Whenever any government, or any church, or anyone else for that matter, undertakes to say to its subjects: “This book you may not read, this film you may not watch, this image you may not see, this knowledge you may not have,” then the end result is tyranny and oppression, no matter how holy the motives.

– Robert A. Heinlein, “If This Goes On…”

Previously, I composed an essay discussing the question of legality about the very emotionally-charged subject of CP [what our culture and penal system commonly calls ‘child pornography’] and its relevance to the youth liberation movement. But there are many broader implications regarding why CP should be legal outside of the various points I made in that previous essay. Before I get into them, however, I would like to say a few things about CP to make my stance, as well as that of the broader pro-choice segment of the MAA [Minor Attracted Adult] community, crystal clear to all who read this.

Most of us (including myself) do not support an “absolutely anything goes” attitude regarding the production of CP, especially when it comes to prepubescent children rather than adolescents. I fully believe that prepubescents should never appear in what we call “hardcore” pornography that would include large amounts of sexual activity–either with peers or adults–that would likely prove physically injurious to them–such as full penetrative intercourse–and which they would not likely seek out in real life. Accordingly, there is a big difference between “child pornography” and what may best be labeled child erotica. I would see no problem with prepubescents who possess an exhibitionist streak in them (and our society is well aware that such children do exist, despite our strong attempts to deny it) to appear in mildly erotic films where they engage in what we often call ‘sex play’ with people of various ages–depending upon what the child in question would agree to as per their individual tastes–which prepubescents of a slightly older age (say, six years old and up) at least semi-regularly do with peers and sometimes with adults whom they trust and have bonded with in a certain way.

I also have no problem with prepubescents appearing nude in films, including mainstream films, as long as they have no objections, since–as I explained in my aforementioned previous essay–I do not think it’s logical or healthy for our culture to promulgate the idea that there is something inherently ugly or “obscene” about the nude youthful form, or even about normal youth sexual activity. Prepubescents have appeared nude and even sometimes engaging in lightly erotic scenes (i.e., those involving kissing and notable sensuality) in many foreign films over the past few decades, and people from those cultures do not have the conception that there is something inherently “wrong” with this–though this positive attitude about youth sexuality has been diminishing in these foreign Western nations due to constant aggressive American and British influence over the past two decades. In fact, it’s largely American and British culture who has this irrational fear and loathing of anything remotely to do with youthful nudity and sexual activity despite their reality throughout human history, and it’s the governments of these two nations who put so much pressure on artists of all stripes in nations both within and outside of the West to stifle all such attempts. As such, foreign films depicting a “coming of age” theme have become noticeably less “bold” (read: realistic) in their portrayal of these normal aspects of the lives of youths over the past decade, the first of the 21st century. I’m sure if the current American mindset had its way, all “coming of age” films would be produced for suitability to air on the Disney Channel.

As for adolescents, since it’s physically safe for them to engage in full intercourse with proper precautions, and some of them do have an interest in it (though not all, of course), then they should be allowed to participate in whatever type of on camera erotica that they please. I would never encourage or ask for them to participate in the equivalent of XXX-rated films where sex is the only point, but I believe that what we call “softcore” erotica should be no problem for those adolescents who may want to participate in it. Saying that absolutely no adolescents under the age of 18 would ever have the slightest interest in doing this is quite ridiculous and illogical for reasons I explicated in my previous essay on whether or not teens would support the age of consent [AoC] laws. To make this point further, there are a few instances of underage actresses who lied about their age and appeared in several adult pornographic films, the best example of this perhaps being Traci Lords. Further, actresses such as Brooke Shields and Jodie Foster appeared in popular mainstream American films with highly erotic themes involving consensual youth prostitution during the 1970s when both were 12 years of age–Pretty Baby and Taxi Driver, respectively–and neither of them were emotionally “damaged” as a result; to the contrary, both went on to prosperous careers in mainstream cinema. Shields subsequently appeared in a few other mainstream films with highly erotic themes to them shortly after her first, including The Blue Lagoon and Endless Love, both of which included sex scenes (though she used a body double to depict her nude scenes in both of these films, something she curiously didn’t do when she was two years younger in Pretty Baby). And of course, Foster continued to do the same in films such as The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane at age 14, where she removed her shirt on camera (though viewers only saw her from the back and briefly from the side after she did so) and got into bed with an older teenage boy whom she had fallen in love with. Sadly, the latter film also gave us a typical stereotyped version of an Evil Pedo, who was played in this instance by Martin Sheen as the titular character’s main antagonist. But as we all know, the bygone era of the 1970s and early ’80s is long behind us now, and the sex abuse hysteria has continued to progress into the present, thus making films like those mentioned above much more difficult to produce today.

Nevertheless, some film producers continue to defy these modern conventions, such as 12-year-old actress Isabelle Fuhurman taking on a racy role–including a sexy seduction scene where she attempted to seduce an adult man–in the 2009 horror film The Orphan. And prior to that, we had the then adolescent Drew Barrymore explore sexual themes during the 1990s in films such as Far From Home (which she did at age 14) and the much sexier Poison Ivy (which she did at age 17), where she successfully seduced a much older man played by Tom Skerritt in a daringly erotic sex scene. And let’s not forget Barrymore’s sex-charged role, also at age 17, which she played the same year in the short-lived TV series 2000 Malibu Road. It’s hardly a wonder that a year later she did a very sexual portrayal of real life “lethal lolita” Amy Fisher in The Amy Fisher Story, a well-received telefilm that hit the airwaves in 1993; Barrymore was barely 18 at the time, but the character she portrayed was years younger than that, and this true story made it clear once and for all that young adolescent girls can indeed pursue adult men and be dangerously conniving at the same time. Unfortunately, such relationships only make the headlines when they have an element of tragedy attached to them, or some other type of sensationalism (such as when a girl runs away with an older lover), thus promoting the biased attitude that intergenerational attraction always results in something bad, the same type of attitude profligated by the notorious lesbian novels published during the 1950s in regards to same gender attraction amongst women.

Let us not forget the popular French/American film collaboration The Professional (the longer version seen by French audiences was titled Leon the Professional), which starred then 12-year-old Natalie Portman in a very big role where she developed a heavy romantic attraction to a hit man named Leon (played by French actor Jean Reno) and wanted to have him be her first sexual experience, an offer the hit man gracefully declined despite obviously reciprocating her romantic love and even sharing a bed with her–the scene where Portman’s character Mathilda asked Leon to be her first was excised from the American version to avoid rousing the ire of American audiences any further than it already did, but the scene where Mathilda told Leon that she was in love with him in no uncertain terms was retained. A year later, Portman appeared in another film where she portrayed a young adolescent girl who fell in love with an older adult man (and he with her) in the big screen opus Beautiful Girls. With these two films in her oeuvre, it appeared quite strange when Portman publicly announced shortly after the release of Beautiful Girls that she and her parents agreed to turn down the offer for her to portray the famed titular character in Adrian Lyne’s 1990s film version of Lolita since they believed it was “inappropriate” for her to star in a film where a young adolescent girl was romantically involved with a much older adult man (I guess they were hoping that the public had forgotten Portman’s previous two film roles). Needless to say, Lyne’s film ended up languishing in production hell for a few years due to the expected controversy of producing it during the height of the sex abuse hysteria until finally being completed and released in 1997 with 17-year-old Dominique Swain in the title role. The latter version certainly had bolder scenes than the 1962 version of the movie (with 15-year-old Sue Lyons in the role), but as one would expect, body doubles and scene deletions galore ensued in order for the finished product to reach the American silver screen–though it did include the rather bold scene of Swain locking lips with co-star Jeremy Irons in his role of the notorious literary hebephile Humbert Humbert.

As my fellow MAA activist Little Girl Lover reminded me, the 1990s also saw then tween actress Kirsten Dunst take the role of the vampire Claudia, an ancient adult woman forever trapped in the body of a ten-year-old girl (since she was turned into a vampire at that age and vampires do not age beyond the point when they are first turned), in the film version of Interview With the Vampire, where she was in love with and almost locked lips with adult actor Tom Cruise in his role as Anne Rice’s famed vampire, Lestat. This was a highly ironic role for Dunst to take, considering how outspoken the beautiful actress was in her early adult years about how disgusting and immoral she thinks it is for a younger woman (let alone a young girl) to have a romantic liaison with an older man–and how she likewise believed she was “too young” to do a nude scene in a movie at age 19.

Finally, let’s not forget how actress Claire Danes surprised audiences in 1996 when, at the “mere” age of 16, she won the much coveted role of Juliet in director Buz Luhrmann’s updated cinematic version of Shakespeare’s classic play of doomed young love Romeo + Juliet, which included a bedroom scene with her equally famous lover Romeo (sans any actual nudity, but Claire was topless at the time, but was only seen from the back when she removed her top). And even more recently, let’s not forget a few of the films that the truly amazing actress Dakota Fanning has participated in. These include Man On Fire, which she did at age ten, and which was a remake of a foreign action/adventure film that retained some of the latter movie’s “lolita” themes, albeit more subtle to spare the sensibilities of American audiences. Nevertheless, it was very clear to all viewers that Fanning’s tweenage character and her adult bodyguard/teacher, played to perfection by Denzel Washington, had developed actual deep romantic feelings for each other. Then there was Fanning’s critically acclaimed and controversial indie film Hounddog, which she did at the “tender” age of 12, and which featured a rather heavy degree of “coming of age” sexuality–as well as the famed actress frolicking about in her underwear throughout much of this period film–but which also included an awful scene where she was raped by an older boy. Then, at 16, Fanning had perhaps her best racy role yet, as she accurately portrayed the real life adolescent singer and unabashed sex symbol Cherie Currie in the 2010 film The Runaways, a biopic of the famous but short-lived girl band from the free-wheeling 1970s decade based on Currie’s autobiography Neon Angel. In the latter movie, Fanning famously and somewhat daringly shared a lesbian kiss onscreen with her co-star Kristen Stewart.

None of the above films are currently considered CP by the American penal code (save for those which actress Traci Lords appeared in from the age of 15 to 17), but all of them are examples of erotically charged films featuring young adolescents–and in some cases (such as Man On Fire), girls who are “merely” tweens. And since the definition of what legally constitutes CP in America continues to broaden every single year, it cannot be certain that even these films will not someday fall under the rubric of CP as defined by the increasingly draconian American penal code as the government continues to wage a vicious war against youth sexuality, and all possible depictions and expressions of it thereof. After all, the government will poignantly argue, if these films continue to be legal to possess and produce, a “pedophile” may end up seeing them and become aroused by them, and no society that cares about the sacrosanct Victorian image of kids could ever tolerate the possibility of such a horrible thing occurring, correct? Even worse, the government will tell us, such films may convey the “dangerous” idea that youth sexuality is normal, and we can’t have that either, right?

The above examples also make it clear that in a youth liberated society, there would not likely be a shortage of youthful models and actresses who would enjoy appearing in erotic films, and at this point in time it’s impossible to know beyond a shadow of a doubt that this wouldn’t include a smaller but perhaps sizable amount of prepubescent girls as well.

Once again, I would like to stress that I am not in any way suggesting that, even in a youth liberated society, the MAA community, parents, or anyone else should actually blatantly advocate youth sexuality or the production of youth erotica, or in any way imply that all or even most young girls (or boys) should participate in the production of it, as eroticism is very clearly not a genre of filmography or photography that all youths are suited for, and this should be respected. We simply advocate the matter of choice, and there can be no doubt that there would be some youths of such a sensibility that they would enjoy participating in such films, including those which they produced and marketed themselves; the surfeit of “racy” YouTube videos out there featuring young girls (both tween and teen, and even some prepubescent) dancing provocatively and frolicking in bikinis and other revealing clothing that was produced and uploaded by the girls themselves make it very clear that there is a sizable number of young girls (and boys) who enjoy “showing off” in such a way on camera. Moreover, these youths clearly do not particularly care about the age group of people who have access to their videos and pictorials. Thus, youth sexuality and exhibitionism is a reality in our world, and even though I am not saying it should ever be advocated, it should nevertheless not be demonized or suppressed either.

Now, here is a fast and loose set of reasons why CP (or simple eroticism) should be legal in any society that purports to be a democracy:

1) The criminalization of CP is a form of censorship, plain and simple. Censorship in any form should not be tolerated in a democratic society, no matter how offensive or upsetting many people may consider the imagery or information in question. If our legal system places any type of material in a “special” category that is not protected by the First Amendment to view and access by the public, then we start a very nasty precedent that can easily lead to the rationalization of any type of “dangerous” idea or image being denied public access by our esteemed protectors in the future.

2) The argument that CP should be criminalized because people who possess or even simply view the images are viewing a crime scene doesn’t hold up to scrutiny. There are many types of crime scene images that are perfectly legal for people to view or possess. For example, vids and pics of often innocent people–such as reporters and journalists–being executed by agents of repressive governments worldwide, and the carnage wrought on innocent victims in many books detailing the history of real life serial killers are filled with extremely graphic pics of people who were murdered in very gruesome ways. Why aren’t they illegal to view or possess also? Perhaps, because, they do not specifically feature children? Then again, there are numerous examples of horrifying real images of children who have been subject to war atrocities that are perfectly legal to view and possess. These include numerous pics of children with limbs blown off as a result of accidentally stepping on land mines, and a famous pic from the Vietnam War featuring a tween girl running through the streets after napalm was dropped on her, and very obviously in extreme agony as her flesh was set afire (I recounted these things in a bit more detail on my previous essay).

Yet, because these pics do not specifically feature anything to do with sexual activity (the above example of the girl who had napalm dropped on her was actually fully nude as she ran through the streets with her flesh burning, it should perhaps be noted), our culture and penal system mysteriously sees no problem with viewing them. Also, despite the fact that many people are highly unsettled or offended by pics showing aborted fetuses, it is still fully legal to possess them and to post them anywhere, which many anti-choice advocates often do for political purposes. How would such activists feel if access to such pics was illegal even for them to possess or distribute because of the fact that so many people were bothered or offended by them? Despite the fact that I am greatly sickened and horrified by pics of aborted fetuses, and despite the fact that I am pro-choice on the abortion argument, I fully support the right of these anti-choice advocates to collect and distribute such pics for whatever reason they may choose.

3) A point needs to be made about the tiny amount of CP that features actual footage of girls who were coerced into participating in the production of such films or pics, and even sometimes horribly tortured on camera (the rarity of such vids and pics, and the role of parents and stepparents behind the production of most such non-consensual CP, was discussed in detail in my previous essay on CP’s relevance to the youth liberation movement). It’s been argued that due to the nature of such imagery, it should be illegal to possess or view because some pervert might become aroused by the imagery, and thus in effect receive pleasure off of a child’s misery. The problem with this justification to censor and criminalize such imagery leads to this question: is it ever justified in a democracy to penalize people for anything that may be going on within the privacy of their thoughts regardless of how abhorrent polite society may consider those thoughts? What type of precedent does this create for our society?

