can't merely say "Today was a victory for free speech." One has to say the magic phrase "I don't like child porn, but..." up front or else one fears that things have gone so far that they will somehow be annexed in the next round of expansive legislation. And meanwhile, one fears their phone will be wiretapped just for standing up and saying "I was proud of the Supreme Court today." Better instead to say "Look, I hate child porn as much as the next person, but I was proud of the Supreme Court today." Yeah, that's the ticket. Now I feel like I'm protected. Gosh, I hope I am.

Today Ashcroft was already on TV whining about how much harder prosecution will be. Well, we live in a country where people are innocent until proven guilty. How does he even know the people he is prosecuting are guilty of anything? He apparently doesn't want to have to. But for people not yet proven guilty, he shouldn't have his job made easier. The sense is that he just knows they are guilty. He wants to just say "aw, close enough" and have the appearance of badness be badness. And with an attorney general willing to take that posture, it's little wonder that we're all prefacing our speech with "Look, I hate child porn as much as the next guy". It's like a little homage to Ashcroft saying, "it's ok, the mere fact that I speak out doesn't mean you have to tap my phone to see if I'm motivated by some sinister reason".

Free speech never protected popular speech. Popular speech has always been protected by virtue of no one making an issue of it. Free speech is always and only about unpopular speech. And if we start to use its unpopularity as a reason for saying it's ok to trample it, what are we left with? What unpopular speech will be safe. And then what useful speech at all?

Democracy is about discussing issues and voting for what people want. Democracy cannot survive the inability to raise an issue because it's not in the majority. No, none of us probably discussing this wants this in the majority. But that argument can be made for every unpopular topic. And it's a very slippery slope. What about legalized drugs? What about right-to-die legislation? These things have potential victims, too, yet these are issues we must be able to discuss. And, like it or not, we're moving to a community that discusses with pictures, not just words. Books have yielded to TV, text to graphics. That's the alphabet of tomorrow. If we're lucky, words will survive, but they will never again be all there is to discussion.

Freedom and safety are sometimes at odds. Our country is founded on freedom, even once in a while at the expense of safety. Even sometimes at the expense of the safety of children. What's the point of protecting children if the world they'll grow up into isn't going to free?

Today I was proud of the Court. I really don't much care if you think I have some secret agenda for saying this or not. (Gosh it's hard to resist the urge to say "not that I do", but I'm going to resist it...) At least for today, the right to speak freely was upheld and I don't have to defend why I think free speech is good. I guess that's the best one can hope for. Rights have to be defended day after day, or they are lost.

Re:Films that would be banned for "virtual" child

[Rupert]

I definitely think we'd be better off without Porky's II.

Virtual child porn PREVENTS real child abuse

[HanzoSan]

If people can use virtual child porn they wont need to use real children, this will protect alot of children.

The point of child pornography laws is to keep the porn industry from exploiting children.

No children are exploited in virtual porn, so it should be legal, its harmless and if anything protects children in the long run.

The arguement people who are against virtual porn will use is "Its bad to feed the perverts any form of child pornography"

problem is, these people will always exsist, and its better for them to get off to fake child porn, than REAL child porn.

Wrong = Exploiting children

However nothing is wrong with virtual child porn or
any other form of expression as long as no one is harmed

Re:Virtual child porn PREVENTS real child abuse

[LowellPorter]

I disagree. This may protect some children from child porn, however "virtual" child porn will still feed a pedophiles sexual desire. It will make him more likely to seek some sort of sexual encounter with a child. "Virtual" child porn may protect children from being in pornography, but it won't help the ones who get molested by people who feed off of it.

Re:Virtual child porn PREVENTS real child abuse

[DohDamit]

Bullshit.

Pedophilia is not an "aquired" taste like coffee or cigarettes. It is a mental instability that is found in some individuals. Don't screw up the cause and effect here. People don't become pedophiles, or more active pedophiles, because they are looking at kiddie porn. People look at kiddie porn BECAUSE they are either passive or active pedophiles.

Re:Virtual child porn PREVENTS real child abuse

[Chump1422]

People don't become pedophiles, or more active pedophiles, because they are looking at kiddie porn

Maybe, Maybe not. If pedophiles have virtual porn to use, it allows them to explore, and be sexually satisfied by, their fantasies. However, repeated use of virtual porn could legitimize the fantasy acts in the pedophile's mind and lead him/her to seek greater stimulation in the real world. If you're used to looking at pictures of kids in a sexual context, you'll start to see real-life kids as sexual beings. This could lower mental barriers to attack.

While virtual child porn won't create new pedophiles, it could make existing ones more dangerous. I don't think it should be restricted on free speech grounds, but let's not pretend that it's inconceivable for child porn to lead to molestation.

Re:Virtual child porn PREVENTS real child abuse

[xtremex]

So, we prohibit freedom of expression for everybody so the 1% of the population that MAY use it for ill won't use it. Just like banning violent video games so the 1% who are already mentally distrurbed are protected....that's ridiculous

Re:Virtual child porn PREVENTS real child abuse

[donutz]

No children are exploited in virtual porn, so it should be legal, its harmless and if anything protects children in the long run

Sounds like it could be true...who knows, maybe the sickos who like little kids would have that appetite satiated by looking at some pictures...maybe not....but overall, yeah, I suppose this could be protected by free speech. It's sick, but I dont want to slide down that slippery slope...

BUT, there's a big difference between using a "dancing baby" type computer generated picture of a child for virtual kiddy porn and using a scanned photograph of a child, altered on the computer with Photoshop to make it seem the kid's having sex. The law was made to prevent both, presumably. Now that law's gone. Lets just hope the scanned/altered pictures cant have their subjects personally identified, because that would be harmful to them.....

Re:Virtual child porn PREVENTS real child abuse

[joss]

> Porn is an addiction, looking at virtual child porn will just lead the pervent to want more and more.

Will it ?

Personally I have no fucking clue whether it would or wouldn't, and I hope you don't actually know either.

Why do people introduce analogies into situations where they don't help ? You have a situation you're trying to judge, so say it's like X so conclusion is Y. But you have to decide whether the situation is really like X, this is often harder than trying to figure out the actual problem. It's so annoying to see conflicting camps swapping analogies ad infinitum without anybody thinking about the actual *case*.

It's like dunking a donut in shit instead of chocolate to prove that donuts are nasty.... Hey, I've used an analogy, I must be right.

Re:Virtual child porn PREVENTS real child abuse

[jejones]

There's a wonderful book on the linguistics of Japanese that touches on other languages in places. The original title is Kotoba to Bunka, literally "Words and Culture," but the English translation is titled Words in Context.

What does this have to do with the matter at hand? Well, in one chapter the author discusses in passing how Turkish romantic poetry goes on at great length about the beloved's eyes, and claims that this is because of Islamic restrictions on women's clothing--the eyes were all one could see! (He didn't go into whether there was a difference between pre-Ataturk and post-Ataturk literature, which would have been interesting...)

The point is, obsessed people will always find something to feed their fantasies. The children's underwear section of the Sears catalog or the Sunday paper Target inserts, Parents magazine, Sesame Street...you can bet that somewhere, someone's clipping those out of the paper and keeping a scrapbook or taping them and building up a video collection. Do we need burqas for children?

Re:Virtual child porn PREVENTS real child abuse

[Rakarra]

That is like saying non-alcoholic beer prevents alcoholism.

No it's not, the alcoholic is addicted to the alcohol, not the taste of beer.

Porn is an addiction, looking at virtual child porn will just lead the pervent to want more and more.

No "slippery slope" arguments, please.

Good God Man!

[wiredog]

Think of the cartoons! All those poor defenseless anime children forced into sexual slavery at the stroke of a pen!

The goal should be to protect children

[HanzoSan]

The best way to protect children is to give an outlet to the perverts who want child pornography or who create it, a legal outlet which harms no one, virtual child porn may be the answer.

Theres no way you can ever rid the world of these people, they will always exsist, and taking away their virtual porn would make them create more child porn or worse, rape and abuse children.

So in the best interest of the children, Virtual Porn should be legal.

Virtual porn directly takes money away from the REAL child porn industry, and that is key to stopping child porn.

Re:The goal should be to protect children

[LordNimon]

Unfortunately, this is a flawed argument. The problem is that sick people are almost never satisfied with a moderate amount of whatever makes them sick. If you give them all the virtual child porn they want, then some of them will want to take it to the "next level". If they had never gotten the virtual stuff in the first place, they may have been able to control their urges enough to keep children safe.

Re:The goal should be to protect children

[DohDamit]

Pornography viewing is the RESULT of a mindset, not the cause, especially in this case. Honestly, do you think someone who's in their right mind will look at fake kiddie porn and start to think, "Gee, I think I'll try that!"

Re:The goal should be to protect children

[glwtta]

you are, of course, a psychologist?

Re:The goal should be to protect children

[FFFish]

I've no doubt the goat.cx link makes you sick, yet it doesn't cause any desire in you to see more, nor to "take it to the next level."

Your argument is bogus to the extreme.

Re:The goal should be to protect children

[Seth Finkelstein]

The pedophile impulse seems to have very little to do with with the images. That is, the images are generated from the impulse, not vice-versa. People trying to ban suggestive images (those not imvolving abuse of real children) have cause and effect reversed.

Real reference:

http://www.netspeed.com.au/ttguy/refs2.htm

Howitt, D. Pornography and the paedophile: Is it criminogenic? British Journal of Medical Psychology, 1995 68:15-27. Abstract: Presents case studies of 11 fixated adult male pedophiles interviewed in a private clinic for sex offenders about topics including their offending, their psychosexual histories, pornography, fantasy, and sexual abuse in childhood. Commercial pornography was rarely a significant aspect of their use of erotica although some experience of such materials was typical. Most common was "soft-core" heterosexually oriented pornography. Explicit child pornography was uncommon. However, Subjects also generated their own erotic materials from relatively innocuous sources such as television advertisements, clothing catalogs featuring children modeling underwear, and similar sources. In no case did exposure to pornography precede offending-related behavior in childhood.

Sig: What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org)

Re:The goal should be to protect children

[xtremex]

There was a huge discussion concerning this on Kuro5hin. My uncle is a convicted pedophile. However, he never did anything. He turned himself in. Didn't work. His fantasies are still there. He claims he is no different than homosexuals. If his desire is considered sick, than the desire of homosexuals must be sick as well. He said that since society is more accepting of homosexuals, it is no longer a sickness (since 1967). I'm not saying I agree with him, it's just that it's an interesting topic of discussion

Re:The goal should be to protect children

[kindbud]

There are too many "almost nevers", "may haves", and "might bes" in your counterargument. Even if I accept your premise (which I don't), it is too conditional to offer any help in crafting law or policy to help curb child abuse. We can't be throwing people into prison for what they might have done. As a practical matter, there simply is not enough room because no one wants to fund more prisons, or allow them to be built in an area where there are enough law enforcement personnel to staff it. As a constitional matter, you are advocating establishment of thought crimes. Virtual kiddie porn cannot be anything but a thought crime, since it involves no children.

Re:The goal should be to protect children

[maxpublic]

As a Real Psychologist(TM), let me say that actual child molesters need no incentive to 'take it to the next level'. They will do so regardless of whatever pornographic material happens to be available. This is a fact. The mental illness is independent of outside factors like exposure to pornography (no matter what the 'pop psychologists', the bane of real science, claim on talk shows).

Furthermore, there is no evidence whatsoever that pornography *in any form* encourages people who wouldn't otherwise molest children to do so. None. Nada. Zip. Child molestation is a particular mental illness which can't be 'encouraged' to grow where it doesn't otherwise exist.

The folks who make these claims are a) completely ignorant of the sickness in question, and b) are actually setting up an apologia for further incidents of child molestation (e.g. "if I hadn't had access to virtual porn I wouldn't have gone out and raped that 8-year-old girl"). Don't give them the excuse; these people can't be allowed an inch when it comes to motivation for their acts.

Finally, if a bit off-topic, child molestors are so driven to molest that there recidivism rate *even with therapy* is over 90%. That means if you catch one, send him to jail, and give him all the therapy in the world (I say 'him because the vast majority are straight males), there is a 9 in 10 chance that he'll molest again once released. The only treatment that has proven to be even mildly effective relies on drugs to completely short-circuit the sex drive, and that only works if the molestor is constantly monitored to make sure he takes the drugs.

Pornography has nothing to do with any of this; it's a non-factor and serious scientists don't even consider it when trying to puzzle out how to treat something so resistant to change. Trying to ascribe any blame at all to porn of any kind just makes it that much easier for the molestor to grab an excuse when caught and tried in court.

Max

What about art?

[alen]

In the Middle Ages people were considered adults at age 13 or so. It wasn't uncommon for people in their teens to be married, having sex and blessed with children. And there are many paintings from the time of nude women who were most likely under 18 when they posed for the painting. So would all this centuries old art have to be destroyed if the law would have been upheld.

Re:What about art?

[White Roses]

. . . paintings from the time of nude women . . .

Alas, born too late again . . .

Re:What about art?

[markmoss]

Considering the nutritional standards of that age, I'd think those plump Rembrandt and Ruebens models must have been well over 18.

OTOH, Romeo and Juliet is a thinly veiled depiction of THIRTEEN YEAR OLDS having sex. Definitely ought to be banned. Or else translated so we can understand it. ;-)

Re:What about art?

[mgkimsal2]

People back then didn't live as long either tho. 13 years old was 'mid life' for many of them.

Re:What about art?

[Rakarra]

I know you're just making a joke, but at least make a joke about something that stands a minutia of a chance of happening in reality. You can't patent paintings. You can't even come close.

DeCSS versus Virtual Child Pornography

[Seth Finkelstein]

(What a subject line :-) )

There's been a few comments which ask, basically, why one can make filthy pictures but not good clean code. The difference is in the reason for the law. DeCSS and others are basically under property law. Whereas this case was about general goverment prohibitions for personal harm.

One might just as well ask why it's legal to swear, but one could conceivably get into trouble for copyright infringement if the choice of swearing duplicated a comedy routine.

Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer.

Sig: What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org)

Re:Good Ruling ?

[Tjp($)pjT]

"I am thinking that creating 'imitation' child pornography is not any better. Somewhat like robbing a store with a fake gun."

More like robbing a fake store with a fake gun. Sort of like those things called 'movies'.

"I wont garner a lot of support on this as I can already here replies to the above but people who like to look at child pornography become people who want to act out on what they have been taking in."

So people who watch robberies in movies become people who want to become robbers? Very flawed logic. Please do not go see the movie Deliverence if you feel this way. And oh my gosh the reality cop shows just have to go!
Seriously, child explotation of any sort is really really bad, but unless you want government sanctioned morality in all facets of life, this was just bad law. Enforce the laws against child explotation to the fullest, make the penalties tougher, makes the laws more defined, but never, never, never believe the government is your babysitter and will protect you from all the ills of the world. It just won't happen, and selective enforcement will put your liberties at risk.

Re:Good Ruling ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Child pornography is not inherently any moral position.

People that make child pornography are not child molestors, unless they molest children in making it.
Taking a snapshot of your kid in the tub and then whacking off to it isn't damaging. Fondling your kid's genitals and taking pictures of it for later whacking is.

Imitation child pornography doesn't involve people, and cannot be construed as damaging to people, since none are damaged.

People that view child pornography or molest children have a natural disposition towards children, sexually. Much like people have disposition towards male or female adults, fat people, one-eyed 80 year olds with peg legs, etc.
There's nothing making them act on raping children, except themselves. If children were capable of consenting, then it would be a non-issue. But a majority of molestation occurs in small children by a family members, and it's perfectly clear in these cases that the child isn't mentally developed to a point to consent.

Child pornography laws should always take into account the age of consent in the given state. If you're old enough to allow someone to have sex with you, then you're old enough to take pictures of your genitals for people to whack off to.

Civilization has been built on a lot of 13 year old brides, and suddenly it's in a hurry to condem its ancestors as child molestors. When people try to move away, totally, from reality in their sexual appetite, you just can't stop following them.

