4 ms·

You might not like them, but the average person probably doesn't have the same resentment they have towards child porn viewers. I've seen people openly talking

by Nutmog 11y ago

You might not like them, but the average person probably doesn't have the same resentment they have towards child porn viewers. I've seen people openly talking about watching such videos on the internet and edited versions are even broadcast on the news. It's not a crime and it's not demonized. Not seeing any strong reasons, I suspect the real answer is that people feel hate towards sexual deviants of any sort just as they always have. It used to be gays but now they're off limits, so pedophiles are about all they have left to hate. Maybe that combined with a bit of "think of the children!". There's also widespread hatred toward incest but it doesn't seem so severe, perhaps because when it's adults, only the former emotion applies, not the latter.

jacquesm 11y ago
> You might not like them, but the average person probably doesn't have the same resentment they have towards child porn viewers. That's quite a claim. > I've seen people openly talking about watching such videos on the internet Not around me. > and edited versions are even broadcast on the news. Again, not any news that I've seen. We apparently inhabit completely different circles and cultures. > It's not a crime and it's not demonized. Posession of child pornography is a crime where I live. Watching it is hard to criminalize since you can't prove who watched what so I can see why that would not be a crime and should not be a crime. > Not seeing any strong reasons, I suspect the real answer is that people feel hate towards sexual deviants of any sort just as they always have. I don't see this either. You can be a 'sexual deviant' (your words, not mine) all you want, it's fine with me. But the line gets drawn where children get abused and that's why possession of child pornography (and not being of a paedophillic disposition) is a crime. > It used to be gays but now they're off limits, so pedophiles are about all they have left to hate. That's an insanely dumb line. Gays are 'off limits' because just like pedophiles they are people first. You don't get to bash gay people for their sexuality (or your own insecurities) any more than you get to bash pedophiles. That's not the point. The pedophiles that get bashed are the ones that act on their urges in such a way that they endanger the people that we happen to cherish most, our (collective) children and their behavior in such situations makes use of the power asymmetry between adults and children (who are all but defenseless). In that sense the outrage is no less than if a big adult guy would rape a slightly built woman. (Or at least, I would expect it to be no less, it certainly wouldn't be less for me.) > Maybe that combined with a bit of "think of the children!". No, we just don't expect the children to stand up for themselves. They're physically weak (in the case of child pornography there does not seem to be a lower limit on what gets people excited, it goes all the way to newborns...), they are small, they generally defer to the authority of the adults present and they end up scarred for life from these ordeals. > There's also widespread hatred toward incest but it doesn't seem so severe, perhaps because when it's adults, only the former emotion applies, not the latter. Incest is taboo in many cultures. There are several reasons for that (most of them good, some of them debatable) but the definition of incest is probably not what you think it is (it can involve consent and it may involve only adults). Incest is more about bloodlines than anything else.
- Nutmog 11y ago
  >We apparently inhabit completely different circles and cultures. Sorry I was unclear. I meant beheading videos. Please reread it with that in mind. Everything you've said about child porn is only about violent child porn and other kinds of child abuse. I completely agree with you on that. What I'm concerned with is harmless child porn which people still demonize too. For example when a parent's innocent bath video gets leaked to a child porn ring. That does't transform it from OK to bad. It makes no difference to the child. Yet it does become illegal and people do hate the viewers of that video despite the child not being harmed.
  - jacquesm 11y ago
    > What I'm concerned with is harmless child porn which people still demonize too. The smarter people see no problem in that. The only times those should be used under the child porn label is when they are used in collections having nothing to do with the original people involved. I have three kids, one older, two younger. There is no way that I'd let a picture of the younger ones without any clothes on get out of my control (the older one is old enough to be his own master now), and I'm extremely protective of what happens with pictures that contain them at all. My main reason for being that careful is that the internet has a habit of destroying data that you'd like to have but it will preserve for ever data that you'd like to go away.
    - Nutmog 11y ago
      If it's used by someone who doesn't know the child, isn't that pretty much harmless? The only possible harm I can imagine is that the child is somehow identified and discovers it later in life and gets embarrassed by it. Sure that's not nice but it's hardly the worst crime on the internet. And even then it's surely very hard to identify young children.
      - jacquesm 11y ago
        Why would something have to be the 'worst crime on the internet' to be a crime anyway? Just like shoplifting is a crime so is murder. Shoplifting clearly isn't the 'worst crime' in society, but that's not a reason why we should not put a stop to it. I'm not sure what you're getting at with all this 'oh but childporn isn't so bad', it's almost as if for some reason you feel this is a subject that needs a strong defense without showing why you feel this is the case. I'm not going to say 'rape isn't the worst crime so let's give rapists a pass' either, absent a motive I can't find myself to side with the criminals in this case. Though I very much would like the law enforcement officers to stick to the legal side of the line when it comes to pursuing these people simply because I believe that is how the law should work. If that gets lost then we're all complicit in the crimes done in our name and I'd prefer for society to lose out on getting a few criminals caught if that means we get to keep the moral high ground. That's a controversial point with some but it matters to me. You seem to have given the subject a lot more thought than I ever would, but then again I don't have much reasons to think really hard about what the implications of child pornography would be. My contact with it has been limited to passing it on to law enforcement when detected with as much documentation as I could find on whoever was spreading it around and from that perspective I have very little love for child pornographers no matter what the source of their material and no matter whether or not in your were not harmed because they can't be identified. That's a very very thin bit of ice you're skating on because it all rests on what you feel is the truth. Such a personal perspective at odds with the law and with what society generally believes to be normal can lead to a lot of trouble. In other words, those people that have vast collections of nude pictures of other peoples children will not have to count on my sympathy if they start brandishing excuses like the ones you listed.