There are other things to consider here, too. As I mentioned in my aforedescribed essay, the total criminalization of this type of imagery prevents their access not only to would-be-perverts who may become aroused by viewing it, but also to serious journalists who may want to view the imagery for the purpose of research and future articles based on that research. The argument that they do not need access to this imagery in order to write about it is entirely bogus, because without being able to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that what the LEOs [law enforcement officers] are saying is in those images are actually true, they cannot compose an article or expose’ on the topic with a full degree of accuracy. It’s foolish and downright Orwellian for the law–or anyone else–to make assumptions as to why someone may want to access such imagery when mind-reading technology is not yet available, and to therefore conclude that the only possible reason for someone to access and view such imagery is because they want to be aroused by the images of suffering children.

A further point that must be made about the argument that such coerced imagery is so horrible that we need to punish anyone who may be aroused by it is illustrated by the following example. A few years ago, a major scandal erupted in Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison when some of the American guards there–at least two of whom were women–forced many of the male Iraqi P.O.Ws imprisoned there (many of whom were never actually charged with a crime) to strip and engage in close physical contact activities with their fellow male prisoners, including standing on top of each other while all were nude so as to form a human pyramid-like structure. This was obviously done very much against these mens’ will, and the guards took photographs for their personal amusement and to further debase these men in the future. These pics were subsequently discovered and disseminated across many political websites and blogs all over cyberspace, for the purpose of the columnists to protest this outrage and breach of American principles. As anyone who is familiar with the culture of these Islamic societies in the Middle East are well aware, such an action was far more humiliating and emotionally distressing for men who grew up in these cultures as it would have been for heterosexual men who grew up in a Western culture, where homoeroticism is currently more or less accepted and not considered a form of deviant behavior. There can be no doubt that all of these men forced to participate in this activity by their captors was humiliating beyond description and likely even emotionally traumatic to experience–yet no civilian reporters, journalists, or bloggers were arrested for posting these pics all over the Net. Can it not be cogently argued that these men and their families would receive a great degree of severe emotional distress and likely even trauma as a result of the appearance of these pics all over the Net, even on sites whose columnists were using them to rightfully protest what was done to these men? I would say yes, yet this rationalization was never used to arrest any of these well-intentioned bloggers (nor should it have been).

Moreover, there is something further that must be considered about the Abu Grahib debacle. Are we to assume that everyone who viewed and downloaded these pics did so for the same reason as the above politically-motivated bloggers? It needs to be said that contrary to what appears to be popular belief, it’s not simply a small number of adults with an attraction to children and teens who have “extreme” interests, and there are most certainly members of the mainstream homosexual community who can likewise have some rather “extreme” interests, as well as people from all groups with a teleiophile attraction base [a teleiophile is someone who has a preference for members of the same general age group, regardless of gender or race]. Thus, it can readily be presumed with a high degree of likelihood that some adults viewed and downloaded the pics of those abused P.O.Ws in Abu Ghraib for the purpose of becoming aroused by having fantasies of being in place of the guards, and even of committing further atrocities with these men than are actually known to have occurred. Not only that, but it’s also likely that several adults viewed or downloaded those pics and fantasized about being in the place of those abused men; fantasies of being raped as opposed to perpetrating such acts are far from unheard of, and many women–and some men–have admitted to having them, including many women who belong to the BDSM community (though certainly not all). Yet, this great likelihood was never mentioned anywhere that I am aware of, let alone any suggestion that possession or viewing of such pics should be legally prohibited from anyone outside of authorized court officials.

The exact same complaint can be made about pics of actual carnage wrought on victims by serial killers, since it’s well known that some teleiophiles have the type of “extreme” tastes where they become aroused by depictions of violence, including those that had a sexual context to them. The realization of this would doubtlessly cause much emotional distress to the families of these victims, as well as anyone who managed to survive such an attack, to know that some people were collecting these pics for that particular reason. Should necrophiliacs be arrested for collecting pics of people who were murdered by serial killers for the purpose of “getting off” on the pics entirely within the privacy of their own mind? Sure, such thoughts may be considered “disgusting” by the great majority of society, and one may argue that some type of injustice is committed against the victims, but this is no reason to criminalize possession or viewing of crime scene pics where people were hurt in horrible ways, and it’s entirely unjust for any courts under the ethos of American jurisprudence to assume any reason why any person may wish to obtain such pics.

Yet, the complaints about these adult victims, and what they and/or their families may suffer as a result of these horrid pics being available for public access by people who likely have a wide assortment of reasons for wanting to view them (some well-intentioned, and others entirely puerile and salacious), are almost always non-existent. Nor do we ever hear any of the families of these victims, or of any victims who may have survived the attempt on their lives, of taking anyone who simply viewed or possessed the pics of the carnage for whatever reason to civil court so as to sue them for possibly “getting off” on the misery of these victims. When these points are made to people who want these coercive pics to continue to be criminalized, the response is usually a variation of, “That’s different! The victims in those pics and videos weren’t children!” This response is very telling and informative, and it cuts to the crux of the problem. It also makes it clear why such people support the criminalization of even on camera depictions of the majority of youth erotica that is known to have been produced with the full consent and enjoyment of the young participants, or where no evidence exists to suggest otherwise since no investigation was ever conducted to collect any evidence to suggest otherwise. These statements are even echoed by people connected to the MAA community who enjoy and support the continued legalization of the youth modeling sites that feature girls in scanty clothing and sometimes arguably “enticing” poses. Once nudity enters the equation, however, such individuals immediately cry “foul” and claim that such pics or vids have “crossed the line.” They further attempt to categorize any pics and vids featuring nudity as if they were examples of coercion, without bothering to ask for proof or even the slightest bit of evidence. And they never seem to realize that as long as what constitutes CP continues to be broadened, their beloved non-nude-but-racy youth modeling sites will likewise get banned in the future, too. It’s not like several members of the U.S. Congress aren’t actually trying to do so, and this includes the attempts of uber-hypocrites like the rightfully disgraced Senator Mark Foley.

So, in other words, if such imagery involves children, or anyone who happens to be “underage,” it suddenly becomes a whole different story than any similar imagery involving adults as far as most people are concerned.

We also have no problem with unauthorized pics of celebrities being released to any number of offline and online tabloid sources that often bring great distress to them, but the “distress” factor is usually only taken into consideration when it involves anyone under 18 regardless of whether they consented to such participation. When the consensual participation is made clear, we are then told that these youths might later come to regret these on camera depictions of themselves, so we have to consider them being distressed in an entirely pre-emptive and hypothetical context. And this despite the fact that Brooke Shields and Jodie Foster never seemed to suffer for some of the erotic roles they played back at the “vulnerable” age of 12 after becoming adults, as both have enjoyed very good careers. Further, Traci Lords herself broke into mainstream films and never suffered for her participation in blatantly pornographic films beginning when she was 15; Lords did later allegedly develop a serious drug problem, but the same thing is the case with many starlets of mainstream cinema, including those who limited their childhood roles to family-friendly fare like the late Anissa Jones of the popular late 1960s TV series Family Affair. A few youth models have achieved their dreams, including Tierra Lee Abbott breaking into mainstream acting (including a recurring role on Nickelodeon’s TV series Unfabulous) and the youth model who used the name Marie, who achieved her long-time dream of posing for Playboy shortly following her 18th birthday. It’s quite clear that print versions of Playboy catering to the celebration and admiration of the beauty of youths would exist in a youth liberated society without people worrying about whether or not a “pedophile” became aroused by the pictorials included therein.

Let’s also not forget that the highly disturbing autopsy photos of child murder victim Jon-Bonet Ramsey are legally available online, and these include close-up photos of her vagina. But because the purpose of these pics are for the clinical study of a crime victim and not for the purpose of titillating, these pics are fully legal to view and presumably to download and possess. If the parents are indeed innocent of the crime, then aren’t we causing them emotional distress by making these horrific crime photos publicly available? I am not arguing that disturbing crime photos should be illegal to view or possess, but I am using this as a point to make it clear that it seems really ludicrous that we can allow pics of this nature to be legal, yet pics and vids of youths posing nude or engaging in willing sexual situations that they may enjoy participating in is totally off-limits legally, and actually worthy of being placed in a “special” class of imagery that is not protected by the First Amendment. Again, this is what happens when emotion trumps logic; it results in one of the most important aspects of democracy being abandoned with too little complaints attached to it, and the government becoming involved in what clearly constitutes full fledged exercises in thought control.

The semi-naysayers often like to justify their above statements by making the famous declaration, “We have to draw the line somewhere!” I agree, which is why I believe the line should be drawn when the important factor of consent is no longer present. Claims that consent wasn’t present when the young people who participated insist that it was need to be proven via a thorough but ethical investigation of all involved with the production, and not simply assumed for the purpose of “erring on the side of caution.”

So back to the main point: we only make sometimes irrational, and oftentimes outright draconian exceptions, to the above described rules when those involved are underage, and this counts even after the girls in question have become adults, as there is a new crop of lawyers who have taken advantage of this climate by encouraging some of these women to sue people who are discovered to have possession of some of the erotic pics taken of them when they were underage.

This all strongly suggests that our society has a deep and abiding hatred of youth sexuality that is so pervasive that even some people who admit an attraction to younger people are caught up in the hysteria and thus tend to view depictions of youth sexuality with great suspicion even when there is no reason to have such suspicions. The latter appears to be partly true because some MAAs who appear to project their own personal tastes on girl models, and seem to assume outright that because they wouldn’t have wanted to partipicate in such videos or pictorials when they were underage, they consider it inconceivable that any sizable number of girls would possibly have different tastes and sensibilities from themselves, the evidence that youths are no exception to the rule of diversity amongst the human species notwithstanding. Hence, they justify the criminalization of possessing or viewing any of the tiny amount of coercive films involving underage people while continuing to (usually) support the legal access to similar or worse pics and vids depicting adult victims. Predictably, the government jumps on this, realizing that they can start with the criminalization of possession and viewing of the small amount of non-consensual CP, and from there move on to rationalizing the criminalization of viewing consensual erotic material involving youths, and then moving on from there to criminalizing the possession and viewing of simple artistic nudes, and from there pics and vids of youths wearing revealing clothing, and from there…well, use your imagination, you are not likely to be far off base by doing so. This is because, as I have mentioned numerous times, the passing of a single draconian law of censorship is cumulative in effect. This is something that the semi-naysayers do not seem willing to accept any more than the total naysayers are.

To complete this point, I want to make one thing very clear. Nobody in the pro-choice segment of the MAA community supports the legalization of producing any type of youth erotica where the participants were forced or somehow coerced into making the films or photoshoots. To suggest that any of us would is silly, insulting, and totally outrageous. Trying to claim that those who support the legality of simply viewing even coerced imagery that they had nothing to do with the production of as being tantamount to supporting actual rape and torture, or the production and sale of films depicting such atrocities, is beneath contempt and a total corruption of the point we are trying to make. And arguing that the simple viewing of films depicting actual rape and torture somehow creates a demand for the production of more material even though no money is passing any hands is beyond ridiculous, and a classic example of the sordid tactic of grasping at straws to justify a certain form of censorship. This is like saying that those who view pics of actual victims of serial killers, or own a book containing such pics (which are readily available via Amazon.com or the true crime section of your local Barnes and Noble), actually support the legality of serial murder, and that a demand exists for serial killers to continue committing acts of murder even though none of them make any money as a result of it. Such arguments would be totally and rightfully laughed at if not for the powerful emotional resonance that they bring with them due to the fact that people under 18 and sexuality are both involved. I and the rest of my community fully support the arrest and prosecution of anyone of any age who is involved with the production of any type of film or images of people of any age who are participating on camera in sexual activities that they did not consent to, or are being genuinely tortured and harmed on camera against their will. Very very few, if any, people in our community would ever remotely support the production of such films any more than the tiniest percentage of the various teleiophile communities would support a market for actual “snuff” films featuring real adult victims. The naysayers need to keep in mind that MAAs are, first and foremost, human beings, and we are fully capable of empathizing with human pain and suffering to the same extent that any teleiophile does.

4) As my fellow activist Baldur pointed out to me before, the continued criminalization of such imagery and/or text can be used to blackmail or frame individuals by having such evidence planted on their computer hard drives without the knowledge of the owner. This can be done by any individual with a sufficient degree of hacking skills, including a jealous co-worker or even a LEO who wants to see to the arrest and personal destruction of a certain individual for purely political reasons. And of course, there have been a growing number of claims that certain types of malware may automatically download CP to people’s hard drives that they had no intention of even viewing, let alone possessing. These claims are far from outrageous, because it’s a well known fact that malware can and often does automatically download adult pornography to people’s hard drives against their intentions, so it’s quite likely that any type of online material can be unknowingly downloaded onto someone’s computer hard drive without their knowledge or intention.

Addendum

The following are a few very important anecdotes in response to certain of my points provided by my fellow pro-choice MAA activist Summerdays, to whom I extend much thanks and appreciation for them. My previously mentioned points are in bold face, and Summerdays’ responses are in standard text.

Accordingly, there is a big difference between ‘child pornography’ and what may best be labeled child erotica.

I’m sure there’s a term for the argumentative fallacy where the opponent exaggerates your point to the most extreme and indefensible end of the spectrum, in order to more easily refute it. And the black and white thinking (“all CP is the worst kind”) certainly doesn’t contribute to an atmosphere of reasoned discussion. There is a middle ground that is being trampled, and I find this to be very unfortunate, because that middle ground occupies a place where the erotic beauty of youth and adolescence can be celebrated in a very positive way. But if you dare try to defend the middle ground, the antis write you off as trying to defend the “worst kind” of CP, since to them it’s all the same.

I would see no problem with prepubescents who possess an exhibitionist streak in them (and our society is well aware that such children do exist, despite our strong attempts to deny it) to appear in mildly erotic films…

I have no problem with this either, but I can see a potential problem with it – sociogenic in nature. It kind of parallels the issue of mutually consensual sexual contact between [youths] and adults – if the contact itself is not harmful, there is still the stigma that is imposed from outside forces that can result in harm. In this case, the stigma has to do with the sexual shame that is imposed on exhibitionism of this form. In other words, the idea that if somebody sees a “naughty” picture (or video) of you, your reputation could be ruined.

This is a general problem I see that needs to be addressed, but becomes something of a thorn in our side when the issue of youth erotica is involved. This is because of the “child protection” argument that considers children [and younger adolescents] unable to comprehend the repercussions of posing for sexy pictures (or videos) at their age – and the fact that they may regret it later (after it’s too late, given the “immortality” of digital media in this age). You certainly see this argument when the topic of “sexting” comes up.

