The criminalisation of "non-photographic visual depictions of child sexual abuse" was first proposed by "children's charities" - who are forever desperate to encourage donations by exploiting people's emotions - in 2006. In 2007, the campaign was backed by low-importance MPs who wished to elevate their profile, but who were most likely uninterested in the issue in question.
The campaign became irrelevant when, earlier this month, any image derived from an indecent photograph or pseudo-photograph of a child became illegal under Section 69 of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act. It is also illegal to distribute any obscene publication under the Obscene Publications Act, and despite the contrary claims of the Ministry of Justice, it is illegal to take, make, distribute, show or possess a pseudo-photograph, which means that all efforts to a implement this new law will have only one effect: the possession of material which is not derived from photographs of 'abuse' and which is clearly not photographic will be criminalised.
Unfortunately, the UK economy is heading for recession and the criminal justice system is under attack due to a lack of space in prisons (the latter is ironically due to silly, politically-motivated legislation). The Labour government recently suffered a horrendous defeat in the recent by-elections, due to their drastic inability to deal with these issues. They have no choice but to use distraction techniques to divert attention from their incompetency.
Paedophiles are being used as pawns for political and economic reasons, simply because they are currently the weakest minority who nobody will speak out for.
The pathetic irony of this situation is that someone who is convicted of possessing a cartoon derived from a photograph of a child masturbating will get the same sentence as someone who is convicted of making a photograph of an adult molesting a child, because the person in the former case would be charged under the recently amended Protection of Children Act and the new law (Protection of Proper Thoughts Act?).
"According the news article, the motivation for the law is close a loophole in the law whereby a paedophile manipulates a illegal photography in order to make it legal:
"The government has acknowledged that paedophiles may be circumventing the law by using computer technology to manipulate real photographs or videos of abuse into drawings or cartoons.""
"our children are at higher risk of meeting a pedophile at the park, on a bus, at the mall, at an after school activity than on line."
That's true, but does it really matter if they do meet a paedophile? Due to the occurrence of paedophilia in the general population, most children are frequently in the presence of paedophiles anyway. A paedophile is just someone who is sexually attracted to young children; the term doesn't refer to an act or to criminality.
"If you've been having re-occuring fantasies or dreams of touching children then you should see a therapist."
You still haven't stated what you think the effect of seeing a therapist would be. I can control myself around children and paedophilia can't be cured, so there's nothing that a therapist could change.
"The point is, if you seek help people are more likely to trust you and leave you alone because you are honest and you know these thoughts are wrong"
Thoughts are never wrong. It is acting on those thoughts that would be wrong.
If you think people would leave someone alone if he admitted his attraction to children, you are mistaken. My parents know that I'm a paedophile, and my Dad was rather hostile for a while after I told them. Society will undoubtedly be more hostile.... and my levels of anger control fall a long way short of my level of control over my sexual urges.
"than if you sneak around downloading child pornography, which society will not tolerate."
My jurisdiction's extra-territorial laws were amended this month, so I won't be able to view child pornography anywhere now.
"It's a sexual addiction. The attraction you have to young boys cannot be cured, but you can learn to control your urge to have sex with young boys. [..] No one is saying you'll stop being attracted to young boys, but you should do whatever it takes to control your urges."
Being attracted to children is no more of an "addiction" than being attracted to adults. The subject of attraction does not affect the addictiveness of an attraction.
Furthermore, I do control my urges. I don't touch children. What do you suggest that I should have therapy for?
"You've already confessed to traveling, probably overseas, to violate your local laws by attempting to view rape material. That sounds like you're acting recklessly on your urges."
I didn't travel overseas specifically to undermine my home jurisdiction's laws. I went overseas for other (unrelated) reasons. To suggest that I was "reckless" is a joke; I analysed the law of my home jurisdiction and the foreign jurisdiction, to ensure that I wasn't breaking any laws. I also refrained from asking for passwords, making comments about images or paying for images, in order to prevent the distributor from becoming aware of any increased interest in child pornography. I also did not specifically look for images of adults molesting children (that is NOT something which I wished to see); I wanted to see images of children with other children.
Why do you keep referring to child pornography as "rape material"? Have you ever seen child pornography? The majority of illegal images show no sexual contact. Naked children posing does not constitute rape material.
"I don't think it's best attempting to fix a pathological desire by fueling it."
"People shouldn't be allowed to view rape material."
