Re: Is it wrong to view child pornography?
Agrote raises some interesting issues, which, of course, have been lost amidst all of the righteous indignation that his initial post inspired. It is, however, worth looking at those issues more closely.
But first, I must issue the usual disclaimers: I am not sexually aroused by pornographic images of children. Indeed, I would find such images positively nauseating. Given that my own sexual interests have no bearing whatsoever on the validity of my argument, I shouldn't have to issue that sort of disclaimer, but I know that as soon as I enter into a thread like this my own interests will be challenged. So, to put your minds at ease and to avoid that irrelevant side-issue, I want to make that plain up front.
Now, as to the subject of the thread. The standard argument against child porn is that it harms children. It is, I think, patently obvious how the depiction of actual children harms them. In order to create photos or videos of child porn, actual children must be involved. As agrote states: "The problem with photographic child pornography is that it can't be made without the abuse of an actual child. The problem is the actual abuse that takes place." Children are incapable of consenting to sex, let alone to their depiction in sexual situations, so the abuse in this type of case can be, I think, assumed as a given. In addition, it seems pretty much indisputable that children who are initiated into sex at an early age suffer adverse psychological effects that can carry over into adulthood.
The state, therefore, is justified in not only banning the activity of producing child porn that involves actual children, but also of banning the sale and possession of that child porn, just as the state is justified in banning the manufacture, sale, and possession of any other harmful substance, e.g. explosives, narcotics, etc. It would be surpassing strange if the state could prohibit the production of a product but could do nothing once that product entered into the marketplace.
But the analogy between child porn and other harmful banned substances, like explosives, breaks down because it is assumed that it's the production of the child porn that constitutes the harm. In other words, child porn is harmful because children are harmed in its production. That's not the case with explosives or other banned products, which are harmful in themselves. If it's true that child porn is only harmful because children are harmed in its production, then its prohibition is more akin to bans on items produced by child labor or slave labor rather than products that are inherently dangerous. So, for instance, we might argue that we should ban or boycott shoes that are manufactured using child labor, but that's not because the shoes themselves are objectionable, but because we believe that, by purchasing those shoes, we are encouraging a practice that we believe is harmful.
What, then, do we do with artificial pornographic images that do not involve any actual children? If it's true that it's the production of child porn that constitutes the real harm, then the production of child porn that does not involve any actual children would seem to avoid that problem. If we nevertheless still object to the artificial images, then it must be on some other ground.
As agrote points out: "This new proposal seems to be based on quite a common assumption that the reason child pornography is bad is that paedophiles are turned on by it." I think that's a pretty astute observation. The question then becomes: "is that so harmful that it is something the state should prohibit?" In other words, if arousing pedophiles is itself harmful, then the state should have an interest in prohibiting that. If it is not, then the state would seem to have no business regulating it.
That's a rather more interesting question, I believe, than the ones agrote was asking, and it puts it on the kind of ethical level, rather than a legal level, that agrote requested. I have my own ideas on that topic, but I'd like to see what others think first.
boomerang wrote:Do agrote's ideas remind anyone else of OmSigDavid's crazy notion that if only more people had guns there would be less people getting shot?
Think about it. Paedophiles want to have sex with children rather than adults. As far as I am aware, nothing will change that. Unless we are going to force them to live in isolation and abstain from sexual thought until they are driven to suicide, we need to allow paedophiles the little sexual gratification that they can without harming anybody.
Since they can't do what ordinary people do and find a sexual partner, we need to let them fantasise in private, share drawings, and maybe even look at the child pornography which has already been made. Child pornography should never have been made, but it was. Nothing can be done to alter the fact that abuse has taken place on camera. Accessing the images of it, without forking over any money, is not going to create a demand for further images to be created (and further abuses to take place).
You can think of it as throwing a piece of meat to the lions so that they stop chasing children. Or you can think of it as I do: as maximising the well-being all people, including paedophiles. The majority opinion seems to be that we should maximise the well-being of all people
excluding paedophiles, but I think that is no less perverse than paedophilia itself. If we can give paedophiles a sexual outlet that will not cause harm to children, then we should do so.
Someone who garners pleasure from the pain of damaged children ( and then asks if it is wrong) is likely to be so morally obtuse that is a waste of effort to explain why it is most certainly wrong, so I won't bother, but I will say that it is my frevent hope that on your first day in prison (which is where you are going if you don't desist) that they hold you down in the yard, arms and legs, while a grownup abused child scoops your eyes out with a spoon.