Some people would (and obviously do) argue that the solution is to eliminate any and all material of this nature – and to prevent kids from taking that “risk” to their reputation. I would argue that the freedom to engage in that kind of activity is important enough not to squander it for the sake of this risk, and also that I’m certain there are some (if certainly not all) children [and adolescents] who are capable both of understanding the risk (of potential stigma), and also possess the strength of character not to be significantly affected by it. Indeed, there may be cases where a [youth’s] need to express him/herself overcomes the fear of “what people may think/do/say” – and I would argue that that’s a healthy attitude to foster, rather than teaching kids to be afraid to express themselves for fear of how others may judge them.

Prepubescents have appeared nude and even sometimes engaging in lightly erotic scenes (i.e., those involving kissing and notable sensuality) in many foreign films over the past few decades, and people from those cultures do not have the conception that there is something inherently ‘wrong’ with this.

Indeed, I do not believe we should indulge our culture’s sickness. The exploration of sexuality is a natural curiosity, and it should be indulged, not repressed. I don’t believe we should refrain from certain behaviors only because society frowns upon them. Where there are explicit laws against certain behaviors, that is another matter, but in terms of cultural norms, I think it’s our duty to push the boundaries and keep an open discussion, and not be afraid to turn a few heads in our pursuit of a better way, as long as we are doing it with an understanding of the backlash we are likely to receive.

Ideally, the goal would be a more tolerant society where people are not shamed and stigmatized for being involved in the erotic arts, thus significantly reducing the risks of participation.

And since the definition of what legally constitutes CP in America continues to broaden every single year, it cannot be certain that even these films will not someday fall under the rubric of CP as defined by the increasingly draconian American penal code as the government continues to wage a vicious war against youth sexuality, and all possible depictions and expressions of it thereof.

Granted, I think Congress and/or whoever makes those decisions is concerned about laws that are so strict as to render that which is unambiguously “artistic” illegal – particularly works of art that are historically renowned. On the other hand, our tolerance for this type of material – youth sexuality – is gradually eroding, and the limitations on what can and cannot be represented artistically are increasing. I think we ought to be more concerned about what hasn’t been created yet than what has. The movies you mentioned may not fall under the legal classification for “child pornography” any time soon (although it’s still important for us to make certain they don’t), but as time passes, and the laws tighten, and the penalties grow, fewer people are going to want to tackle such a controversial issue, and they’ll be able to get away with much less with confidence. And if one such person dares to push the boundaries, he/she is bound to be demonized, and used as an example for even tighter laws, and harsher penalties. (The furor over Bill Henson comes to mind, and his work, from what I’ve seen, neither involves children, nor can it rightly be classified as “pornographic.” If his work pushes people’s buttons, then what sort of ban will they call for next?)

How long will it be before no one has the guts to even bring up the topic of youth sexuality anymore? There are already people saying this topic shouldn’t even be addressed. Youths are sexual – not talking about it doesn’t help anyone. And if youths were to somehow become completely asexual as a result – a result that the anti mindset would seem to favor – what kind of an impact would that have on us as a society and as a species? Think about how authoritarian a government would have to be to have the power to regulate all sexual expression involving minors (whether as the subject of the expression, or merely the subject of discussion). And worse yet, to actually regulate the way minors feel (by excising their natural sexual impulses through some kind of social conditioning). Do you really want to be controlled by a government with that much power? And surely you can’t believe that they would limit their exercising of that power to minors. Anyway, the minors will one day become adults, and the adults will eventually die off, and what we’ve got then is a completely brainwashed populace. Children are the future of us all. Do we really want them growing up ashamed and with unhealthy attitudes about their sexuality? The minute we place sexuality into the governing hands of our so-called “protectors,” we are giving up our own power over the continuation of our very existence.

After all, the government will poignantly argue, if these films continue to be legal to possess and produce, a “pedophile” may end up seeing them and become aroused by them, and no society that cares about the sacrosanct Victorian image of kids could ever tolerate the possibility of such a horrible thing occurring, correct?

This is a ridiculous argument, because you simply cannot prevent pedophiles from being aroused by pedophilic stimuli. You would need to completely separate children from adults to start – and though that seems to be the direction we’re heading, there are any number of reasons why I think that would be a terrible idea – and even then, pedophiles still have their imagination. As much as society hates pedophiles, you can’t punish children for them – and that means allowing children to remain visible to the public eye. I won’t accept “pedophiles may get turned on” as an argument unless it’s backed up by a realistic plan to prevent pedophiles from ever getting turned on – and in that case, I would be vehemently against such an inhumane plan.

I would like to stress that I am not in any way suggesting that, even in a youth liberated society, the MAA community, parents, or anyone else should actually blatantly advocate youth sexuality or the production of youth erotica, or in any way imply that all or even most young girls (or boys) should participate in the production of it, as eroticism is very clearly not a genre of filmography or photography that all youths are suited for, and this should be respected.

Arguing that “youth erotica” should be legal in no way presumes that most children ought to be involved with it, and certainly not that any youths should be forced into it. Even were it true that most kids wouldn’t have the slightest interest (and I’m not so sure that’s the case), the fact that a few of them would is reason enough to allow them that opportunity. That’s what choice is about.

Despite the fact that I am greatly sickened and horrified by pics of aborted fetuses, and despite the fact that I am pro-choice on the abortion argument, I fully support the right of these anti-choice advocates to collect and distribute such pics for whatever reason they may choose.

What is it about a naked [youth] posing in a suggestive manner that is considerably worse than an image of an aborted fetus, that we have to censor the former yet not the latter?

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated. But those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their consciences.

– C.S. Lewis

I extend many thanks to the crew of GirlChat [GC] for their invaluable editorial assist on the earliest draft of this essay, and I have incorporated several suggestions and anecdotes from them. Particular thanks goes to my fellow GC posters Baldur, qtns2di4, Summerdays, CatcherintheRye, Sancho Panza, and Little Girl Lover.

Recently I composed an essay designed to answer a question I often hear from individuals as to why the age of consent [AoC] laws are of any importance to the youth liberation movement, and if perhaps the pro-choice faction of the MAA [Minor Attracted Adult] community is simply being “selfish” for arguing that it is. Today, I move on to what may be considered the second part of that essay, which brings the same question to the fore regarding the many types of imagery and writing that may be classified as CP [child pornography] by the government of any given country. In other words, in this essay I will give a response to the many variations of the following question and accompanying comment that I often hear: “What does CP have to do with youth liberation? I don’t think any youth under the age of 18 would ever have the slightest interest in appearing in erotic photography or videos, so I think it’s foolish, selfish, and counter-productive for the pro-choice faction of the MAA community to support its legalization even in a future youth liberated society.” That is quite a bold question and follow-up statement, but does it actually hold up to close scrutiny and logical analysis?

To begin with, one who has the above contention would have to answer the question as to why so many young people over the age of 18 so obviously have a desire to appear in films and photoshoots of an erotic nature, yet be simultaneously certain that absolutely no young person under the age of 18–even just a few years younger–would have a similar desire to do so. Does it make logical sense for youth liberationists to argue that those we today designate ‘underagers’–particularly those in adolescence–have many of the same capabilities or desires as older people with the sole exception of the desire to publicly express their sexuality?

First of all, what does the heavy proliferation of the sexting phenomenon amongst underagers who own cell phones say about this? Please note the online news reports here, here, and here, as just a few examples that one can find with a simple Google search. Although one can and will argue that those pics are designed entirely for the eyes of significant others and not for public consumption, one has to consider a few things: 1) it’s illegal for underagers to post nude or overly provocative pics of themselves on public venues, and 2) many do so anyway on their socnet pages on MySpace and Facebook, and not all who do this keep those pages–and therefore access to their photo sections–private.

Then one has to consider the proliferation over the past two decades of the online youth modeling sites, many of which remain legal despite strong attempts by the American government to criminalize the entire industry. These modeling sites often feature girls (and sometimes boys) in highly revealing clothing and sometimes even arguably provocative poses. When one of the biggest and most well known companies producing material for youth models, Webe Web, was eradicated from existence after its three owners were brought up on CP charges (some say spuriously), the hope of the government that the entire industry based in the U.S. would be destroyed along with Webe Web was ultimately quashed. This is because several of the young models previously hosted by Webe Web subsequently went off on their own following Webe’s demise and continued working in the industry, many of them under new websites run by their parents. When the legal European youth modeling company known as the Gegg Agency fell for similar reasons, several of the girl models who were hosted by that site have likewise reappeared on other sites, also often under the auspices of their parents, who have interestingly refused to cooperate with LEAs [law enforcement agencies] in many cases; very few of these parents actually made a fuzz in the media about alleged “abuse” going on at the Gegg Agency, thus suggesting that the closing of the agency was more the result of pressure coming from the U.S. and Britain than anything more substantial. Pressure from the U.S. with likely help from Britain was known to have a large effect on the closure and indictment of youth modeling agencies situated in the Ukraine, who produced images sometimes including nudity that were not legal in the U.S. and certain other jurisdictions, but as my fellow activist qtns2di4 said, “it’s not clear that they broke local laws.” As he also noted, “As with Webe and C&G, girls and parents reappeared [on other youth modeling sites] and did not collaborate with police.” Clearly, the government and parents are often at odds when it comes to the subject of youth modeling and what does or does not constitute “appropriate” images, including the matter of simple nudity.

There are some in the MAA community who totally enjoy these still legal modeling sites but seem to be totally against young models and actresses appearing in more obviously erotic films regardless of what the youths themselves want. These dissenting voices strongly deny that any of the youths who appear in today’s legal but controversial modeling sites would ever have the slightest desire to appear in actual erotica even in a youth liberated society. Because of this belief, they argue, the CP question is entirely irrelevant to the general youth liberation platform, and pro-choice MAAs–along with youth liberationists in general, of course–need to leave this topic alone for the “good” of the movement. Apparently, some people seem to believe that adolescent youth activists themselves do not want people in their age group to have certain choices that they have no problem with people over the age of 18 to possess. And the reason for this appears to be that they personally consider some of these possible choices to be so ‘icky’ that the right to choose should be forfeit in these cases. In other words, if certain choices would offend society’s sensibilities enough, and if it’s strongly believed that very few if any people in a certain group would even want to make these choices in the first place, then it’s okay to legally deny freedom of choice in these particular cases.

As my fellow activist Summerdays noted, “Freedom [includes] the freedom to let others do things we don’t like (as long as it doesn’t hurt us or anyone else non-consensually, and in a real way).” He further notes, “If youths are to be free, they must be allowed the freedom to pursue avenues that are morally offensive to some, if they so choose.

“It’s the same argument made against adult performers in the field of erotic entertainment – but again, with adults, we allow them the freedom to pursue their own vision of happiness, even if that vision disgusts and offends us. Minors, however, are not given such freedom. They may only pursue their vision of happiness if it falls within accepted boundaries as defined by certain adults.”

The problem is that the above examples of sexting, uploading nude and provocative pics of themselves to socnet sites, and the proliferation of the youth modeling industry would seem to indicate, quite logically, that in a youth liberated society there may be some youths–perhaps a sizable amount–who not only would be happily willing to make films where they do nude scenes and even appear in outright erotic scenarios, but some may even be willing to appear in films or photoshoots that specialize in erotic content. Why is one to assume that exhibitionist tendencies would be entirely unique to people 18 years of age and older? Does the empirical evidence really suggest this to be the case?

While some assert that arguing for the legalization of much of what we today call “CP” in a youth liberated society–or even in today’s society–is counter-productive and is not in the best interests of the young people we are fighting on behalf of, there are actually much better reasons to argue that the exact opposite may be the case.

For one thing, what type of message does the condemnation of all forms of youth erotica give to society when uttered by youth libbers? Such a message would appear to be that youths engaged in erotic activity on film or in any way publicly expressing their sexual desires is somehow inherently “disgusting” and improper despite the fact that youths are well known to have such desires. Yet, at the same time, it’s believed by most of these same people that such activities are perfectly okay and proper for someone who is of the arbitrary age of 18 or over to do to any degree that they please, as if those under this arbitrary age doing the same thing has some type of innate ‘ickiness’ factor attached to it. What, exactly, is inherently ugly about the nude body of youths under a certain arbitrary age? Or, perhaps more specifically, what is particularly ugly for young girls under 18 displaying their breasts and genital region on camera that is not similarly inherently ugly, demeaning, or exploitive for girls 18 and over who choose to do the same thing? What is it about youths willingly engaging in the mutual exchange of a pleasurable display like sexual activity on camera somehow disgusting or “wrong” in an inherent sense? Conversely, why is it perfectly okay and non-exploitive for young people of the arbitrary age of 18 and over to do the exact same thing? Why is the right to sexual expression liberating for people over one specific arbitrary age demarcation, yet somehow demeaning and exploitive for any person with the same desires who may fall anywhere beneath that same arbitrary chronological demarcation? What is it about sexual expression in particular that is so inherently anti-youth that no one under a certain arbitrary age would ever want to do it? What is so inherently anti-youth about sexual expression that even some purported youth libbers appear to insist that we must continue to legally prohibit anyone under the age of 18 from having the opportunity to make this choice? And again, what type of message does this send to the public when it comes from a political platform that is supposed to be based upon liberation rather than some type of moralizing form of protectionism? In what way would the continued criminalization of such erotica benefit the general principle of liberation amongst any group of people?

Some of these individuals will argue that the legalization of CP would hurt young people under 18 even in a youth liberated society, and is therefore against their best interests. Let us take a look at this claim by using a few excerpts from one of the above linked online articles (specifically, the third) about what the current CP and “obscenity” laws have done to some underagers who were caught sexting:

News reports are increasingly documenting legal repercussions after indecent photos appear online. And attorneys say there are many unanswered questions about whether young people who send their own photos could face prosecution for obscenity or child pornography.

This year in Wisconsin, a 17-year-old was charged with possessing child pornography after he posted naked pictures of his 16-year-old ex-girlfriend online.

In Alabama, authorities arrested four middle-school students for exchanging nude photos of themselves. In Rochester, N.Y., a 16-year-old boy is now facing up to seven years in prison for forwarding a nude photo of a 15-year-old girlfriend to his friends.

“I don’t think that’s what was contemplated when the laws were written,” says the Rochester teen’s attorney, Tom Splain, who has worked on several similar cases this year. “I think it was more for the older pedophile [sic] collecting pictures of young children; we’re now running into high school students getting swept up in these charges.”