How do you feel about the majority of illegal images? What makes you think that the majority of child pornography depicts children being molested by adults?
"The supply-demand thing isn't the best explanation for the reasoning behind the laws: rape materials fuel people to rape"
I'd like to see some evidence for your claim; the only studies in this area are correlational. Even if child pornography did "fuel people to rape", arresting people for possession of such material would still not be justified. Think about what you're saying; "This material may encourage you to rape, so we're going to arrest you in case you do attempt to rape". Do you really support such ideas? How do you feel about hardcore adult pornography?
"You're focusing too much on this idiotic economic theory that you've created that justifies you indulging yourself."
As I have said, I don't look at child pornography, for legal reasons.
"in order for said materials to be produced rape has to occur"
Are you incapable of processing the meaning of text? Most illegal images do not depict any sexual activity - they depict erotic poses - therefore they do not depict rape. I can't believe that so many people on Slashdot are prepared to believe whatever they hear from government-funded organisations such NCMEC and the USDOJ.
"There is still the demand because people like you desire it."
I think I've made it clear that I don't look at child pornography (albeit for legal reasons). I mentioned one exception in which I was legally able to do so (foreign jurisdiction where accessing child porn is legal / before my home jurisdiction's new extra-territorial laws / hard drive was wiped and disposed of in foreign jurisdiction). It is important to note that, when I was able to look at such images:
no passwords were requested;
no comments were posted;
no payment was made; therefore,
the people who were distributing it had no idea that I was viewing it. People are not telepathic.
"I think most of the supply is created by people who desire to supply such material. Period."
What evidence do you have for that bold assertion?
"Why choose that market? It's because they're into it, and from what I hear, they usually participate."
I think it's because of the prices which they can sell the material for. The book Child Pornography; Crime, computers and society mentions that a website which operated for less than a year sold videos "for US$300 each or two for US$580". Black markets usually support profit over ethics.
Regarding your claim that producers usually participate, I suspect that the only "evidence" which you have is provided by the people who are paid to fight child pornography, such as the NCMEC. They exaggerate in order to horrify the public, in order to justify the massive amount of funding which they receive. I have already mentioned that the majority of illegal images of children do not depict any sexual activity at all. See this article; the comments discuss both US and UK law.
"Actually, now that I've thought about it, I think you're equivocating somewhere, perhaps with the business definition of 'demand', as you claim that if the industry were to collapse, then there wouldn't be any industry. But you claimed it would just be free."
I wasn't suggesting that a free-to-view market should be created. My suggestion is that people should be allowed to view child pornography which has already been produced, but purchase should remain illegal.
the idea that making child pornography publicly available will lead to "less children being abused" is the dumbest, and I mean DUMBEST shit I have ever heard. [..]"
You have missed my point and twisted my words. I am arguing that the possession of child pornography should be legal, but that the purchase of "pornographic child pornography" should be illegal. I have not said that people should go out and start distributing child pornography.
My point is this:
Making the possession of child pornography legal - while criminalising the purchasing of it - would likely persuade most people who purchase child pornography to view only free material, in order to avoid prosecution. At present, people who purchase it are breaking the law regardless of whether they pay, and due to the fact that there are a number of people who think that even adults having sex with children is acceptable, there is currently no incentive for many interested persons to not pay for child pornography.
Another person (who is clearly not a paedophile) understood the argument and expanded it, here.
"Take for example, regular pornography. There is plenty, PLENTY of free porn available on the internet, and still, the pornography industry thrives in the tunes of billions of dollars a year. Making *some* porn freely available was probably the greatest thing to happen to porn. Kinda like windows being pirated helped it spread"
If Windows were illegal to purchase but free copies were legal, free copies would be used almost exclusively and Microsoft would go out of business. The same applies to the child pornography industry.
"I don't rape women because the thought of a woman crying and trying to fight me off is as big of a turn off as pedophilia."
I don't fantasise about children being harmed. I know that they would be harmed if I actually did have sex with them, but in my fantasies I imagine them enjoying whatever happens in my fantasy, and I obviously don't fantasise about the negative feelings which would occur afterwards. I am also turned off by the idea of children crying, etc.
"I never need to suppress an "urge" to rape. If i did, I would certainly seek psychological attention."
I'm sure that there are some women whom you would like to have sex with, who would not consent to having sex with you. When you fantasise about having sex with them, you are fantasising about doing something which would actually harm them if it were done. So you are suppressing your urges. You are suppressing an urge to rape.