by Nutmog 11y ago

jacquesm 11y ago

> You might not like them, but the average person probably doesn't have the same resentment they have towards child porn viewers. That's quite a claim. > I've seen people openly talking about watching such videos on the internet Not around me. > and edited versions are even broadcast on the news. Again, not any news that I've seen. We apparently inhabit completely different circles and cultures. > It's not a crime and it's not demonized. Posession of child pornography is a crime where I live. Watching it is hard to criminalize since you can't prove who watched what so I can see why that would not be a crime and should not be a crime. > Not seeing any strong reasons, I suspect the real answer is that people feel hate towards sexual deviants of any sort just as they always have. I don't see this either. You can be a 'sexual deviant' (your words, not mine) all you want, it's fine with me. But the line gets drawn where children get abused and that's why possession of child pornography (and not being of a paedophillic disposition) is a crime. > It used to be gays but now they're off limits, so pedophiles are about all they have left to hate. That's an insanely dumb line. Gays are 'off limits' because just like pedophiles they are people first. You don't get to bash gay people for their sexuality (or your own insecurities) any more than you get to bash pedophiles. That's not the point. The pedophiles that get bashed are the ones that act on their urges in such a way that they endanger the people that we happen to cherish most, our (collective) children and their behavior in such situations makes use of the power asymmetry between adults and children (who are all but defenseless). In that sense the outrage is no less than if a big adult guy would rape a slightly built woman. (Or at least, I would expect it to be no less, it certainly wouldn't be less for me.) > Maybe that combined with a bit of "think of the children!". No, we just don't expect the children to stand up for themselves. They're physically weak (in the case of child pornography there does not seem to be a lower limit on what gets people excited, it goes all the way to newborns...), they are small, they generally defer to the authority of the adults present and they end up scarred for life from these ordeals. > There's also widespread hatred toward incest but it doesn't seem so severe, perhaps because when it's adults, only the former emotion applies, not the latter. Incest is taboo in many cultures. There are several reasons for that (most of them good, some of them debatable) but the definition of incest is probably not what you think it is (it can involve consent and it may involve only adults). Incest is more about bloodlines than anything else.

Nutmog 11y ago
>We apparently inhabit completely different circles and cultures. Sorry I was unclear. I meant beheading videos. Please reread it with that in mind. Everything you've said about child porn is only about violent child porn and other kinds of child abuse. I completely agree with you on that. What I'm concerned with is harmless child porn which people still demonize too. For example when a parent's innocent bath video gets leaked to a child porn ring. That does't transform it from OK to bad. It makes no difference to the child. Yet it does become illegal and people do hate the viewers of that video despite the child not being harmed.
- jacquesm 11y ago
  > What I'm concerned with is harmless child porn which people still demonize too. The smarter people see no problem in that. The only times those should be used under the child porn label is when they are used in collections having nothing to do with the original people involved. I have three kids, one older, two younger. There is no way that I'd let a picture of the younger ones without any clothes on get out of my control (the older one is old enough to be his own master now), and I'm extremely protective of what happens with pictures that contain them at all. My main reason for being that careful is that the internet has a habit of destroying data that you'd like to have but it will preserve for ever data that you'd like to go away.
  - Nutmog 11y ago
    If it's used by someone who doesn't know the child, isn't that pretty much harmless? The only possible harm I can imagine is that the child is somehow identified and discovers it later in life and gets embarrassed by it. Sure that's not nice but it's hardly the worst crime on the internet. And even then it's surely very hard to identify young children.
    - jacquesm 11y ago
      Why would something have to be the 'worst crime on the internet' to be a crime anyway? Just like shoplifting is a crime so is murder. Shoplifting clearly isn't the 'worst crime' in society, but that's not a reason why we should not put a stop to it. I'm not sure what you're getting at with all this 'oh but childporn isn't so bad', it's almost as if for some reason you feel this is a subject that needs a strong defense without showing why you feel this is the case. I'm not going to say 'rape isn't the worst crime so let's give rapists a pass' either, absent a motive I can't find myself to side with the criminals in this case. Though I very much would like the law enforcement officers to stick to the legal side of the line when it comes to pursuing these people simply because I believe that is how the law should work. If that gets lost then we're all complicit in the crimes done in our name and I'd prefer for society to lose out on getting a few criminals caught if that means we get to keep the moral high ground. That's a controversial point with some but it matters to me. You seem to have given the subject a lot more thought than I ever would, but then again I don't have much reasons to think really hard about what the implications of child pornography would be. My contact with it has been limited to passing it on to law enforcement when detected with as much documentation as I could find on whoever was spreading it around and from that perspective I have very little love for child pornographers no matter what the source of their material and no matter whether or not in your were not harmed because they can't be identified. That's a very very thin bit of ice you're skating on because it all rests on what you feel is the truth. Such a personal perspective at odds with the law and with what society generally believes to be normal can lead to a lot of trouble. In other words, those people that have vast collections of nude pictures of other peoples children will not have to count on my sympathy if they start brandishing excuses like the ones you listed.