Gurdur

This is a development of another thread, upon which christ-on-a-stick and others made some great points.

There are several theses I'm advancing here:

1. Porno is not inherently harmful as such; one must distinguish between the different types and levels of porno.
   
2. The legalization and legal control of the porno industry saves lives and helps social control of just what kind of porno there is out there (see # 3 below)
   
3. There are certain types of porno that IMHO necessitate banning without exception.
   Example: child-abuse porno.
   
4. I am also in favour of the complete banning of CGI-produced child porno; that is, digitally-produced porno where no actual people are involved

Having thrown in those small provocations, I'll now throw in some evidence to point # 2.
Greater protection of hard-core porno actresses and actors is necessary; not only very regular HIV tests, but also hepatitis C (which can easily be a killer) and chlamydia (which can lead to acute Pelvic Inflammatory Disease, and consequent sudden sterilization, let alone suffering) tests should be mandatory in all porno studios.

Legalization and control of porno is also part of over-all sex education; without sex-education, you start getting nasty little problems such as those shown in the UK, where the UK at the moment has the highest number of per capita unmarried teenage mothers in western Europe, with an annual total of about 93,000, and a very high rate of STD's.

It's useful noting the history of STD's --- for example, in 1896, for every 1,000 soldiers stationed in India, there were 522 cases of sexual transmitted diseases, while nowadays in the UK one adult in 10 has had a sexually transmitted infection (factoids in these two last paragraphs taken from here).

And of course the current HIV epidemic is nothing new; in the late 1600's and early 1700's, syphilis raged as a very quickly fatal illness throughout western Europe, and many towns and cities set up whole city quarters as quarantine quarters and hospices.

...

Interesting points, Gurdur. But there's one that I'd like to discuss here:

Uh, why? While I agree that *any* sex with prepubescents is intrinsically harmful, I honestly can't fathom how *fictional* accounts of sex with minors (such as a hypothetical twink.txt file or whatever) could possibly harm children.

Put it this way: If the whole point of banning KP is to keep children from being harmed, and no children are involved in the creation of virtual KP, then why ban virtual KP? I'd much rather have the deves of our society whacking off to very convincing virtual KP - the more time they spend with that, the less time they can spend with the real thing. In addition, if the fake stuff can be made more arousing (to them, anyway) than the real thing, then perhaps the market for the genuine article will disappear (or at the very least, dramatically reduced). Since virtual KP could be obtained legally, why bother with the risks of being arrested/jailed/humiliated to get the real thing when very convincing replicas are readily available?

Make no mistake - I am no pedo. I have absolutely *NO* desire to molest a child. That being said, I must add that I find censorship based on the "yuck factor" to be even more nauseating than pedophilia. After all, pedophilia harms children while censorship based on the "yuck factor" harms us all. I find those little religious comic books* repulsive - do I have the right to ban them? (Hint: no).

I believe that ultimately, the "for the children" crowd can play the nausea AND "protect the children" cards to push for a virtual KP ban, *despite* the fact that no children are harmed by virtual KP. If we're going to ban virtual KP because pedophilia is illegal, should we ban violent video games simply because murder, grand theft auto, etc are also illegal?

*Does anyone know what I mean here? I'm referring to those little fundamentalist comic-like tracts that are often found in 'phone booths, public restrooms and the like. They're about the size of a computer mouse, about two dozen pages long, and convey a fairly paranoid fundamentalist Protestant message. Who publishes them, and where do they come from?

Gurdur

Yeppers, I was hoping to stir up a bit of controversy.
Thanks for the reply, ... .
Because it encourages and promotes the very idea of child abuse.

The argument could possibly be made that child porno would encourage people to actually try real child-molesting; I doubt there's any good data on this, and in any case it would be unethical to run studies where child porno could already be banned. So this argument's not all that much use; yet the practice of child abuse is such a harmful one that no indulgence of it even in digitally-produced pix that use no real children should be tolerated, IMHO.

Plus the "actual harm caused" ideological line is terribly easy to reductio ab absurdum; assume a child porno film using real children; the makers get sent off to jail.
Yet years later you could show the film claiming no more harm is involved; any harm was already done, and simply showing the film cannot cause more harm.
You see my point ?