"I can believe that, but you should still seek therapy.If you like the idea of having sex with young boys, it's not an idea that is healthy for you. It's like liking the idea of killing people, or raping women. [..] You should probably seek help/therapy so as to free yourself of addiction to these though[t]s"
Paedophilia can't be "cured", for the same reasons that homosexuality can't be cured. See this article by Fred Berlin. I'd actually like to know what makes you think that paedophilia can be cured. It is not an "addiction".
There was a time when I considered "therapy" for my sexuality, before I realised that paedophilia can't be cured. I did not seek therapy because I was concerned about the consequences of admitting my fantasies to a therapist.
"My problem is with the people who encourage you to think about these thoughts, THEY are the problem."
I don't understand this statement. People don't just become attracted to children by watching too much children's television, etc; paedophilia is a fixed sexuality. I remember, for example, being extremely attracted to a friend's 9 year old brother when I was 12/13. I was attracted to boys around the ages of 8-13 then, and the age which I'm attracted to just never changed.
"Go back to the drawing boards folks, this isn't a solution at all."
I think you've missed their objectives.
Supporting laws or measures against child pornography is a great way to win votes.
Child pornography is a great excuse for governments which wish to limit freedom on the internet.
Child pornography is a wonderful excuse for subverting the first amendment. When the law against altered images is tested in the Supreme Court (I believe that's the highest court in the US; I'm not American), the appellant will lose and the US government will have yet another excuse for restricting first amendment liberties.
"I've been able to view pornography for free for years. So has pretty much every teen with Internet. Does that mean that the pornographic industry is in decline?"
No - paying for adult pornography is legal, so the industry thrives. If viewing adult pornography remained legal but purchasing it became illegal (I'm not suggesting that such should happen), the vast majority of people who wanted it would use free material rather than paying, and the industry would decline very quickly.
"That arguments ridiculous. There's nothing inherent in being black that makes them more likely to commit crimes, the root cause is in society and culture.
Paedophiles aren't inherently driven to commit crimes, because most of us have restraint. I like the idea of having sex with young boys, but I don't go out and do that for the same reasons that you don't rape women.
"Those who seek sexual gratification from these images are likely the ones who are going to pursue the actual act in the future, or so goes the reasoning."
As far as child pornography is concerned.. a few months ago, I was staying in a country where accessing child pornography is not a criminal offence. At the time, it was not illegal to act contrary to my home jurisdiction's laws abroad (unless the act also constituted an offence in the foreign jurisdiction). While I was in the foreign jurisdiction, I bought a hard drive to use only in said foreign jurisdiction. I was legally able to browse without restriction (although the cache etc had to be disabled due to the strange laws of the foreign jurisdiction). Although there was virtually no "pornographic child pornography" to be found on the internet, it was possible to find a lot of posed images which would be illegal if I'd viewed them in my home jurisdiction.
And I can still control myself around children....
"Besides, these people aren't just being put into prison because they might abuse children, they're actively supporting and distributing these acts to other people."
The problem with applying the "supply and demand" theory to people who possess but don't purchase child pornography is that they are not contributing to demand, because the supplier is not interested in producing images for people who are effectively "stealing" them by viewing them for free, for the same reasons that artists don't record music for people downloading it from file sharing networks. Supply and demand is an economic theory - a buyer-seller relationship - which applies to commercial sale, not products being used for free. Producers of any material do not want their material to be used freely, so an increased interest in freely available pornography is going to harm them. People will be less likely to purchase child pornography if viewing freely available child pornography is legalised, as viewing freely available child pornography will become the safe and legal option. Production of child pornography will therefore fall because of a lack of demand, meaning that less children will be abused by child pornographers.
How do you define "child pornography"? The law doesn't just cover people who produce images of children being raped. A significant number of prosecutions are based solely upon images which don't depict any sexual activity at all.
Google will probably claim that their software somehow prevents children browsing to pro-paedophile or pornography websites. Then it will be "okay" to track kids and bombard them with ads, because they're just "protecting the children".
"Primary school children should be eligible for the DNA database if they exhibit behaviour indicating they may become criminals in later life, according to Britain's most senior police forensics expert."
Obviously, the Police are not only interested in children who "exhibit behaviour indicating they may become criminals in later life", as it is impossible to decipher a 5 year old's behaviour to such an extent.