Hey, I find child pr0n as unappealing as fat pr0n or old people pr0n, but it's not my fucking business what you whack off to. Respect the same of me, and everyone else.

It's far worse than that

[coyote-san]

The situation is far worse than that.

If we let the so-called conservatives have their way, the day before her 18th birthday that cute little thing shouldn't even be aware that pornography exists (much less that the pictures last forever) or aware that people will pay her money to take her clothes off. As for sex, that's something she'll learn about on her wedding night.

But at midnight she's thrown to the wolves - it's legal for some sleazy operator to sign her up to not only take off her clothes on film, but to have engage in all types of sex.

Fortunately some judges have (finally) started to realize that applying laws intended to protect children - real children, no more than 10 or 12 - from the harsher facts of life are morally reprehensible when they're applied to teenagers. It's better to shock a sheltered 15- or 16-year-old than to leave an 18-year-old unprepared for life. But Congress is still getting away with crappy laws - they get to pander to the idiots back home while counting on the courts to eventually save themselves from their own folly.

Re:It's far worse than that

[SuiteSisterMary]

As far as I'm concerned, the '18' rule of thumb is more for parents than for the children; 'Have your children educated by the age of 18, because that's when they're thrown to the wolves.'

Re:It's far worse than that

[krmt]

The parent post makes a good point though (one that I hadn't thought of before), that things like the ability to look at porn are not allowed by age 18 either. While almost everyone before this age has or does obtain pornography by this time, the law is set up against it, sending the message that it is wrong to be educated about these things. This makes it hard for kids to educate themselves (which is a critical thing in the real world) and also sends a message to parents that they can delay educating their kids until that 18th birthday.

I think there should be some kind of gradient, rather than this magical age where everything is possible. We already have it with driving, where kids get their licenses at 16. Many states, including mine, now restrict that initial license and slowly add priveledges, like being able to drive with other minors. This is a very good technique, and sharpens slightly what is really a stupid, blunt tool for shaping behavior. The problem is that sex is a much more controversial topic than driving, so this sort of thing would be an uphill battle.

Nice of the Supreme Court to protect free speech..

[Lendrick]

...for pornographers.

It'd be great, though, if they started looking out for the little guy by, say, repealing the ridiculous 90-year copyright. It's great that they're doing a little bit to protect free speech, but there are some other free expression matters out there that are in more need of attention.

Kite

[cryptochrome]

I think a perfect example would be the anime video Kite. Scenes of an the main character at an obviously younger age in sexual situations with an adult were removed for the American release, even though it was animated. There are other examples of child sexuality, and too many teen ones to count in Japanese Animation.

There are quite a few foreign films and shows on the list, too. I would still say that Lolita is the defining film/book on the list, though.

Not every country is bothered by child sexuality, and the vast majority of human cultures in history have regarded teens as adults. The hundreds of films in America where teens are sexually active makes the law way too broad in that regard alone. I'm not defending kiddy porn, I'm just trying to point out that however harshly we may oppose it, it is too poorly and subjectively defined to legislate against easily, particularly in a country as diverse as ours. The biggest problem would be defining what is permissible in the depiction of underaged sexuality and what is not.

Re:Kite

[rhavyn]

In case your interested in Kite, the original version has been released in the US, uncut.

Re:The way I read the judgement...

[Seth Finkelstein]

if it's lewdly pornographic it should be banned.

From the song Smut , by Tom Lehrer

When correctly viewed, everything is lewd;
I could tell you things about Peter Pan, or the Wizard of Oz,
there's a dirty old man!

Very apropos.

Sig: What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org)

laws of morality

[tjw]

The reason child pornography is illegal is to protect children. To protect children from being sexually abused in the act of creating child pornography.

Lawmakers tried to limit pedophile's access to images of child pornography. They did this because they felt it was morally right. There's no evidence to support the argument that pedophiles will be more likely to control their behavior if they are unable to see images depicting their desires.

I'm really disgusted with myself for taking the side of pedophiles, but it's a question in black and white. Do we control artistic expression for the sake of morality? No.

Re:laws of morality

[3am]

I think one of the reasons this bill was created was the belief that simulated child pornography would make pedophiles more likely to accept there behavior/not seek help. One might argue that on it's own this behavior is hurting nobody, and there is no reason they should seek help unless they are likely to act on there fantasies. Furthermore, I would question that access to this material alone would make child molestation any more likely to occur - are we going to ban GAP ads and sue the Nabokov descendents next? In any case, I'm not a professional psychologists, and will leave the discussion to those who are more informed.

However, I take issue with you calling child pornography artistic expression. It is monetary exploitation, nothing more.

Not only for porn

[antis0c]

But this is good for other "virtual crimes". If this had passed through, how long would it take the overprotective mothers of the world to rally up support for banning other virtual depictions of crimes. Will I go to jail because I virtually murdered a player in Quake 3? Or perhaps go to jail for selling drugs in Dope Wars.

Re:Not only for porn

[Skyshadow]

Christ, after a few hours of playing GTA3, I'm really up shit creek. Multiple felony carjackings, killing police officers, conspiricy to commit everything from prostitution to arson to murder, firearms violations, assualt with a deadly weapon, illegal use of cheat codes...

Time to start high-tailing it for Mexico. No doubt I'll make it; I'll just run to the street and pull the first guy driving a decent car I see out of his ride and set off down the 101.

Then again, in the game, the police just let you out after a few hours if they catch you. Maybe virtual crimes should carry only virtual penalties...

Try again

[drew_kime]

There will always be the few extrordinary circumstances <snip inflammatory example> which is why the judicial system exists. Not to interpret.

What do you think "judge" means? It is to exercise judgement. Opinions like yours are why:

• 14-year-olds are suspended from school for taking a knife away from a suicidal classmate -- "He was in posession of it."
• 10-year-old girls are suspended for sexual harassment for asking boys on the playground, "Do you like me?"
• 6-year-olds are suspended from school for giving a friend a lemon drop -- "It looked like a drug!"

The courts are the last check against the enforcement of bad laws. (This should be the place of a jury, but appeals courts have taken the activity on for themselves.)

Re:Try again

[Dimensio]

I think that there's a slight difference between your situation and the "up for interpretation" as defined by law.

In your situation there was a rule that was set and "zero tolerance" (aka zero intelligence) rules were applied to specific conditions that were met. Now, those conditions are idiotic (and in the last case likely not even properly being enforce), but they do exist. What's happened is a failure to intepret the circumstances. In the first case, the school is ignoring the circumstances of the knife posession. In the second case the school is applying a stated policy far too broadly and in the third case...well, apparently the school officials deserve to be killed. However, in each case it is a matter of a specific rule for a specific action.

In the case of "Virtual child pr0n", it's a matter of "interpretation" as to whether or not something violates the law based on its appearance. As such, there's no specific definition of what is prohibited, it's just a matter of the police or a judge "interpreting" an image as being in violation of the law. In other words, what is defined as being illegal isn't necessarily clear in the wording of the law. In the cases you mentioned the interpretation was in the circumstances of the action, not the action itself (well, again, except in the lats case where the administrators are clearly brain damaged) while in the case being discussed it's a matter of interpretation as to whether not the criminal action has even taken place.

Re:Good Ruling ?

[Kallahar]

If an 18 year old has sex with his girlfriend, who is two days younger than him and still 17, does that make him a pedophile?

I don't know about you, but I don't consider 17 year olds "children", yet in the eyes of the law they are.

The term "child" is too broad, methinks.

Travis

Here's three more

[LittleGuy]

... and all of them brought home the Little Golden Guy:

• American Beauty
  
• Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
  
• Zeffirelli's Romeo and Juliet
  

But is saving a "virtual child"

[sheyal]

worth restricting people's rights.

It's like the DMCA... It ASSUMES that people are guilty because they look at non-real images. It ASSUMES that these people will later go and commit a crime.

Would SOME people commit a crime based on this virtual desire? Probably.

Should the government assume ALL people are criminals and strip our rights to expression because a few people MAY commit a crime?

BTW - Romeo and Juliet - underage sex. Titanic - underage sex. Traffic - Underage sex. Lolita - underage sex. I think you get the picture. There are a LOT of films and artwork that depict "virtual" mature scenes (not necessarily nudity, but the law outlawed any notion that kids may be having sex, even if it wasn't explicitly shown), because it is a part of the film and the characters are supposed to be under 18.

These films were technically outlawed before.

This decision is a win for people's right to expression, especially when there is no real victim. Even if the idea is putrid to most, we can't force value judgements on everyone based on concepts that do not harm others (although we do all the time: see homosexuality, etc.)

Ciao!

Re:But is saving a "virtual child"

[Lectrik]

Quoth the posty-thing:
worth restricting people's rights.

It's like the DMCA... It ASSUMES that people are guilty because they look at non-real images. It ASSUMES that these people will later go and commit a crime.

Would SOME people commit a crime based on this virtual desire? Probably.

hey if virtual kiddie pr0n should be a crime what about virtual murder(anyone who plays most FPSs) or virtual carjacking (GTA series) how about virtually piloting without a liscence (flight simulators), they should outlaw masterbation to prevent cruelty to animals

Just because you watch something (or play a game that features it) doesn't mean it'll make a stable person want togo out and do it, take saving private ryan for an example did it make you want to go running around europe shooting germans and blowing up bridges?
it shouldn't be congresses job to put everyone in a padded room just so the loonies are locked up

Re:Good Ruling ?

[osgeek]

I am thinking that creating 'imitation' child pornography is not any better. Somewhat like robbing a store with a fake gun.

No, because then a store is still being robbed which is illegal all by itself. Your analogy would be more accurate if you said that virtual pornography was about like making a movie about robbing a store.

I wont garner a lot of support on this as I can already here replies to the above but people who like to look at child pornography become people who want to act out on what they have been taking in.

And people who like to watch boxing eventually beat other people up. Let's outlaw boxing, any movies that depict anything illegal, etc. Maybe we should throw people in jail for impure thoughts.

Fortunately here in AZ there are a couple situations where it is legal to shoot someone w/out them directly putting you in harms way. One of them is to stop the rape of a child. Out to the range this week-end to work on my marksmanship I guess

Oh, Jesus. I'm for gun ownership rights too. Please don't make us all look like dipshits. Shooting someone for thought crimes, no matter how bad, shows a remarkably unworkable system of ethics.

That isn't what freedom is about.

[enkidu]

I guess we should have arrested Nabakov for writing Lolita. When you rob a store you are doing damage to someone else. When I read Lolita or look at a Playboy or what have you, whom am I hurting? When you go work on your marksmanship, whom are you hurting? One of the fundamental principles behind our freedom is the freedom to be let alone. That's why robbing a store is illegal, whatever the tools. That's also why child pornography is illegal, because it damages the children involved.

Saying you're disturbed by it isn't a valid reason for making it illegal. Lots of people are disturbed that you go shooting. Would you like it if they made it illegal for you to own guns and shoot? Restricting one person's right to read/listen/watch/do things that don't affect others ends up restricting your right to read/listen/watch/do things that don't affect others also. It's only freedom if you're willing to share.

For the record, I am a liberal in every sense of the word. Law's should punish those who harm the freedom or well being of others. Law's should not make criminals of people who have done no harm to others. Victimless crimes aren't crimes. Owning a gun, shouldn't be a crime, using it to harm others should be a crime. Owning "Lolita" shouldn't be a crime, acting it out should be a crime. Get the picture?

I object to the increasing criminalization of the simple ownership of objects and not the acts of using them in ways which infringe upon the rights of others. That goes for guns, virtual child porn and bebop jazz. I don't like some of them, but I respect your right to own them. Laws should not make criminals of people who respect other peoples' rights and freedoms.

Enkidu EOT

Re:Films that would be banned for "virtual" child

[MikeTheYak]

My personal fav: Romeo and Juliet (At least the Zefirelli version. Haven't seen the 1996 one)

Re:The way I read the judgement...

[phaze3000]

And where is your proof that said 'psychos, rapists and stalkers' 'get worse because of pornography'.

(Hint: editorials from far-right websites don't count).

Don't get me wrong, I feel extremely uneasy about the concept of 'virtual' kiddie porn, but there's no evidence it's harmful, and the law as it stood certainally was. By being so vauge in the way it was written, it could easily stop what could justifiably be called art.

Want more info?

[BrodyVess]

In the past 6 months /. has featured 2 supreme court decisions, both of which I've written papers on. Here is my take, as a student of the 1st amendment on why you might rule this act constitutional. Now I dont agree with it, but I think this makes for an interesting and informative read.

