Thread: The War on Child Porn: A witch hunt?

Originally Posted by UnreasonablyReasonable

What I really want to know is why 18 is thought of as the magic age in America. There are certainly tons of women in their 20s even who "lack the foresight and maturity necessary to deal with the potential ramifications of either nude photos of themselves, or photos of them engaging in sexual acts." Seems weird to me. Most girls from my high school aren't any more or less likely to pass around nude pictures of themselves now as they were back in school at 14 or 15. Sure someone might be able to convinced to do some pictures and it may just happen to be at a time before they're 18, but such a moment could easily occur in someone else after 18, except in one case it's perfectly fine. After puberty when the body is physically ready for sex then they're a woman (or a man). Sure at 18 they're somewhat less likely to be persuaded and "taken advantage of" to do such things, but then again they're WAY less likely to be naiive and be "taken advantage of" at 30, so why not make it that age to consider the slow-maturers?

People are able to make these decisions in their teens. Once your body lets you know you're an adult then it's time to start making adult decisions.

The pure reason why 18 is the "magic age" is just for legality purposes. There is no real age where somebody passes into adulthood. One only enters adulthood when they accept the social challenges put before adulthood and stop acting like a child

I considered myself a child up until around later November of last year, I finally got with the program, started acting responsibility, started planning for my future, etc. Many people are physically matured when they are 17/18, but cannot accept the emotional aspects of being an adult until they are much older than that. I have met several people who are or nearing 30, who act like emotionally insecure 2 year olds.

It is too hard to place a law in that aspect, so, somebody somewhere in time, decided 18 was a good enough age to be considered an adult.

And as far as the original subject matter of this thread goes: I agree art is art, but I find art of nude children to be disgusting. I know I personally do not want to see a child naked in either a photograph or a painting. And because of the fine line between "pornography" and "art" in photography, I just prefer to not have child nudity in them period.

Originally Posted by Kal El

The pure reason why 18 is the "magic age" is just for legality purposes. There is no real age where somebody passes into adulthood. One only enters adulthood when they accept the social challenges put before adulthood and stop acting like a child

I considered myself a child up until around later November of last year, I finally got with the program, started acting responsibility, started planning for my future, etc. Many people are physically matured when they are 17/18, but cannot accept the emotional aspects of being an adult until they are much older than that. I have met several people who are or nearing 30, who act like emotionally insecure 2 year olds.

It is too hard to place a law in that aspect, so, somebody somewhere in time, decided 18 was a good enough age to be considered an adult.

True, in this day and age more than ever, it seems that if anything people reach "adulthood" later. While too many children take their physical maturity at face value and begin having sex even at age fourteen or prior, very few are mentally mature. Case in point, my half-sister. She turns 22 in a couple of months, is in nursing school and has two children, yet she is almost entirely dependent on my mother for support and is the epitome of youthful ignorance. She matured early, was pregnant at age 13 and married by the time she was fifteen. I guess she was an adult by some people's standards back then. Even now, it is all I can do to tolerate her lack of raising. Many young people now lead sheltered lives, taken care of by Daddy and Mommy until they are in their Twenties and not being out in the "real world" until they are well past the legal drinking age. By the time I was twenty I had my first kid and thought I had matured greatly over the previous three years. Even with multiple children I spent most of my 20s kind of gliding through life. In the past couple of years I've finally started thinking about the future and even retirement, reflecting on how much growing I still have to do. Hence, I consider many people even my age to be kids. Heck, my ten year old is occasionally capable of making better decisions than my friends. To say that physical maturation should equal adulthood is ignorant at best.

On child porn, it is a matter of perspective and suggestiveness. The human body is a beautiful thing, but as Kal El stated, there is a fine line between art and pornography. Traci Lords was sexually mature and more than capable of acting like an adult in all of her films, though she started at age 15. The fact that she not only appeared to enjoy sex but actually did so on film to entertain the masses may identify her as an adult to some. Reading her book (Traci Lords: Underneath It All), however, reveals a disturbed teenager making mistake after mistake before finally beginning to find herself at the magic age of 18. She made money, owned cars and lived on her own, but was hardly what could be considered an adult. Still, she managed to fool the porn industry for a few years and was obviously enough of an adult to do so. Clueless (but physically mature) teenagers are usually victims of themselves and perhaps a few unscrupulous profiteers who should be prosecuted accordingly; innocent (and undeveloped) children are almost always victims in the truest sense of the word and their manipulators should be sought and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

Originally Posted by coqauvin

It is a little bit different depending on the culture you're in. Most of the 'mentally unprepared for sex' stuff deals with the social ramifications, and some of it is improperly using sex for something, either as a tool for manipulation, or as a route for escapism or a false sense of intimacy. This isn't something I would say a 10 year old (who conveniently fits the 'any double digit age') would be able to handle.

