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Some comments to an old article on this site (http://www.sankakucomplex.com/2009/03/21/democrats-propose-end-to-loli-ban-free-loli-for-all/) got me thinking, and I'd like to pose, to my fellow Sankakuans, the following question:
Regardless of what the laws are where you live, in your *personal* opinion, do you think that simple possession - and nothing else - of 3D child pornography *should* be a punishable offense?
3D child pornography is, in my opinion, rightfully abhorred when and because it depicts abuse. The reason child pornography is legislated against is because it is the product of a crime - the sexual abuse of a child. When child pornography is disseminated into the world, commercially or otherwise, this could be considered a form of exploitation of the children involved. Abuse, exploitation - these are crimes, punishable offenses, and rightfully so. But should possession of these sorts of materials alone be a punishable offense?
You /could/ argue: "if making it and sharing it are illegal, then having it should be illegal too. After all, how else would you have it, if not by making it or receiving it? Besides, we wouldn't want to give people the opinion that we think it's alright for them to have it!" Firstly, I don't think laws and cultural morals are equivalent. Something can be frowned upon without it being illegal. Whether or not it is illegal *should* hinge on whether or not the behavior in question constitutes an actual crime. Abusing and exploiting a child are crimes, viewing and owning pictures is not. Secondly, if you can't have it without making it or receiving it, then why draft an extraneous law? If you're looking to make the penalty harsher, then you should just modify the penalty for the existing laws.
Unfortunately, the modern cultural climate clings to the dangerous belief that child abuse alone is not the only crime that needs to be prevented, but that the concept of pedophilia itself is criminal. This is a misguided notion. The crime (abuse) is being extrapolated onto the criminal, and then the criminal's personality profile (far from accurate in the eyes of the media) is used to create a stereotype that can be searched for actively in the public at large, so that others fitting that profile (in this case, people with a sexual interest in children), can be singled out and prosecuted without having ever committed the actual crime of child abuse. Thus, if you *have* child pornography, that clearly means that you have a sexual interest in children, and whether or not you've ever abused or even touched a child, society is still better off with you behind bars. Without thinking too deeply, many "child defenders" would agree with this thought process. However, the problem is that non-criminals are being persecuted.
I think that, if a person is found to possess child pornography that creates reasonable (ignoring the fact that most people are incapable of being reasonable on this subject) suspicion that that person may be involved in a crime (the abuse or exploitation of a child), then that should be reason enough for a closer investigation. However, *if no crime is found*, that person shouldn't have to be punished for his deviant sexual interests. This of course flies in the face of the reasoning I outlined above, which casts crimeless pedophiles as dangerous criminals, and so naturally law enforcement are gonna wanna put anyone of this sort behind bars, even if all it can be proved that they've done is collect a few pictures. Thus, simple possession must be made illegal. But I still don't think it constitutes a crime.
Let me present three different scenarios here.
Scenario A: A person owns a video of an 11 year old girl getting raped (this was a hypothetical example in one of the comments I mentioned that got me started on writing this). Is this person a criminal? I think in this case it's justifiable that law enforcement investigates whether or not a crime has been committed by this man. Hypothetically, it could be found that the man has other videos; it could be found that he encouraged the production of such videos; it could be found that he personally solicited the video from the abuser; it could be found that he was the abuser - in some of these cases, you'd have an unambiguous crime. But what if this man had come upon the video without in any way encouraging its production? What if he reluctantly found to his surprise that he liked it, but couldn't, due to his principles, allow himself to actively encourage such behavior as depicted in the video? Does he have a moral obligation to delete, or even report (ignoring the legal ramifications of having it in the first place -_-), the video? Either way, does he in fact deserve to be punished? Because he happened to enjoy something tasteless?
I'm not sure about that scenario, it raises some difficult questions. But here's one that's a little more straightforward (I would hope):
Scenario B: A person owns a video of an 11 year old girl happily playing naked on a public nudist beach, where it's clear that she is aware of and in no obvious way distressed by the presence of the camera. This time, the production of the video itself presumably does not involve a crime. Is this person a criminal for owning the video? What if he's not the one who filmed it? What if he has others like it, of other girls? Does viewing or owning the video alone constitute exploitation of the girl? If he solicited videos of that sort, and encouraged their production, does *this* make him guilty of exploitation? What if he went out of his way to express concern for the parties involved, explaining that he was not interested in anything illegal, or for any harm to be done? Does he still deserve to be punished? For the simple reason that he indulged a sexual interest many consider deviant?
Privacy conerns aside, and presuming there's no other activity involved than that described, I don't think this person has committed a punishable offense. Assuming you agree, you might still argue that such a person would never be convicted anyway. But is that really true? Have there not been unfortunate people who have been convicted for less? The trouble here is the overly broad way that we've come to define child pornography. I would say that the video(s) in Scenario B don't constitute pornography at all, but that wouldn't stop the law from investigating. They see a video of nude kids, and they ask themselves, "what else does he have that we're not seeing?" In this case, if all they have to go on is a few nudist videos, I don't see the reasonable suspicion that a crime has been committed, unlike in Scenario A. But by making simple possession of child pornography illegal, the law can then claim to have a reasonable suspicion that a crime has been committed - that if a person has videos of nude children, he's likely to have videos of children having sex, too. And even if this isn't the case, and the person in Scenario B doesn't end up with a conviction, the stigma from the investigation alone can be enough to ruin his life.
The third scenario, finding itself somewhere between the extremes of the previous two scenarios, is the most troubling, and the most morally ambiguous.
Scenario C: A person owns a video of an 11 year old girl stimulating herself sexually, with no apparent indication of coercion, abuse, or any sort of reluctance on her part. I think the moral response would be to say "she's too young to be engaging in that kind of behavior", or "she's not experienced enough to understand the ramifications of being filmed engaging in that kind of behavior", in either case suggesting that a crime must have occurred - either that she was indeed coerced (even if she *thinks* she was consenting), or that she needs to be protected from herself, depending on whether it was she or someone else who produced the video. Regardless, is the owner of the video a criminal? Even if he in no way solicited the video from the girl? Even if he doesn't actively encourage that sort of behavior for girls of that age (i.e., he is not an internet predator)? Does he have a moral obligation to refrain from viewing those sorts of videos, or even to report them? Who has he harmed? Does he deserve to be punished? Simply for not sharing the opinion that 11 years is too young for sexual activity, or that all sexual activity is shameful and should be kept private lest it haunt you someday further on down the road?
I hope you'll see the point I'm making here. That the trend in making simple possession of child pornography alone a crime is a misguided step towards stamping out the *concept* of sexualized youth and those who promote it, rather than any real progress towards making the world a safer place for our children. And that's exactly the direction that eventually leads towards the elimination of 2D child pornography (regardless of what *you* call it - it's what they call it that matters to them), where it's no longer a matter of defending people, but one of defending morals - by attacking the ideas and concepts that threaten them. So the next time you shout "2D is fine, but 3D's a crime", I only hope you realize what parts of 3D are actually a crime, and what parts aren't. Because if you happily relinquish 3D without discrimination to the supposed "child defenders", they'll graciously accept it and then immediately turn around and demand 2D as well.
tl;dr - Just vote in the poll and then justify your choice if desired.
