4 ms·

It seems like there are two conflicting theories: Either A - its a gateway to worse behaviour. Thus criminalizing this prevents future victims. Or B - its giv

It seems like there are two conflicting theories: Either A - its a gateway to worse behaviour. Thus criminalizing this prevents future victims. Or B - its gives pedophiles a release not involving real people, thus preventing victimization of real people that would have otherwise happened. What laws we should make as a society depends on which of these opposite theories are true. Is there any actual research on this? Surely psychologists must have studied this.

mc32 2y ago
There’s also the possibility that both are true. Some people stop at weed, but some people go on and get hooked on bad drugs. Maybe, some day, they’ll develop an unaddiction drug as well as an unpervert drug or treatment.
- roenxi 2y ago
  I agree that they are both probably true, but I don't think that fully addresses bawolff's point which I would interpret as harm reduction. If, on net, the B class dominates the other by a big margin then the net harm would be reduced and laws shouldn't be harsh - even if the A scenario plays out sometimes. The law should try to figure out who is actually causing abuse to happen and then target them. My bet is it would be a net reduction because if you hit someone with dopamine when they are staring at a screen they spend more time staring at screens (I'm pretty sure we found that was how violent video games work out, most gamers are a bit more of the weedy and harmless style in real life). But some stats would be helpful.
  - mc32 2y ago
    There is the possibility as in weed legalization that now you get more users who would otherwise avoid it. An increased user base means additional users going for the hard stuff.
    - roenxi 2y ago
      Yeah, but that is sort of on the path of assuming there are latent paedophiles out there which just seems a stretch. Everyone encounters children, usually quite regularly. Most people have their own, in fact. If they have an attraction to them that is so strong they're going to go off the rails they've probably had it triggered. The paedophiles already know who they are. It is quite plausible that the number of additional offenders from easy access to pornography would just be a reduction with negligible other effects. The stats don't suggest traditional pornography availability has led to more sex - quite the reverse, in fact, based on my cursory readings. But, as every comment in the thread points out, there really needs to be some effort put in to figuring out what would happen if it hasn't already been done. I'm not sure if you're looking for something here, we all agree there are multiple ways any change could play out.
fiso64 2y ago
>Is there any actual research on this? Surely psychologists must have studied this. That's not an easy thing to study, not many pedophiles would be willing to participate in studies. Existing research mostly examines just the ones who have offended. There's some research about non-contact offenders though: https://sci-hub.se/https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1079063215603690 https://sci-hub.se/https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1... TLDR > while some have argued that exposure to child pornography may promote contact sexual offending by validating and reinforcing attitudes surrounding the sexualization of children (Bourke & Hernandez, 2009), others have argued that child pornography acts as a substitute for contact offending, thereby preventing the direct sexual victimization of children (Riegel, 2004). Although plausible, such causative positions are yet to be directly examined or established within the existing empirical literature base, limiting the strength of these arguments. > Nonetheless, the available evidence does not appear to support the idea of a direct causal relationship between child pornography and contact sexual offending, at least in the short-term. This is consistent with the findings of McCarthy (2010), who reported that the majority of dual offenders in her sample (84%) had committed contact sexual offenses prior to, rather than following, their involvement with child pornography. Furthermore, if child pornography directly promoted contact sexual offending, one would reasonably expect rates of contact sexual offending to have similarly increased over the last two decades (Glasgow, 2010). Fortunately, official crime statistics indicate that this has not been the case (Brennan, 2012; Motivans & Kyckelhahn, 2007; Victoria Police, 2014). > Taken together, these findings suggest that although some CPOs do go on to commit sexual offenses against children, engaging in child pornography offending does not inevitably lead to the direct sexual victimization of children.

mc32 2y ago

There’s also the possibility that both are true. Some people stop at weed, but some people go on and get hooked on bad drugs. Maybe, some day, they’ll develop an unaddiction drug as well as an unpervert drug or treatment.

roenxi 2y ago
I agree that they are both probably true, but I don't think that fully addresses bawolff's point which I would interpret as harm reduction. If, on net, the B class dominates the other by a big margin then the net harm would be reduced and laws shouldn't be harsh - even if the A scenario plays out sometimes. The law should try to figure out who is actually causing abuse to happen and then target them. My bet is it would be a net reduction because if you hit someone with dopamine when they are staring at a screen they spend more time staring at screens (I'm pretty sure we found that was how violent video games work out, most gamers are a bit more of the weedy and harmless style in real life). But some stats would be helpful.
- mc32 2y ago
  There is the possibility as in weed legalization that now you get more users who would otherwise avoid it. An increased user base means additional users going for the hard stuff.
  - roenxi 2y ago
    Yeah, but that is sort of on the path of assuming there are latent paedophiles out there which just seems a stretch. Everyone encounters children, usually quite regularly. Most people have their own, in fact. If they have an attraction to them that is so strong they're going to go off the rails they've probably had it triggered. The paedophiles already know who they are. It is quite plausible that the number of additional offenders from easy access to pornography would just be a reduction with negligible other effects. The stats don't suggest traditional pornography availability has led to more sex - quite the reverse, in fact, based on my cursory readings. But, as every comment in the thread points out, there really needs to be some effort put in to figuring out what would happen if it hasn't already been done. I'm not sure if you're looking for something here, we all agree there are multiple ways any change could play out.

fiso64 2y ago

>Is there any actual research on this? Surely psychologists must have studied this. That's not an easy thing to study, not many pedophiles would be willing to participate in studies. Existing research mostly examines just the ones who have offended. There's some research about non-contact offenders though: https://sci-hub.se/https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1079063215603690 https://sci-hub.se/https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1... TLDR > while some have argued that exposure to child pornography may promote contact sexual offending by validating and reinforcing attitudes surrounding the sexualization of children (Bourke & Hernandez, 2009), others have argued that child pornography acts as a substitute for contact offending, thereby preventing the direct sexual victimization of children (Riegel, 2004). Although plausible, such causative positions are yet to be directly examined or established within the existing empirical literature base, limiting the strength of these arguments. > Nonetheless, the available evidence does not appear to support the idea of a direct causal relationship between child pornography and contact sexual offending, at least in the short-term. This is consistent with the findings of McCarthy (2010), who reported that the majority of dual offenders in her sample (84%) had committed contact sexual offenses prior to, rather than following, their involvement with child pornography. Furthermore, if child pornography directly promoted contact sexual offending, one would reasonably expect rates of contact sexual offending to have similarly increased over the last two decades (Glasgow, 2010). Fortunately, official crime statistics indicate that this has not been the case (Brennan, 2012; Motivans & Kyckelhahn, 2007; Victoria Police, 2014). > Taken together, these findings suggest that although some CPOs do go on to commit sexual offenses against children, engaging in child pornography offending does not inevitably lead to the direct sexual victimization of children.