Joe(get me?)Nation
Re: Is it wrong to view child pornography?
joefromchicago wrote:If it's true that child porn is only harmful because children are harmed in its production, then its prohibition is more akin to bans on items produced by child labor or slave labor rather than products that are inherently dangerous. So, for instance, we might argue that we should ban or boycott shoes that are manufactured using child labor, but that's not because the shoes themselves are objectionable, but because we believe that, by purchasing those shoes, we are encouraging a practice that we believe is harmful.
You're right, and the reason that we encourage child labour by buying such shoes is that we give money to the companies who employ child labourers. There is no need to boycot items made by child labour which have been donated to charity shops, because in buying them we will not be funding child labour. There is no need to boycot items made by child labour which are given away for free, say from an older sibling who has grown out of them.
Similarly, when child porn is given away for free, a boycot has no effect. When paedophiles stop paying for child porn, they discourage those who profit from abusing children. When paedophiles stop
viewing child porn that they have obtained freely, nothing of the sort happens. There is no obvious ethical difference between looking at free child porn and not looking at it. Maybe looking at it makes you more likely to abuse children, or maybe you are less likely to abuse children if you use free child porn as a substitute for the real thing. I imagine that either effect would be fairly insignificant.
Quote:In other words, if arousing pedophiles is itself harmful, then the state should have an interest in prohibiting that. If it is not, then the state would seem to have no business regulating it.
Yes, good question. Firstly it is worth asking it of people who aren't paedophiles. Is it harmful in itself to arouse an ordinary adult? The answer appears to be 'no'. Why then might it be wrong to arouse a paedophile? A paedophile is a fellow human being who has a sexual orientation towards people of a younger age than average. Paedophiles have the same need that most of us have, to find sexual fulfillment on a somewhat regular basis. Or perhaps it isn't a need; perhaps it's just a very nice thing, which more often than not forms an important (perhaps essential) part of a life worth living. This needs to be taken into account. The harmful effects of arousing a paedophile (if there are any) may outweigh the benefits. But nothing trumps the benefits.
Sexual pleasure is a good thing, and paedophiles who haven't committed any crimes, or caused harm to children, deserve to enjoy life as much as anybody else. Moreover, sexual abstitence is more than the lack of a good thing; it is a torturous thing.
Anyway, I think those things are worth keeping in mind when you consider joe's question.
Re: Is it wrong to view child pornography?
agrote wrote:You're right, and the reason that we encourage child labour by buying such shoes is that we give money to the companies who employ child labourers.
I disagree. The objectionable part is not that the companies are making money from employing child laborers, it's that they are employing child laborers in the first place. If a company employed child laborers and gave away its products, its practice of employing child laborers would still be objectionable and it would still make sense to ban or boycott those products. Likewise, banning the products of child labor on the secondary market (such as in second-hand shops) is justifiable on policy grounds because: (1) there is often a practical difficulty in making distinctions between primary and secondary markets; and (2) foreclosing the secondary market to such goods has an effect on the primary market, i.e. making it harder to sell items second-hand adversely affects the price that such goods can command when they are new.
agrote wrote:When paedophiles stop paying for child porn, they discourage those who profit from abusing children. When paedophiles stop viewing child porn that they have obtained freely, nothing of the sort happens. There is no obvious ethical difference between looking at free child porn and not looking at it. Maybe looking at it makes you more likely to abuse children, or maybe you are less likely to abuse children if you use free child porn as a substitute for the real thing. I imagine that either effect would be fairly insignificant.
I disagree. Free porn and purchased porn is indistinguishable on its face, so the state is entitled to ban
all porn so long as that distinction cannot be made. It is, for instance, not only illegal for an American to
buy Cuban cigars, it is also illegal to
possess Cuban cigars that have been received as a gift.
Joe Nation wrote:Someone who garners pleasure from the pain of damaged children ( and then asks if it is wrong) is likely to be so morally obtuse that is a waste of effort to explain why it is most certainly wrong...
Okay, but who are you talking about exactly? Do you think paedophiles like child porn because it hurts children? Sadists may like it for that reason. But paedophiles like it because they find children sexually attractive.
I think it is possible for an ethically and sexually ordinary policeman to watch CCTV footage of a rape taking place, and experience mixed feelings. On the one hand, the policeman sees a man torture a woman in a cruel and humiliating way, and this is an abhorrent thing. But on the other hand, the policeman perhaps sees an attractive woman, naked and having sex (rape being an abhorrent kind of sex).
Thirdly, of course, the polcieman sees a crime scene, a perpetrator, a victim, evidence, etc. There are many aspects to the scene, and the policeman has mixed feeligns because the different ways of looking at the scene arouse different, non-complementary feelings.