The British Police - and indeed the British government - are creating numerous excuses for their wish to acquire the DNA and fingerprints of every citizen in the UK. They are now aware that many adults have the awareness to fight against their inclusion on a database run by a government and police force which simply can't be trusted, so now they are attempting to target children who aren't aware of what inclusion on a British DNA database entails.
Everyone in the UK should move to China. They would then live in a relatively free and open state.
"In the courtroom, mental readouts could have the same problems as eyewitness testimony"
Would that prevent their use in courtrooms? I don't think so.
I know of someone who was charged with a child pornography offence, who was targeted for being prominent in the paedophile activist community.
I strongly suspect that he was set up, however this will be irrelevant in the courtroom, as people know that he's attracted to children. In other words, he "must be guilty", simply because of what he is known to think.
This attitude is not only a problem for people who are attracted to children. If people associate certain thoughts and behaviours, a strong suggestion that the defendant has the thought will lead most people to presume guilt, even when the defendant is innocent.
If the researchers actually manage to build a mind-reading device, it will be used in court and it will lead to the conviction of innocent people.
"I am, technically, a pedophile, because I have fantasies with little girls. However, it's underage characters from fiction works, and not real girls. I mean, I am not willing to touch a little girl or see photos of real girls being raped."
Are you attracted to real girls?
"However, I fear to be treated as someone that deals with real photos or actually abuses kids."
Sadly, you are correct. Most people hate paedophiles because of what we think, not because of what a minority do.
"I know many of you are already condemning me to crucifixion or worse."
People at Slashdot tend to avoid playing the role of the thought police, however there are a lot of stupid people in the Populist world, where your observation would probably be correct. We need to do something to change such attitudes.
"I fear to be prosecuted while really dangerous pedophiles are out there doing trips to sex paradises or having videos of a (real) little girl being raped."
Adults having sex with children is unacceptable in my opinion, as is producing, distributing, purchasing or requesting child pornography; however, people who are arrested for possessing child pornography are also victims of the thought police. Laws against the possession of child pornography do not protect children, as I will explain....
If any abuse occurs during the production of a pornographic image of a child, the abuse occurs before the image is viewed by an unassociated entity who possesses it. Whether or not "Bob" or "Alice" decides to view an image would not affect whether or not the image had been produced. As I explained in an article at my blog, decriminalising the possession of indecent images of children would likely cause the production of child pornography of children to fall, not increase:
The problem with applying the supply and demand theory to people who possess but don't purchase is that said people are not contributing to demand, because the supplier is not interested in producing images for people who are effectively "stealing" them by downloading them for free, for the same reasons that artists don't record music for people downloading it from file sharing networks. Supply and demand is an economic theory which applies to commercial sale, not products being used for free. Producers of any material do not want their material to be used freely, so an increased interest in freely available pornography would harm them. People would be less likely to purchase child pornography if viewing freely available child pornography were legalised, as viewing freely available child pornography would become the safe option. Production of child pornography would therefore fall because of a lack of demand, meaning that less children would be abused by child pornographers.
Please note: I am not suggesting that you should access or possess child pornography; people who are arrested for any child sex offence are usually subjected to extreme social and legal penalties.
"I know this might not be a really interesting post, but I needed to take that out, even as AC."
"Oh, I am posting from a cibercafé and behind a proxy, so don't bother to track me down"
If you wish to preserve your anonymity, download - and configure your browser to use - Tor, and use your own connection.
"To put it in a simple question: Is it as bad to fantasize with underage girls (without breaking laws or harming girls) than consuming real material (raped girls) or abusing them?"
There is nothing wrong with fantasising about sex with children; you should simply ensure that you don't make your fantasies a reality.
Consistent with previous data (Barbaree & Marshall, 1989; Briere & Runtz, 1989; Fedora et al., 1992; Freund & Watson, 1991), 20 % of the current subjects self-reported pedophilic interest and 26.25 % exhibited penile arousal to pedophilic stimuli that equaled or exceeded arousal to adult stimuli.
[..]
Eighty subjects completed the study. [..] Twenty-six subjects [approximately 33%] exhibited sexual arousal to the child slides that equaled or exceeded their arousal to the adult slides.