So it would appear that these pundits of protectionism now claim that laws originally intended to prevent “older pedophiles” (actually, hebephiles) from obtaining pics of underage teens that they may end up (god forbid!) fantasizing about in the privacy of their own mind had unforeseen consequences on another segment of the greater population: the very segment of the population that such laws were intended to “protect” in the first place. Many activists, however, believe that it’s entirely hypocritical for these pundits to act as if they are shocked that underagers themselves ended up being prosecuted under these laws instead of just the older “perverts” that these laws were allegedly created to “protect” them from. They are clearly playing dumb here, since it’s well known amongst any politician with an I.Q. over 40 that any type of draconian law will inevitably have such “unforeseen” consequences on every segment of society, including those whom these laws were supposedly intended to “protect” from the horrible crime of having an older person fantasize to their image in the privacy of his or her own thoughts.

One now feels obliged to ask some very important questions whose answers may be disturbing to contemplate. What will happen in the future once these laws continue to expand so that underage teen girls get into legal trouble for sending pics of themselves in their strapless homecoming or prom dresses to a friend? Moreover, what will happen to parents in the future if they should send such a pic to one of their adult friends simply to show off how beautiful their daughter looked on that special evening? If you think I am being comically facetious here, then please consider how nebulous and broad all of the various things that fit under the general umbrella of CP are becoming. Consider, for instance, the many occurrences since the beginning of the sex abuse hysteria at the close of the 1970s and its resulting draconian laws of parents being arrested for taking nude pics of their babies and young children while the latter were in the bathtub or happily frolicking on the beach naked. This has been a common thing done by families since the invention of the camera that was intended to be entirely innocent, yet the very laws that most parents initially applauded have–predictably–come back to bite even them on the proverbial ass in many cases. No segment of society–not even the very architects of these laws themselves in some instances (*waves to former Senator Mark Foley*)–are spared the consequences of these draconian legislative measures.

If you look back to my previous essay where I dealt with the AoC laws and their relevance to youth liberation in general, you will remember that I noted how even the passage and toleration of a single draconian law in a purportedly democratic society will almost certainly have a cumulative effect on future legislation in this area. The result will invariably be further and further rationalizations for greater and increasingly insidious and far-reaching draconian laws. Predictably, as the years roll on large segments of the population are being convicted for things that they never would have realized were covered under the aegis of these laws when they were first instituted under totally noble pretenses. The ultimate result is an inexorable dive towards a borderline police and surveillance state where privacy is an alien concept. How is this supposed to benefit or protect younger people from harm? What about the serious implications upon the general adult population and the civil rights that they, unlike people under 18, currently enjoy? And how could it be argued that most teen activists who support youth liberation would actually agree with continued restrictions on their choices in just this one particular area? (The only other area in the realm of youth liberation that even approaches sexual rights in terms of the level of emotional contention is respect for youths’ Second Amendment rights, but that is a whole other topic.)

Of course, one will then argue that the act of sexting can have many unforeseen consequences of its own [see endnote 1 for example]. Such concerns are certainly valid, but is the outright criminalization of something that people over the age of majority are allowed to do despite the same attendant risk factors constitute the correct solution to this problem?

The above question needs to be asked, because freedom of choice is extremely important to any platform dedicated to liberation, and this prominently includes the right to take risks. There are any number of ways in which girls (and boys) can be cautioned about indiscriminately sending nude pics of themselves to significant others or friends over their cell phones that deny the need for protectionist prohibitions on freedom of choice [see endnote 2 for some examples of these fully democratic alternatives].

The question of how many youths under a certain arbitrary age would or would not want to appear in erotic films or photoshoots is totally irrelevant to the importance of freedom of choice [see endnote 3]. Freedom of choice is perhaps the most important aspect to any program or platform that purports to be based upon liberation, and this includes choices that the activists involved may not be totally comfortable with, or which they personally deem “inappropriate” for someone to make for whatever reason [see endnote 4].

Another question the naysayers have to consider is how the full range of these CP laws as we know them today hurt the very foundation of a democratic society in a general sense. This includes the well-being of everyone in society, regardless of what their personal tastes in erotica–or the lack of same–may happen to be. How could such a thing be the case, you may ask? The answer is very simple, and very logical, and would be much more clear to everyone if they simply compelled themselves to put logic and reason before emotion when confronting any subject.

As I have said numerous times before, any society that purports to be based on democratic principles suffers immensely with the introduction of even a single draconian law into the penal framework, no matter how genuinely noble or good the intentions of those who pass or support such a law may be. History has shown, over and over again, that draconian laws passed within the context of a democratic society are clearly cumulative in nature and ultimately destructive to such a society’s most cherished principles. In other words, the passage and toleration of even one such law within a democratic system tends to gradually lead to further and further justifications of more draconian laws of increasing severity and scope as time marches on. This is because the rationalization of the “need” for one such law can easily lead to further rationalizations for other such laws as time progresses, especially when a certain type of hysteria rears its hideous metaphorical head.

This is why placing laws pertaining to the possession and viewing of CP in a “special” class of image (and sometimes text) that is immune to First Amendment protections has gradually escalated into further and increasingly irrational prohibitions that have begun encroaching upon imagery where no actual minors are involved and erotic material that consists entirely of actors who are legal adults [see endnote 5 for specific examples]. This makes it clear that such legislation inevitably ends up targeting ideas rather than imagery of material beings or objects, a very dangerous prospect for a democratic system to engage in.

The above factors make it abundantly clear why it’s so highly detrimental for a purportedly democratic society to allow any type of draconian law or any type of censorship regarding what type of imagery or text that people can or cannot view or possess–or any type of idea that they may advocate, either in a subtle or overt fashion, or access information about (be it written or visual). This is regardless of whatever good intentions one may offer to justify banning such imagery or text–and the “dangerous” ideas one feels to be implicit in each–and regardless of how much you may be offended or upset by the imagery or text in question. And this, of course, goes equally for the politically motivated rationales for censoring footage or reports of war atrocities, but that is a whole other topic despite its equal level of importance to the realm of censorship law and its implications on a supposedly free society [again, see endnote 5 for more examples of imagery and footage that are banned by various Western governments under similar justifications].

Now, just so I am clear on this and no misinterpretation can be made, I do not, of course, support the production of CP that features children or teens literally being forced into sexual activity against their will and/or actually tortured in brutal ways on camera, or allowing these heinous producers to sell such imagery on the open market for profit, any more than I would support the existence of adult “snuff” porn if a burgeoning international market for such a product was actually true as per the claims once made by our esteemed bastions of the truth, i.e., the law enforcement agencies [LEAs] and their frequent enablers in deception, the corporate-controlled media. Unfortunately, when one thinks of the term “CP,” such imagery is precisely the first thing to come to mind thanks to the constant popular image promulgated endlessly by the mass media, much as (with equal relevance to youth liberation) people automatically think of horrid sweatshop conditions whenever the term “child labor” is mentioned, as if it was totally impossible for younger people to desire employment or to find such employment under perfectly humane and reasonable conditions in an advanced society like our own (though again, this is a whole other subject for another essay).

The fact of the matter remains, the various LEAs have never bothered to provide the public with proof of the frequent and often totally outrageous claims of what the CP they have in their vaulted collection consist of. Further, their utter refusal to allow even a few objective and well-respected journalists to view such material for the purpose of confirming the veracity of these often incredible claims is very telling [see endnote 6 for more examples of such chicanery perpetrated by the LEAs with a lot of help from the media in the not too distant past]. Hence, it’s utterly absurd for even those who hate the very thought of CP to claim that it’s in no way fishy or suspicious that the LEAs in question will not allow the viewing of these pics and vids even to a few well-respected journalists so they can confirm the veracity of the former’s statements about what the imagery in those pics and vids largely consist of. This is especially pertinent given the long record of dishonesty amongst the world of law enforcement and the frequently bizarre nature of the claims being made by them about different things they target. It’s been said that extraordinary claims demand extraordinary proof (or at least some evidence), but people seem all too willing to make exceptions in the case of anything that they want to believe for purely emotional reasons, no matter how much these comforting beliefs may defy common sense (note the popular but highly incorrect belief in the “stranger danger” epidemic, but more on that below).

But what reason would the LEAs have for so massively deceiving the public about this subject, as they have with other subjects in the past [again, see endnote 6 for three major examples]? This is actually a silly question for anyone with even a modicum of knowledge about law enforcement and politics–and how each of them works–to ask, but I will explicate the three major reasons for such deception here anyway:

1) The hefty paychecks enjoyed by the officers who comprise the various task forces of the LEAs that are dedicated to combating what the system refers to as crimes of “vice” depend upon the continuation of public hysteria and exaggerated moral “concern” about certain activities going on in our society. Hence, the LEAs have to convince the public and the media that the “problem” they are paid so handsomely to combat is one of such extremely high magnitude to the safety of our children and society in general that the common rules of democracy must be dispensed with to deal with them effectively. In other words, the highly lucrative career opportunities for LEOs [law enforcement officers] that can potentially arise via the generous flow of government funds are seen as extremely important by LEAs to maintain. These heavily valued career opportunities include the creation of future task forces and promotions within them, and they require a steady stream of arrests to build the reputations of the officers involved and to justify the steep government (read: taxpayer) expenditures required to keep the cash flowing from Congress. This is why the officers who comprise these particular LEAs try to assure a constant supply of arrests by going after the easiest targets, such as those who download, possess, or simply view the banned imagery online rather than conducting the more sensible and less draconian action of tracking down and arresting the alleged plethora of people producing this new CP, and rescuing the supposed legion of kidnapped and horribly abused kids whom these officers claim are forced into making this product by the producers for profit.

2) In order for the public and the media to continue supporting the vast amount of government funding–read: taxpayer support–of such expensive and ultimately futile programs for combating the appearance and expression of every instance of youth sexuality on camera they can find necessitates the claims of the various LEAs that the perceived problem is one of extreme magnitude. Therefore, the LEAs frequently claim that as many as millions of children worldwide are being victimized by this allegedly underground but powerful industry, and that the purveyors of these atrocities are so powerful, well-connected, and crafty–and that the demand for such product is so incredibly high across the globe–that they always remain one step ahead of the best and most well-funded of these LEAs’ efforts. This enables the LEAs to demand a continuously larger amount of taxpayer-acquired funds every several months to a year, along with further encroachments on our democratic liberties every year, in order to combat this “menace.” Of course, any demand for proof of the validity of these claims that are used to justify the perceived need for the Orwellian legislation and the excessive pilfering of taxpayer monies to fund the task forces to carry out its directives are never provided. Instead, we are expected to simply trust our government-funded “protectors” and take absolutely everything they say at face value, despite the fact that their record for honesty when it comes to matters of this nature is alarmingly poor [once again, see endnote 6 for a little sojourn down memory lane in regards to the honesty of law enforcement officers]. Worse, those of us who are disgusted with the very idea of CP on an emotional level truly want to believe the claims of these LEAs. This results in such citizens forming strong attempts to rationalize away the LEAs’ refusal to grant freedom of the press to journalists who want to confirm the validity of their claims despite the fact that such people may be well aware of their duplicity in other aspects of the ongoing sex abuse hysteria over the past three decades [ibid]. Note the similar lamentations given to the notorious War On Drugs, though again that is a whole other if equally important topic.

3) Not only does the ongoing panic and disgust with any possible depiction of youth sexuality on camera throughout our culture enable the aforementioned lucrative careers for those officers who work in this particular area of law enforcement, they also serve to increase the rationale of these organizations to continuously demand increased police powers over society in a general sense [see endnote 7]. This is another reason why the successful passage of even one draconian law within a democratic framework can result in the latter framework being gradually eradicated as more and more draconian legislation is rationalized as different aspects of the hysteria or differing simultaneous hysterias (more than one often occur at once) combine to constantly create new aspects of the panic from which the government and its enablers in the media claim we need to be “protected” from.

In other words, those who work within law enforcement and other areas of government have a lot to gain from these hysterias, even as we, the common citizens, and anyone who may–now or in the future–dissent in any way from the imposition of any established norm, will end up paying a huge penalty in the long run. But terrified and intolerant people all too often do not think with their reasoning faculties, and instead let their emotions take over.

This is why I believe that it’s entirely justified to accuse the various LEAs of yet another horrendous act of duplicity due to their adamant refusal to allow their highly outrageous claims to be validated by a few objective and well-respected journalists in the name of freedom of the press and freedom of information. There is no reason whatsoever to believe that the bulk of CP consists of children or teens being forced into sexual acts against their will and brutally tortured on camera, let alone the existence of a multi-billion dollar international industry that deals in the widespread production and sale of such horrific material. Such pics of genuine abuse do exist, of course, but there is no evidence to suggest that they make up a sizable proportion of the overall rubric of what is broadly defined as CP. Further, there are no known outlets for such product to be distributed profitably just as there was never a large-scale profitable business for adult “snuff” films as the LEAs once claimed. There are many depraved human beings in the world, granted, but there is no evidence that there are organized bastions of depravity of such a huge scale who possess such a vast amount of capital and exceptional technical skill among their number that an international demand of such a degree for this type of product is being successfully produced and sold for such a huge amount of profit. Arguing otherwise is to argue that MAAs with “extreme” tastes are so disproportionately vile and nasty compared to teleiophiles [people with a preference for members of the same general age group] with similar “extreme” tastes that simulations of such activity featuring actors who aren’t being tortured in actuality will not suffice in place of the real thing for these particular MAAs or child and teen fetishists. Yet there is no evidence that an adult with a preferential attraction to minors, or even one who has a mere sexual fetish for minors, is in any way more likely than a teleiophile to be of such an aberrant or violent nature that they will absolutely demand the real thing over acted simulations on a large scale. To say otherwise is, whether intentionally or not, admitting that you buy into the worst type of stereotype towards MAAs imaginable sans a single shred of evidence that this stereotype is in any way a part of reality. We need to let common sense and simple logic prevail before we adopt such extremist beliefs about any single group of people. Let’s not forget what happened to the Jews and other ethnic and sexual minorities living in Germany during the Holocaust when similar hysterical claims became widespread beliefs amongst the general populace of a particular nation, with government policies reacting accordingly.

As fellow activist Summerdays noted: “…I think this idea is fueled by the (erroneous) belief that the sexual attraction to minors is itself a vile and nasty perversion of normal adult attraction. Thus, anyone who could be so twisted as to be attracted to children [or adolescents] must undoubtedly harbor such disturbing tastes that would lead them to desire things – and to pursue those things – that not even the most perverted teleiophile would consider. But this is quite ridiculous. It’s a bogeyman. It’s not reality.”

Also, such naysayers appear to buy into the common belief that the bulk of what is legally considered CP involves pre-pubescents as young as five years of age. The few individuals who have reported seeing such material–both within and outside of the law enforcement vocation–have stated that the bulk of such images consists of adolescents, not pre-pubescents, that the vast majority of these images are old and were produced prior to the criminalization of CP beginning in the early 1980s, and those that feature explicit sexual acts are far fewer than those that feature ‘simple’ nudity which may or may not highlight the breasts (of teen girls) or genitalia. The type of pics that seem to be actual depictions of real acts of violence and torture appear to encompass by far the smallest amounts of this material in existence. Further, it’s very difficult to tell which of the small amount of pics depicting torture and bondage themes are simulated and which are actual footage of real non-consensual abuse.