If a sadist downloads child porn, he does so because he wants to see a child being tortured. He gains pleasure from the idea of human suffering, perhaps fantasises about it, and he looks for something which will fit the co-ordinates of his fantasy.
When a paedophile downlaods child porn, he does so because he wants to see a child naked and/or having sex. He gains pleasure from the idea of making love to a child in the way that ordinary people make love to other adults. He fantasises about this, and he downloads child porn because he wants to see something which fits the co-ordinates of his fantasy. He might happen to be a sadist as well, and he may gain pleasure from the fact that he sees a victim suffer. But that is not paedophilia; as a paedophile, he is turned on by the sexual aspect of the rape, not the torturous aspect. The non-sadistic paedophile (they do exist), who can brign himself to watch child porn, is perhaps able, unliek the policeman, to focus on just one aspect of what he sees - one of the variosu ways of looking at it.
Quote:...I will say that it is my frevent hope that on your first day in prison (which is where you are going if you don't desist) that they hold you down in the yard, arms and legs, while a grownup abused child scoops your eyes out with a spoon.
I haven't committed any sex crimes and I don't intend to. It sounds like you might be a sadist yourself.
I believe it is a given, any material or other exploitation, sexually, of children, whether for money or for free, should never be allowed. It is more problematic if the offending material does not involve actual children. The observer will be acutely aware he or she is examining an artificial creation. But the activity can be said to feed a prurient interest. That, without providing fulfilled fantasy. Could it be a sort of introductory drug to the hard stuff? Does it feed a criminal lust? I would prefer to err on the side of over caution than allow such a thing.
Re: Is it wrong to view child pornography?
joefromchicago wrote:agrote wrote:You're right, and the reason that we encourage child labour by buying such shoes is that we give money to the companies who employ child labourers.
I disagree. The objectionable part is not that the companies are making money from employing child laborers, it's that they are employing child laborers in the first place. If a company employed child laborers and gave away its products, its practice of employing child laborers would still be objectionable and it would still make sense to ban or boycott those products.
Okay, but you're talking physical items here. This is an implausible scenario but I'll play along: suppose Primark (British clothing shop that sells clothes made by child labourers) keeps producing its clothes, but starts giving them away for free. Perhaps if we refuse to take them, they sit on the shelves, and Primark sees this and decides that there's no point making them anymore. (There was no point making them anyway, since they were giving them away at no profit, but I'll leave that aside for present purposes.) So maybe the boycot prevents child labour.
Now consider child porn. Some child abuser posts illegal photographs on a website, or saves them in his shared folder on some sort of file-sharing program. Paedophiles find his website and look at it for pleasure. Or they find his files on the file-sharing program and download them. No money changes hands, all that happens is that one paedophile looks at another paedophile's stuff. Maybe the child abuser notices how many people have viewed his website, or notices somebody downloading his files. Will this make a difference to the probability that the child abuser will abuse more children and make more pictures? I don't think so.
Maybe there's some level of satisfaction when you give away free clothes and people welcome them. But I imagine that is not the case when you make illegal photographs public and people use them as masturbation material. Can't really see much satisfaction in that. If paedophiles boycot websites featuring child porn, maybe the chil abuser sees no point in posting his photos on the website. But I'm not convinced that he cares enough about supplying child porn to others at no profit that he will abuse kids and make pictures for that purpose. I reckon if we was doing it for free in the first place, he'll keep doing it even if nobody else is watching.
Quote:I disagree. Free porn and purchased porn is indistinguishable on its face, so the state is entitled to ban all porn so long as that distinction cannot be made.
Bank statements and other financial evidence can be used to determine whether the porn was paid for. In som cases at least the distinction can be made. If we are going to make a moral distinction (as we should) between paying for it and getting it for free, I think we need to assume innocence on that count rather than guilt. In the absence of evidence that it was paid for, it's unjust to charge the suspect as if it was.
Quote:It is, for instance, not only illegal for an American to buy Cuban cigars, it is also illegal to possess Cuban cigars that have been received as a gift.
It's not right though, is it. Possessing drugs for personal use is a far cry from giving money to illegal drug distributors.
edgarblythe wrote:I believe it is a given, any material or other exploitation, sexually, of children, whether for money or for free, should never be allowed.
It should not be allowed to be made, I agree with you there. But not allowed full stop? What does that even mean? Once it has been made, if paedophiles can benefit from it without harming anybody, then the material shouldn't go to waste. I know that sounds bizarre, but the truth is weird sometimes.