[..]....a sizable minority of men in normal populations who have not molested children may exhibit pedophilic fantasies and arousal. In recent studies, 12 to 32% of community college samples of men reported sexual attraction to children (B &R, 1989, H,G & C. 1990) or exhibited penile response to pedophilic stimuli (B&M, 1989, F et al, 1992, F&L, 1989, F & W, 1989). Thus, arousal to pedophilic stimuli does not necessarily correspond with pedophilic behavior (Hall, 1990; Schouten & Simon, 1992), although there are arguments to the contrary (Quinsey & Laws, 1990).
A self-administer questionnaire was given to a sample of 92 female and 91 male public sector child care workers. Results showed a significantly higher percentage of males (15 per cent) than females (4 per cent) expressed a sexual interest in children.
In a sample of nearly 200 university males, 21% reported some sexual attraction to small children, 9% described sexual fantasies involving children, 5% admitted to having masturbated to sexual fantasies of children, and 7% indicated they might have sex with a child if not caught (Briere & Runtz, 1989). Briere and Runtz remarked that "given the probable social undesirability of such admissions, we may hypothesize that the actual rates were even higher" (p. 71). In another sample with 100 male and 180 female undergraduate students, 22% of males and 3% of females reported sexual attraction to a child (Smiljanich & Briere, 1996).
Laboratory researchers have validated physiologically the self-report studies of nonclinical, nonpedophile identified volunteers. In a sample of 80 "normal" volunteers, over 25% self-reported some pedophilic interest or in the plethysmographic phase exhibited penile arousal to a child that equaled or exceeded arousal to an adult (Hall, Hirschman, & Oliver, 1995). In another study, "normal" men's erections to pictures of pubescent and younger girls averaged 70 and 50%, respectively, of their responses to adult females (Quinsey, Steinman, Bergersen, & Holmes, 1975). In a control group of 66 males recruited from hospital staff and the community, 17% showed a penile response that was pedophilic (Fedora et al., 1992). Freund and Watson (1991), studying community male volunteers in a plethysmography classification study, found that19%were misclassified as having an erotic preference for minors. Freund and Costell (1970) studied 48 young Czech soldiers who were shown slides of children between 4 and 10, both male and female, as well as adolescents and adults, male and female. Penile responsivity to female children, ages 4-10, was intermediate to adolescent and adult females and males in one scoring system. In the other scoring system, all 48 soldiers showed penile response to adult females, as did 40 of 48 to adolescent females, and notably, 28 of 48 showed penile response to the female children age 4-10.
"The "I am not alone" feeling in combination with the protection of anonymity dissolves the taboo in the individual, which is the psychological wall that separates the acceptable from the unacceptable."
What are you referring to here? Paedophilia (a sexual attraction to pre-pubescent children) or child molestation? There is no "psychological wall" which affects sexuality, nor is it "unacceptable" to be attracted to children.
That is not the intent of the submission. The intent of the submission is:
To draw attention to the fact that "expert" commentators are usually not experts
To alert Slashdotters to yet another ridiculous attack against the internet
To show that many "experts'" assertions about paedophilia are incorrect
To start an interesting discussion
You are apparently unaware of the fact that paedophilia is not an act. Paedophilia is a sexual attraction to pre-pubescent children, and sexual fantasies are not harmful. Furthermore, most people who do sexually abuse children are not paedophiles, so paedophiles are being used as scapegoats (yet again).
The reason that I consider the article to be so ridiculous is because it suggests that the internet can alter a person's sexuality. Sexuality is "defined" in adolescence, not during adulthood. The article implies that adult males - who are attracted to adults - can become paedophiles when they read pro-paedophile websites or view child pornography; there is no empirical evidence for such a claim.
"Whether pedophilia does not always equal child sexual abuse and vice versa is irrelevant"
When I stated that the article "conflat[ed] pedophilia with child sexual abuse", I was referring to the fact that the term "paedophilia" (a sexuality, not a behvaiour) was used to describe both a sexual attraction to children and the act of child sexual abuse. I was not suggesting that adults having sex with children is acceptable.
Slashdot Mirror
The criminalisation of "non-photographic visual depictions of child sexual abuse" was first proposed by "children's charities" - who are forever desperate to encourage donations by exploiting people's emotions - in 2006. In 2007, the campaign was backed by low-importance MPs who wished to elevate their profile, but who were most likely uninterested in the issue in question.