One must also consider the following logical questions: if such a vast amount of underagers across the globe were literally being kidnapped and forced into sexual activity against their will before a camera, and this material is being distributed to a huge corrupt clientele with deep pockets, then why has there been virtually no instance of such girls appearing in public after they had reached adulthood to make a plea before the world media to end such a horrific global industry? Where are the supposed multitude of adults who one would expect to have a body full of cigarette burns, savage wounds made by blades, or lacerations made by a whip appearing before the media to show these horrific wounds to the public in attempts to get this alleged powerful and heavily profitable industry eradicated once and for all? Moreover, where are the parents of all of these allegedly millions of kidnapped kids who one would expect to appear in the media daily making similar pleas on behalf of their missing children, especially since such parental public pleas and media noise is well known to be very common whenever one of the very small cases of stranger abduction occurs every year? Are we to believe that almost every single one of these multitudes of children supposedly being kidnapped and enslaved for the CP industry are killed and effectively disposed of after the films are made? And even if such was actually the case, what about the multitude of parents that we should expect to hear the impassioned pleas from on the public airwaves? In other words, how do the LEAs–along with those who believe these claims–rationalize what may be called The Great Silence regarding an issue such as this? The only voices we ever usually hear are those of the LEAs and a certain number of CAs [“child advocates,” who should never be confused with youth liberationists] and a smidgeon of miscellaneous Web surfers (including a few within the MAA community, it must be noted) who claim to have come across whole websites that are allegedly full of such horrendous material. No proof or even any good evidence is ever offered that such a thing is occurring on anywhere near the scale that the LEAs and CAs often claim, yet the belief continues to proliferate via the sheer force of emotion that such propaganda stirs up amongst the masses. Hitler and Stalin would truly be proud of the contemporary American media if they were still alive to see the current sex abuse hysteria and its attendant “pedophile panic,” along with the widespread irrational beliefs and draconian laws spawned by them.

Of course, I have no doubt that such abusive films have been made, and continue to be made, from time to time, but in such cases, it often turns out that the perpetrators of these non-consensual films and even torture are usually not some stranger who abducted the kids in question for the purpose of selling videos of the abuse and torture on some nefarious underground market, but rather the parents or stepparents of these abused kids. This is very likely to be true because it would certainly explain why the great parental silence on this subject is so ubiquitous across the media, and why the media would be highly reluctant to report these instances due to what they may say about the sacrosanct institution of parenthood and the present day hierarchal nature of the much-beloved nuclear family unit in our modern non-youth-liberated society that the current status quo loves to promote so devotedly and attempt to preserve at all costs as inherently good. This statement is not intended by this author to disparage the institution of parenthood and the closeness of the family; rather, it’s to make clear that the very thing that the naysayers this essay was written to address most often occurs–when it actually does occur–as the result of the same laws that legally and civilly disempower younger people, and leave them as little more than the property of their parents. This situation leaves children and teens all the more vulnerable to the very thing that the platform of youth liberation in general is hoping to rectify. Hence, the eventual success of this movement will decrease the likelihood of the more unscrupulous parents out there from successfuly forcing their kids into sexual servitude, or genuine abuse of any sort for that matter.

As Summerdays noted on this topic:

“I could imagine a completely alternate reality where pedophiles [and hebephiles] worked in tandem with peace officers to prevent the abuse (actual abuse) of children. By allowing the [MAAs] their trade – most of whom, as human beings, would be concerned about the treatment of the children in the pictures – they could bring to the attention of peace officers any pictures that looked suspect, which could then be followed by an investigation. If abuse is proved, then score one for the good guys. Otherwise, if the material has not been produced through abuse (and of course, the child’s opinion will be paramount in this determination), then let it flow.”

As such, I–and the entire pro-choice segment of the MAA community that I am aware of who supports the general legality of youth erotica–only support the production of such erotica that was made with the willing consent of the young people in question. This is particularly true concerning such material that is composed by young people themselves–the idea that it’s mostly or only adults who produce youth erotica is yet another falsehood that the twin phenomena of sexting and uploading of nude pics to socnet sites clearly debunk in no uncertain terms.

Moreover, I do not support any type of “hardcore” production of erotica for pre-pubescents, or anything that would be developmentally inappropriate for their age group (such as full onscreen sexual penetration of either their vaginas or anuses), so my support of the legalization of youth erotica is entirely geared towards mutual consensually produced products that are within reason, and I do not by any means take an “absolutely anything goes” type of attitude towards youth erotica, especially not when applied to pre-pubescents. Of course, I would never have a problem with any depiction of simple nudity, especially not within the context of a mainstream film that is designed to explore the intimate lives of youths in every detail to a realistic extent [see endnote 8].

Thus, since what is often considered CP has such a great and ever-increasing broadness to it, one must first define what they consider to be CP rather than attacking “CP” in a general sense, since anything that is today legal can be declared CP by a single legislative decision tomorrow. As such, many personally believe that the legal youth modeling sites of today should be considered CP, and are actively petitioning the Western governments to officially declare them illegal on those grounds. Hence, what does or does not constitute CP can be a personal as well as a legal definition, and the two are often incorrectly and irresponsibly conflated with each other by anyone discussing the subject.

Now, onto the final very important question as to why any type of imagery should be legal to possess or at least to view, even if not to produce or distribute for financial gain.

The idea that even the most deplorable images of CP should be criminalized to view or download because they depict a crime scene and will cause great emotional distress to the victims and family of such crimes must consider the following questions to prove that imagery specifically depicting the sexual exploitation of younger people must be considered part of a very special category of ‘crime scene.’ For starters, why isn’t it illegal to download or view images or vids of actual war carnage, including that involving children getting or having had their limbs blown off as a result of accidentally getting caught in the crossfire of two opposing military forces (i.e., what our government and media loves to call “callateral damage”)? Why aren’t pics and vids of actual murders and the horrible torture and execution of reporters and other non-military personnel by terrorists and foreign armies illegal to possess or view? What about the many actual pics of the horrifying carnage wreaked by real serial killers upon their victims that are fully legal to print in any number of serious books about the nature of serial killers? Perhaps very importantly, why isn’t it illegal for anyone to possess or view pics of the extreme and very non-consensual sexual humiliation inflicted upon many Middle Eastern male prisoners by American security guards (some of them women) that occurred at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq a few years ago, which resulted in one of several major scandals in this duplicitous war? The latter case is especially true when you consider the deep level of humiliation that a man raised under a conservative Islamic culture will experience as a result of being forced to engage in simulated homoerotic contact with several other males while being photographed in the act for the amusement of their captors–and please note that many of these men were never even accused, let alone convicted, of a crime (in case some of you attempt to say that these men deserved this atrocious humiliation for allegedly being terrorists or for being nationalist insurgents who dared to oppose the invasion and lengthy occupation of their nation by a foreign military that too many Americans wrongly identify with the interests of simply due to their citizenship). I am sure it can be cogently argued that these men and their families will be heavily distressed emotionally to realize that people across the world have possession of these pics.

Further, I am sure that there are many homosexual male and probably even some female bondage fetishists out there–who are otherwise very good and decent people in their dealings with anyone they know in real life–who are actually sexually aroused by viewing such pics and fantasizing about either being in the place of those guards or of the men sexually victimized by them (since many people harbor fantasies of actually being raped). The male victims in question would certainly be highly emotionally distressed to receive confirmation of those pics being used for such a purpose. Yet I have seen all of the aforedescribed type of pics legally distributed all over the Web and in print, and all ostensibly for informative and/or political purposes. Why isn’t anyone arrested for the possession or even simple viewing of such pics, especially when we do not have the slightest idea what happens to be going through the minds of anyone who may be viewing them? Can we possibly take the chance that some of these viewers may have such filthy and depraved thoughts while viewing these pics of what to many constitutes actual footage of a war crime? Is this, perhaps, because we do not favor any type of thought control, no matter how deplorable or vile we may consider such thoughts to be? Should any type of fantasy be criminalized, no matter how awful it may be to our collective sensibilities, as long as it stays entirely within the realm of fantasy? Is there any proof that anyone who has truly awful fantasies are likely to eventually “act out” these fantasies on a real victim?

As my fellow MAA activist who posts under the nick Little Girl Lover noted in regards to the Abu Ghraib debacle:

“The thing you hear the anti-CP crowd holler is that children cannot consent, so this is another reason why CP should be illegal. But what of the men who had their pictures taken in Abu Ghraib? These men did not consent to these videos and pictures. They were humiliated. It’s even legal to possess these pictures and upload them, but it’s illegal to have LS model type pictures even though the girls were paid for posing. They are about the same as Playboy or Penthouse.”

Little Girl Lover further laments:

“And what of the victims of the Holocaust? You can buy books in many bookstores with pictures of women and children stripped naked [and] heading off to be slaughtered. This was humiliating and terrifying for all these people involved. They did not consent, yet these pictures are [publicly accessible and legal to view and possess]. I’m sure that the survivors feel traumatized by such an experience, yet this crime is viewed by millions of people over time.

“All these pictures, including CP and child erotica, should be legal to possess and view. There’s a lot of pictures and videos I do not care to look at or own but I will fight for the right to be able to look, read, view, own, and distribute any source of media available.”

Let us also keep in mind the famous pic of a Vietnam War atrocity where an 11-year-old girl was photographed running through her village streets in extraordinary agony after napalm was dropped on her by American military forces (it should perhaps be noted that the girl is entirely nude in the pic, and her secondary sexual characteristics are clearly visible). The girl is known to have survived this horrific incident despite having a great amount of permanent scars, both physical and emotional, as a result. Yet this pic is widely and legally available to view and possess in many print and online resources that cover war atrocities. Can it not be argued that the now adult woman and her surviving family may be extremely emotionally distressed as a result of coming across this pic in so many sources? Do we know beyond a shadow of a doubt what purpose absolutely everyone who takes possession of this pic may use it for, or what thoughts everyone who views this pic may possibly have while viewing it? Do we ever make such assumptions in regards to this pic? Or is the simple fact that it doesn’t have a sexual context to it automatically cause us to accept the fact that it has the possibility of being used or viewed or possessed for non-puerile reasons? What exactly justifies the legality of this pic to view or possess, but not anything considered CP by the various governments? Does anyone accuse people who possess this pic for whatever conceivable reason, and for supporting the continued legality of possessing it, to be supportive of war atrocities? What if some bigot or American with a twisted sense of patriotism (and there are many of those, unfortunately) uploaded that pic to a website with a horrible statement saying something like, “Burn the Gooks!”? Isn’t there a possibility of that happening if this pic remains legal to view, possess, download, and upload wherever and for whatever purposes one pleases? If someone insists that this matter is “different” than CP, and that these questions should not apply to pics of atrocities inflicted upon a minor that does not have an obvious sexual context to it no matter how much emotional distress the public distribution such pics may have on the victim and her family, then can they explain exactly why the presence or absence of an overt sexual context should make or break the legality of any type of imagery? What is it about sexuality that Western society is so hysterical about? Why does that subject elicit such a disproportionate degree of irrationality in our culture?

In regards to the oft-made assertion that the simple distribution of such pics or vids without the expectation of monetary gain will automatically create a huge swelling of demand that will result in a huge surfeit of such material being produced in the future is totally without proof, especially if the demand in question is of material that is illegal. Without the hope of a vast amount of financial remuneration being present to make the production of such dangerously illegal material on a large scale worth the effort for any number of insidious individuals who would comprise such an industry, which would include the high degree of logistical difficulties in doing so [see endnote 9], then why would they do it? This is why such incidents are extremely low, why there is no logical way possible that such material could constitute a sizable degree of what is considered CP by the law, and why The Great Silence described above exists [see endnote 10 for a logical but highly disturbing reason as to why both the LEAs and the media may be highly reluctant to explain the truth behind the tiny amount of genuinely abusive CP].

These are all of the reasons why CP should be entirely legal to possess and view in a democratic society, why all forms of censorship and draconian laws should never be tolerated or resorted to in a democratic system (or one that purports to be) in order to combat any perceived problem or threat, and why the issue of CP most certainly does pertain to the platform of youth liberation.

Endnotes

1. One such example is the possibility of a girl who sends nude pics of herself to her boyfriend being double-crossed as he shares the pic with several of his friends without her permission, or which he may even post online.

A cogent statement made by my friend and fellow activist CatcherintheRye on this point is the following:

“One thing that frustrates me about cases of sexting is how people hardly ever confront the people that bully young girls who have sexted and tell them how wrong their behavior is. Instead, they seem to instill guilt in the girls themselves. Sure, it is risky to sext with the laws the way they are, so I guess there’s nothing wrong with informing young people about that, but I just find that they are really placing a sense of guilt and shame onto the wrong people.”

2. Democratic solutions to the risk factors involved with sexting includes such eminently common sense options as parents offering cautionary advice to their kids the first time the youths in question purchase a cell phone and start an account. In a youth liberated society, parents will accept the fact that their kids may utilize the technology for this purpose, and will not have to feel hesitant to offer this advice to them.

Further, sex education courses can offer similar advice during the teaching of the section that includes risks that young people should be aware of in regards to any type of sexual-oriented activity. This cautionary, value neutral advice doesn’t have to be limited to discussions of the possible physical consequences of sexual intercourse amongst adolescents, such as STDs and unwanted pregnancies. The advice given in these courses can also include risk factors amongst the various social choices that young people may make in the course of a relationship, including those related to the use of technology such as cell phone cameras and the online world. Every problem a democratic society will ever face, either perceived or totally legitimate, can always be dealt with effectively via a democratic solution, and a draconian response that denies freedom of choice should never be the preferred solution in such a society, no matter how “serious” the problem is considered to be, or how good or noble the intentions behind it are believed to be (as noted above in the main text).

As my fellow activist Summerdays opined in regards to including objective and value neutral discussions about the risk factors associated with sexting in sex education courses:

“It’s the same problem I see often with sex education in general. Assuming kids will practice abstinence (in this case, from taking sexy pictures and sharing them), and gearing the education toward that assumption, results in kids being kept from some very important safety information they should know. And the ones who don’t abstain – and they will always exist – suffer because of it. Whether we want kids to sext or not, we ought to recognize that it’s going to happen anyway, and we ought to have the responsibility to inform them about what the risks are, and the best ways to do it safely if that’s what they end up choosing to do. No moral judgments, no behavioral prescriptions (or proscriptions) – just honest, accurate information.”

