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

I'm siding with Woofness on this. There are aspects of the law and it's application that don't work as smoothly as we would wish them to, but I don't necessarily think that this is a good example of that. If your cousin was indeed set up, then it shouldn't be a difficult matter to bring it up to the parole board, or prove that the pornography he did have was sent by another account, and to track down that person.

Also, I would appreciate it if you would highlight an aspect of this case to direct the conversation on. I'm not sure exactly what it is you want the thread to discuss, and I'm also sure I'm not the only one who thinks this. If you could summarize an issue in this, or several, that bear talking about, please do so.

Originally Posted by coqauvin

On the other hand, there is a valid point that unscrupulous and immature teenagers could, theoretically, end up producing pornography of themselves and selling it to... how shall I say, enthusiasts?

But the kids being hit with these child pornography charges didn't (as far as I can tell) take nude photos of each other for this purpose. Surely the hypothetical scenario you've thought up here, which doesn't seem to describe the actual cases in question, doesn't justify charging a 16-year-old with child pornography for sending nude pic-messages to her boyfriend?

Originally Posted by coqauvin

I'm still of the opinion that people around that age 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. Some people will react poorly to their nudes being passed around, something that is almost inevitable, considering how long and how volatile high school relationships tend to be.

I'd agree with that, but I don't think that it in any way justifies charging them with a kiddie porn offense.

Originally Posted by coqauvin

on the notion of older art eroticizing youth, I'm pretty sure there are cases of photographers doing artistic nudes with underaged models that were accused of creating child pornography, but I can't remember their names, so yes, the stigma is certainly still being applied. I would like to know your stance on the painting, sycld. Do you find them to be works of art, or the lecherous wish of a pervert brought artistically to life?

I'm not sycld, but I'd call them art. It's not like nude paintings were otherwise scarce in the schools of art represented by the paintings in the OP. Subjects were often depicted nude, regardless of their age. If these artists were painting fully-clothed adults but demanding that their child models get naked, it might be different. But that's not how it was. They tended to paint adult subjects just as nude as those kids.

EDIT: Just a side note, thank god we're not SA. There would be no chance of having this discussion on SA without it degenerating almost instantly.

I do think there are times when the war on child porn sometimes forgets what it is that it is fighting. I have heard horror tales of stupid teenagers sending pictures of themselves around and getting people into trouble. This is not child porn, this is not what the fight should be about. The whole idea about fighting child porn is that in order for it to be made, a child must be abused, therefore the cops go after both supply and demand in order to save more children from abuse.

It should not cover stupid teens thinking it is a laugh to distribute naughty pictures of themselves. Teens acting like this is not the same as a child molestor photographing/recording themselves abusing children, it just isn't.

Stats from an online survey of 653 teens: http://www.thenationalcampaign.org/s...ch_Summary.pdf

20% of them have sent/posted nude/semi-nude pictures of themselves.
11% of girls 13-16 have done this.

There are details on to whom and why.

I knew that there was something in the back of my mind concerning this argument; today I found it. Hidden in one of my ebooks, an article which discusses this very topic (from a position inches closer to sycld than Coq, which is about where I think I weigh in at the moment).
http://www.sssswr.org/prog99/steinberg.htm

I would argue that the three painting sycld produced are indeed sexually suggestive

but that is neither here nor there in this thread, so I won't.

Originally Posted by Syme

Yeah, that may be, but that law can't work that way for obvious reasons. The law has to pick some magic number, whether it's 16 or 18 or 21 or whatever, when people are entitled to be considered an adult under the law. I know it's arbitrary, but what's the alternative? Have every person reach legal adulthood at a different age, based on when they reach a certain point in their sexual or physical development? Who evaluates that? And what exactly would be the magic point in the gradual process of sexual/physical development that defines sexual/physical adulthood and therefore legal adulthood? You'd have to pick one, and ultimately it would be just as arbitrary as picking a magic age... except it would be a lot more of a hassle to determine when each person had passed that point.

I agree, I'm not amazing at thinking of alternatives, but how it is currently just doesn't seem to be working that well. Though it isn't very hard to judge such things, there doesn't have to be a particular cutoff point. People have lots of differences from birth, so why not base it on what its purpose is intended for in the first place?

Originally Posted by Syme

Arguably, the right to make adult decisions should be based on mental development, not physical sexual development. Why does it make sense that the state of your reproductive organs should be what determines whether you are an adult or not? Isn't the state of your mind much more important to your decision-making? It's pretty well established that a person has some degree of mental adolescence well into their 20s, even if they are physically adults by their early- to mid-teens. Your conviction that a person is an adult once they've completed puberty is just as arbitrary as the laws saying that a person is an adult once they're 18 years old.