Suppose your grandpa was an organised criminal and he made a huge amount of money by breaking the law and damaging people's lives. He leaves his money to you when he dies. Should you use that money to pay for your kids to go to college? I don't see why not. It was bad that your grandpa did what he did, but that is not what you are doing.
Similarly, I think it might be alright for paedophiles to use free child porn once the abusive means of production have taken place. It is bad that people abuse children, but a paedophile who views a picture of it is not abusing children. The law needs to focus on preventing the abuse, not preventing people from enjoying looking at pictures of the abuse. I mean, it's a surreal confusion of priorities when you describe it like that.
Quote:It is more problematic if the offending material does not involve actual children. The observer will be acutely aware he or she is examining an artificial creation. But the activity can be said to feed a prurient interest.
The interest is biologically hardwired (or at least well-embedded psychologically). It is not going to go away, no matter what you do.
Quote:That, without providing fulfilled fantasy. Could it be a sort of introductory drug to the hard stuff? Does it feed a criminal lust?
As long as it is illegal, perhaps you're right. But if it were legal to view child porn for free, it may serve the same function as legal "herbal highs", which are used as an
alternative to hard drugs.
Quote:I would prefer to err on the side of over caution than allow such a thing.
The problem with erring on the side of caution is that you deprive a large minority of people the right to experience a minimum level of sexual satisfaction. I don't think we should underestimate the importance of sex in people's lives. I'm certain that a large proportion of men would want to kill themselves if their penises were amputated. Sex is ethically important.
Re: Is it wrong to view child pornography?
agrote wrote:Now consider child porn. Some child abuser posts illegal photographs on a website, or saves them in his shared folder on some sort of file-sharing program. Paedophiles find his website and look at it for pleasure. Or they find his files on the file-sharing program and download them. No money changes hands, all that happens is that one paedophile looks at another paedophile's stuff. Maybe the child abuser notices how many people have viewed his website, or notices somebody downloading his files. Will this make a difference to the probability that the child abuser will abuse more children and make more pictures? I don't think so.
It doesn't matter. If the harm to be abated is the
production of the child porn, it is irrelevant how widespread its consumption might be, just as it doesn't matter whether one pair of shoes or a million pairs of shoes are manufactured using child labor as long as the problem isn't the shoes but rather the labor.
agrote wrote:If we are going to make a moral distinction (as we should) between paying for it and getting it for free...
I certainly don't accept that. Why should we make a moral distinction between paying for child porn and getting it for free?
We must protect the children. Child pornography in any form does not do that. Banish it and the freaks who want it. I would say that prison is too good for them but no, prison is just the right place.
Re: Is it wrong to view child pornography?
joefromchicago wrote:It doesn't matter. If the harm to be abated is the production of the child porn, it is irrelevant how widespread its consumption might be, just as it doesn't matter whether one pair of shoes or a million pairs of shoes are manufactured using child labor as long as the problem isn't the shoes but rather the labor.
Right. But you seemed to be suggesting that a boycot of free child pornography would have some sort of positive effect. I'm arguing that it wouldn't. Viewing free child porn doesn't seem to be any more harmful than drinking a cup of tea or flushing tha lavatory.
Quote:I certainly don't accept that. Why should we make a moral distinction between paying for child porn and getting it for free?
Because if you pay for child pornography, you give child abusers a financial incentive to abuse children. Your action raises the probability of children being harmed.
If you download it for free, no such thing happens. Your action seems to have very little (if any) effect on the probability of child abuse occuring.
I'm a consequentialist, so the ethical distinction I am putting forward is based on the net contribution that each action has towards the maximisation of human well-being. Paedophiles do not give financial contributions to child abusers when they download chidl porn for free. They do, on the other hand, satisfy their sexual appetite (in one of the few harmless ways that they can), and therefore promote their own well-being. It is ethically better to download child porn for free than to buy it from those who produced it. In fact, I go as far as claiming that it is perfectly fine to download child porn for free, and should not be a crime. At the very least, it should not be punished with lengthy prison sentences.
eoe wrote:We must protect the children.
I agree, but at what cost? What are the chances that a child will be harmed in the process of somebody downloading free child pornography?
And what about the question of child pornographic drawings? How do they harm children?
Quote:Child pornography in any form does not do that.
You're right, child pornography does not protect children. Neither do rivers and bricks. Should they be banished?
The production of child pornography harms children. But that is the responsibiltiy of those who make the pictures. Once the images are out there, what harm do they cause? How many children are harmed when a paedophile clicks on a free image of child abuse? None.
Quote:Banish it and the freaks who want it. I would say that prison is too good for them but no, prison is just the right place.