3. Such possible sources of youth erotica that may exist in a future youth liberated society may include print and/or online publications similar to Playboy, but which are instead dedicated exclusively to displaying and celebrating the great beauty of youth.

4. Any alleged platform of liberation that denies or prohibits freedom of choice in its itinerary of goals, or which defines freedom in the context of “freedom from…” rather than “freedom to…” (as explicated in the classic book The Handmaiden’s Tale), is in actuality a protectionist racket masquerading as “liberation.” Do not be fooled by tyrants dressed in a liberator’s clothing, or enticed by the proposition of safety in the arms of a “benevolent” dictator. Any platform of solutions to any perceived problems in society must offer much more than simply good intentions; their proposed solutions must be in harmony with the principles of a free society regardless of the genuine nature of their intentions.

5. Specifically, the aforementioned escalation that has arisen following the passing of the initial CP laws has exponentially increased from the simple viewing or possession of pics featuring minors engaged in explicitly sexual acts to…

1) …the criminalization of pics or vids featuring simple nudity of minors without any blatant signs of sexuality;

2)…to the criminalization of pics or vids featuring legal adults pretending to be minors engaged in sexual activity or appearing nude;

3)…to the criminalization of cartoon representations and drawings or CGI [computer generated imagery] of sexually active or nude minors;

4)…to the criminalization of any serious attempt at artwork which may depict nude or “provocative” imagery of minors;

5)…to the criminalization of minors wearing scanty clothing (since such imagery might arouse a “pedophile”);

6)…to the criminalization of fully clothed minors who may be posing in a “provocative” manner or having an “enticing” expression on their faces for the same reason as above;

7)…to the utterly absurd and mind-blowing serious proposal amongst the Australian parliament to criminalize adult pornography featuring adult women of legal age with small breasts. In case anyone thinks I’m actually making this last one up, check out the following excerpt that can be found by scrolling down a bit on this blog:

A reader writes: “Australian Classification Board (ACB) is now banning depictions of small-breasted women in adult publications and films. They banned mainstream pornography from showing women with A-cup breasts, apparently on the grounds that they encourage paedophilia, and in spite of the fact this is a normal breast size for many adult women. Presumably small breasted women taking photographs of themselves will now be guilty of creating simulated child pornography, to say nothing of the message this sends to women with modestly sized chests or those who favour them. Australia has also banned pornographic depictions of female ejaculation, a normal orgasmic sexual response in many women, with censors branding it as ‘abhorrent.’

“The Board has also started to ban depictions of small-breasted women in adult publications and films. This is in response to a campaign led by Kids Free 2 B Kids and promoted by Barnaby Joyce and Guy Barnett in Senate Estimates late last year. Mainstream companies such as Larry Flint’s Hustler produce some of the publications that have been banned. These companies are regulated by the FBI to ensure that only adult performers are featured in their publications. “We are starting to see depictions of women in their late 20s being banned because they have an A cup size”, she said. “It may be an unintended consequence of the Senator’s actions but they are largely responsible for the sharp increase in breast size in Australian adult magazines of late”.

For further clarification of what the toleration of any type of draconian law or justification for censorship of any sort eventually leads–and so you do not think the above excerpt was posted on that blog by yours truly and thus has no actual validity–check out the following links:

Here (as columnist Bella Counihan said of this topic: “You can’t make this stuff up”).

And be sure to check out the coverage of this topic on the following parody site–parody often does a very good job of pointing out the sheer idiocy of very serious political matters, something seen regularly in the pages of MAD magazine, TV shows like Saturday Night Live, and the work of many excellent stand-up comedians such as Bill Maher and the late, great George Carlin.

Is it a coincidence that the move by Australian parliament to ban the appearance of small-breasted women in erotic films and mags occurred in the same legislation that is also trying to ban filmed or photographed depictions of female ejaculation? Is it so important that our society goes out of its way to such an extent to ban anything that may be remotely believed to “encourage ‘pedophilia'” (or hebephilia, as the case may be) that certain rights of how legal adults may be depicted on camera should be curtailed? Is it just a coincidence that encroachments on what legal adults can and cannot do on camera appear to be the result of legislators with a moralizing agenda starting out with censoring “easy” targets like CP before moving on to more “difficult” targets like adult porn? The answer to all three of these interrelated questions would appear to be a resounding no .

Since it’s becoming increasingly evident, as noted in the main text of this essay, that these laws are intended to target a specific idea rather than to actually “protect” minors from appearing on camera while engaged in sexual activities, the common argument in defense of the continuation of this Orwellian legislation is that the proliferation of such imagery may encourage MAAs to “act out” on their urges with real minors. The problem comes when these individuals are asked to provide actual scientific evidence that this is actually the case and not simply to make assumptions in the absence of such evidence. A far bigger problem arises, with far-reaching negative implications for the survival of what is left of our democracy, when those individuals who actually bother to respond to the above concern do so with a variation of, “We shouldn’t have to ask for evidence! If there is even the slightest chance something like that may happen, and even one child per year may be ‘abused’ as a result, then that possibility makes these laws more than justified! And I don’t care how draconian these laws may be when the ‘safety’ of children is at stake!”

My fellow MAA activist and youth liberationist, qtns2di4, made the following very important statement regarding the above argument being used to justify the criminalization of the viewing and possession of any type of image or text, by making a comparison to the only other two types of imagery or text that are routinely legally banned by governments in the Western world (both outside of America):

“Regarding bans on imagery that are rationalized as helping prevent copycats, there are two non-CP, non-blasphemy-laws, categories that have been made illegal or of controlled access in many countries. One is animal cruelty, and pics or vids featuring it have been banned in some countries. While the argument is [to prevent] an inspiration for others to do the same, a) as you argue, devoting resources to the banning of the images distracts them from prosecuting the culprits of the acts, and b) the [public accessibility of the] images themselves act as prevention and as awareness-building. The second category I am thinking of is Nazi and Nazi camp imagery. Apart from the above objections, which still apply, it is hard to see how [the public accessibility of] Nazi camp imagery helps create another Holocaust. That needs thousands, maybe millions, of collaborators, and they have to be in the broad daylight. A random Neo-Nazi, on the other hand, will not need a camp image to get inspired to commit any atrocity themselves, but will still be limited to what a single person can do. Though these cases are not identical, they are both cases of censorship allegedly as prevention of the commission of the action, akin to that of CP laws.”

6. The concern with the validity of the often sensational claims made about the content of much of the CP collected by law enforcement task forces since the first laws were instituted is especially crucial in light of the fact that the LEAs and their hangers-on in the media once thoroughly promoted the reality of the “snuff” film market, the prevalence of rampant satanic ritual abuse of children occurring within day care centers across the entire breadth of North America, and their promotion and widespread acceptance of the “repressed memory” phenomenon that had (and still has, in some cases) a major effect on the mental health industry in the Western world–all of which has since been proven to be total bunk [the satanic ritual abuse and “repressed memory syndrome” phenomena were tackled in detail in my previous essay The Importance of Truth, which includes a large amount of links and citations to relevant sources; info on the once widely circulated and non-existent “snuff” film industry can be obtained via a simple Google search).

7. All of the justified admonitions by civil rights advocates against the government’s increasing rationalizations for increased police powers over society, which includes: 1) greater surveillance on the general public; 2) increased intrusions in our privacy, such as monitoring our phone calls and e-mail transmissions; 3) increasing the creation of the number of “special” categories of crimes and groups of people that are exempt from common constitutional protections (note what is occurring in the simultaneously ongoing “War On Terror”); 4) and the increased justifications for various forms of censorship that such hysterias and “moral panics” cause, are thrown by the wayside by a terrified public and cowardly politicians who are too afraid to argue against these continued Orwellian encroachments on our basic civil liberties due to the perceived magnitude of the “threat.”

8. These include the many examples of cinema that were produced in foreign countries like France and Denmark for the “coming of age” genre that featured pre-pubescent nudity, any type of artistic production designed to celebrate the beauty of the youthful form of children or adolescents, or any type of film that is intended to be of an educational nature. This would include the re-legalization of once renowned and heavily lauded educational books such as Show Me, as well as all artistic photojournals produced by artists like Sally Mann, Tierney Gearon, Violeta Gómez, and Bill Henson, which feature the celebration of the nude youthful form that has been a major subject of art throughout human history.

9. The logistical nightmares would include the obtainment of a continued supply of victims and what to do with those victims once the films are made and sent to the hypothetical buyers without gaining the attention of the young person’s family, friends, or the local police in the process, totally belies common sense and credulity. This is why it’s far more likely that in the instances in which genuinely abusive CP is actually produced, it is most often done by parents or stepparents who have continual closeted access to the child victims in question, rather than an organized network of strangers who are motivated entirely by profit on a large scale. This is also why such highly rare products are most often not intended for public consumption but rather for the small number of utterly corrupt fetishists who may share such a horrid interest.

Note this excerpt of a quote taken from German defense attorney Udo Vetter from this article that appeared on the Süddeutsche Zeitung news site (translated into English courtesy of GirlChat’s webmaster NFiH, who is fluent in German, and which can be confirmed via a translation from Google’s software):

You cannot physically abuse children on the Internet. But you can look at pictures or movies of child abuse and trade them. “Of course paedophiles use the Internet to trade child porn,” says lawyer Udo Vetter, who has acted as a defense lawyer in hundreds of child porn cases. “But there is no such thing as a commercial market.”

…There is no effective system of money transfer for the distribution of illegal pictures and movies. According to Vetter, “you simply can’t receive millions of dollars online anonymously.” Money flow is monitored by the authorities of many states, including the USA.

…According to Vetter, none of his clients ever paid for pictures or movies[;] 80 to 90 percent of the files found by the police are identical. “Some of these pictures are 30 to 40 years old.” In contrast to the claims made to justify Net censorship[,] the amount of child porn available on the Internet is rising extremely slowly. None of these pictures and movies have been produced professionally (the only exceptions being movies with teenage victims which may have been legal when they were produced) [emphasis mine].

If you remove the value judgment terms “abuse” and “victim” from the above excerpt–which were likely made to appease the readers of this article by using the type of language that they are used to seeing in the media when it comes to this subject–the entire article pretty much says it all about the silliness of the widespread claims by LEAs and their status quo-defending allies in the press that CP production is a huge multi-billion dollar international business.

See also this article about the infamous Texas case involving Landslide Productions, where its webmaster Paul Reeve was arrested for what amounted to a witch hunt. This article also shows the length that LEAs will go to get someone indicted even when the evidence collected doesn’t warrant it.

My thanks to NFiH and qtns2di4 for the above tidbits of info.

10. An examination of the two most prominent of the very, very few victims of what they described as truly non-consensual CP while in their childhood to come forward via the media would appear to reveal the reality behind the tiny amount of genuinely coercive examples of underagers participating in CP production. This reality clearly doesn’t lead towards the common, conspiratorial conception of CP being largely the product of an organized, well-funded group of criminal strangers kidnapping kids across the globe and forcing them to participate in sexual activity with adults on camera for the purpose of selling the footage for a sizable profit.

Two of the very few girls to loudly come out in the media for such a reason after reaching adulthood are Masha Allen, who participated in a relatively lengthy series of sexually explicit videos in her childhood–she was given the nickname “Disney Girl” in the media due to the fact that some of the pics of her were taken next to Disney World–and Kylie Freeman, who participated in a similar series of videos during her childhood under the nick of “Vicky.” These two girls, now adults, are perhaps the only two prominent victims of what were said to be coerced participants in the production of new CP that occurred during the age of the Internet, and Masha in particular has become something of a poster girl for LEAs as they engage in their never-ending battle to combat the dissemination of CP (there is a good degree of info on Masha on the Inquisition 21 website, and I thank my fellow activist Baldur for this info).

However, as noted above, neither of these girls were the victims of an organized group of criminal strangers who kidnapped them and forced them to appear in such films for intended sale to a corrupt clientele of buyers who demanded such product. According to Masha, she was coerced into participation in such films by her adopted father, and Kylie was forced into doing the same thing by her biological father. Neither series of CP videos were produced with the intention of selling them for profit to some corrupt underground market, but were the result of fetishistic parents who made them for free distribution on P2P [peer to peer] video sharing networks that were available to a small circle of private acquaintances during the earlier days of public access to the Internet. There have been subsequent claims by those in the know that the very small amount of truly coercive CP produced for free consumption in the P2P online file sharing networks have all been the product of parents who have this sort of fetishistic “hobby,” and not by organized criminal cartels controlled by strangers who kidnap kids for the purpose of producing CP for sale to a large international group of clients (see below for a highly important shared anecdote about the prevalence of CP distribution on P2P networks, now and in the past).

The above evidence and claims are actually entirely logical, because it’s well known to both the FBI and youth liberationist orgs alike that the greatest amount of genuine abuse of all kinds perpetrated on minors by adults–including physical and emotional abuse in addition to that of a sexual nature, and even including murder–occurs at the hands of parents, and not strangers. This unsettling fact is obviously very uncomfortable for the present day status quo to accept, and since the political overseers of modern society are dedicated to preserving the currently hierarchal version of the nuclear family unit at any cost, it’s fully understandable as to why it’s far preferable for the media to promote the concept of “stranger danger” and to portray the home as the safest place for children and young teens to be despite all the readily available evidence to the contrary.

Again, this reality is not mentioned here as an attempt to disparage the institution of parenthood or the sanctity of the family, but simply to make it clear that the current state of affairs with young people lacking most of their civil rights and the parents having such a near-total control over every aspect of their children’s lives, as well as a near-monopoly on adult interaction with their kids–save for a few “authorized” non-familial adults, such as teachers and coaches, who are currently discouraged from actually befriending the kids under their charge for obvious reasons related to the ongoing sex abuse hysteria–is the very crux of the greatest and usually the most severe cases of genuine child abuse that occurs in society today. Love shared by family members is a very good thing, but the introduction of such a high degree of power into the equation predictably corrupts this love in too many cases and results in abuse, with some of the less scrupulous parents all too often taking this abuse into some truly horrific directions. The solution that youth libbers promote is not to break up the family unit or destroy the bond between parents and children, but simply to legally empower kids so that they can much more easily resist or escape being subject to any type of abuse or harm by others in their lives, whether it originates from the hands of strangers, teachers, co-workers, peers, or parents.