Background
In the case of Janet Reno v. The Free Speech Coalition et al. we find a traditional confrontation between the expression of U.S. law and the constitutionally protected concept of freedom of speech. The Free Speech Coalition has challenged whether or not Congress has the constitutional authorization to regulate computer-generated images as child pornography. The case has been formed around the contention that two phrases present in the Child Pornography Prevention Act of 1996 ("CPPA" or the "Act") are so broad that they infringe on speech that the first amendment protects. Secondarily, the Free Speech Coalition argues that the law has such a chilling effect to freedom of speech that it imposes a prior restraint on the kinds of products the defendants are producing. The Act outlaws images that have been either entirely created using electronic or mechanical means, or images that have been modified by those means. These images only fall under the Act when they either appear to be child pornography, or are marketed as such.
In 1996 a congressional study expressed concern over the growing technical ability to produce adult materials that blurred the lines between protected forms of pornography and child pornography, which is an unprotected form. The study was particularly concerned with the effects that "virtual" child pornography would have on children. These "virtual" images are created by mechanical or electronic means, and may or may not involve the usage of children. In some cases children's faces are superimposed over images of pornography involving consenting adults. In other cases, the images are created without using any children, but rather are created from a computer model of an adolescent.
Congress created the CPPA in response to this concern. Their fact finding committee suggested that such a ban on "virtual" child pornography would advance legitimate government interest in several ways: by protecting children, allowing enforcement of current pornography laws, and undermining the distribution channels that the child pornography trade has been built upon. The congressional committee saw these goals as important enough to warrant the infringement upon certain types of expression.
In light of these concerns the CPPA was specifically targeted to prohibit the creation of pornographic images by electronic or mechanical means. The Free Speech Coalition has built their objection around the language used to meet this goal. The law prohibits any image that "appears to be" of a minor engaging in sexual acts, or is distributed in such a manner that it "conveys the impression" of a minor engaging in sexual acts. For these purposes sexual acts were defined as sexual intercourse, bestiality, masturbation, sadism/masochism, and lascivious display of genitals. The Free Speech Coalition asserts that this language infringes on their first amendment rights to freedom of expression because of its breadth.
High Value v. Low Value Speech
The court must caution all parties involved to remember the distinction between high-value and low-value speech. Speech is considered of a high value when it is essential to the smooth functioning of our deliberative democracy. Traditionally the First Amendment affords more protection for these types of speech in order to encourage the open dialog essential for preventing a government from becoming oppressive to its people. It is important to note when the first amendment was created the speech that was considered most important to protect uncensored was speech of a political nature. Numerous times through out this Court's history examples can be found of cases where speech was allowed because of the essential political nature of that speech. In the case of The National Socialist Party v. Skokie, 432 U.S. 43 (1977) speech that was objectionable was allowed because that speech was of a political nature. In this case it would be impossible to grant that the speech the Free Speech Coalition wishes to protect is political.
In recent years the court has only limited political speech when it met the test of "clear and present danger." Justice Holmes introduced this test in the case of Scheck v. The United States 1919 by saying that political speech must present an immediate danger to the government before restrictions can be placed upon it. The courts reasoning for this has been that speech of a political nature is essential to the functioning of a democratic society. If citizens are not allowed to express their ideas for fear of governmental action, then the government has become oppressive. For this reason the court has a stringent test for when it can regulate a citizens speech.
When cases have come before the court where the speech was not political the test for regulation is less stringent. If speech is not of a political nature then there is less reason for the government to permit it to harm citizens. In cases such as these the court has found that the government has a right to regulate speech in order to pursue its vital interests. The Supreme Court has ruled previously that "[a] content-neutral regulation will be sustained under the First Amendment if it advances important governmental interests unrelated to the suppression of free speech and does not burden substantially more speech than necessary to further those interests."
The court has defined low value speech as speech that has no political meaning. This should not be mistaken as grounds for wholesale censorship of speech because the government finds it objectionable. It is important to note this difference in the perceived value of speech. Low-value speech must naturally warrant greater scrutiny than speech of a political nature. Therefore, we must examine the permission of virtual child pornography very carefully. When speech harms or impedes the government's pursuit of its vital interests then more leeway is allowed in restricting that speech. One can plainly see that there are serious legal ramifications to the type of speech that the Free Speech Coalition seeks to protect.
Breadth
To declare a statute as overly broad is a judicial last resort that should only be used in an effort to fix a law that cannot be made constitutional in any other way. Even when the statute being considered does appear to be overly broad the court must consider the whole law. Laws that may seem overly broad at first glance may be found acceptable when considered as a whole. The case that The Free Speech Coalition presents raises objections to several clauses as being overly broad. However, the court holds the opinion that when the whole CPPA is considered all of these clauses are constitutional. There are specific reasons why we must consider each clause to be so.
In the instance of the phrase "appears to be" the statute cannot be seen as overly vague when taken in context of the entire law. Congress included the affirmative defense to resolve the individual conflicts between legitimate protected expression and the law. This section states that if a images "appears to be" of child pornography, but the promoters of that material can prove the participants are of legal age, then the image is exempt from the CPPA . The Act provides an affirmative defense as an escape clause for those that might be prosecuted falsely for producing protected forms of expression. If the expression requires a consensual sexual act between people of the appropriate age, then the affirmative defense provides for the protection of that expression even if it might be considered to fall under the act. In this manner it is important to understand that the affirmative defense is a full defense from the law, providing protection for worthy kinds of expression
The Free Speech Coalition has said that the CPPA violates the ruling in New York v. Ferber, 458 U.S. 747 (1982). They contend that the CPPA takes away the possibility of using someone who "perhaps looks younger" by making images illegal even if they contain adults of a consenting age. This is simply not true. If an image complied with the Ferber ruling then it would be protected by the affirmative defense in the CPPA. If an image portrays a person who looks younger than the age of consent, but the producer or distributor of such an image can prove they are consenting, then there is no conflict with the law.
The phrase "conveys the impression" is indeed a broad one. However, two problems arise if this court rules it overly broad. The first is the historical reluctance of the court to rule a statute overly broad because of the difficulty this would pose to lawmakers at all levels of government. Statutes must be sufficiently focused in order to prevent abuse by governmental authorities in their prosecution. However, they must be constructed broadly enough to attain their ends. Although the court finds great difficulty in striking this balance, it must consider the interests vital to securing the most free and stable state for all of its citizens to enjoy. In this case we must consider the states vital interests in protecting children from sexual predators.
Harm to Children
In recent years it has become trite to express interest in children as America's future. However, in a very legal standpoint a self-interested society must place extra weight on protecting the young for it will be their responsibility to care for the continuation of this country. For that reason one of the states most vital interest is in protecting its children.
In this light it is important to consider the protection of children as a goal that can justify the restriction of speech. Just as a patron must not cry "fire" in a crowded theatre because of the harm it would cause to theatre goers, any speech or expression that can harm children must be restricted. Child pornography has such harm in its expression that it is in the states vital interest to make every effort to eliminate this harm. In this case we are dealing with a law designed to protect children against child pornography.
While this is not a new concept in American jurisprudence, the implementation has a major variation. Previously, laws seeking to protect children against the harms of child pornography have been focused on the "primary" harmful effects of the pornography. Primary effects are best defined as those harms that are the direct result of the child's participation in the making of pornography. These effects include the actual molestation, emotional scarring, and a visual record of the acts that the child participates in. The logic behind previous laws dealing with child pornography is that these effects are so heinous that the government's interest in protecting children far outweighs the rights of the pornographer to produce these types of images. In the CPPA however, we see a shift in the intent of the law to protect children not from these primary effects, but from other, secondary effects.
These secondary effects that the CPPA focuses on are the harms that occur when a child is exposed to child pornography, rather than injured in the production of it. These effects can include sexual predation, desensitization, and forced sexual identity at a young age. These secondary effects have never been directly recognized as justification for the restriction of expression. Since these effects are not directly the result of child pornography their usage as the sole reason for regulation is problematic. However, there is a manner in which these secondary effects are important to consider.
The governments' primary interest in regulating child pornography is the protection of those that are injured in the production of the pornography. All previous laws have focused on what occurs during the making of the pornography. In these cases there are real children that are being harmed and the law is to prevent the harm. To redefine that interest as to protect those that may be injured by exposure marks a much larger shift in ideology.
This shift in ideology is not present if restrictions on distribution are used as a method to halt production. This is an important consideration when viewing Supreme Court rulings as carrying the full force of U. S. law. The tradition of the court has been to rely on precedent and stability. When the court is judicially active it has a tendency to reach beyond normal considerations to grant a higher level or protection than normal. One of the most active stances the court has taken is in Brown v. Board of Education and it took such a stance because of the political nature of the case. In Reno v. The Free Speech Coalition the speech that is being considered is not political. Although there have been periods of judicial activism, this case is not a candidate for such consideration. Therefore, we must look at this case from a distribution standpoint.
Just as with the struggle to contain illicit drugs, the government must win the war against child pornography in the channels of distribution. When defensible images are marketed as child pornography they keep the demand for actual child pornography alive. This leads to the harms inherent in the production of actual child pornography. These harms are the emotional damage to children involved, encouragement in the belief of children as sexual objects, and much higher rates of child molestation. If the viewing of "virtual" child pornography is approved then demand for such images will surely increase. The danger in increasing demand for these kinds of images is that some pornographers will almost certainly resort to using actual children in production and then claiming that the images are protected as being "virtual." When these images are purchased as "virtual" then the laws against real child pornography have been bypassed. In this manner people who would never consider harming a child might inadvertently support those who are abusing children in the production of pornography.
Enforcement of Current Laws
This leads to yet another important idea to consider. The absence of the CPPA will hinder enforcement of the many other child pornography laws, laws whose constitutionality is not in question. In cases where the "virtual" pornography is utterly indistinguishable from that involving real children the lines between permitted and non-permitted speech would be so blurred that they would prevent prosecution of real crimes in the absence of the CPPA. It is quite obvious that the first amendment does not extend protection to those persons harming children in the production of their "expression." However, without a law such as the CPPA the government's burden of proof would become so difficult that it would prevent the enforcement of legitimate laws.
In pursuing the vital interests of protecting children the court must consider the limited infringement on certain types of low-value speech against the vital interests of continuing validity of necessary laws. In this case one can easily see that whatever position is preferred initially, the restrictions placed on expression by the CPPA are neither unreasonable nor unconstitutional. The combination of the many factors that have been, and will be discussed make the decision in the case an easy one. No matter what tradition of preference is used, the CPPA satisfies the need to balance first amendment freedoms with the protection of vital interests.
Prior Restraint
As mentioned earlier, the Free Speech Coalition contends that the CPPA presents a prior restraint on speech. They present the opinion that by regulating images that only represents children, but do not involve them, the government creates a chilling atmosphere for free expression. The idea is that the statute is so broad that since a reasonable person cannot tell if an image falls under the act, then someone who produces images involving children would not be free to express himself for fear of prosecution.
There are, however, several problems with this particular thought. The court can only consider something as prior restraint when the government actively prevents the expression of a particular idea. Self-regulation from fear of prosecution cannot be considered prior restraint. If a person fears government prosecution then they only have to examine the law and their product to determine if it is banned. In the case of the CPPA, if the image does not fall under the definition presented in section 2256 or is protected by the affirmative defense then that speech is permitted. If this is the case then there is no reason to fear governmental action.
The Free Speech Coalition asserts that there is no way for a reasonable person to know whether or not an image falls under the definition of the act. This is simply not the case. In the case of the phrase "appears to be a minor" the test is simple. A perfectly workable test was introduced by a First Circuit Court ruling. The question is "whether an unsuspecting viewer would consider the depiction to be an actual individual under the age of eighteen engaging in sexual activity." In instances such as that the question always arises "What constitutes a reasonable person?" There is no pat definition to this question. The assumption made by the United States Constitution is that the vast majority of persons are indeed reasonable. This can be seen in our system of a trial by a jury of a persons peers. If the citizens of the United States are reasonable enough to determine a persons innocence or guilt in cases of high importance, such as murder, then they are capable of determining if a person appears to be under 18 years of age.
The existence of an affirmative defense also answers the question of prior restraint. If an image can be protected under the affirmative defense then there is no reason for a person to fear prosecution for that image. When these considerations are taken into account then the threat of prior restraint seems much less dangerous. With these understandings, those who produce images that are not prohibited by the CPPA have nothing to fear.
Preferred Positions
In this discussion it is important to note the judicial tradition of preferred positions. The court at various times has preferred certain philosophies of the first amendment to others. Justice Hugo Black preferred the protection of the First Amendment to all others initially. Other justices have given more credence to protecting stability and the rule of law than they have to protecting freedom of speech in all situations. In either ideology, regardless of which is initially preferred the evidence for a compelling state interest is so strong that it overrides any preference for the permission of expression involving "virtual" child pornography. Justice Ferguson expressed this feeling when he stated "Congress' interests in destroying the child pornography market and in preventing the seduction of minors outweigh virtual child pornography's exceedingly modest social value."
This coupled with the fact that such pornography can be used in the seduction of children when marketed as minors is sufficient reason to limit one form of low value expression in the quest to protect children. One large part of the congressional study that proceeded the CPPA was dedicated to the use of pornography by pedophiles. The panel reached the conclusion that "virtual" pornography is just as effective in seducing children as actual pornography. This cuts to the very heart of the debate on secondary effects. Even though "virtual" pornography does not harm children in its production it causes other real harm to children. The Free Speech Coalition has been adamant that computer generated images are victimless, and do not harm children in their creation. They ignore the fact that they harm children in their existence. As with many constitutional issues, a balance must be struck between protection of the rights guaranteed to individuals and the protection of safety for all.
In several instances the Free Speech Coalition raises possibilities where officials who wish to prosecute protected speech might misuse the law. Unfortunately, these cases are not before us now. When these hypothetical cases of abuse by law enforcement arise, then this court will be happy to hear another challenge based on such abuse. Until that time the affirmative defense is sufficient to prevent such abuses.
Other Considerations
There is one warning that I must add to my decision against the Free Speech Coalition. No matter how repugnant it may seem, there is no legal justification for the outlawing of the thought of committing an illegal act with a minor. Such a law would require the creation of an Orwellian Thought Police that the first amendment was specifically designed to protect against. However, it must be clear that such limitation only applies in creations of the mind that commit no actual harm. This case rides the boundaries between regulating thought and ensuring safety for all.
Although the Act is quite valid, the Free Speech Coalition is correct in objecting to regulations that are against "creations of the mind." Although there is no harm to actual children in production, the dangers to children are obvious. Because this harm is so close to that of pornography that does involve children, and it does cause actual harm to actual children, the regulation of computer generated images is permissible. Had these harms not been present, then the court would have found no justification to ban the speech based on content alone.
This is not to say that we have outlawed the thought of sex with minors. If the Free Speech Coalition wanted to produce literature that wrote about sexual activity with minors, and this writing did not cause them actual harm, it would be a different ruling. Simply because a thought is repugnant does not mean that it is illegal. It must be very clear that the First Amendment is being abridged not because of content, but because of harm. The First Amendment is intended to protect speech that is disagreeable to the government, but not to protect speech that causes harm.
Conclusions
The decision to rule against the Free Speech Coalition is a difficult one. While I am concerned with any ruling that restricts freedom of speech, it is difficult to justify overturning the CPPA on the grounds that virtual child pornography should be protected. It is my opinion that the need for freedom of expression does not outweigh the harms that can be caused by the types of expression the Free Speech Coalition seeks protection for. In this case Justice Holmes test of "Clear and present danger" is much too stringent to use when considering restricting "virtual" pornography. While this type of expression does not present an immediate danger to the survival of the United States, its danger to members of our country is sufficient to justify its regulation.
For these reasons I must rule against the Free Speech Coalition.

Re:Good Ruling ?

[medcalf]

Child molesters are bad (and people who make child pornography are by definition child molesters)

I'm not convinced that this is true. Certainly, using a child to make pornographic photographs would probably make the photographer as much a molester as any adult in the photograph with the child. On the other hand, pornography is not just pictures. If someone wrote a story involving sex acts with a child, that is not molestation. By this ruling, if it came to the Supreme Court it would likely also be found to be legal to write a story involving sex acts with a child.

I am thinking that creating 'imitation' child pornography is not any better. Somewhat like robbing a store with a fake gun.

What if the store was fake, say, on a movie set, and you were pretending to rob it? That is more equivalent to what this law was trying to ban. The child pornography equivalent would be more along the lines of depicting the rape of a child where the child is present, but is not actually raped. That would be illegal, as would robbing a store with a fake gun.

Re:Good Ruling ?

[Rogerborg]

• I wont garner a lot of support on this as I can already here replies to the above but people who like to look at child pornography become people who want to act out on what they have been taking in.

I agree. Unfortunately, that applies to any activity. Anything you see a lot becomes glamourised and more acceptable. TV violence, selfish and abusive behaviour (especially when it's funny, and the camera quickly pans away from the anonymous victim). The frenzy of aquisition and domination that is Pokemon. TV lawyers (shudder).

Where we draw the line is pretty arbitrary, and it's important that we do remember to treat people as being responsible for their own actions, or we'll all start suing EveryQuest (an Slashdot for that matter) for stealing our lives.

All that said, I do actually agree with you. Tell you what, I'll volunteer here and now to give up my rights to watch portrayals of kiddie porn (real or faked) on the basis that it will turn me into a paedophile, in return for an agrement from the DoJ that merely having access to content copying devices and copyable content will not automatically turn me into a thief. Does that sound like a fair trade?

Re:The way I read the judgement...

[j-turkey]

The law didn't say that -- or even come close to saying that. The law basically gave law enforcement free reign to arrest just about anyone who makes porn. Essentially, the law says that anything that could possibly be constrewed as child porn is child porn. It did address the virtual-kiddie porn, but this was not the major point for the Supreme COurt's overturning of the law.

If your stance is that all forms of pornography shuold be banned because it encourages sexual deviancy, please say it clearly. That is what your article is saying.

As far as the article goes, it does come right out and say that (essentially), all porn should be banned because it encourages sexual deviancy. After reading the first paragraph of the article (ie: spending a day in hell), I couldn't weigh in an ounce of credibility as for the discreditation of the sex researchers (which, paraphrased, says that since one of the sex researchers in question is a self-admitted pedophile, his research has no value). The way that it intrinsically associates pedophilia with homosexuality makes me shudder. Shame on them. That's not good journalism -- its neo-conservative banter.

-Turkey

Re:Anyone notice Thomas != Scalia

[mmacdona86]

I think Thomas needs to recuse himself on anything related to pornography :)

He's right guys.

[El Camino SS]

Unfortunately, a lot of what you are saying is a flawed argument in response to LordNimon.

Someone asked if he was a psychologist to push his expertise.

I'll up it a little. My best friend is a psychiatrist (big distinction between the two) and he would tell you that LordNimon is absolutely correct about taking obsessions to the "next level." He's spoken to me several times about these kind of behaviors. Also, you'll find extremely few dissenting opinions on his answer among the medical community.

There have been plenty of case studies to back this up. I just can't point you in that direction, and my friend is not a /.er.

R&J

[wiredog]

The 1996 one depicted 16 year olds. The play has Juliet as a 12 year old.

Re:R&J

[BiggestPOS]

In the time frame the play was written, this was FINE. Of course, people only lived to what, 30 on average right?