Ultimately, "adulthood" as a legal and social term is, itself, arbitrary. It's socially constructed; it's whatever we agree it to be. Acting like sexual maturity is the "true" or "proper" definition of adulthood in this sense is just absurd.

I'm not sure why it's so absurd. If someone's not mentally able by the time their body is, then they have much bigger problems to worry about. The point is that it's not the state of the reproductive organs solely, but that the mental development goes along with that. People are really capable at any double-digit age of understanding everything involved, it just depends on what discussion they are exposed to and if they actually think about things. So by the time they are developed sexually they very much ought to be mentally ready to make the decisions. Perhaps its harder now in a culture where we are saying that you can be a complete dumbass up until your 18th birthday and you won't have to worry about having your pictures spread around because anyone that does so will be put in jail and get tons of unnecessary hate from people about it.

Switching, however, to a mentality that allows people to make these ridiculously basic decisions will in turn make them capable of making these very basic decisions before 18 (assuming they're not able already).

Originally Posted by UnreasonablyReasonable

I'm not sure why it's so absurd. If someone's not mentally able by the time their body is, then they have much bigger problems to worry about. The point is that it's not the state of the reproductive organs solely, but that the mental development goes along with that. People are really capable at any double-digit age of understanding everything involved, it just depends on what discussion they are exposed to and if they actually think about things. So by the time they are developed sexually they very much ought to be mentally ready to make the decisions. Perhaps its harder now in a culture where we are saying that you can be a complete dumbass up until your 18th birthday and you won't have to worry about having your pictures spread around because anyone that does so will be put in jail and get tons of unnecessary hate from people about it.

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.

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.

It's incredibly hard to define 'developed' in this sense.

I know rather a few 'petite' girls who are in their 20s who have trouble convincing shopkeepers they're over 16. The idea of what is 'developed' and what isn't is not set in stone but is instead relative to the relevant person.

Anybody can cry wolf and say that they were raped. Even if it's consented sex, all it takes is a scorned person to go and cry wolf.

And honestly I am against sex at such an early age. I can't say for what age I am really for thinking its acceptable, for me I guess I'd leave it as a "don't ask, don't tell" matter. At the age of 16, I would personally hope that those people engaging in such acts would be looking toward the future and the road ahead of them, but unfortunately sex is such a big deal at that age, and ends up with babies on welfare.

I apologize for blindly walking into the middle of your discussion. I will be honest, I never read UR's posts in whole. "For obvious reasons."

Unreasonably Reasonable, Syme is not asking a difficult question, although, to be fair, his positing it pushes you into a position to explain yourself clearly, something which you've been unable to do for a good 4 or 5 posts so far. It is a difficult question he is posting, but your own opinion has led to it's being asked - if you post your opinion here, don't be surprised when someone asks you to back it up.

So, back it up. You're only real other alternative is to avoid this thread like the plague, knowing that your only actions here were adopting an almost indefensible stance and being incapable of explaining yourself.

Originally Posted by coqauvin

Unreasonably Reasonable, Syme is not asking a difficult question, although, to be fair, his positing it pushes you into a position to explain yourself clearly, something which you've been unable to do for a good 4 or 5 posts so far. It is a difficult question he is posting, but your own opinion has led to it's being asked - if you post your opinion here, don't be surprised when someone asks you to back it up.

So, back it up. You're only real other alternative is to avoid this thread like the plague, knowing that your only actions here were adopting an almost indefensible stance and being incapable of explaining yourself.

Well actually I already agreed with him, so I don't see what the point is in defending a position I no longer hold.

Originally Posted by syme

However, as I understand it, you have been making a broader argument in this thread--you have been arguing that legal adulthood in general should be tied to sexual maturity. Is this not correct?

And "the age at which one can reproduce" is the narrowest definition of sexual maturity--it's the one a biologist would use--but it's far from the only one, and it was far from clear that it's what you meant. Again, puberty is a process that lasts years. For the record, by that definition, humans can be "sexually mature" as early as age 6

and to continue this, you still haven't elaborated at which point we are to be considered 'sexually mature', in spite of your claims that it is glaringly obvious. Your claim is, instead, that we should look it up ourselves and you don't want to regurgitate information. He's not asking you to outline the process of puberty for the sake of outlining the process - he wants you to identify where, within that developmental phase, your definition of 'sexually mature including the mental faculties to handle sex' kicks in.

Well I am going to close this thread; there are no new points in the poorly defined argument that started it, and it has degenerated into browbeating someone who cannot form an argument about to elaborate their stance on a subject they don't understand.