Unsupported assertions.
Oh puh-leeze; you're comparing apples and oranges, while also making unsupported assertions.

Let's get rid of one fallacy immediately for the following discussion:

There is always some degree of censorship --- that's why we have slander and libel laws, let alone things like hate-speech and whatnot laws.

The question is not whether we have censorship --- we do and should --- the question is the degree and types of censorship.

...

NB: All quoted material comes from Gurdur

This argument doesn't quite hold up. You might as well say that "The [insert artistic work depicting criminal act here] encourages/promotes [insert previously mentioned criminal act here], therefore [previously mentioned artistic work] must be banned.". That would leave the artistic/literary world pretty much totally bowlderized and ruined. Are you sure you want to go that far?

I see your point, and it's a good one. My point is that a real child *was* involved. Here, there are *no* children. By continuing to show that movie, you victimize the child over and over. In a fictional KP reel, no child to victimize, therefore "no harm no foul".

You've made more than a few of your own. My assertions are no more "unsupported" than yours.

Slander harms people. Libel harms people. There are no "hate-speech" laws in the United States. The First Amendment to our Constitution would not permit such laws to be enforced.

I recall that our Supreme Court nullified a law banning virtual KP on First Amendment grounds (read the story here: http://www.cnn.com/2002/LAW/04/16/sc...al.child.porn/ ). In other words, the SCOTUS states in essence: "Just because it looks like KP doesn't mean it is, and banning it violates the free speech cause of the First Amendment.".

Quick question, Gurdur - do you live outside the United States? I'm not trying to pigeonhole you here, just trying to get a better glance at where you're coming from. As an American born and raised in America, I've been raised in a society where *all* opinions on *all* subjects are legal. The whole concept of an illegal opinon strikes me as tyrannical. Granted, we do have laws against slander, but none against "hate speech".

I await your response.

Gurdur

Now go back and see why I said the argument could be made ? Plus I disposed of it already.
Really ? Sez who ?

Nope.
Not on matters of fact. I've been careful to distinguish between my (moral) opinion and fact; you've posted several statements as though they were fact, but without any evidence.
Which is why there is a degree of censorship in the first place. My point.
Really ? Back to my point on slander and libel. The public expression of an opinion can be illegal in the UA.
You're confusing the issue.

Getting rid of confusions and fallacies:

The public expression of an opinion or anything else is not the same thing as an opinion.

Banning child pornography does not constitute the banning of opinions.

Or, IOW, you're basically making emotional rhetorical arguments that rest on fallacies of composition and confusion of the premises.

Time for some quick questions of my own:

1) Please specify concretely just how would the banning of child porno, including CGI child porno, harm "us all" in any way.

2) As long as the criteria for censorship are clear and open to public scrutiny, how is this supposed to be harmful ?
____________

Off-topic: Nope, I ain't American.

Gurdur

Whoops, another post because I made a big mistake and wasn't fair to ... .

... cited:
This is a fair point of ...'s to raise, and I didn't deal with it, my apologies.

First off, I would love to know why --- and with what grounds --- the Supreme Court ruled that virtually produced child porno wasn't the same thing as the real thing.
Was the ruling a legalistic interpretation of the 1st ? Was there any minority opinion ?

Second off, the USA legal system is of course very different to many others --- I suspect running the same case through a British high court would produce a very different ruling, and on very different grounds.

Otherwise, all my points to the actual discussion stand.

My own moral opinions as to CGI child porno, of course, rest on what ... might call the "yuck" factor; that is, the advocation of child abuse ---- no matter how virtually done. My own moral values here have an emotional component --- but I'm satisfied that a good enough case can be made for my stance, and as this all develops, I hope to show it.

Thanks for your reply, ..., and sorry to be a bit late on the uptake

...

Okay, good questions deserve good answers:

1) By setting a precedent. Banning CGI kiddie pr0n because it's disgusting to many, this poster included, means that other opinions or methods of expression could be banned for the same reason. IOW, if enough people say your speech or method of expression is icky, you are totally SOL under such a precedent.