Re:R&J

[kubrick]

Yeah, but that average was brought way down by the high infant mortality.

I think 50 or 55 was not an unreasonable assumption if you made it to 10 years old or so.

Re:R&J

[armb]

> The play has Juliet as a 12 year old

Thirteen, nearly fourteen.

"She hath not seen the change of fourteen years;"
"Come Lammas-eve at night shall she be fourteen."

And while Romeo and Juliet don't live to consummate their relationship, her mother says
"Well, think of marriage now: younger than you,
Here in Verona, ladies of esteem,
Are made already mothers: by my count
I was your mother much upon these years
That you are now a maid."

This study guide says she was sixteen in the story Shakespeare adapted:
http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:QZM 7PNsyjrwC: www.wsu.edu:8080/~brians/love-in-the-arts/romeo.ht ml+Romeo+Juliet%27s+age&hl=en&client=googlet
(And maybe bits of it were written before he made the change and not revised?).

That's a feature, not a bug!

[cduffy]

Of course, you can't permit judges or police the ability to make excessively sweeping arbitrary decisions -- but when details of the meaning of a law need to be decided upon, someone has to do it -- and that someone is the judge. A judge can't just say what they like, though -- the reasoning for their decisions will be considered carefully and appealed if unjust.

Let me give you a simple textbook example.

Abby owns a restauraunt. Beth, a customer, orders fish chowder, gets a bone stuck in her throat, and has to go to the hospital. The law states that Abby is liable if the food is "unwholesome" or not "fit to be eaten". So... does a fish bone make fish chowder unwholesome? An appeals court judge answered no. If laws had to be so "clear cut" as you'd have them be, then the law would have had to list situations that would (and wouldn't!) produce unwholesomeness in food -- and I don't think you find that any more reasonable a proposition than I do.

New Rule!

[tester13]

From now on I think we should allow people to talk about this issue with out having to decry the evils of child porngraphy.

Okay, how about a non-school examples

[drew_kime]

Schools are not laws.

I'm not quite sure what you mean here. Parents are required by law to send their children to school. (Home-schooling is the exception, and the National Educators' Association is trying to get it outlawed.) School boards pass "regulations" under which teachers are required to report certain offenses to the police. The police are required by law to investigate the complaints. Seems like "law" to me.

But in any case, here's your non-school example:

Detrick Washington, 25, was at his business partner's San Francisco, Calif., home office when two men forced their way in ... "I'll go and kill the kids and that girl if you don't give me the rest of the money," one of the robbers said. While they ransacked the home, Washington saw his chance: one robber put his gun down, and Washington grabbed it ... "He took a chance. I believe we could call him a hero," police Inspector Armand Gordon said. Washington "basically saved five people's lives, including his own" by grabbing the gun. Police ruled the shooting justified, yet Washington is in jail: he is on parole from a previous drug conviction, and parole rules say parolees cannot "possess" a firearm. Because Washington grabbed the robber's gun, he was in "possession" of the weapon and violated his parole.

Laws are supposed to be specific in order to restrict police activity, not to require it.

Re:Okay, how about a non-school examples

[markmoss]

The Detrick Washington case was not law, but rather parole officers -- bureaucrats. You give a bureaucrat discretion, he'll abuse it. Give him absolute hard and fast rules, and he'll happily enforce them to the letter whether they make any sense or not...

Now if Washington had finished his parole and merely been subject to the law against ex-cons possessing a gun, chances are nothing would have happened. The DA is at least to some extent a politician; this has many bad effects, but it doesn't encourage public idiocy. If the DA was so stupid as to lay charges, maybe the grand jury would have slapped him down. If he got the indictment, most judges would have told him to drop it. If it came to a jury trial, they'd have laughed it out of court -- and most likely the DA would have the whole county laughing at him, lose the next election, and spend the rest of his life chasing ambulances...

Re:Okay, how about a non-school examples

[maxpublic]

Here's another example of how schools enforce laws in a very broken manner:

I recently started administering a portion of my district computer system at a locked-down facility for children. In order to work there I had to read the 'must report' rules for suspected child abuse. I found that if a child came in with bruises on his or her arm over several months, then came to school with a cast on that same arm, it wasn't grounds for suspecting abuse. WTF?

However, if a child (and I'm talking child here, the example was a 5-year-old/kindergartner) told me that her uncle had picked her up in such a fashion as to put his hands on her 'breasts' then I *had* to report it as suspected sexual molestation.

Think about this for a moment: the guidelines specifically used the word 'breasts' for the imaginary 5-year-old. Yet as any sane adult knows *5-year-old girls don't have breasts*. They have a chest not at all different from that of *5-year-old boys*. But no breasts. Makes you wonder about the mental state of the person who wrote the guidelines.

I also realized that I had violated the guidelines on numerous occasions with my niece - in fact, every time I'd picked her up by grabbing her under the arms and swinging her through the air. Because my hands, being so large against her tiny 6-year-old body, always wrap around her chest - er, 'breasts', according to the whackos who wrote the manual. So according to these guidelines it would be reasonable to assume that I had *molested my niece on multiple occasions*.

Really, it's shit like this that puts the fear of the state into your heart. If I had picked up my niece and played 'airplane' with her when she came to visit me on the job, I could've gone to jail under the 'mandatory reporting' rules of the school district....

Max

Ok we all are sick people in a way

[HanzoSan]

Guys who like girls, or women, they are horny, their option, go find a random girl and rape her, or go to a porn site.

We have these options, we are perverts too, why should WE have porn, but they shouldnt?

Porn keeps my hormones in check, I'm not a rapist and never will be because I'm not an aggressive person, however I'm sure i'd be ALOT more perverted toward women if I were horny all the damn time due to porn sites being illegal.

Think about the logic, we use porn to control us, not every male who likes women is a rapist.

Same goes for pedophiles, not every pedophile is the type who will rape children.

but by making them horny 24/7 by giving them no release, it raises the chances their hormones will be out of control and they may be drunk one day and do something stupid.

Re:Films that would be banned for "virtual" child

[Pfhreakaz0id]

Have to defend my home state here. The Tin Drum seizure was overturned. see http://www.aclu.org/news/w122997a.html

Re:The way I read the judgement...

[Odinson]

"I think it's BS. I don't care if it's a 6yr old girl or a 30,000,000 verticies 3DS Max mesh: if it's lewdly pornographic it should be banned.

The reason, at least to me, is simple. We have enough psychos, rapists and stalkers who get worse because of pornography without adding to the problem 10x over by letting them get their hands on "virtual" children. Read this [thenewamerican.com] for more info."

I wonder if anyone will ever conclusivly prove a predominant harm or benefit on a vast majority society from exposure and or availibilty to extra-normal situations of any sort. I'm not talking about actual occourances but simulations of actual occourances. I'm also not talking about the harm to any real human simulator/actors.

I'm thinking of visual/audios like cartoons and (increasingly) realistic 3d simulations, but reality mutilation has been happening since orginized entertainment. Some examples of similar situations possibly without human actors.

• Violence - Violence in video games and on TV. Absurd explosions, ridiculous physical strenth and agility. Brutality rarly seen day to day.
• Virtual Porn- child sex, monster sex, impossible adult situations with just about everything.
• Impossible bodies- Human beings with proportions and apendages that just can't happen. Instant genetic mutiation, clones with orginals memory.
• Impossible social situations- Angels saving people, aliens abducting and probing, homeless people becomming richer than rich in weeks.

Whatever we do about one of these things, we should do about all of them.

• They all warp reality and can have devistating effects for some indivduals. How can we best educate them or protect them from themselves, and others from them.
• Some people are definatly strong/intelligent/stable enough to view these reality mutilations as what they are, not true to life. Any restriction puts undue burden on them.

Porn turns men into rapists and women into sluts?

[HanzoSan]

Yeah so the reason we have male rapists, is because all of this porn is making males more likely to rape women and making women more likely to become sluts, because it feeds them?

Bullshit, its because of the porn that people can release their sexual tension in the privacy of their home, instead of outside in public on people.

Without porn, rape would be alot more common than it is, and women would sleep around alot more often.

Re:Good Ruling ?

[kindbud]

I am thinking that creating 'imitation' child pornography is not any better. Somewhat like robbing a store with a fake gun.

Nope, it is like pretending to rob a mock store with a fake gun.

I wont garner a lot of support on this ...

"I know I'm a dumb hick, but I don't care."

...as I can already here replies to the above...

"See, told ya."

...but people who like to look at child pornography become people who want to act out on what they have been taking in.

And you base this conclusion on... what? Personal experience?

Fortunately here in AZ there are a couple situations where it is legal to shoot someone w/out them directly putting you in harms way. One of them is to stop the rape of a child.

Then draw a bead on the windows of your local rectory. See if you get off scot-free for plinking a priest.

Really! What good does it do to post threats on Slashdot? Do you think this is a den of pederasts? If so, why do you frequent this site? If not, then what is the purpose of your murderous bluster? Are we supposed to applaud your vigilantism?

Re:Anyone notice Thomas != Scalia

[connorbd]

Neat trick -- I didn't know that was possible, nor that Thomas was even intelligent enough to make his own decisions.

But that's what you get when you replace a great man like Thurgood Marshall with a token n*****...

/Brian

Re:Virtual child porn PROMOTES real child abuse

[xtremex]

So, what you are saying is, if YOU look at virtual kiddy porn, we can expect to see your picture in the NY times? It will TURN you into a pedophile? That is very naive. Just like listening to Ozzy will make me commit suicide or playing Quake will make me go out with a macine gun and statt shooting people. They've found the Trench Coat Mafia with violent video games. That MUST be it! The GAME made them do it! They found Marilyn Manson too...it's HIS fault. Sue Atlantic records (?) for peddling instruments of brutality.

A lithmus test for society

[FurryFeet]

I don't like or advocate child pornography. I do advocate tolerance and empathy.
People whe enjoy child pornografy, or get turned on by looking at naked children, are not inherently evil. It is merely a matter of taste. And saying all pedophiles (the correct term) are child molester is like saying all homosexuals are boy-scout rapists.
The only real motivation to forbid child porn should be the well-being of children. I agree no child, for any reason, should be used for sexual purposes, including photos. Computer generated porn removes that problem. So, if no child is harmed, why forbid it?
The bill atempted to punish people, not for hurting others, but merely because of their tastes. And that is inconstitutional, even if you don't like what they like.
BTW, computer generated child porn is probably a good tool to prevent real children from being exploited. Because, let's face it, child porn (like piracy, any kind of porn and crappy pop music) will always exist, no matter how hard you fight them.
Well, you know what they say about karma. Easy comes, easy goes :S

So this would apply to all porn

[HanzoSan]

If it applies to kiddie porn it applies to ALL porn.

Kiddie porn is just one aspect of porn, theres alot of other fetishes people have.

So you are saying, porn is why theres rapists and the solution is to remove all porn?

Hahahaha funny, you think there would be less rapes if there were less porn? I think it would be the opposite.

Re:So this would apply to all porn

[Elwood P Dowd]

That's right, you feel like it would be the opposite because you're not a rapist. No matter how sexually aroused you might be, you're not a violent person, and would never do such a thing. The only reason you'd ever imagine it is because you want sex, not violence. If you can get your sex from porn, that will do nicely for you.

Previous poster still has a totally valid point. For other people, that do have a desire for violence, watching a lot of porn will change their view of what is acceptable behavior. If you begin fucked in the head, porn can absolutely fuck you worse in the head.

Don't get me wrong. I watch porn all the time. I don't think I'm playing with fire at all. I know the difference between fantasy and reality. I was fortunate, though. Nobody ever raped me when I was a kid, so those borders are pretty clear. The people that *did* get molested as children are much more likely to do similar things as adults, and kiddie porn will certainly keep them thinking about it.

Re:Good Ruling ?

[osgeek]

Most states' pedophilia laws allow for carnal relations between those just above and just below the age line (within a couple of years).

Correct

[HanzoSan]

Saying porn makes pedophiles abuse children is like saying Porn makes males rape women, or porn makes women turn into sluts.

People dont copy what they see in porn videos, they watch the porn video to fantasize about what they could never do in the real world.

its the people who dont look at porn that you need to worry about.

Wired predicted this in 1994... in a fiction

[dreamword]

In the March 1994 issue of Wired (2.04), there's a speculative article about what the arguments among the Justices would be if such a case ever came up. Interesting to compare Samuel Gelerman's speculation to the real arguments in the decision:

Herd Not Obscene, by Samuel Gelerman, from Wired 2.04

Re:Films that would be banned for "virtual" child

[rojstaczer]

Kind of odd though... nothing illegal about people under 18 having sex in most states

At least in the states I've lived in, there are a number of circumstances under which it's illegal. California in particular has some very strict codes [ca.gov] on underaged sexual activity that do not make allowances even if both parties involved are underaged or near in age. Check your own state's legal code.

this space intentionally left blank

Re:Porn turns men into rapists and women into slut

[dinivin]

Without porn, rape would be alot more common than it is, and women would sleep around alot more often.

And you can back this up with statement with evidence, right?

Dinivin

oh PLEASE!!

[HanzoSan]

Ted Bundy? Hes a fucking murderer, whats this have to do with porn?!

Murder has nothing to do with Sex, they arent the same, perhaps Ted Bundy was a pervert, but it was his hatred that allows him to murder.

Its rage that fuels rape, its control that fuels abuse of children.

Control Freaks, Rageful people, and just generally aggressive people are likely to commit rape and murder with or without porn, Ted Bundy needed to use the porn excuse so people wouldnt put all the blame on him.

90+ percent of the world looks at porn, are we all going out raping and murdering people?

Re:Your image and you

[damiangerous]

Anyho', this wouldn't be a problem if people had the right to their own image... would it?

Why the hell should you have the exclusive right to your image? If you're participating in a riot downtown and I'm filming it for the local news that's your own problem.
Say goodbye to any sort of television news reporting. "Sorry, you don't have permission to show that video of me throwing a brick though the store window during that riot. It's my image, after all."

The law says so... even if your being abused. Ask the mayor of New York! mmmm, splifffy weed. I tried it and I liked it

How's he being abused, again? Is he being misquoted in some way? Is his quote being taken out of context in any way? Absolutely not. He was asked if he ver smoked pot, and he relpied that he did that and he enjoyed it. Are you saying he should be able to control what people say about him?

Not fine

[wiredog]

Remember that Capulet objected to her getting married. "Let two more summers whither in their pride, ere we think her fit to be a bride."

Not sure what the average age of death was, but it wasn't unusual for people to live into their 60's.

Its not good to hate what you dont understand

[HanzoSan]

From my experience from the net, I learned alot of people have alot of strange fetishes, which i just dont understand and am not capable of understanding

Homosexuality, Beastiality, Scat, Pissing and other weird shit

Because I might consider it sick, doesnt mean i can disrespect a person who is into this stuff, when a large number of people are into this kinda thing, you may not agree with them, but as long as they arent harming anyone, leave them alone.

I dont care if gay guys want to be gay, as long as they arent trying to rape me or rape little boys.

I dont care if people are into beastiality, although i feel sorry for the animals.

I dont care what people do, or how they get off, no matter how weird because as long as they dont harm me, or anyone else, then its their private business.

The point im trying to get accross is, you cant say "this person is sick" or "this person is evil" just because they have strange fantasies,

You can only say they are a pedophile after they abuse a child, you can only call a rapist a rapist after they commit the crime of rape, you cannot call a someone a rapist just because they may get off watching pictures of virtual rape porn.

Re:Its not good to hate what you dont understand

[HanzoSan]

I can say anyone whos got diffrent fetishes than me is sick.

Someone who wants to have sex with guys I can say is sick, someone who has sex with animals i can say is sick.

You arent proving your point logically.

Re:Porn turns men into rapists and women into slut

[Kintanon]

Yeah, for real! Let's get rid of all the porn then, cause all those slutty women can fulfill all of the would be rapists... Seems like things would even out with a lot more sex for everyone. I don't see how we can go wrong!!