Why wouldn't a 10 year old be able to handle this? It isn't at all a complicated concept.


Also the question of how the system would work was a question that someone asked. The answer is to have porn depicting people who are underdeveloped be illegal, and that depicting those with adult bodies be legal. This is very straightforward and you can tell pretty easily just by looking. This would also prevent those EXCEEDINGLY stupid charges against people who have sex with girls who are younger than 18 but look like they could easily be old enough, I mean seriously how is a guy supposed to know? Even if asking for ID a girl could just say she never got a driver's license or she may have a fake one. The law should definitely not be so hard to be able to follow. My way is simple and makes more sense.

Originally Posted by UnreasonablyReasonable

Why wouldn't a 10 year old be able to handle this? It isn't at all a complicated concept.

So what exactly are you saying that a 10-year-old (for instance) should be allowed to do, that they aren't currently allowed to do?

Originally Posted by UnreasonablyReasonable

Also the question of how the system would work was a question that someone asked. The answer is to have porn depicting people who are underdeveloped be illegal, and that depicting those with adult bodies be legal. This is very straightforward and you can tell pretty easily just by looking.

So tell us exactly what criteria you would use to determine this. Give us an approximation of what the law might say; what might be the statuary standard by which the legality of a person's appearance in pornography would be judged? Don't just say "if they're developed, it's obvious when they are"; that's too vague and it's a cop-out. Tell us what specific indicators of development you think should be used.

Originally Posted by UnreasonablyReasonable

This would also prevent those EXCEEDINGLY stupid charges against people who have sex with girls who are younger than 18 but look like they could easily be old enough, I mean seriously how is a guy supposed to know? Even if asking for ID a girl could just say she never got a driver's license or she may have a fake one. The law should definitely not be so hard to be able to follow. My way is simple and makes more sense.

No, your way is complicated and ambiguous, because it tries to take an arbitrary point in a complex biological process and say that people are "undeveloped" before that point but "developed" after it. It's incredible that you honestly believe that it would be simple to consider people adults once they're "developed". I really don't think you appreciate how much of a bitch that will be to handle. But before I go any further on that point, I'll wait to see your explanation of how exactly you'd judge "development".

I do agree that it's undesirable to charge people with rape for having consensual sex with a person that they reasonably believed to be an adult; however, the correct solution is to have legal provisions that ameliorate the offense in those cases, not to change the system as you've proposed.

Originally Posted by Syme

So what exactly are you saying that a 10-year-old (for instance) should be allowed to do, that they aren't currently allowed to do?

Nothing at all.

Originally Posted by Syme

So tell us exactly what criteria you would use to determine this. Give us an approximation of what the law might say; what might be the statuary standard by which the legality of a person's appearance in pornography would be judged? Don't just say "if they're developed, it's obvious when they are"; that's too vague and it's a cop-out. Tell us what specific indicators of development you think should be used.

I'm sure a doctor would be able to tell these to you better. It is just ridiculously easy to judge this without even having to think about it, but go to a medical professional for specific indicators of a developed woman.

Originally Posted by Syme

No, your way is complicated and ambiguous, because it tries to take an arbitrary point in a complex biological process and say that people are "undeveloped" before that point but "developed" after it. It's incredible that you honestly believe that it would be simple to consider people adults once they're "developed". I really don't think you appreciate how much of a bitch that will be to handle. But before I go any further on that point, I'll wait to see your explanation of how exactly you'd judge "development".

The system needs to be "ambiguous" and that's the point. If the girl looks like she's older than she is and consents to sex, then there's not a realistic way to know if it's lawful or not under the current laws.

Originally Posted by Syme

I do agree that it's undesirable to charge people with rape for having consensual sex with a person that they reasonably believed to be an adult; however, the correct solution is to have legal provisions that ameliorate the offense in those cases, not to change the system as you've proposed.

So this is confusing to me, this seems to be quite similar to what I've said. In fact I don't see the difference except in wording.

Originally Posted by UnreasonablyReasonable

Nothing at all.