This is also why, despite the impassioned declarations of Masha and Kylie themselves, arresting people who simply download and view their pics–including the many who likely have no idea that they were supposedly taken under coerced circumstances, and also considering the only place these pics remain readily accessible to the public is on entrapment sites set up by the FBI in sting operations of highly questionable ethical and constitutional acceptability–is not conducive to democratic principles. The only solution that works within a democratic framework is to empower children and teens in a legal and civil manner so as to greatly increase their ability to willingly escape from truly abusive situations of any sort, and to prosecute the producers of any non-consensual material of this nature. Ironically, it should be noted that Masha Allen is now suing the state as a result of their ‘post-rescue’ operations, including the use of imagery she says were made under coerced circumstances for use in federal entrapment schemes such as phony sting websites. Doesn’t the fact that upon ‘rescuing’ Masha from the reportedly abusive clutches of her adoptive father, she was placed under the foster care of a woman who claims to be a victim of sexual abuse who not only lost a case in court where she apparently frivilously accused her pastor of sexually abusing her, but also accused her parents of being part of a satanic cult who forced her to take part in human sacrifice (remember my discussions of the now thoroughly debunked satanic ritual abuse hysteria in my previous essay, The Importance Of Truth?), mean that such foster care parents were bound to have a distortive effect on Masha’s ideology, fueling her with feelings of revenge rather than healing, and into becoming an advocate of vengeful draconian rather than productive empowering solutions for other kids who may find their way into situations similar to hers as the result of abusive parents? Can this be the reason why Masha is so stringent upon penalizing people for looking at pics of her alleged abuse rather than focusing upon the notion of parental power that prevented her from leaving the abusive situation she found herself in? It should also be noted that the U.S. attorney who handled Masha’s case following her ‘rescue,’ Mary Beth Buchanan, was fully aware of the past of Masha’s foster mothers whose custody she was placed in. This forces us to wonder if Buchanan did so purposely, so as to increase the chance that victims like Masha would be subject to the type of irrational, vengeance-driven rhetoric from her foster parent so as to better ensure that the girl would develop a mindset conducive to furthering any political agenda that Buchanan and other LEOs like her may have. For the source of this info, go here.

Nevertheless, despite the very few lone voices in the wilderness like Masha and Kylie, the Great Silence continues, and these few voices of protest that do arise are from girls who were forced into abusive sexual situations on camera by parents, not by an organized cabal of strangers, and their resulting pics and vids were produced for consumption by a small group of like-minded fetishists via a P2P online network with no money passing any hands, and not for profit to a huge underground international market of vile MAAs. The cases of these two girls should speak volumes about the reality of CP, a reality that bears no resemblance to the urban legends created by the LEAs and their allies in the mass media.

On the subject of P2P file sharing networks and their relation to CP distribution and all the myths that have sprung out of that, my fellow activist qtns2di4 makes the following important observations:

“A few words about P2P.

“P2P requires every user to identify themselves, therefore IP addresses are always visible to others, either by default or with little technical expertise needed to uncover them. This makes it an extremely vulnerable platform for sharing, and esp. for sharing illegal content. Any step taken to protect IP address information also makes the use of P2P less efficient to the user, so users will normally try to avoid doing it. That is not even to mention the dangers of malware transmitting through P2P, which are independent from the risks of giving IP address information publicly.

“P2P reached its peak of use during the music sharing days. It was very adaptive to the technology of the time. It declined [in popular usage] as copyright lobbies and LEAs infiltrated it in order to combat music piracy. Obviously, while this use is also illegal, it doesn’t have the emotional load, the harsh legal penalties, and the niche market characteristics that CP has, so it is not surprising that traffic involving music piracy, at any time, accounted for far more P2P traffic than CP ever could. I don’t know if there is any analysis about the use of P2P that relates it directly to the sharing of CP. However, simple intuition would dictate that as P2P declined in use with the combat of music piracy and greater infiltration by LEAs, so did sharing of CP through it. Notice that, because of its structure, it is impossible to establish a payment system that works in assigning you rights of downloading in P2P sharing. That is why music pirates can use it but recording companies cannot. It also means that any CP that arrived into a P2P network became pirate, and therefore impossible to earn money from.

“Traditional P2P networks today still exist, but, because of (otherwise legal) music and video piracy, they are completely full of LEOs [law enforcement officers], thereby making it ever less safe for sharing of any content, and CP will always be much less safe than any pirated music album. Their obvious successors are torrent networks, which work under some of the same basic assumptions of P2P, but which are more stable in themselves, less vulnerable (though not 100% safe) to malware, better adapted to larger file sizes, where it is possible to establish some form of payments system, and it is easier to hide IP addresses without obvious efficiency losses. However, the structure of sharing in torrents would also make it harder to share CP openly.

“In short:

– P2P overall use coincided with the curve of (pirated) music sharing.

– There are no reasons to suspect CP was ever a large part of P2P traffic.

– P2P sharing has declined the more that LEOs and copyright lobbies have infiltrated it in their anti-piracy operations, but there is no reason to suppose that this doesn’t spill over to CP, as it is also illegal content.

– Since the P2P structure doesn’t allow for payments to be used, any CP diffused through this means was diffused for free (whether or not it was originally produced for profit) – same as music [in the form of mp3 files] always was.

– Because of the changes undergone since then, it currently should be far more difficult to diffuse CP, new or not, via publicly accessible channels than it was during the golden age of P2P.”

My thanks and appreciation to qtns2di4 for sharing this important info with me and thereby enhancing the informational basis of this essay.

A few important anecdotes have also been offered by my fellow Girl Lover in the MAA community who hails from the Netherlands and posts under the name Sancho Panza:

“The view on what CP really is has changed dramatically over the years; I remember our Lolita magazine in the ’70s of the last century. Freely available back then, but probably good for a couple of months on water and bread these days.”

“The Ukrainian child pornography raids are also interesting; the LS material I saw didn’t look like CP by any standard to me, yet American influences managed to shut down the whole thing.”

“[P2P networks] like [LimeWire] will be history soon, not because of the availability of CP, but because of copyright infringements [as confirmed by the following excerpt from here]:

LimeWire is under a court order dated October 26, 2010 to stop distributing the LimeWire software. A copy of the injunction can be found here. LimeWire LLC, its directors and officers, are taking all steps to comply with the injunction. We have very recently become aware of unauthorized applications on the internet purporting to use the LimeWire name. We demand that all persons using the LimeWire software, name, or trademark in order to upload or download copyrighted works in any manner cease and desist from doing so. We further remind you that the unauthorized uploading and downloading of copyrighted works is illegal.

“It’s all about money; few people are really concerned with the well being of children, I’m afraid.”

Sancho’s latter statement is quite interesting when you think about it. Despite the fact that P2P networks have allegedly been a bastion of CP trading over the past decade, the biggest creators of such software were never shut down by any of the LEAs for that reason as long as they cooperated with the police. But now they are rapidly getting shut down by LEAs for entirely financial reasons related to the money allegedly being lost by the big record companies due to the well known proliferation of mp3 file sharing through these networks. The fact that money trumps proclaimed morality shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone in our capitalistic society, since that’s pretty much business as usual. It also makes you wonder if the U.S. government and the many large corporations that control it wouldn’t be covertly financing the production and sale of CP if their ridiculous claims that it was actually a multi-billion dollar a year industry were actually true.

First, Framed for Child Porn, setup by friends and family of Nathaniel Ethan Solon. What makes this site interesting is that it exposes just how very little evidence is needed to convict and sentence a man to 6 years in federal prison. If what put “Ned” behind bars constitutes evidence “beyond a reasonable doubt” then virtually every man in the U.S. is just one (false) accusation away from spending years in a federal penitentiary. It seems like the the crimen exceptum was in full force for Ned. The State didn’t need to prove his guilt, he was expected to prove his innocence. And when he couldn’t, away he went. And hardly anyone batted an eyelid.

Much more to follow.

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? -Juvenal (Literally: “Who will guard the guards themselves?” modern usage: “Who watches the watchmen?”)

Stephen Mason, blogging for Psychology Today, posted a piece he called Kiddie Porn. It’s a great read. It’s theme is very much the theme of the fox in the hen house. But the best and most relevant part of his post I’ll save for almost last. In all the clips below the emphasis was made by me.

Years ago, practically the entire staff of a day school in Southern California was locked up after kids related lurid tales of Satanic rituals conducted in a series of underground bunkers. In the end, the school building was razed and the grounds torn up in a futile search for the lustful lairs .

This reminds me of the Salem Witch Trials. Neurotic adults spurred on a couple of fantasy prone kids and, before you know it, there were bonfires of little old ladies. I think it’s telling that, in every case, the accused were said to have had unnatural sex with the devil. Of course, this opens the door to “natural” sex with the Devil but that’s beside the point.

Nobody spoke out and yet and you just know that at least of few of the locals must have recognized nutty behavior when they saw it. The reason for their silence is clear enough. They were afraid of being condemned. When hysteria breaks out, even if you never fooled around – naturally or unnaturally – with the Devil, it doesn’t matter. You’re going to be accused for the sins that exist mostly in the heads of the accusers.

Then:

A simple truth – if you want the truth – is that run away emotion speaks to an unresolved conflict in the individual. The guy who wants to kill all Queers is not the guy you want standing behind you in the Men’s Room. The same applies to those who would kill all pedophiles {or CP viewers, who may or may not be pedophiles} but love coaching the junior softball team.

Now for the best part:

Years ago, I did some work for a police department in a major US city. Walking past Vice, I noticed a detective watching a kiddy porn video. When I asked about it, he told me he watched for a few hours every day. It stimulated him to go out and catch the “%#@%$# Chicken Hawks.” I abhor crudity to animals so maybe I should spend time watching cock, dog and bull fights? It might stimulate me…you think?

Sounds like a sweet job for a child porn fan. Finally some very sage advice from Dr. Mason:

When a finger points, don’t look at where it’s pointed before you first look at whose doing the pointing.

That’s got ‘Ernie Allen’ written ALL OVER IT.

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? -Juvenal (Literally: “Who will guard the guards themselves?” modern usage: “Who watches the watchmen?”)

Neil M. Cohen‘s connection with child pornography first broke in July 2008. Cohen was a Deputy Assembly Speaker in the New Jersey statehouse. NJ.com reported on his case and said that

Among the more than 100 laws Cohen has sponsored is one that created a 24-hour hotline for members of the public to report computer crimes, including child pornography.

Cohen’s case has made its way through the legal system and the Associated Press reports on this. Two things stand out.

Neil Cohen, 59, acknowledged viewing and printing images meant for sexual gratification from a computer in his former legislative office.

The text “meant for sexual gratification” is interesting. It should be irrelevant whether Cohen was aroused or repulsed by the images. If we take into consideration how a defendant felt about an image in determining whether that image is or is not child pornography, then we are really trying him for his feelings and not for his actions. Also it’s interesting how neither this article or any others I’ve see about Cohen allude to how the images he had were the worst imaginable kind or had infants being raped. Is it Cohen’s high profile position that caused the police to withhold such statements, or were such statements not representative of the images Cohen viewed? Could it be that Cohen’s images and interests were in little more than teenage girls shaking their boobs?

The Associated Press article also includes this

“Mr. Cohen, through his actions in viewing and distributing child pornography, linked himself to an abhorrent industry that preys on children,” Attorney General Paula Dow said in a statement. “Every single person who willingly enters the criminal network of suppliers and users of child pornography becomes part of the tragic exploitation and abuse of the innocent victims.”

I wish Dow would clarify how “an abhorrent industry that preys on children” and “criminal network of suppliers and users of child pornography” and “innocent victims” all relate to the teenage girls who are threatened with child pornography prosecution for “sexting” racy pictures of themselves to their boyfriends?

Dow’s statement is suspicious, especially her use of the terms “industry” and “criminal network”. I’ve just finished Philip Jenkin’s Beyond Tolerance, and already a relevant passage comes to mind.

The non-commercial nature of the {child porn} trade deserves emphasis, because so many writers on the topic still make highly inaccurate remarks about the supposedly profitable nature of the trade and its organized-crime ties: this image is reinforced by the misleading word industry for the child porn world. ¹

Jenkins knew this back in 2001, and in the last three years I’ve found nothing to contradict his earlier findings. Dow should know this too, so her use of this inflammatory language smacks of a deliberate lie and an intentional distortion of the reality of the child porn world.

¹ Philip Jenkins, Beyond Tolerance, (New York: New York University Press, 2001), 91

Almost never does the accused get to say anything. But now a few of them are going to get a chance to tell their side of the story. In a free society (and it’s an open question if the United States can any longer be considered a free society) all should be free to express their views and to answer their accusers. I’m proud to be helping these people do this.

The names or initials they use are probably pseudonyms. I don’t ask them for their real identity. My only contact with them is through anonymous e-mail.

So, without further ado:

A child porn offender, this is my story
By LGL

Hi, I’m a convicted child porn offender, this is my story. For about 5 years I indulged in CP. I surfed the web many countless hours looking for the free stuff. At the turn of the century there was a lot of it available for free. I also purchased memberships to the pay sites because this is where the good pictures were. I probably joined at least 50 of these sites in that period.

The sites I was purchasing memberships were called Lolita or Loli sites. The free stuff I downloaded was classified as erotica. These sites generally had girls posing with cloths on or nude. Not a single site I joined had sex play or simulated sex. They were similar to Playboy or Penthouse. Each girl would do a series of photos generally showing 20 to 50 pictures in varies stages of dress and undress. The quality of the sites varied greatly. From blurry barely distinguishable to HD quality. The girls appears to be happy, healthy, and they looked like they were enjoying themselves. None of the content was the worst ever you hear the LEO’s and D.A’s talk about. Other then a few nasty true CP I saw while downloading the free pictures I seldom ever saw the horrible pictures that are talked about. The billion dollar CP industry is nothing but lies. I spent 5 years looking through many CP sites and there’s no possible way it would add up to a billion dollars. Sites cost anywhere from $29.95 to $59.95 to join. A few cost $99.99. Do the math and see how many memberships it would take to add to a billion..

The content was from simple nudity you would find in nudist magazines to very erotic. What ultimately lead to my arrest and conviction was the lascivious exhibition of the genitals. In plan English. Spread eagle shots. An interesting footnote on this during the sentencing faze of my ordeal my lawyer showed me the pictures that the D.A. was using against me and it was from a magazine from the 70’s which was legally produced at the time. The picture was a girl about 8 years old doing a spread eagle pose. At the time this was produced she was a model who was payed very well to pose for pictures like this.

The way I was caught was my credit card was traced. I bought a few memberships which were apart of Operation Falcon. These sites were nothing more the nude pictures of girls between 8 yrs old to about 15.
The pictures were very similar to the L.S. model agency which were popular at the time. The LS studios were a part of the Ukrainian CP raids in 2004.

On the day I had the “visit” I was sleeping, early in the morning I heard a very loud banging on my door. The cop who was knocking banged so hard he cracked my door. To this day loud knocking freaks me out. Even people shutting their car doors outside makes me edgy.

The whole ordeal felt like a home invasion, the only difference is I had no legal recourse. The cops looked through all my stuff with very little respect. They took my computer, and any pictures I had of girls. They took about 10 Kirsten Dunst autograph pictures which to this day I never got back.