Kintanon

Re: The Court's opinion on this argument...

[Romanpoet]

The argument that virtual child pornography whets pedophiles' appetites and encourages them to engage in illegal conduct is unavailing because the mere tendency of speech to encourage unlawful acts is not a sufficient reason for banning it, Stanley v. Georgia, 394 U.S. 557, 566, absent some showing of a direct connection between the speech and imminent illegal conduct, see, e.g., Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U.S. 444, 447 (per curiam).
---
Well, there ya go, take the it or leave it.

Re:Virtual child porn PROMOTES real child abuse

[HanzoSan]

What people dont understand is

Everyone has fantasies, EVERYONE here in slashdot and in the world, has some kinda fantasy somehow.

What gives us the right to freely express our fantasies, but they cant?

Its almost like the situation with gays, should gay porn sites be outlawed because it promotes homosexuality and decreases the population?

bullshit like that shows the ignorance of the lawmakers of the USA

Its not porn which makes a person gay, they are BORN that way, and if you hate them and try to force them to not be gay, it will push them over the edge

Face it, theres always going to be people who are attracted to little kids, we need to figure out a way to prevent them from harming kids, we cant ever change them or make them stop being them.

I mean its almost like saying all gay people are likely to rape straight males because its in their nature, and the porn will provoke them to do so.

Or saying if women are exposed to porn, they will be more likely to cheat on their husband

Damn why not just outlaw all porn, I mean according to some people porn will make us all turn into rapists

Re:Porn turns men into rapists and women into slut

[dinivin]

Nowhere did I say, or even imply, that we should get rid of all porn. You should really take some reading comprehension classes...

Though I have absolutely no objection to the production or viewing of pornography, to claim that it reduces rape and femal promiscuity (without citing any evidence) is, at the best, questionable.

Dinivin

Virtual Murder Isn't Illegal

[puppetman]

Just check out Grand Theft Auto 3 or any of the other hundreds of other games.

I don't think any course of action that's been tried to date (castration, drugs to kill the libido, and negative re-inforcement) have had any significant effect on pedophiles.

As long as no one is hurt, live and let live.

Re:Porn turns men into rapists and women into slut

[Martin Blank]

In 1967, Congress established and funded a National Commission on Pornography. Its report, published in 1970, found that it was not pornography, but the puritanical attitudes toward pornography that cause problems in America. The report said the problems stemmed "from the inability or reluctance of people in our society to be open and direct in dealing with sexual matters." In surveys, the commission found that only 2 percent of Americans thought sexually explicit material was a significant social problem. The report recommended that all legislation interfering with the right of adults to read, obtain, or view explicit sexual material be repealed.

-- Peter McWilliams, Ain't Nobody's Business If You Do

I looked for the original report, but could not find it online. If I do, I'll post the link here.

Is being gay wrong?

[HanzoSan]

No its not, because most gay people dont harm straight people,

Sure a few of them rape straight guys and little boys

This is only a few. Not all.

People who have a facination with kiddie porn, may not be the type of person to rape a child

So we should hate them because of what they are?
No, we can only hate them for what they do.

IF they arent harming anyone with their private activities, why should we bother them?

Who gives you the right to tell them "You are wrong"

And even if you do, its not going to change them.

Re:Porn turns men into rapists and women into slut

[dinivin]

And that still isn't evidence that the abolition of pornography would lead to an increase in the amount of rape or promiscuity.

Dinivin

Re:Films that would be banned for "virtual" child

[Dephex Twin]

I *absolutely* don't think The Tin Drum should be in any way illegal, but this is not a case of "virtual" child porn, it's a little more complicated.

The story follows a young kid who does something to himself so that he won't grow older. So for the rest of the movie he is supposed to look like a child, even though he is getting older (through adulthood).

In the movie, the character is played by a child. So there are scenes where there is implied sex, but in the movie it's between two adults, while the actual actor is actually a kid. Of course the child actor doesn't really do any sex acts, but it skirts right along the border.

Anyway, I just think this is a slightly different thing... sort of reversed.

mark

Re:Hurt != Wrong

[HanzoSan]

So basically you are saying

"I dont understand people who like child porn, they arent normal and should seek help so that they can become normal like me"

Just because you dont understand them, doesnt mean you shouldnt respect them

Seeking help is not going to change them

This sounds almost like how people treated homosexuality

First it was evil and people would be killed for it

Then people were told to seek help

Finally its understood that these people are being who they arent and you cant change them, you just have to learn to accept people who are diffrent.

Now, I dont agree with everyone, but as long as they do no harm, they deserve respect.

Re:Porn turns men into rapists and women into slut

[Kintanon]

No no no, *I* Was advocating that we get rid of porn. Not implying that you were. I was poking fun at the person who implied that it reduces rape and female promiscuity by suggesting that we get rid of Porn so that everyone can have more sex. (The point of the joke being that I hoped to be a beneficiary of the increased sexual level of everyone involved)
The post was meant to be funny. Don't get your panties in a twist.

Kintanon

Re:Virtual child porn PROMOTES real child abuse

[Scrameustache]

If somebody jerks off to virtual porn they are safe!?!?
I will lay hard money that these individuals will eventually seek to fulfill their fantasy with an innocent.

Yes, anyone watching porn will get a hard-on and go out and rape someone. EVERYONE, EVERYTIME!

AND if you play violent games, its 100% sure that you'll go out and KILL YOUR NEIGHBOURS!

Also, -all- kids who watch superman cartoons put on a bath-towel as a cape and JUMP OFF THE ROOF!

Hell, jus this week, several hundred thousand kids dropped anvils on unsespecting ducks!

Hey, the other day, I watched Steve Irwin's The Crocodile Hunter, guess what I did right after that? Yes, I went to the zoo and attacked the crocodiles bare handed! I then proceeded to manhandle the poisonous snakes...yup, its all automatic imitation of art.

Remember, no one is ever responsible for their own actions, its always the tv/videogame/magazine/internet that made 'em do it.
Also, before TV came along, violence did not exist and people were nice to everyone all the time.

a normal straight generic male

[HanzoSan]

I'd say only 40 percent of the population are what you call normal

The rest are gay, bi, or have some strange fetish.

Re:a normal straight generic male

[jafuser]

Find out your Fetish!(warning adult content - duh)

Without even a hint as to what the questions/answers were suggesting, it wound up telling me I had an Asian fetish... I even avoided the obvious answers and it still outed me :-P

You are normal

[HanzoSan]

When I was your age, I too liked girls my own age.

Of course, theres been situaitons where people as young as you were punished for looking at people the same age as them. This is why i think the laws are too extreme.

Someone your age cant buy the porn, so you arent fueling the industry, so you cant do any harm, also these are girls in your own age range.

Re:This does have some real problems

[remande]

One of the things I have long not understood about this country's legal system is the notion that you are suddenly old enough to do things at certain ages.

This is the law trying to do something close to the right thing because the right thing is either ludicrously hard or it is impossible.

In a perfect world, the minor/adult status of somebody should be based on their mental and emotional maturity. Some achieve that at age 16, others wait until 24, yet others never get there.

But how do you measure maturity? I certainly know of no objective test, and doubt that one exists. Without a test, the law cannot base a decision on mental and emotional maturity.

What the law can do is use a less accurate, but more objective, test of maturity. That test is chronological maturity. Basically, it's the most accurate standard the law can objectively use.

In short: I agree that going by years past birth is a lousy yardstick. I can't think of a better one that could be used in court. Can you?

Actually hes exactly right

[HanzoSan]

homosexuals were in this exact same situation at one point. Homosexuals were considered rapists, people would kill them because everyone was homophobic and thought they would rape them or their children.

Re:Actually hes exactly right

[maxpublic]

Homosexuality and pedophilia *have nothing to do with one another*. Homosexuality involves attraction to a sexually mature human being - just like heterosexuality does, only with a different gender.

Pedophilia, on the other hand, involves an attraction to prepubescents - by definition not sexually developed - based upon *control* and *power*. This is why young boys are almost always molested by *straight males, not gay males*. The sex of the victim has nothing to do with the sexual orientation of the attacker because it isn't about normal sexual attraction to a specific gender; it's about the power that one can enforce over a defenseless child.

Pedophilia is a sickness, boys and girls. Homosexuality has *nothing to do with it*, just as heterosexuality and bisexuality have nothing to do with it. The mere fact that virtually all molestors are straight males while the victims are roughly half and half boys and girls should be a tip-off, even to the clueless.

Max

Clarity

[fm6]

Law cannot be 'up for interpretation'. This is why the drinking age is 21, why the pr0n age is 18.

Better example is DUI laws based on blood alcohol. "Unfair" in the sense that people have different tolerances for alcohol. (I, for one, am not safe to drive after smelling beer.) But that's not the point. The purpose of the law is discourage people from behavior that harms other people.

Incidentally, mutilating yourself (assuming you're an adult and freely choose to do so) is not illegal. Your body is covered by the fourth amendment: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures..." That is the so-called "privacy right" established by Roe versus Wade. Self-mutilation might cause the authorities to force psychiatric help on you, but their authority to do so has definite bounds.

Re:Clarity

[fm6]

I don't know for sure, but I'd be suprised if there weren't a "driving while impaired" law in my state, and all the other states as well. It's beside the point. Or maybe it illustrates the point. Ask yourself, why do we have two overlapping laws? Why not just say, "if you're impaired you can't drive"? Doesn't that cover everything?

Problem is, "impaired" is too subjective. If you make a law based on a subjective concept broad enough to cover all drunk drivers, you make it too easy for authorities to arrest people based on "facts" they don't have to prove.

Re:Porn turns men into rapists and women into slut

[Kintanon]

Oops, my bad then, I must have juts looked right past your post and hit reply. Sorry for the confusion.

Kintanon

Re:Films that would be banned for "virtual" child

[Suppafly]

-American Pie I & II


Take place during senior year or highschool/ first year of college so its reasonable to assume the actors are protraying 18 year olds. Pretty much all teen sex comedies take place in college so they dont really apply either..
Its been a while since I seen Lolita, but I don't recall any actual sex being depicted. and I haven't seen the others..

Re:In Canada REAL CHILD PORN is sometimes legal

[Veritan Drelor]

That's not exactly the real significance of the Sharpe case. I'll just fill in the details for the non-Canadian types.

This Sharpe guy was, frankly, a really sick bastard. He was charged with posession of child pornography, specifically filmed material and written material. He was found guilty on the charges related to film material, and justifiably so.

The Supreme Court basically found that the simple possession of the material in question was constitutionally protected, so long as the acts depicted in the photographs were not real. Furthermore, they held that the written material, penned by Sharpe himself, had artistic merit and he was consequently protected from prosecution.

As the judge stated, to forbid possession of this material would be one step away from censoring people's thoughts. Much as I hate to contemplate those thoughts, these people have a right to them, and a right to put them on paper. Goes back to not agreeing with what you say, but defending your right to say it.

The following link has some further info on this case.

http://cbc.ca/news/indepth/background/sharpe_por no graphy.html

Debate over child porn

[mattkime]

When discussing computer generated child porn, many people ask - why _should_ there be computer generated child porn?

The main argument behind the banning of child porn is that the production of it constitutes the sexual abuse of a child. It has little to do with the effects it has on individuals viewing such material. The argument that viewing child porn would cause someone to become or indicate that they are a pedophile is as logically invalid as the claim that watching porn would indicate or induce some sort of sexual deviance.

There is even an argument for allowing computer generated child porn. (remember - no children are harmed in the digital creation process) What if these images satisfied the sexual urges of pedophiles? Suddenly we'd find that this material our society strongly condems prevents a much worse situation.

Ultimately, computer generated child porn skirts our current definition of child porn (an image in which a child is being sexually abused). When does a digital rendering become too close to that of a real child? Thats something that is VERY difficult to put into words which will be interpreted similarly by many people.

Re:Debate over child porn

[smaughster]

The argument that viewing child porn would cause someone to become or indicate that they are a pedophile is as logically invalid as the claim that watching porn would indicate or induce some sort of sexual deviance.

I will not enter into the logical side, but I do know that test have been performed which examined the way in which people think about sex. It turns out, to my amazement frankly, that people who watch a lot of pr0n movies tend to have a somewhat skewed images of normal sex *because* of that. Things like "bizar sex is usual", or "every woman likes all forms of sex" etc. You might compare it to people who think that all commercials tell the truth (yes they exist :-). Unfortunately, I am not at home, so I can't give you the direct source of the test outcomes, but I can tell you where I found them: a book called "Sexual intelligence" (undoubtedly called so to book on the popularity of emotional intelligence, but that's another thing).

Anyway, after learning that people's view of the world can change after watching a lot of pr0n, I tend to look a tad different to discussions as to whether people will change after watching a lot of child porn. I am *not* saying that watching it will turn them into pedophiles, but it might change people who have a latent tendency for it into thinking that the tendency is a normal thing.

I Can't Believe You People

[owlicks58]

The hypocricy is unbelievable. You are the exact same people who argue that "Video games do not cause violence, poor parenting causes that". And now many of you are arguing that fake child porn encourages pedophilia? It's the exact same thing, you can't start ruling on all digital pictures being illegal, or else you are going to shoot yourself in the foot. I could EASILY see someone lobbying for violence in video games to be outlawed on account of illegal digital child porn setting a precident for all digital "corruption" being outlawed.

Use common sense, guy...

[Chasing Amy]

Use some common sense here instead of the scaremongering of the uber-moralists. Let me asume that you're a heterosexual male, and ask you this question: when you watch normal heterosexual porn featuring adults fucking thehell out of each other, what happens?

I can't speak for you, but generally what happens is that th viewer gets rally, really excited, pulls his dick out and jerks it off til he cums, and then suddenly his sexual desires are gone. It's just like the old joke about how while women want to cuddle all men want to do after sex is fall asleep. Our sexual desires just instantly evaporate after a good porn-aided whack-off session, and we're more unlikely than ever to go out in search of sex. Not only that, but it temporarily allays our sexual frustrations and relaxes us.

The same is true for homosexuals watching gay porn. Use porn, whack off, no more horniness. So, why would it be any different for pedophiles using child pornography? Wath kids fucking, pound the pope, no more horniness. Period.

So, logic dictates the opposite of what scaremongering moralists claim. If we really want to lower the rate of child molestation, then all the 3D graphic artists among us should start producing and distributing movies and stills starring virtual 3D models of fake young children now that we know it's legal. That way pedophiles will get stimulated, jerk off, and have their sexual appetites wane. Then the next time they get horny, they can do th same thing.

The fact is, pedophiles become child molesters (there *is* a differnce--pedophilia is a sexual orientation, while child molesting is an action) mostly out of sexual frustration from the constant build-up of desires which they can't fulfill. Virtual child porn could fulfill those desires and diffuse those overwhelming pent-up sexual urges, before pedophiles become child molesters, and without harming a single child.

Think about it.

Discredited.

[Chasing Amy]

My friend, Ted Bundy's spurious claims were discredited years ago. He made them in an attempt to receive leniency based on the fact that he claimed an addiction to porn made him do it. So, it was a statement made by a very clever serial killer to try to avoid the death penalty. He wanted to trade his "help" in studying the evils of pornography, for a commutation of the death sentence.

Re:Case in Point Ted Bundy

[Qrlx]

Your comment about Ted Bundy is not very accurate. True, he did make that claim about pornography as he neared his execution. Most people don't think those comments were particularly sincere, nor are they backed up by the evidence.

I'll tell you what kind of "pornography" Ted Bundy was in to: Pictures of Cheerleaders. Not the raunchy upskirt pictures that got cheervideos.com in trouble, just average everyday pictures of cheerleaders. He had shoeboxes full of this stuff in his car. (I tried to find a link, no luck. I learned this from one of those Discovery channel specials.)

I guess what I took away from this is that Pornography is in the eye of the beholder. I can totally imagine Ted thumbing thru his stack of cheerleader pictures, reliving his attacks or savoring the next one.