The campaign became irrelevant when, earlier this month, any image derived from an indecent photograph or pseudo-photograph of a child became illegal under Section 69 of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act. It is also illegal to distribute any obscene publication under the Obscene Publications Act, and despite the contrary claims of the Ministry of Justice, it is illegal to take, make, distribute, show or possess a pseudo-photograph, which means that all efforts to a implement this new law will have only one effect: the possession of material which is not derived from photographs of 'abuse' and which is clearly not photographic will be criminalised.
Unfortunately, the UK economy is heading for recession and the criminal justice system is under attack due to a lack of space in prisons (the latter is ironically due to silly, politically-motivated legislation). The Labour government recently suffered a horrendous defeat in the recent by-elections, due to their drastic inability to deal with these issues. They have no choice but to use distraction techniques to divert attention from their incompetency.
Paedophiles are being used as pawns for political and economic reasons, simply because they are currently the weakest minority who nobody will speak out for.
The pathetic irony of this situation is that someone who is convicted of possessing a cartoon derived from a photograph of a child masturbating will get the same sentence as someone who is convicted of making a photograph of an adult molesting a child, because the person in the former case would be charged under the recently amended Protection of Children Act and the new law (Protection of Proper Thoughts Act?).
That's already illegal. I explained the government's real motivations here
"our children are at higher risk of meeting a pedophile at the park, on a bus, at the mall, at an after school activity than on line."
That's true, but does it really matter if they do meet a paedophile? Due to the occurrence of paedophilia in the general population, most children are frequently in the presence of paedophiles anyway. A paedophile is just someone who is sexually attracted to young children; the term doesn't refer to an act or to criminality.
You still haven't stated what you think the effect of seeing a therapist would be. I can control myself around children and paedophilia can't be cured, so there's nothing that a therapist could change.
Thoughts are never wrong. It is acting on those thoughts that would be wrong.
If you think people would leave someone alone if he admitted his attraction to children, you are mistaken. My parents know that I'm a paedophile, and my Dad was rather hostile for a while after I told them. Society will undoubtedly be more hostile.... and my levels of anger control fall a long way short of my level of control over my sexual urges.
My jurisdiction's extra-territorial laws were amended this month, so I won't be able to view child pornography anywhere now.
Being attracted to children is no more of an "addiction" than being attracted to adults. The subject of attraction does not affect the addictiveness of an attraction.
Furthermore, I do control my urges. I don't touch children. What do you suggest that I should have therapy for?
I didn't travel overseas specifically to undermine my home jurisdiction's laws. I went overseas for other (unrelated) reasons. To suggest that I was "reckless" is a joke; I analysed the law of my home jurisdiction and the foreign jurisdiction, to ensure that I wasn't breaking any laws. I also refrained from asking for passwords, making comments about images or paying for images, in order to prevent the distributor from becoming aware of any increased interest in child pornography. I also did not specifically look for images of adults molesting children (that is NOT something which I wished to see); I wanted to see images of children with other children.
Why do you keep referring to child pornography as "rape material"? Have you ever seen child pornography? The majority of illegal images show no sexual contact. Naked children posing does not constitute rape material.
Paedophiles are not pathological.
How do you feel about the majority of illegal images? What makes you think that the majority of child pornography depicts children being molested by adults?
I'd like to see some evidence for your claim; the only studies in this area are correlational. Even if child pornography did "fuel people to rape", arresting people for possession of such material would still not be justified. Think about what you're saying; "This material may encourage you to rape, so we're going to arrest you in case you do attempt to rape". Do you really support such ideas? How do you feel about hardcore adult pornography?
As I have said, I don't look at child pornography, for legal reasons.
Are you incapable of processing the meaning of text? Most illegal images do not depict any sexual activity - they depict erotic poses - therefore they do not depict rape. I can't believe that so many people on Slashdot are prepared to believe whatever they hear from government-funded organisations such NCMEC and the USDOJ.
I think I've made it clear that I don't look at child pornography (albeit for legal reasons). I mentioned one exception in which I was legally able to do so (foreign jurisdiction where accessing child porn is legal / before my home jurisdiction's new extra-territorial laws / hard drive was wiped and disposed of in foreign jurisdiction). It is important to note that, when I was able to look at such images:
the people who were distributing it had no idea that I was viewing it. People are not telepathic.
What evidence do you have for that bold assertion?