So what were you saying that a 10-year-old ought to be able to handle when you responded to coqauvin a few posts back? The implication there, I felt, was that there are some things that 10-year-olds currently aren't allowed to do, but that you feel they should be allowed to do because they are prepared to handle it. Correct me if I misunderstood you.

Originally Posted by UnreasonablyReasonable

I'm sure a doctor would be able to tell these to you better. It is just ridiculously easy to judge this without even having to think about it, but go to a medical professional for specific indicators of a developed woman.

Stop dancing around my question and answer it. If it's so ridiculously easy to judge, I shouldn't need a doctor to explain to me how to judge it; you should be able to tell me yourself. You don't have to be a medical professional to know the various signs and stages of sexual development (you should have learned that stuff in school, and if not, just go on Wikipedia and read the "puberty" article to find out). So again: I want you to tell me where in that process you think a person should be considered an adult.

Originally Posted by UnreasonablyReasonable

The system needs to be "ambiguous" and that's the point. If the girl looks like she's older than she is and consents to sex, then there's not a realistic way to know if it's lawful or not under the current laws.

That's not what I mean by ambiguous. I don't mean it allows for ambiguity in enforcement; I mean that your definition of adulthood, that legal adulthood should be based on sexual or physical development, is going to be far more inherently ambiguous, and thus difficult to put into practice, than you seem to realize. Again, before I go any further on this, I'll wait for your answer to the question above--exactly what biological criteria should be used?

Originally Posted by UnreasonablyReasonable

So this is confusing to me, this seems to be quite similar to what I've said. In fact I don't see the difference except in wording.

It's quite dissimilar to what you've said. You are saying that the concept of legal adulthood at age 18 should be abolished, and instead people should be considered adults whenever they are sexually mature (whatever that really means--you still haven't explained); so that, for instance, it would be legal for an adult to have sex with a girl whenever she reaches that point in her physical development, no matter how old or young. On the other hand, what I'm saying is that sexual consent should continue to be based on a certain age--16 or 18 or whatever--but that the offense of statutory rape should be ameliorated in cases where there the defendant was mislead to believe that the girl was of legal age. Surely the difference is easy to understand?

Originally Posted by Syme

So what were you saying that a 10-year-old ought to be able to handle when you responded to coqauvin a few posts back? The implication there, I felt, was that there are some things that 10-year-olds currently aren't allowed to do, but that you feel they should be allowed to do because they are prepared to handle it. Correct me if I misunderstood you.

All I'm saying is that by the time a person is ten, they aren't incapable of understanding any of these discussed concepts. So by the time they are a little older there is no excuse and no room to say they didn't fully understand what they were doing. It may be true that they didn't fully understand, but that's their fault.

Originally Posted by Syme

Stop dancing around my question and answer it. If it's so ridiculously easy to judge, I shouldn't need a doctor to explain to me how to judge it; you should be able to tell me yourself. You don't have to be a medical professional to know the various signs and stages of sexual development (you should have learned that stuff in school, and if not, just go on Wikipedia and read the "puberty" article to find out). So again: I want you to tell me where in that process you think a person should be considered an adult.

You just said you could look it up, I really don't understand why you want me to regurgitate information you can find on your own. As far as being able to tell you things that are ridiculously easy to judge, I am not able to tell you what is required for something to be brown, but it is not at all a problem for me to tell what is brown, nor is it a problem for anyone who can see colors properly. Though you'd need someone who studied science and actually remembered what they learned to tell you what is the exact distinction between brown and any other color, as I'm not able to tell you. Yes it is possible for me to look it up, there's no reason for me to do so, since if you want to know then just look.

Originally Posted by Syme

It's quite dissimilar to what you've said. You are saying that the concept of legal adulthood at age 18 should be abolished, and instead people should be considered adults whenever they are sexually mature (whatever that really means--you still haven't explained); so that, for instance, it would be legal for an adult to have sex with a girl whenever she reaches that point in her physical development, no matter how old or young. On the other hand, what I'm saying is that sexual consent should continue to be based on a certain age--16 or 18 or whatever--but that the offense of statutory rape should be ameliorated in cases where there the defendant was mislead to believe that the girl was of legal age. Surely the difference is easy to understand?

Ahh, I was confused by the previous ambiguity, but yes now it's clear. I can see that working as well with 16 being the age. In fact that would most likely work quite a bit better.