The rights of paedophiles should only be sacrificed insofar as is necessary to protect children. It is not necessary to lock up everybody who looks at sexually suggestive pictures of children. It is not necessary to ruin the lives of men who have no intention of harming children.
Re: Is it wrong to view child pornography?
agrote wrote:joefromchicago wrote:It doesn't matter. If the harm to be abated is the production of the child porn, it is irrelevant how widespread its consumption might be, just as it doesn't matter whether one pair of shoes or a million pairs of shoes are manufactured using child labor as long as the problem isn't the shoes but rather the labor.
Right. But you seemed to be suggesting that a boycot of free child pornography would have some sort of positive effect. I'm arguing that it wouldn't. Viewing free child porn doesn't seem to be any more harmful than drinking a cup of tea or flushing tha lavatory.
Quote:I certainly don't accept that. Why should we make a moral distinction between paying for child porn and getting it for free?
Because if you pay for child pornography, you give child abusers a financial incentive to abuse children. Your action raises the probability of children being harmed.
If you download it for free, no such thing happens. Your action seems to have very little (if any) effect on the probability of child abuse occuring.
I'm a consequentialist, so the ethical distinction I am putting forward is based on the net contribution that each action has towards the maximisation of human well-being. Paedophiles do not give financial contributions to child abusers when they download chidl porn for free. They do, on the other hand, satisfy their sexual appetite (in one of the few harmless ways that they can), and therefore promote their own well-being. It is ethically better to download child porn for free than to buy it from those who produced it. In fact, I go as far as claiming that it is perfectly fine to download child porn for free, and should not be a crime. At the very least, it should not be punished with lengthy prison sentences.
Nonsense.
a. As I have said before, nourishing sexual fantasies about children is a significant risk factor for going on to abuse them. You attempted to wiggle out of that one by saying that two things occurring together do not prove causality, however that is firstly an entirely reckless and self-serving wiggle (surely you would err on the side of caution when it comes to child abuse? Hmmmmmm????) and secondly this information is based on more than data analysis...it also comes from long interviews with paedophiles themselves, who speak of the progression from ever more intrusive fantasies to actual abuse.
b. Your "pay for" argument is also a pathetic attempt to wiggle out of reality. Do you really defend getting your rocks off by looking at helpless humans being abused? Really? Are you truly attempting to deny that all participants in the child porn industry maintain it.....both by creating demand (lots of this **** is never paid for, anyway...it's made by men who do it because that is what they love to do...it's not like they pay most of the kids...and who love to share it because they, like you, try to pass it off as harmless...the real nice guys say it is out of love for the little kiddies, whom they are liberating) and by having a pool of people out there who can say "other people like this stuff, it's not wrong".
how can you debate this? In order to view child pornography.... some children had to be filmed making it. That's it.
How 'bout snuff movies? Is it okay to watch them?
Jesus.
What agrote doesn't get is that rape is not an "abhorrent form of sex".
It is a form of violence.
Joe(wash away the blather and it's about power.)Nation
I have been agreeing with joefromchicago all along here - he's articulated my thoughts and added a few I hadn't gotten to.
I've anecdotal opinion on artistic expression re abuse to add. Not pornographic abuse, but physical beating abuse. An artist I know did a small series of wrenching work showing the distraught faces of beaten children. Knowing this person, I am positive that was not done in any exploitative way, but in a kind of constrained rage, perhaps payback, personal narrative; in any case, self expression. Not anything anyone would hang over the dining room table, it was/is serious art.
I can also see some beaten children imagery as exploitative.
I don't know about the line on that, but I'd smell it when I see it, as it were.
I'm personally sometimes unhappy/uncomfortable with artistic photos of unclothed children under a certain age on display. That
'sometimes' depends on the photo. Sally Mann's work comes to mind. I agree children are beautiful, but the publishing of this before the child can give true consent bothers me. And her work wasn't even pornographic, much less meant as such; I still find it exploitative re the consent factor.
But I can take my disconcertion too far.. there are a vast number of naked babies with madonnas in oil and gold frames out there.
So, that brings me to what if someone draws pornographic images of children. My immediate take is that the motive is arousal with an underlying message of children-are-toys - doubly exploitative. No matter if it is not a particular identifiable child, or done without photographic technique, still exploitative of children as a whole.
One point that is being overlooked here is the fact that porn is offered for free on the computer all the time, by exhibitionists. There is no way of knowing who makes money and who doesn't in many cases. So, agrote's argument that it is free is not necessarily going to remove the incentive to produce the stuff anyway.
I agree, edgarblythe. The whole 'free' business is a red herring.