I think it's because of the prices which they can sell the material for. The book Child Pornography; Crime, computers and society mentions that a website which operated for less than a year sold videos "for US$300 each or two for US$580". Black markets usually support profit over ethics.
Regarding your claim that producers usually participate, I suspect that the only "evidence" which you have is provided by the people who are paid to fight child pornography, such as the NCMEC. They exaggerate in order to horrify the public, in order to justify the massive amount of funding which they receive. I have already mentioned that the majority of illegal images of children do not depict any sexual activity at all. See this article; the comments discuss both US and UK law.
I wasn't suggesting that a free-to-view market should be created. My suggestion is that people should be allowed to view child pornography which has already been produced, but purchase should remain illegal.
You have missed my point and twisted my words. I am arguing that the possession of child pornography should be legal, but that the purchase of "pornographic child pornography" should be illegal. I have not said that people should go out and start distributing child pornography.
My point is this:
Making the possession of child pornography legal - while criminalising the purchasing of it - would likely persuade most people who purchase child pornography to view only free material, in order to avoid prosecution. At present, people who purchase it are breaking the law regardless of whether they pay, and due to the fact that there are a number of people who think that even adults having sex with children is acceptable, there is currently no incentive for many interested persons to not pay for child pornography.
Another person (who is clearly not a paedophile) understood the argument and expanded it, here.
If Windows were illegal to purchase but free copies were legal, free copies would be used almost exclusively and Microsoft would go out of business. The same applies to the child pornography industry.
I don't fantasise about children being harmed. I know that they would be harmed if I actually did have sex with them, but in my fantasies I imagine them enjoying whatever happens in my fantasy, and I obviously don't fantasise about the negative feelings which would occur afterwards. I am also turned off by the idea of children crying, etc.
I'm sure that there are some women whom you would like to have sex with, who would not consent to having sex with you. When you fantasise about having sex with them, you are fantasising about doing something which would actually harm them if it were done. So you are suppressing your urges. You are suppressing an urge to rape.
Paedophilia can't be "cured", for the same reasons that homosexuality can't be cured. See this article by Fred Berlin. I'd actually like to know what makes you think that paedophilia can be cured. It is not an "addiction".
There was a time when I considered "therapy" for my sexuality, before I realised that paedophilia can't be cured. I did not seek therapy because I was concerned about the consequences of admitting my fantasies to a therapist.
I don't understand this statement. People don't just become attracted to children by watching too much children's television, etc; paedophilia is a fixed sexuality. I remember, for example, being extremely attracted to a friend's 9 year old brother when I was 12/13. I was attracted to boys around the ages of 8-13 then, and the age which I'm attracted to just never changed.
I think you've missed their objectives.
No - paying for adult pornography is legal, so the industry thrives. If viewing adult pornography remained legal but purchasing it became illegal (I'm not suggesting that such should happen), the vast majority of people who wanted it would use free material rather than paying, and the industry would decline very quickly.
Paedophiles aren't inherently driven to commit crimes, because most of us have restraint. I like the idea of having sex with young boys, but I don't go out and do that for the same reasons that you don't rape women.
As far as child pornography is concerned.. a few months ago, I was staying in a country where accessing child pornography is not a criminal offence. At the time, it was not illegal to act contrary to my home jurisdiction's laws abroad (unless the act also constituted an offence in the foreign jurisdiction). While I was in the foreign jurisdiction, I bought a hard drive to use only in said foreign jurisdiction. I was legally able to browse without restriction (although the cache etc had to be disabled due to the strange laws of the foreign jurisdiction). Although there was virtually no "pornographic child pornography" to be found on the internet, it was possible to find a lot of posed images which would be illegal if I'd viewed them in my home jurisdiction.
And I can still control myself around children....
The problem with applying the "supply and demand" theory to people who possess but don't purchase child pornography is that they are not contributing to demand, because the supplier is not interested in producing images for people who are effectively "stealing" them by viewing them for free, for the same reasons that artists don't record music for people downloading it from file sharing networks. Supply and demand is an economic theory - a buyer-seller relationship - which applies to commercial sale, not products being used for free. Producers of any material do not want their material to be used freely, so an increased interest in freely available pornography is going to harm them. People will be less likely to purchase child pornography if viewing freely available child pornography is legalised, as viewing freely available child pornography will become the safe and legal option. Production of child pornography will therefore fall because of a lack of demand, meaning that less children will be abused by child pornographers.