There were 3 cops, Two of them played the bad cop good cop game. The other just did her job. She didn’t say hardly a thing. After they left I had to quickly get a Lawyer, I lucked out and got one of the best ones in town, but he came with a fairly high cost. It cost about $15,000 total for him to do his job. Plus another $1000 for a psychologist to evaluate me. Without the shrinks opinion the Lawyer would have had very little to defend me with to recommend a minimum sentence..

After dealing with the Lawyer the next 6 months or so were some of the hardest moments of my life. The waiting to see what happens was very stressful. At first I slept about 13 hours a say. I had no ambition to do anything, sleeping was my only comfort.

Then the big day finally came, my Lawyer did a fairly good job and I got sentenced to 20 days of work release and 3 years probation. By today’s standards I basically got nothing.

After the sentencing a new Hell began. The first slap in the face was the massive amount of restrictions my Probation officer gave me. I had about 60 rules to follow. Other then the usual can’t drink alcohol rules I could not have a Playstation or a cellphone. There were a number of them relating to Jonbenet Ramsey. I could not have cable television. I could not have a VCR or DVD player. The P.O. basically took any form of entertainment from me. Which I had to endure for 3 years. I did follow the rules imposed on me and I was one of the few who wasn’t put on a P.O. hold. (thrown in jail while the DOJ investigates you) My P.O. told me this.

My stay in jail while short was miserable. Nobody messed with me and very few people even asked what I did, the ones who asked I told them I was there for drunk driving. My fellow inmates were ok in general and the staff was professional. The guards could be assholes at times but in most cases was because most of the inmates were too lazy to keep the place clean. The food was mostly bad. There were a few meals which were ok but most were just edible. Sleeping wasn’t very easy. We all were in a big dorm room with bunk beds. We slept on a solid steel frame with a hard mattress. We could not have pillows. It was uncomfortable and loud. People snoring made it tough to sleep. When you are used to being alone being in a dorm room with a lot of guys is not a good environment for rest.

The SOT (sex offender therapy) group I had to go to were at times bearable and other times very difficult to deal with. The shrink was the type of guy who loved to intimidate people. The bad thing is the offender was put in a situation were all you could do is take it like a beaten dog and go in the corner. If you argued or tried common sense logic you were kicked out of the group and you could go to prison to serve your whole sentence. With that hanging over our heads we all went along with the program. There was no choice.

My family was supportive, they do not believe the type of pictures I looked at should be illegal and have such grave consequences. But they are very hard to talk with about the subject. My dad always tried to change the subject matter. My parents are very ashamed of anything dealing with sex. While they don’t believe I should have been punished for what I did they are not advocates of child/adult sexual relations. They do not believe in them and told me so. My brother who lives in another state from me never talks about it. He gave some advice to my parents early on about the situation but that was it.

As for my friends, one of them thinks it’s bogus I got in trouble. He thinks people are too sex phobic. He does not believe people should get in trouble for looking at pictures. He said I should have taken my case to trial. But when you are looking at up to 18 years in prison a plea bargain of a short jail sentence with work release and probation didn’t seem to bad. The people who I worked with were friends of mine at one time, but because of this they are no longer. One of the guys who works there told me one guy said he would kill me if I went anywhere near his daughter. While I would physically destroy him he’s loony enough to use a gun on me. The other people who are apart of this so called group don’t say much to me. I’m basically an outsider at work. The only solace I get is I’ve been promoted so I tell them what to do.

Right now I’m still paranoid of loud knocks and people closing their car doors. I really have only 1 friend left. But I don’t worry about it to much. I work out and keep myself busy.

It was the best of times,
it was the worst of times,
it was the age of wisdom,
it was the age of foolishness,
it was the epoch of belief,
it was the epoch of incredulity,
it was the season of Light,
it was the season of Darkness,
it was the spring of hope,
it was the winter of despair,
we had everything before us,
we had nothing before us,
we were all going direct to Heaven,
we were all going direct the other way
–Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

What would you feel if I told you I was going to show you an image of a naked, crying, terrified, 9-year-old girl, who’d just had something horrible done to her?

What would you feel if I told you I was going to show you an image of a naked, healthy, 9-year-old boy, who appears to be masturbating?

The first image I can show you. It’s at Wikipedia, it won a Pulitzer Prize, it was the World Press Photo of the Year in 1972.

The second image I can’t show you. I don’t have the image, haven’t seen the image, and merely possessing or distributing such an image could land you in a Federal penitentiary for five years since it meets the Federal definition of child pornography. But there’s ample evidence that such images do exist.

The President of NCMEC (National Center for Missing & Exploited Children), Ernie Allen, says that images of child pornography are “are crime scene photos, images of the sexual abuse of a child. They are contraband, direct evidence of the sexual victimization of a child.”

I’d say the first image, Nick Ut’s famous photo showing the horrors of the Vietnam War is a crime scene photo. It’s evidence of what I would call a war crime or even a crime against humanity–the dropping of napalm on civilians.

I’d like to hear Ernie Allen’s explanation of what crime is being shown in the second image. Is the boy sexually abusing himself? Is it a crime for a nine year old boy to masturbate? I remember fondling myself at age nine and the wonderful tingling sensations it caused. Was I sexually victimizing myself? If so, I didn’t notice it then, and I don’t regret it now.

So why the great disparity in the treatment of these two images? I can think of a lot of reasons, but I don’t think the real reason has anything to do with sexual victimization, or with one or the other or image being a crime scene photo. Maybe, just maybe, the real reason is that a small minority of people actually enjoy looking at photos like the the second photo.

In a brief follow up, she publishes an e-mail she received from an anonymous prosecutor. Part of the prosecutor’s e-mail says:

I have seen a good number of men go to prison for child pornography that is found on their computers, and I must say that I’m not exactly sure how I feel about it. During my first few years as a prosecutor I wanted them locked up for as long as possible for two obvious reasons: first, they may very likely act out on their desires and victimize a child (who will of course be likely to victimize another child when they reach adult age). Second, as a way to deter the manufacturing of child pornography by removing the possible market. I’ve come to realize that the second reason is about as hopeless as thinking that by locking up drug users I can stop drug dealers. The market will always be there.

The prosecutor’s first reason is really outside the scope of CP Explosion, so I’ll only say that I’m unaware of any study purporting to show a link between child porn viewing and sexual crimes against children that isn’t crippled by sample bias. The second reason though is eerily reminiscent of the position held by LEAP regarding drugs.

There are no scientific studies I’m aware of, but all the anecdotal evidence suggests that no “penalty” will discourage people from seeking out child porn. A combination of factors including long prison sentences, extreme ostracism, and a feeling that there’s little hope of even getting a fair trail if accused have completely failed to deter people from seeking out child porn. I don’t think that even implementing capital punishment for child porn possession would make more than a minor impact on the child porn trade. The use of the term “trade” rather than “market” is intentional and almost certainly more accurate.

Stasi Officer: “Sit Down. Hands under your thighs, palms down. What do you have to tell us?”
East Germany citizen: “I’ve done nothing. I know nothing.”
Stasi Officer: “You’ve done nothing, know nothing… You think we imprison people on a whim?”
East German citizen: “No…”
Stasi Officer: “If you think our humanistic system capable of such a thing, that alone would justify your arrest.”
-The opening scene of The Lives of Others

One of my passions is film. I especially enjoy Indie and Arthouse films, and also old European classics. In the past year I’ve seen many films that would be a little interest to the average American moviegoer. But two of the films I’ve seen are surprisingly relevant to the media discussion of child porn. The first being Pier Giuseppe Murgia’s 1977 film Spielen wir Liebe (aka Maladolescenza, aka Adolescent Malice) and the other Dusan Makavejev’s 1974 film Sweet Movie.

Spielen wir Liebe has a cast of just three, Laura Wendel, Eva Ionesco, and Martin Loeb. The cast members would have been about 13, 13, and 18 years old respectively when the film was released. One review of Spielen wir Liebe begins

Children aren’t always as innocent as they seem if Maladolescenza is anything to go by, in many ways a discomforting drama from 1977 that undoubtedly has to be among the most controversial and scandalous movies ever to come out of Italy. With a cast consisting of no more than three it takes the form of a tense chamber play whose plot is played out in a pictorial forest where the two adolescents Fabrizio (Martin Loeb) and Laura (Lara Wendel) are meeting every day in their summer holidays – just like they’ve been doing for the past few years. Laura is deeply in love with the somewhat older Fabrizio, even though he constantly makes fun of and teases her with it. He wouldn’t, however, mind sleeping with her but she’s not ready to go all the way like he wants her to. Enter the chilly, pretty Sylvia (Eva Ionesco) – a little, manipulative blonde and quite a bit of a seductress. She doesn’t hesitate to seduce the lustful Fabrizio with her willingness and easily manages to twist him around her little finger, which ignites a cruel ménage à trois with a dramatic and fatal outcome.

Sweet Movie comes second only to Salo as the most visually shocking film I’ve ever seen. A reviewer at the IMDB says

First reaction to this challenging and astonishing film might be to pronounce it depraved or that the director is but then there is no suggestion that one will come away from this unique film a less moral person and so the accusation fails. Certainly I would like to think that for everybody there will be at least some part of this they find hard to take, indeed I don’t think I would like to sit too closely to anyone who lapped up every frame. Excess of all kind on display here plus a really difficult striptease among young children. And yet, I think despite some of the more flip and seeming silliness, Makavejev is screaming out for the individual to rediscover his private and public freedom. The Soviet Union comes in for most of the kicking, but then why wouldn’t it in 1974 when they were still presiding over the director’s birthplace and still denying the massacre of Poles so distressingly shown in original b/w footage.

These are serious films, enjoyed by aficionados who see film as art, who see film as a vehicle for social change, who see film as a means to strike out at those responsible for repression and injustice. These are not chick-flicks. These are not films you screen for your significant other on Valentine’s Day.

These films, Spielen wir Liebe and Sweet Movie are ART. These films are also considered by some to be child pornography.

In Spielen wir Liebe there’s a scene where Laura lies on her back, naked on the ground. Fabrizio, also naked, is shown briefly caressing her breasts. He’s then shown with his head at her pubic region, and Laura says “I feels warm, but it is not bad.” Soon he mounts her in the missionary position, and his naked body is briefly shown atop hers. This scene is not explicit sex like you would find in an adult pornographic film. It’s comparable to a sex scene in one of today’s R-rated movies. Further into the film, Fabrizio and Sylvia are naked, with Fabrizio appearing to perform oral sex on Sylvia. Shortly after he’s shown atop Sylvia and moving as if they are having intercourse, though their genitals are not visible. Fabrizio and Sylvia are shown naked several more times and in additional sexual encounters. As I was writing this I checked and found Spielen wir Liebe for sale on eBay.

The striptease in Sweet Movie involves a woman, barely dressed to begin with, who performs for four (?) boys in a bizarre candy shop. The boys seem to be eating candy and appear to be about 9 years old. The woman’s breast is shown about a foot from one boy’s face. She slowly unzips another boys pants. She kisses two of the boys and wraps some of her discarded clothing around their heads and necks. One boy lightly touches her bare stomach and slightly touches her bare ass. Near the end, the woman’s crotch, almost completely exposed, is within 6 inches of another boy’s face. You can rent Sweet Movie from Netflix and see it for yourself.

Now remember the case of the Pennsylvania Grandmother, Donna Dull, arrested on child pornography charges (dropped 15 months later) for a picture of “A little girl with her bare butt showing, kind of looking over her shoulder.”

Now consider this statement (source) by Ernie Allen, president of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children

Child pornography is misnamed and misunderstood. It is not pornography. It is not protected speech. It is not victimless crime. These are crime scene photos, images of the sexual abuse of a child. They are contraband, direct evidence of the sexual victimization of a child.

A little girl with her bare butt showing, kind of looking over her shoulder. Crime scene photo. Direct evidence of the sexual victimization of a child. I don’t see the connection. Former York County District Attorney H. Stanley Rebert apparently did.

Something doesn’t add up. I notice this in most everything I read and hear about child pornography.

I don’t think the war on child porn is something those waging it ever plan on winning. Too much is at stake. The war on child porn is a proxy for other things. Like establishing government monitoring of the Internet. Like finding something to replace the war on drugs in case the war on drugs should continue to lose favor with the public. Like controlling the sexual thoughts of the public. Like restricting the work of artists, who have a nasty habit of challenging authority.

For now, the government doesn’t dare go after films like Spielen wir Liebe and Sweet Movie. But the way things are going, it’s only a matter of time. Better see them while you still can.

P.S. Eva Ionesco was a very attractive thirteen year old girl. If you’re a man and watch Spielen wir Liebe when you’re alone you–on second thought, I probably shouldn’t say that. Eva Ionesco is supposedly the youngest person to pose nude for Playboy (in the Italian edition, October 1976) when she was eleven. I haven’t seen this issue, so I can’t say what the images show. But I’d like to see it. Even better, I’d like to hear what Ernie Allen has to say about Eva Ionesco’s Playboy pictorial. Is it child porn, Ernie, or is it art? What about Spielen wir Liebe, Ernie, is it child porn or is it art? Looking at Eva Ionesco’s filmography at the IMDB, it doesn’t appear that the Playboy pictorial or Spielen wir Liebe has hurt her career.

Child pornography is now seen as ‘the visual record of the sexual abuse of a child, either by adults, other children or which involves bestiality’. (Source)

and the reality:

Rebert said in Dull’s case, “What made them offensive was their graphic nature. A little girl with her bare butt showing, kind of looking over her shoulder.

“It’s a difficult distinction to make. What’s a cute butt and what’s pornographic? (Source)

Rebert is the York County, PA, district attorney. I’m not a district attorney, but I know the difference between a cute butt and pornography. Someone who can’t make that distinction has no business overseeing child pornography charges against a 56 year old grandmother.

The best piece I’ve found on this case is at Reason.

What makes this case extra interesting is the treatment given the grandmother when she was arrested for a picture of “a little girl with her bare butt showing, kind of looking over her shoulder”.

Dull maintains she was handcuffed “tightly in a rough, vigorous and aggressive manner” and slammed into a parked car with enough force that her head bounced off the vehicle, resulting in injuries to her back. (Source)

Why is it that the police felt it was OK to treat a 56 year old grandmother this way? Most likely it was the idea of crimen exceptum.

The clear relationship between the elements that make up the police state, including the inevitable ‘legislative creep’ that makes it possible can be seen from the above. A key sub-element in the doctrines and dogmas is the crimen exceptum, the designated crime for which normal law and the processes of justice are suspended – heresy, witchcraft, being a Jew in Nazi Germany, child sex abuse, child porn, and so on. Note how child porn has been used to transform the Internet into a tool of repression and fear and a powerful device for the police and prosecution state. (Source)