glitterbag wrote:I read the first 30 or so pages hoping this thread would stop, but now it has reached a total of 56 pages. I had to skip forward because I think I will vomit if I read any more intellectualized rationale for kiddie porn. However, I suspect the person who first posted this vile question has been successful in engaging numerous people to discussing in great detail what they think is normal or abnormal, there-by satisfying his need to further debase children or any other victims of abuse.
This thread reminds me of the old dirty phonecalls you could receive before it was possible to learn the identity of the person making the call. You can't discuss anything rationally with someone determined to get his rocks off, everything about the topic excites him. I don't know how more often it needs to be said, but engaging in or viewing the debasement of children (all of whom are too young to consent) is God-awful wrong and certainly not something of which you should be proud. Victimizing the powerless does not make you a free-thinker or a rabblerouser, you just become someone who likes to talk dirty in mixed company.
If you read the rest of this thread, you'll see that I changed my mind about this issue quite significantly. Because I never was trying to rationalise kiddie porn. I was raising a question and proposing a possible answer, and it was pages and pages before anybody was able to explain exactly what was wrong with the answer. Nobody would have accused me of rationalising cheap chicken if I had raised the question, "Is it wrong to eat factory-farmed chicken?" and given arguments to the effect that it wasn't wrong.
If you pay attention to what I've been saying, rather than what you imagine I might have been saying, you'll see that I have no desire to "debase children or any other victims of abuse." I don't view child porn. I raised this philosophical issue in a place where children are very unlikely to read it. Some of the readers may have been victims of past abuse, but I have every sympathy for those people, and I never said anything to contradict that. I could have offended them, but it would be perverse to suggest that that was my intention. If I wanted to offend victims of abuse, I'd say something blatantly offensive. I wouldn't hold a lengthy debate about the ethics of child porn.
The idea that I am sexually aroused by this topic has been mentioned before. It's a very strange allegation. Paedophiles are aroused by children. That's all. That's what a paedophile is. They're not aroused by philosophical discussion about adults looking at pictures of children. Nothing turns me on about having a huge debate with a bunch of (mostly male) adults. I enjoy it, for sure. I love to debate and I intend to make a living out of it. But it doesn't "excite" me or "get my rocks off".
I never claimed or implied that victimising the powerless makes me a free-thinker. I'm not victimising anybody by having this discussion. There are no victims of discussions. There are victims of child porn, but I don't look at child porn.
Finally, you accuse me of talking dirty. I don't know what you think "talking dirty" means. Raising an emotionally charged issue in sexual ethics is not "talking dirty". Scan this entire thread and you won't find any use of erotic language.
I realise it would be unfair to expect you to read all of this thread. But I hope you're starting to realise how unfair it is of you to accuse me of all these various things. To clarify, in case you haven't realised, I now no longer think thaty it should be legal to view child porn. I only think that the sentences for that crime should be less severe than they are.