Yuck.

Re:Good Ruling ?

[Tackhead]

> I am thinking that creating 'imitation' child pornography is not any better. Somewhat like robbing a store with a fake gun.

Thank you for bringing this up. (And I agree with you).

If you take a potato, carve it into the shape of a gun, and paint it black, and point it at someone, even though it's not a gun, you still go down for armed robbery.

Why? Because the guy you threatened with a potato doesn't have the time to analyze whether it's "real or not".

Because when you get arrested, you can't say "Sorry, Officer, I only pointed a potato at him. Not a gun. Too bad you can't prove it either way because you never found the weapon and the store's surveillance video doesn't make it clear" and get the "armed" part of the robbery charge dropped.

Likewise for Photoshopping kids.

We've all seen the advances in CGI in the past 10 years ("Clinton" speaking in the movie Contact, the real-time alteration of billboards in Times Square on New Year's Eve, etc). 10 years from now, it'll be impossible to tell the "virtual" pr0n from the "real" pr0n.

Today's ruling means that, 10 years from now, some landshark's gonna get up on the stand and convince a jury of 12 that there's reasonable doubt that his client didn't posess a real video - that it was just a computer-generated rendering indistinguishable from the real thing.

And some scumbag - indeed, every scumbag arrested for posession of such videos, whether real or not - is gonna walk free. Because it'll be very difficult to prove beyond that reasonable doubt that the material was "really real" and not "just really sick CGI".

Anyone supporting this ruling should realize that they're arguing that, for all intents and purposes, the posession of real child pr0n should also be legal. (That is, still illegal, but the law will become unenforceable because the DA will never be able to get a prosecution.) While that may be a defensible position, it's not one I agree with, and it's not one I think the voters will agree with. It's emphatically not one that the court believes in; the First Amendment doesn't protect obscenity, and I'm astounded that the Supreme Court didn't realize the implications that easily-anticipated advances in technology have in store for their ruling.

C'mon, Slashdotters - if (as I think most of us are) we're willing to accept that a machine that passes the Turing test (that is, is indistinguishable from a thinking human being) can be said to "think" - ought we not to realize that the same logic applies to pr0n?

Virtual Child Porn *Should* Be Legal

[Chasing Amy]

Unlike most people here, I actually know some pedophiles on a personal level. I met many online, while researching a pedophile character for a book I was writing.

After conversing with many of them, I had to come to the conclusion that pedophilia is no different from heterosexuality or homosexuality, except that heteros and homos can enjoy healthy sex lives and pedos can't. That's unfortunate, and sometimes, in the case of people with low self-control, leads to the horrible crime of child molestation. But we must always remember that heterosexual is to rapist as peophile is to child molester--not all pedophiles are child molesters any more than all heterosexuals are rapists.

We should attempt to help these people to control their sexual urges instead of stigmatizing them; that would *really* bring child sexual abuse statistics down. Virtual child porn is a nice start--no ral children involved, placed entirely in fantasy, to provide pedophiles with the same release valve for sexual tensions that heterosexuals and homosexuals have in regular porn. Get horny, watch virtual porn, jerk off, no more horniness. That's how it works in human males, unlike the moralizers' baseless claims that porn makes people want to act out more in real life. No, it releases sexual tensions. If every pedophile whacked off o some realistic-looking virtual childporn fuckfilms once or twice a day, they'd never have a strong urge to touch a child in real life, because the sexual urge would be sated.

I also wish pedophiles could get RealDolls which look like young girls, too. That would help to satisfy their sexual urges even further, resulting in fewer cases of really touching children. Anything which causes a real reduction of child molestation, without violating essential Constitutional rights, is a good thing in my book.

I found out in my research that pedophiles aren't automatically bad people or people who do bad things. They're just like you and I, except their sexual attractions are focused towards people whom it's unacceptable to engage sexually in this day and age. In prehistory pedophilia probably served a real purpose--finding a mate when she's young and bonding to her, so that her offspring when she becomes fertile will definitely be yours, and she'll likely be very devoted. Homosexuality is said to also serve an evolutionary purpose--homosexuals won't likely have childen of their own, and therefore will likely give some of their resources to their neices and nephews, resulting in a more rsource-rich childhood for the children of those families who have homosexual members. The difference is pedophilia is no longer viable and socially acceptable, while heterosexuality and homosexuality are.

Re:Virtual Child Porn *Should* Be Legal

[maxpublic]

As I stated in a previous post (from knowledge based upon the fact that I am, indeed, a psychologist), people who engage in child molestation do so regardless of outside influences. Conversely, pornography - nor the lack thereof - won't turn a human being into a child molestor.

It doesn't matter if you do or don't provide virtual child porn, RealDolls, or what have you. If the person in question isn't a child molestor *then he won't molest* - it's that simple. If he is a child molestor *then he will molest no matter what 'releases' or available*.

Anything else provides an excuse for the molestor (e.g., "if I had virtual porn I wouldn't have raped the kid", or oppositely, "the virtual kiddie porn encouraged me to rape the kid"). This is no different from the frat-boy argument "if she hadn't dressed so slutty/danced with me/whatever then I wouldn't have raped her".

Max

Re:Virtual Child Porn *Should* Be Legal

[kenthorvath]

And if I wasn't a breather, I wouldn't breath. If only they made a machine that would release oxygen into my blood and get rid of all the carbon dioxide, I would never breath again. Your argument is ambiguously phrased.

Re:Virtual Child Porn *Should* Be Legal

[drinkypoo]

Thank you for saying this; If you didn't, I would have had to. I play games in which I drive cars at 250mph, but I don't even take MY car over 85. I play games in which I shoot people with realistic weapons, but I certainly don't plan to shoot anyone in meatspace, unless it is in self defense. I watch porn in which 18 year old girls (no, really! well, maybe) are fucked in the ass "for the first time" and get that cute little look of pain on their face, but I'm not going to go assrape a teenager (or anyone else) to see it firsthand. Besides, that's consenting.

It's like the whole Columbine flap, people get hurt, and those left behind look for someone to blame. In that case it was violent video games. But there are thousands of kids who play violent video games who are too much a wimp to even hit back, let alone shoot someone - I was one of them, once. I got better, but that was how I was up until high school or so, and maybe a while after.

Someone who will molest a child will molest them with or without the influence of pornography.

Slightly off topic, but not really, I know people who roleplay childsex. Obviously none of the people involved are children, but they act like it. Well, some of them. Is this hurting someone? This seems like a perfectly valid outlet to me. And these are people who I would trust with my well-being, some of them. They're not rapists or molestors. So I can dig what you're saying with pedophiles. There will always be people who are attracted to children for whatever reason. Some of them are going to be bad people.

And put another way; You can be sure that rape predates pornography.

Lolita

[swb]

The original Kubrick-directed Lolita doesn't have any sex scenes -- it might not even have any kissing. All of the sex in it is implied, and quite obliquely -- this was 1962 afterall.

I haven't seen the remake but the reviews claim that there is actual sexuality depicted.

Strangely enough, the actress who played Lolita, Sue Lyon's IMDB biography claims she was 13 when cast as Lolita, which was released in '62, and that she married in '64. Even adding an additional year for casting, that gets her married at age 16, which is kind a funny irony at that.

If Rhenquist had his way....

[gilroy]

... apparently any cop show could be illegal, because it is illegal to film "snuff films" wherein someone actually dies. You see,

Chief Justice Rehnquist said Congress saw a compelling need to extend the definition of child pornography to embrace computer images "that are virtually indistinguishable from real children engaged in sexually explicit conduct." (from the New York Times)

So, since in many cases it is impossible to determine whether Bruce Willis actually shot someone dead, or whether he only pretended to, we must ban the Die Hard movies. Take away the hot-button issue of child porn -- consider this as an expansion of criminality of intent -- and the ridiculous nature of the law becomes obvious.

Not at all.

[Chasing Amy]

If what you said is true, then the pornography industry would have dried up years ago because we'd all be immune to their wares. We're not. Even in European countries where almost everything is permitted in pornography except children--bestiality is okay, fake rape is okay, fake torture and fake necrophilia and pissing and scat is okay--there's still a thriving pornography trade.

The "slippery slope" argument you just posited is the one invented by the anti-porn crusadetrs who wanted all pornography banned, and supported by the Meese Commission in the Reagan era. The Meese Commission report has been thoroughly debunked by real scientists and researchers, and in fact the original Meese Commission was composed of scientists and researchers who concluded that pornography had no adverse effects on the viewer and no "slippery slope" effect. It's very telling that Attorney General Ed Meese dissolved that original Commission before it made those finding official, and then replaced the members with ones hand-picked as anti-porn crusaders.

Hookers and one-night-stands have nothing to do with pornography, except maybe the lack of it. I know beause I frequently use escorts--call girls, basically; high priced hookers of a higher class. When I frequently watch pornography, I have no desire to use such services. When I'm working too hard and don't get the chance to diffuse my sexual urges for a while using porn, or when I'm travelling and don't have ready accss to the types of porn I like, that's when I call an escort to come over and fuck the hell out of me for an hour. When I have my pornographic release regularly, though, I usually don't bother to call escorts.

The slippery slope argument is hogwash. People don't need more and more intense porn until porn no longer works for them any more; what you mistake for this is the natural course of exploration one goes through when he finds porn. People start out with softcore porn when they're new at it, then explore until they find the kind of porn they prefer, and stick with the kinds of porn they have a preference for. For example, my ideal porn is the type directed by Lizzy Borden and Rob Black at Extreme Associates and the Gag Factor series by JM Productions. Yes, they're a lot more "hardcore" in many ways than other porn films I've seen before. But it's a small sector of th market and I had to watch a lot of othwer porn films before I discovered these, and I knew Rob Black's style is what I liked ever since I saw his first film about 4 years ago. So basically I've been watching the same style of porn for 4-5 years. It still works for me--when I watch it. When I don't I go out and fuck someone.

So, when it comes to pedophiles, better that they have something to watch and diffuse those sexual energies, than have nothing at all and get desires built up to the point where they want to go out and find someone to fuck. Even if your slippery slope argument were right--which it isn't--virtual child porn would still at least delay and cut down on the frequency of abuse.

Re:Not at all.

[xtremex]

I agree with you 100%. My uncle, who is a diagnosed pedophile (never acted upon it), as part of his therapy, his doctor tells him to watch "naturist" videos, since he can't legally tell him to watch kiddie porn. That's what my uncle does. That's what has KEPT him from probably molesting your daughter (and probably the fact that he doesnt have the "balls" to confront a child, just like osme adults are so socially inept they can't get an adult on their own). The argument saying that all pedophiles are molesters, is akin to saying that heteros who do not get laid on a regular basis are rapists. It defies logic.

How about virtual murder?

[Tim McNerney]

It should be illegal for anyone to simulate murder. That would take out a lot of our film makers.

Re:Good Ruling ?

[TheAJofOZ]

So people who watch robberies in movies become people who want to become robbers? Very flawed logic.

Careful, taking a logical derivation and applying it to a different problem, no matter how related that problem may seem may render the logic incorrect. Robbery and child abuse are different in so many ways. The biggest being that the majority of people don't need nor want to become a robber (there is no initial desire), whereas people who look at child pornography tend to have an initial desire. Does this make a difference, I don't know, but it may and it highlights the fact that you must argue this in terms of child abuse, not robbery because the situations are different.

Enforce the laws against child explotation to the fullest, make the penalties tougher

What makes you think that and is there any evidence that this is the case? Here's some complete heresay reasoning to give people somewhere to start researching. I have been informed by a friend who was studying the effectiveness of Australia's reform system (read: jails) and who had a real passion for solving these problems. Her comment was that in countries where the punishments were very lenient, the crime rate was lower and there were fewer reoffenders. I also have a comment from a tourist to Dubai that punishment was either deportation or death (I have a feeling that was exaggerated a little) and that there was virtually no crime. Perhaps both ways work and the only wrong answer is to sit in the middle ground. I don't know, but don't assume that harsher punishments will help.

never, never, never believe the government is your babysitter and will protect you from all the ills of the world

Agreed. Parents should take care of and protect their children (including educating them about these things - "if anyone touches you in a way you don't like, tell them no and tell me straight away" and similar speeches), and people should be responsible for their actions (including realising that sex makes babies and that contraception is not 100% effective). If you are having sex make sure you're prepared to take care of the child and protect them like a parent should.

It just won't happen, and selective enforcement will put your liberties at risk.

Australia and America both have selective enforcement on various issues. You Americans (or /.ing Americans at the least) seem to be quite upset, but we Australians seem to be happy with the way it's working. I'm not saying your wrong, but your not right just because you state it, you need to back it up.

All in all, you make some good points and they appeal to the kind of thinking that is prevalent on /. but be careful not to believe the rhetoric that "the /. collective concious" produces, just as you should be careful not to believe the rhetoric that the government puts out. Finally, I realise I haven't backed anything up in this post, it's merely intended to suggest other views that may or may not be correct.

An Essay About Child Pornography:

[Chasing Amy]

Here's an essay I wrote about child pornography--not the virtual type, the real type. I wrote this essay not because I support the production of child porn--I don't, and I neither have nor want any--but because of my philosophical principles. I believe in straightforward, absolute freedom to do anything which does
not cause direct, measurable harm to another human being. I believe that once you start making exceptions, even if you think they're for a good purpose, you've irrevocably ruined the foundations of freedom. Either somehing causes harm, or doesn't--if it's morally objectionable, but causes no harm, then it should still be permissible.

Those are my libertarian precepts and I stick to them. This essay was posted to USENET inresponse to a thumper who was droning on about how he was an evil evil person for viewing pictures of nude young girls. It's even more applicable now in the case of virtual child porn, where no children were harmed in the making.

*Why Viewing Child Pornography Isn't Inherently "Bad"*

You know, just looking at images harms no one. Images are not actions,
they are mere information, binary ones and zeros just like anything else in
cyberspace. There is a huge difference between passively looking at an
image and actively doing whatever an image may depict.

An image is not good or bad. It may depict something good or bad, but the
image is neutral. Images depicting torture and genocide have won Pulitzer
Prizes and other awards, and are not considered illegal or evil just
because what they depict may be illegal or evil. We do not feel remorse
for looking at images, even if they depict horrors such as the famous photo
of the nude Vietnamese woman running from her burning village as her flesh
is melting. This is because the image just shows a moment in time; we are
not responsible for that moment just because we have seen a representation
of it.

So, if you have been looking at images of children in sexual and possibly
abusive situations, then why should you feel bad for it? That
moment would have happened whether or not you looked at the image 20 years
or 20 minutes after whatever happened, happened. You are no more
responsible for that moment just because you saw an image of it, than I am
responsible for war crimes for looking at that famous image of a North
Vietnamese man with a gun to his head, crying as he was about to be
executed. And what if you enjoyed looking at an image of a girl in a
questionable situation? You have no more engaged in the situation than I
have engaged in the situation whenever I watch Annette Haven get reamed in
the classic porn film *Co-Ed Fever*--although I wish it were me reaming
Annette Haven, but I digress. ;-)

The fallacy so many people--particularly overzealous LEA--fall for is
believing that child pornography promotes child abuse. But it's untrue,
and a notion founded entirely on emotive propaganda not fact. As I said,
the things depicted in images would go on whether or not you view the
images. Do you really think a child molester would stop molesting if no
one would look at his pictures? Of course not; most child molesters do
what they do without posting images on the Net. The motivation is primal,
sexual, and the images are mostly for his own enjoyment, and sharing them
with others is entirely secondary. So where is the harm if someone sees
such an image and is excited by it? They are not vicariously contributing
to the scene depicted--that would have happened no matter what.