Around 5% of adult males are paedophiles; around 33% of adult men have some attraction to pre-pubescent children. [1]
See my comment here.
How do you define "child pornography"? The law doesn't just cover people who produce images of children being raped. A significant number of prosecutions are based solely upon images which don't depict any sexual activity at all.
Google will probably claim that their software somehow prevents children browsing to pro-paedophile or pornography websites. Then it will be "okay" to track kids and bombard them with ads, because they're just "protecting the children".
Obviously, the Police are not only interested in children who "exhibit behaviour indicating they may become criminals in later life", as it is impossible to decipher a 5 year old's behaviour to such an extent.
The British Police - and indeed the British government - are creating numerous excuses for their wish to acquire the DNA and fingerprints of every citizen in the UK. They are now aware that many adults have the awareness to fight against their inclusion on a database run by a government and police force which simply can't be trusted, so now they are attempting to target children who aren't aware of what inclusion on a British DNA database entails.
Everyone in the UK should move to China. They would then live in a relatively free and open state.
"In the courtroom, mental readouts could have the same problems as eyewitness testimony"
Would that prevent their use in courtrooms? I don't think so.
I know of someone who was charged with a child pornography offence, who was targeted for being prominent in the paedophile activist community.
I strongly suspect that he was set up, however this will be irrelevant in the courtroom, as people know that he's attracted to children. In other words, he "must be guilty", simply because of what he is known to think.
This attitude is not only a problem for people who are attracted to children. If people associate certain thoughts and behaviours, a strong suggestion that the defendant has the thought will lead most people to presume guilt, even when the defendant is innocent.
If the researchers actually manage to build a mind-reading device, it will be used in court and it will lead to the conviction of innocent people.
Are you attracted to real girls?
Sadly, you are correct. Most people hate paedophiles because of what we think, not because of what a minority do.
People at Slashdot tend to avoid playing the role of the thought police, however there are a lot of stupid people in the Populist world, where your observation would probably be correct. We need to do something to change such attitudes.
Adults having sex with children is unacceptable in my opinion, as is producing, distributing, purchasing or requesting child pornography; however, people who are arrested for possessing child pornography are also victims of the thought police. Laws against the possession of child pornography do not protect children, as I will explain....
If any abuse occurs during the production of a pornographic image of a child, the abuse occurs before the image is viewed by an unassociated entity who possesses it. Whether or not "Bob" or "Alice" decides to view an image would not affect whether or not the image had been produced. As I explained in an article at my blog, decriminalising the possession of indecent images of children would likely cause the production of child pornography of children to fall, not increase:
The problem with applying the supply and demand theory to people who possess but don't purchase is that said people are not contributing to demand, because the supplier is not interested in producing images for people who are effectively "stealing" them by downloading them for free, for the same reasons that artists don't record music for people downloading it from file sharing networks. Supply and demand is an economic theory which applies to commercial sale, not products being used for free. Producers of any material do not want their material to be used freely, so an increased interest in freely available pornography would harm them. People would be less likely to purchase child pornography if viewing freely available child pornography were legalised, as viewing freely available child pornography would become the safe option. Production of child pornography would therefore fall because of a lack of demand, meaning that less children would be abused by child pornographers.
Please note: I am not suggesting that you should access or possess child pornography; people who are arrested for any child sex offence are usually subjected to extreme social and legal penalties.
Have you found GirlChat yet?
If you wish to preserve your anonymity, download - and configure your browser to use - Tor, and use your own connection.
There is nothing wrong with fantasising about sex with children; you should simply ensure that you don't make your fantasies a reality.
From the British Journal of Social Work -
From Is Pedophilia a Mental Disorder? -
What are you referring to here? Paedophilia (a sexual attraction to pre-pubescent children) or child molestation? There is no "psychological wall" which affects sexuality, nor is it "unacceptable" to be attracted to children.
You are apparently unaware of the fact that paedophilia is not an act. Paedophilia is a sexual attraction to pre-pubescent children, and sexual fantasies are not harmful. Furthermore, most people who do sexually abuse children are not paedophiles, so paedophiles are being used as scapegoats (yet again).
When I stated that the article "conflat[ed] pedophilia with child sexual abuse", I was referring to the fact that the term "paedophilia" (a sexuality, not a behvaiour) was used to describe both a sexual attraction to children and the act of child sexual abuse. I was not suggesting that adults having sex with children is acceptable.