Another argument some make is that seeing child pornography may make people
more likely to emulate what is depicted. Well, that argument is quite
groundless. In a society which condems adult-child sex as much as ours
does, no one is going to think sex with children is OK just because they
run across, or even collect, some pictures of it. Do people who see that
picture of a Vietnamese man with a gun to his head suddenly start thinking
that it's okay to go around killing people? Heck, our films and television
shows and video games are laden with more pure violence than ever before,
and despite right-wing propaganda and rhetoric, the Justice Department's
own aggregate statistics say that violent crimes among teenagers--surely
the most impressionable demographic--have been on the decline overall for
10 years. The only thing that causes people to think there's a problem is
media exploitation--the media broadcasts disproportionately about crimes
involving youngsters because it increases their ratings. The statistics
show the truth. Likewise with child porn--people believe it's a problem
because the media tells them so. But the reality is that no one is going
to go out and have sex with a 10 year old just because they see it in a
picture or film. Would you go out and have sex with a dog if you see that
on film? Of course not, unless it were something you were going to go out
and do anyway.

That last statement is the key. There is *no* causal link between child
porn and sex with children; the only reason some people may think so is
based on the fact that the type of people who would collect child porn are
the type of people who are attracted to children sexually in the first
place. So, naturally a percentage of them are going to have sex with
children; the child porn they may happen to possess is merely an indication
of their attractions--not a cause, an effect. And it cannot be denied that
child porn is for some pedophiles the same as adult porn is for some
heterosexuals--a release valve for sexual tensions, something to masterbate
to which ultimately decreases sexual desires, not increases them. Hence,
child pornography (in a limited, semi-underground form, at least) is good
for society, not bad, since it provides people who might otherwise seek
juvenile sexual partners with a healthy, inanimate outlet for those needs.

The other argument against child pornography, and the one most often touted
by law enforcement agencies, is that child pornography can be used as a
"recruitment tool" for pedophiles and child molesters who may try
to convince children that adult-child sex is OK by showing them such
images. This last argument is perhaps the thinnest, least believable,
because anything can be used for a nefarious purpose--just because plastic
baggies can be used to hold drugs, does not mean they don't have more
positive uses, or that they need to be made illegal. I'd concede fully
that child porn can and has been used in that capacity; just the other day
I watched a news program about a guy who used it that way. But regular
adult pornography is just as effective a recruitment tool, because people
interested in seducing young girls (or boys) don't rely on being able to
convince them sex with adults is all right--they're taught at school if not
by their parents that it isn't--but rather they rely on the youngster's
natural curiosity about sex and natural desires to do things that feel
good. Adult pornography arouses curiosity and desire in the potential
subject just as much. A child rapist is just going to rape, regardless of
what the child wants, so he does not usually use any pornography in finding
a victim, and it is not at all important in enabling him to do what he
does. Pornography is only really used in this context by non-rapists who
want to seduce or otherwise broach the subject of sex with children. This
can just as easily--if not more easily--be done with adult pornography as
with child pornography. It is also safer, since the adult can leave
regular adult pornography in places the child is sure to find it and wonder
about it, and if the child reports the porn to his or her parents, the
adult can make an excuse about accidentally leaving it in an accessible
place; the same is not true of child pornography, which the parents are
going to report if their child reports seeing it. My researches into the
subject (for a book, which may or may not ever get published) indicate that
adult pornography is used for seducing children far, far more often than
child pornography is. Therefore to blame such seductions on child
pornography is ludicrous, since adult pornography, which is perfectly legal
to possess, serves exactly the same purpose. In this context, child
pornography is not at all different from or more useful than regular porn.

If there are any other arguments for why merely possessing or viewing child
pornography is somehow inherently "bad", bring them up and I'll refute
them. Face it: the only reason you feel bad about looking at what you say
you've looked at, is a pathological Puritan guilt about sex. That's why
the U.S. has such a high rate of sex crimes compared to the rest of the
world--an unhealthy Puritan outlook on sex leads to an unhealthy sex life
and a potential for sexual pathologies.

split drinking ages

[coyote-san]

On a related note, many states had split drinking ages - 18 for 3.1 beer, 21 for hard liquor. The theory was that it's hard to get really drunk on 3.1 beer and this would give young adults a chance to learn their tolerance to alcohol before they started the hard stuff.

But the national drinking age of 21 blew that away. On your 21st birthday, you're expected to go from teetotaller to someone competent to know your limit when served Long Island Iced Teas.

In practice, the zero tolerance policies have actually resulted in far worse binge drinking. When I was a teenager, the drinking age was 18 for both beer and spirits and many parents looked the other way when HS students sneaked a beer or two from a senior. But now parents don't dare turn a blind eye and the teenagers know that the system makes no distinction between nursing a can of beer for hours and getting wasted, so they drive to remote locations and drink heavily. Then the parents wonder how five could be killed at a train crossing, or how a "good student" could cross an interstate median at 80 MPH and kill a father and critically injure the rest of his father.

I guess that Piers Anthony is off the hook...

[NeuroManson]

If you ever read Firefly, you'd think the Xanth author was a pedophile (and thusly arrestable under the same laws) as a result... Along with anyone who's wife/girlfriend ever dressed as a cheerleader or girl scout to spice up their love life...

Oh yeah, and Britney Spears as well...

Right and Wrong...

[Chasing Amy]

I think you're both right and wrong here. Either a human being has an innate moral facility which prevents causing harm to another person, or he doesn't. Someone who doesn't and who's a pedophile will often become a child molester, while someone who does and who's a pedophile will almost surely not. We must remember that a pedophile can remain celibate by choice just as a heterosexual or homosexual can--despite the current scandal involving a statistically small percentage of priests, for example, remain celibate.

But we must acknowledge that it's not all black and white. People who have a conscience and feel awful in retrospect can still have self-control low enough to allow them to make a mistake, or people with a conscience can come into a very extraordinary situation and find a child he thinks is mature and willing and able.

I can't give you an example of the former because I don't know of any. An example of the latter is trivial, since I "met" a few online. One is a man who, in his 20s, began a sexual relationship with a 13 year old girl--whom he later married. He's now in his 30s, she's in her 20s, and they have a loving, normal relationship which began as a crime and which made the older male participant extremely guilty during the early years. He says he's still a pedophile and still primarily attracted to prepubescent girls, but that he loves his wife far more than he could lust after anyone else. He has not offended with anyone but the girl who grew up to be his wife.

That's a *very* unusual story. It's not the norm. It's a real-life example of the grey area we get into when we deal with these issues. Legally he molested a child despite well-developed moral faculties. The fact that they're a happily married couple today and have been for almost a decade tends to undermine the illegal and immoral aspects of how it began. There are shades of grey most lawmakers and psychologists--with no disrespect intended--fail to see.

The need for virtual child pornography and perhaps even child-like RealDolls for those who want and can afford them comes into play in those grey areas. There are people with borderline self-control issues, who can usually control their urges and know they're not acceptable, but who may be tempted to offend if an unusual opportunity presents itself. If such people have means to subdue their sexual impulses through regular masturbation and fantasy aided by appropriate virtual pornography, it is likely that their sexual urges will be kept in check to a greater degree than those of a similar borderline personality without such fantasy sexual release. This is all theoretical of course, since there's no real way to conduct trials which would be acceptable to most of the medical and political communities.

Likewise, such things as virtual porn and child-like RealDolls would not cause harm. At worst they'd do nothing, and at best they'd help borderline cases keep control of their sexual urges. The people with little or no conscience would probably offend anyway, though for a few the fantasy may be enough to keep control of impulses some of the time and make desire for offense less frequent--out of convenience, or desire to stay free, or other non-conscience-related reasons. The people with a conscience who wouldn't offend anyway would doubtless be happier and healthier since they'd be allowed a fuller fantasy life to relieve sexual tensions.

So what we have is something that would cause no harm, but which *might* lessen harm, or at least make the lives of some pedophiles less tension-filled. There's thus no reason to make it illegal, and every reason to encourage it among pedophiles, stressing its sexual tension release possibilities.

Re:Right and Wrong...

[Chasing Amy]

I should mention that the 13 year old in question, in the example given, was not yet displaying developed secondary sexual characteristics. I didn't get her Tanner stage or anything, but from the description I glean that she wasn't very pubecent. The man involved in the incident considers himself a pedophile and says his primary attractions are to 7-13 year old girls. He's also never touched another underage girl, whether pre- or post-pubescent, and is very happily married to the girl he "molested," now well into her 20s.

This is not a typical case by any stretch of the imagination, but we need to recognize that there are grey areas and unresolved problems.

One thing you mentioned in another post is that pedophiles are formed by incidents early in childhood, though we aren't exactly sure what the parameters are. I subscribe to the competing theory that pedophilia, like homosexuality, is an innate sexual orientation present from birth to one degre or another. It may remain latent or it may surface, but I believe it's part of a person's genetic make-up.

In prehistoric times pedophilia probably served a valid genetic purpose--pedophiles probably chose young mates, developing deeper relationships since they'd definitely be the girl's first sexual partner, and they could be reasonably assured that her offspring would be his once she became fertile. In such prehistoric times this leaves the potential for a far greater bond between man and woman, much like the one that developed between my friend and his wife. Unfortunately, pedophiles now find themselves in a society which is hostile to their very existence, since we've artificially extended childhood up through 18-21, whereas we know in ancient times adulthood began at around 13 (as bar and bat mitzvahs show). A tough position to be in, for sure--I can't imagine what my life would be like if, as a heterosexual, I were forbidden from ever having sexual relationships...

Re:Right and Wrong...

[maxpublic]

I subscribe to the competing theory that pedophilia, like homosexuality, is an innate sexual orientation present from birth to one degre or another. It may remain latent or it may surface, but I believe it's part of a person's genetic make-up.

There is no scientific evidence that supports this belief. Nor would any serious psychologist buy an explanation involving a genetic predisposition. This is dangerous ground you're treading as it provides apologia to child molestors.

As for the rest of your argument concerning prehistory, there is not a single solitary shred of evidence for this either. It doesn't make any biological sense and it isn't mimicked by any mammal alive, including our closest relatives - primates. On the other hand, homosexuality is. This provides some scant evidence to believe that orientation could be in part genetic, while at the same time disproving it for pedophilia.

There is nothing good about pedophilia. This is not an 'orientation'. I'm disturbed by your willingness to provide child molestors with excuses or rationalizations. If they touch a child they deserve - and rightly so - to be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

Personal fantasies don't enter into the equation unless they're acted on, so that point is irrelevant.

Max

Re:Right and Wrong...

[Chasing Amy]

I can't cite something from a peer-reviewed journal because I don't have one handy and do not read them; however, you'll find that Discovery Magazine's special issue on *The Science of Sex* from several years ago has a wonderful article on the Bonobo's, a monkey which displays all these behaviours and more. I can't find the article online, but there's a snippet mentioned here, if you search the text for "bonobo": http://www.mugu.com/cgi-bin/Upstream/gross-levitt- fem-algebra

It is an excellent article; I kept that issue even though it's several years old, because it had so many interesting articles. I could definitely find newer, more advanced primatology about Bonobos, but I don't have the time tonight--it's 3 A.M. where I am. I suggest you do a google search for the Bonobo and its sexual behaviours--the most human-like in the entire animal kingdom.

Re:Anyone notice Thomas != Scalia

[connorbd]

Point being that Marshall was a good justice. Thomas was a joke from the beginning.

/Brian

Current laws infantize teens

[coyote-san]

I agree that, historically, 18 (or 21) was the age when people were well-enough informed to act as adults.

But over the past decade or two we've seen a lot of laws that deliberately infantize teens. We don't just see modest sex ed ("what is puberty?") taken out of lower grades, we've seen it removed from high school as well. If you cover anything other than abstinence, the conservative right screams bloody murder.

Likewise we've seen net filter laws that apply to all grades equally. It doesn't matter if a student is 17, married and legally emancipated or 7, the net filters make no distinction in what information is available to them.

Even outside of schools we're seeing more age restrictions than before. There used to be mixed-aged clubs, but the increasingly strict liquor license requirements have largely eliminated them.

Finally they're the common target of "zero sense" laws. Class validictorians expelled because their car contained a knife in the commercially prepared first aid kit. Or even more incredibly, a student was expelled for a year because someone tossed a knife into the open bed of his pickup truck! Mandatory revocation of drivers license until age 21 if *any* alcohol is found on breath - even if it's due to OTC cold medicine or mouth wash. Mandatory loss of financial aid if *any* pot is found in their possession.

There's a reason why adults are rarely subjected to ZT laws, but they don't apply to infants.

Nobody can seriously think that teens aren't aware of the issues facing adults... but they're getting a distorted view and not able to make "small" mistakes.

Re:Current laws infantize teens

[TheAJofOZ]

Nobody can seriously think that teens aren't aware of the issues facing adults... but they're getting a distorted view and not able to make "small" mistakes.

I agree with your post completely - there are a lot of really stupid laws out there. I still stand by my earlier comments though in that I would prefer to see things to strict on teens than too lax, though certainly many of the things you mention should be fixed. I think we have close to the best solution the law can provide in regards to sexual age of consent though, the rest is left to good parenting and that will (and should) always be required.

No Interest?!

[Grendel Drago]

"No interest" in restraining themselves? Bullshit! If you belonged to a group that was that stigmatized, if you knew that your neighbors would lynch you if they knew, wouldn't you be constantly filled with the self-loathing that comes from keeping such an awful secret? Look at the kinds of self-hating strangeness that closeted gays go through---that so many went through before the liberation movement that it was thought to be a part of the orientation.

That pedophiles do molest is a testament either to their incredibly unbalanced mental state, or to the incredible strength of their compulsion.

--grendel drago

Re:No Interest?!

[Chasing Amy]

The problem with your studies is that they're done on child molesters, *not* the pedophile population at large. Most pedophiles live quiet lives of never touching children inappropriately, jerking off to the Sears catalogue, and never ever telling anyone that they are attrcted to children.

The people in such studies are very different--they're the ones who have no self-control and molested someone. There's a big difference. You very likely know at least one such pedophile personally, and would never guess his secret proclivities.

Re:Nice of the Supreme Court to protect free speec

[G-funk]

That's because (and I'll cop it for saying this here on /.) free speech is not about you getting rights to old software/music/whatever. It's about the ability to say/print things that are unpopular. Like Porn. I don't care if copyright lasts forever, if to have it shortened would mean giving up the right for pornographers to make porn, or people to say they hate me for the colour of my skin.

Completely wrong

[xtremex]

My uncle is/was a pedophile. He has never acted upon his feelings, yet he is tortured by them. He goes to counciling weeky. He can not be "cured" because they can't change their feelings. They can just give him medication (decreases testosterone levels, etc), that will prevent him from acting out. Part of his therapy was to look at "non-erotic" pictures of prepubescents. (not child porn, since they can not legally suggest that). Basically soft-core. Naturist photos etc. He tells me what he's going through. He says "imagine herterosexuality was illegal. You were not allowed to act on your desires. You would have to locl yourself inside of a room. Somepeople might get arrested". You know how some people are so socially inept they couldn't get laid if they tried? Well, that's my uncle, but as a pedophile. He doesn't have the chutzpah. But man, does he wish he can.

laws written by amateurs are worse

[coyote-san]

Go to any state with citizen initiatives, and look at what they come up with.

You WANT laws to be written by lawyers, or at least people with a good legal sense. Laws written by non-lawyers tend to be ambiguous at best, actually contrary to what they intended at worst.

Tbe problem is when you have lawyers thinking they should act as gatekeepers to the legal system. Like some of the lawyers here. The laws should be easily understood by the average adult, with lawyers providing insight into specific case law and acting as an unbiased observer who can point out things overlooked by their client due to emotions.

Re:laws written by amateurs are worse

[Rogerborg]

• You WANT laws to be written by lawyers, or at least people with a good legal sense [...] Tbe problem is when you have lawyers thinking they should act as gatekeepers to the legal system

All of which stems from having binary verdicts and "beyond all reasonable doubt" conditions. Lawyer (in which I include judges) argue technicalities. They don't argue about what did or didn't happen, or about right and wrong. They argue that their clients are law abiding, and that's a completely separate and largely irrelevant issue.

That's the problem. Not bad laws, but a bad system that places laws above facts.

There are no circumstances that I can think of where I wouldn't rather handle my own case in front of a jury of my peers and have then come to a consensus greyscale decision based on balance of probabilities. It's only when you have a lawyer instructing and feeding the jury, and arguing over what's admissable and what isn't, that the system becomes farcical and self serving.

Roadside sobriety tests

[coyote-san]

It's easy to determine if someone is impaired - the roadside sobriety tests are specific enough (and now are routinely videotaped) that they would be hard to challenge.

But the problem is justifying that test. (Same thing with the BAC tests.) Someone weaving all over the road is clearly impaired, but what about someone "driving too carefully?"

Oh come now...

[Chasing Amy]

> There is no scientific evidence that supports this belief.

There's no definitive scientific evidence that homosexuality is genetic, either. And yet, that is a valid theory that scientists are working to prove or disprove. Unfortunately there's no active research trying to prove or disprove the corralating hypothesis about pedophilia being genetic, unlike with homosexuality. Let's not forget that homosexuality was also defined by the psychological community as a mental disease just like pedophilia, until relatively recently.

> This is dangerous ground you're treading as it provides apologia to child molestors.

I'm interested in the truth, and the Truth, both scientific and philosophical. Who cares where it leads, if it's the truth? I'd rather not be an ignorant bigot, thank you.

> As for the rest of your argument concerning prehistory, there is not a single solitary shred of evidence for this either.

There's not a single shred of evidence for a lot of theories regarding prehistoric evolutionary behaviours. But ask any anthropologist, and he can give you a lot of likely theories that make sense and are generally thought likely, though there's no solid evidence for them. That's the trouble with talking prehistory--no one was writing stuff down, you know. :-)

> It doesn't make any biological sense

I explained exactly why it makes biological sense. Men attracted to prepuscent girls in prehistory, back when evolution was still actively going largely according to natural selection, would probably take a prepubescent girl as a mate. Her first offspring, when she reaches menses and is capable, will almost surely be his, unlike if one takes an older postpubescent mate. In addition, any psychologist should be familiar with the phenomenon that a girl very often bonds closely to her first sexual partner, in ways she does not typiclly bond with other lovers aside from the first. A real devotion, consuming, often develops in these young romances. Therefore, a pedophile in prehistory who takes a young girl as mate will likely have a level of emotional attachment from her unlike what normal adult women display with their non-first-partner mates. This can be a very important bond, particularly in rough prehistoric cultures.

> it isn't mimicked by any mammal alive, including our closest relatives - primates.

Absolutely incorrect. Our closest [primate relatives are Bonobo monkeys, related to chimps--theres a bit of a debate as to whether they should be considered a subset of the chimp population, or a species in their own right; but that is unimportant. What is important is that they display the whole range of human sexual behaviors, including sex or sexual play with prepubescent partners. Some adult males show preference for sex play with very young partners. So ys, our closest primate relatives sometimes display pedophiliac behaviours.

> There is nothing good about pedophilia.

I just told you why it *may* have been useful in prehistory, just as homosexuality was and remains today. Pedophilia, however, is no longer a viable or acceptable orientation.

> This is not an 'orientation'.

It absolutly is. Just because the same mental health professionals who until relatively recently classified homosexuality as a mental disease, still classify pedophilia as one (child molesting should be the disease, for there is a difference in having desires and having too little conscience to prevent oneself from acting upon them), does not mean that it is. I'm confident that the real, "hard" sciences will eventually present a concrete genetic explanation for pedophilia and homosexuality as well.

> I'm disturbed by your willingness to provide child molestors with excuses or rationalizations.

As I said, I want the truth and Truth, both scientific and philosophical. I don't care what the results in the short term are, because in the long term the more we know about ourselves and our world, the better. You seem more concerned with whether a pedophile thinks of his affliction as an orientation rather than a disease, than with knowing the truth. For shame.

> If they touch a child they deserve - and rightly so - to be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

I never disagreed with that. Again, pedophile is to child molester as heterosexual is to rapist--not all pedophiles molest children, just as not all heterosexuals rape adults. There can be and are "normal" pedophiles who realize that they must remain celibate and have the slf-control to do so. Those lacking in self-control and empathy may touch children inappropriately and become child molesters, in which case they must be punished. But being attrcted to chuilden is neither a disease nor a crime, as long as one never acts upon those desires.

Re:Nice of the Supreme Court to protect free speec

[Reziac]

On reading the above post, it occurs to me to wonder if porn (which is protected under Copyright law) could be exploited to horrify the average joe about the current 90-years-and-counting copyright extensions.

"Why, willya look at all them dirty pictures? And to think they're allowed to MAKE MONEY from these horrible exploitative images, for the NEXT HUNDRED YEARS! There oughta be a law!!" ... and if we're lucky, the end result would be repeal of all the updates to the original copyright statute, even tho the motive was so pornographers can't make so much money.

But given how Congress operates, more likely it would just result in a short copyright period that applies ONLY to porn (ie. whatever they decree is porn).

*sigh* Oh well, it was a good fantasty while it lasted...

"If pro is the opposite of con, what's the opposite of congress??"

Why do people play quake?

[HanzoSan]

Because people who are angry need an outlet, better to play quake and blow people away than to do it for real.

Theres been times where i'd play games and kill characters and fantasize about it being someone who pissed me off.

Re:This is the most difficult issue...

[BCoates]

Note that this decision doesn't prevent prosecuting the distribution of virtual child pornography on the grounds that it is obscene.

Obscenity is not protected speech, and the legal definition of obscenity is when "the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest, is patently offensive in light of community standards, and lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value"

I don't think it would be difficult to prosecute "hard core" child porn, real or fake, under that definition, which is exactly what Atty. Gen. Ashcroft is planning on doing.

What was overturned was extending a prohibition against non-obscene child porn on the basis of the harm it does to the real chidren, to fake child porn that does not harm real children and is not obscene.

--
Benjamin Coates

Re:Your image and you

[BCoates]

As for your second point, ask the actress again. As for the Mayor of New York - he never asked to be a part of that campaign and his words and image are plastered all over Gotham. Is that fair? No... it's just legal.

It's perfectly fair, he's being a hypocrite for having thousands of people prosecuted for criminal behavior he admits to doing and even liking... the NORML ads are just calling him on it.

--
Benjamin Coates

Re:Tough call

[BCoates]

Does this allow someone to take a picture of a child and manipulate it in a sexual way?

The law being challenged has a seperate section outlawing that, the court did not address it this time, so it's still illegal for now.

--
Benjamin Coates

Re:Moderators On Crack

[Rogerborg]

• How the fuck is the parent a troll??

Thanks for noticing. It's just democracy in action: if you give a voice to everybody, you have to listen to the opinions of a lot of idiots. That's why politicians use a lot of short words. There's nothing that pisses a retard off more than a proposition that he can't quite hold in his head all at once.

Romeo and Juliet would be banned

[juliao]

Interestingly, if this law ever came to pass, Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet would be banned, not only the book, but all plays and movies too.

The famous lovers, in case you don't remember, were well below 18...

What has happened in the last 300 years? Did we all get dumber?

Re:Films that would be banned for "virtual" child

[Chasing Amy]

*lolita*--the newer version, starring Jeremy Irons, featured a 12-14 year old (in the book she started as 12, in the movie as 13) rubbing her ass against Humbert as she sat in his lap (when filming the scene they actually put a foam rubber pad between Irons and Swain, who was really underage at the time, so that he couldn't feel her gyrations directly). It also featured the bed sex scene where the money comes into the scene, as well as Humbert getting a handjob from Lolita in a classroom (not pictured but directly implied).

There are many other films--not just the latest "Romeo + Juliet" film of the play, but also the older Zeffirelli version where Juliet actually bares her breast. In the play *Hamlet* and at least one of the films it is implied that Ophelia is a young teenage girl, and though her age is not explicitly stated her actions "appear to be" those of a young teen.

*Fast Times at Ridgemont High* has a 15 year old having sex, among several other underage couplings.

*Animal House* has one of the characters making out with a 15 year old and debating whether to fuck her while she's unconscious or not.

Those are all I can recall offhand, but there are dozens of other famous films which would be tchnically illegal under those provisions of the Act.

It is also important to note that the film *Lolita* was actually unable to find an American distributor for over a year after the CPPA was passed, because no studios wanted to touch it in light of the law. There's actually a lot of press about that which can be dug up with a Google seach, including a heated interview of star Jeremy Irons. Finally it was released in the U.S.--on the cable channel Showtime, because no AQmerican distributor would touch it. Also, interviews with director Adrian Lyne and articles from the time the movie was released in parts of Europe mention that after the CPPA was passed, *Lolita* was reshot and re-edited in places to better comply with the law. So in effect the CPPA did affect a major motion picture, coercing it into changing its content.

That is perhaps why the film *Lolita* sucks so heartily compared to the book, since it departs from and omits many very important elements.

Car accident.

[Grendel Drago]

"Find me one car that is 100% reliable at not getting you killed on the highway. There isn't one. Thus, eventually driving == horrible flaming death. If you don't realize that, you don't know what you're getting yourself into."

Very, very few things are a hundred percent reliable. It's called "acceptable risk". We mitigate these risks---in the example above, by wearing seat belts and not drinking.

Your argument is completely fallacious and utterly worthless. If you weren't talking about such a loaded issue, you'd see that in a second.

--grendel drago

Re:Car accident.

[TheAJofOZ]

Find me one car that is 100% reliable at not getting you killed on the highway. There isn't one. Thus, eventually driving == horrible flaming death. If you don't realize that, you don't know what you're getting yourself into."

Correct and provable by probability. Given enough time in a car you will be killed in an accident. Of course to guarantee that will happen would take an infinite amount of time in the car, but the more time you spend in a car the more chance of it happening.

Very, very few things are a hundred percent reliable. It's called "acceptable risk". We mitigate these risks---in the example above, by wearing seat belts and not drinking.

Correct. Key point here is calculated risk. Your original statement was that sex != getting pregnant. This is not true. sex == chance of getting pregnant and most people fail to factor in that chance correctly (as in your case).

Your argument is completely fallacious and utterly worthless. If you weren't talking about such a loaded issue, you'd see that in a second.

Your counter example further supports my point, hence your argument is worthless. Furthermore, the fact that this is a loaded issue is irrelevant.

Re:Good Ruling ?

[Khopesh]

If you take a potato, carve it into the shape of a gun, and paint it black, and point it at someone, even though it's not a gun, you still go down for armed robbery.

hasn't this already been explained?
when you rob somebody, the victim is the owner of the things you rob. your weapon, real or not, is not the victim. child pornography is wrong because the victim is the children (since they are in theory too young to make responsible decisions). as you can see, your analogy falls apart; fake children (or fake sex, whatever) takes the victims out of the equation. ...your analogy only works if the victims of child pornography are the audience, which clearly is not the case.

And some scumbag - indeed, every scumbag arrested for posession of such videos, whether real or not - is gonna walk free. Because it'll be very difficult to prove beyond that reasonable doubt that the material was "really real" and not "just really sick CGI".

any idiot that doesn't document the creation of their CG porn should be locked away. all the creator needs to do in his/her defense is show documentation such as the raw data: skelleton/pre-textured mockups, scripts, etc. that created the movie.

...I'm astounded that the Supreme Court didn't realize the implications that easily-anticipated advances in technology have in store for their ruling.

I'm astounded that you didn't realize this simple proof of innocence regarding these easily-anticipated advances in technology.

C'mon, Slashdotters - if (as I think most of us are) we're willing to accept that a machine that passes the Turing test (that is, is indistinguishable from a thinking human being) can be said to "think" - ought we not to realize that the same logic applies to pr0n?

pr0n can think? cool! ;^)

Risk.

[Grendel Drago]

You implied that "factoring the risk correctly" had to entail abstinence. You say that "if you don't want to get pregnant, you must not fuck". This is technically true in the same was that "if you don't want to die a horrible flaming car-wreck death, you must not get in a car".

The point is that we do get in cars. We drive around, cognizant of the risk, but unwilling to live in fear of it.

This isn't a boolean statement. I didn't say "if you have sex, you will not get pregnant". There's a risk, same with driving.

My counter-example clearly shows that your point is invalid. We don't counsel teenagers not to drive (when they're legally allowed to), and we shouldn't counsel teenagers not to fuck (considering age of consent yadda yadda). In both cases, we (ideally) make them aware of the risks involved.

Counseling teenagers to be abstinent is foolhardy and puritan.

The fact that this is a loaded issue is very relevant. I notice you're not saying that teenagers should be forever banned from driving, because they might die.

--grendel drago

Re:Risk.

[TheAJofOZ]

My counter-example clearly shows that your point is invalid. We don't counsel teenagers not to drive (when they're legally allowed to), and we shouldn't counsel teenagers not to fuck (considering age of consent yadda yadda). In both cases, we (ideally) make them aware of the risks involved.

No, your counter-example supports my point and your additional clarifications here continue to do so - in particular the "when they're legally allowed to" in regards to teens driving. You don't argue that 12 year olds should be able to drive, so why argue that 12 year olds should be able to have sex?

Counseling teenagers to be abstinent is foolhardy and puritan.

Agreed. Counseling teenagers to be promiscous or frivolent with their sexuality is also foolhardy.

The fact that this is a loaded issue is very relevant. I notice you're not saying that teenagers should be forever banned from driving, because they might die.

I am saying that teenagers shouldn't drive until they know the risks and are mature enough to make an informed decision about it. I say the same thing for sex. You are the one in this argument who sees the two cases as different, not I. I never said people shouldn't have sex, I said they shouldn't have sex until they know what they're doing. I said they should be aware of the risks, but at no point did I say that sex was evil or that people shouldn't have sex.

Re:Bonobos

[Chasing Amy]

> Son, please note that 'juvenile' in this case, as with all primates, is the stage that
> would be referred to as 'teenage' in humans.

No, it is *not*. Do your research before speaking out of turn. Bonobos typically have their first offspring at around 13 years of age, but begin genital play between themselves and other juveniles and occasionally adults as well, between the ages of 2 and 4.

You are *wrong*. Now, go do your homework on the subject before speaking any more about it. Bonobo culture is unique and centered around sexual contact, which is used instead of aggression, which is used to enhance social bonds, which is used as currency to exchange for food, and which as in humans takes place for almost the whole monthly cycle rather than only during a short window as with most other primates.

Do your research or stop polluting /. with your arrogant and quite frankly *wrong* misstatements. You do not wish to believe something, therefore you dispute it instead of researching it. Since you didn't even know what a Bonobo monkey was before this conversation, you aren't qualified to make statements about them, particularly ones founded on your *assumptions*, when you have no *facts* about this particular subject.

You have more than enough information to go start your researches, so go away and don't come back until you have real facts to add to the discussion.

Re:Bonobos

[maxpublic]

No, it is *not*. Do your research before speaking out of turn. Bonobos typically have their first offspring at around 13 years of age, but begin genital play between themselves and other juveniles and occasionally adults as well, between the ages of 2 and 4.

Yes, bonobos typically do have their first offspring around the age of 13. However, if you'd actually bothered to do a bit of research, you'd realize that bonobos becomes sexually mature at the age of 7. The 'juveniles' here refers to bonobos between the ages of 7 and 13 - sexually mature but not considered to be adults within the troop.

As for the younger bonobos they often do participate in sexual play - with other bonobos of the same age. They mimic their elders. Just like children in human societies playing 'doctor'.

Do your research or stop polluting /. with your arrogant and quite frankly *wrong* misstatements.

I've done my research. You, apparently, have an agenda in promoting pedophilia by making baseless claims that such a thing is 'natural' and occurs with other primates. It's my suspicion that you have some serious sexual issues with respect to children.

But back to the original point: there is nothing whatsoever 'healthy' or 'good' about having sex with prepubescents. Nothing whatsoever. No sane adult would argue with me here. If you think there is, you're in need of some serious therapy, and soon before you put your hands on some unsuspecting kid.

Max