2) You might as well ask: "Since the ingredients in this bottle of rat poison are clearly listed on the label for anyone to read, why not drink up?". Having everything out in the open isn't good enough - there must be compelling reasons *why* things are censored (to protect the reputations of the innocent, to protect national security during wartime, etc). I consider censorship for no objectively valid reason to be repulsive. Just because you don't like something doesn't give you the right to ban it. You can't say "protecting the children" here, as NO CHILDREN are involved in VIRTUAL KP. Geddit?

As for the rest of your post, I really don't think that there can be any real "meeting of the minds" here. I come from one perspective, you come from another. That's why I asked you about your nationality - "where you sit influences what you see".

A quote of yours:

Once again, I am not discussing child porn. I am discussing the virtual stuff. The real deal is banned because it harms children. No child involved in the fake stuff; no harm caused. Now, please go back, read, and try to see things my way. I'm honestly trying to see things your way, after all.

Secondly, there can be no true "freedom of speech" as long as certain harmless forms of expression are banned. Virtual KP does no harm to children. People do harm to children. I am not going to blame an inanimate object for the behavior of others. Maybe wherever you live is different, but here in the USA you take responsibility for your own actions.

avalanche:ix

that's like saying fictional violence on tv and computer games promotes violence, it's been quite clearly demonstrated this is not the case.

exposure to certain types of viewing material, be they violent in nature or pornographic, does NOT make someone go out and act them out in real life, certainly not in cases such as child porn or murder, if they do, these people are clearly insane and as such would probably have done something similar sooner or later anyway. the argument that fictitious material can induce or encourage any type of illegal activity is absurd, and ignorant to the extreme.

fortunately, in actual democracies, the rule of the mob mentality (the masses no doubt supporting your little opinion) does *not* get passed into legislation, as individual rights are uphold above all others, as long as they harm nobody. fictitious child porn does not harm anyone, unless you want to argue that the mere knowledge that it's out there offends people, in which case you can ban 99% of all human activity while you're at it.



[qupte]Plus the "actual harm caused" ideological line is terribly easy to reductio ab absurdum; assume a child porno film using real children; the makers get sent off to jail.
Yet years later you could show the film claiming no more harm is involved; any harm was already done, and simply showing the film cannot cause more harm.
You see my point ?[/quote]

no, years later the children used in the film or their family would still be alive presumably and this would cause emotional trauma, not to mention the fact that many countries have laws against using images of people for commercial purposes outside of their consent. your argument doesn't apply since it ignores the basic difference between CGI child porn and actual child porn, the presence of a real human being.




you ever talk to a pedosexual person? i'd say they're completely supported.


[quote]There is always some degree of censorship --- that's why we have slander and libel laws, let alone things like hate-speech and whatnot laws.[/quote

these harm individuals or organizations, misusing their property in many cases. a CGI childporn flick exists as nothing more than 1's and 0's and is therefore not relevant to your analogy.


We do and we shouldn't.

Phanes

Well it's been said already, but I would like to throw in my disagreement with this statement.

The "idea promotion" argument has been tried with just about everything people don't like, from movies to music to literature. Do hacker films (most of which praise the roguish anti-hero) encourage the computer elite to break into government systems? Do rap songs promote teen violence? Do romance novels lead married women to commit adultery?

IMHO, this entire line of thinking is based on the old Puritanical idea that satisfying one's desires will only lead one to desire more the next time around. The classic slippery slope. I'm sure many of us are familiar with certain fundamentalist beliefs about masturbation: it's an addiction that eventually becomes impossible to satisfy, taking over your life.

The fact is many of the world's greatest works of art are on subjects that are interesting, yet deplorable. Obviously I don't think porn counts as a great work of art, but to ban it because it involves a particular idea (and not the reality) is a very poor decision.

Incidentally (IIRC), American Beauty used digital effects to make Mena Suvari look younger (than 18). Of course she didn't look pre-pubescent, but the movie would have been subject to such a ban on virtual child porn. I think the CNN link ... posted mentions some others.

Loren Pechtel

Originally posted by Gurdur
I am also in favour of the complete banning of CGI-produced child porno; that is, digitally-produced porno where no actual people are involved

What's CGI got to do with it?

I'm not sure digitally produced stuff should be banned. The availability of porno cuts down on sex crimes so it's reasonable to think that the availability of kiddie porno would cut down on sex crimes against kids. Making the digital stuff legal would certainly just about cut out the very real crime of producing the real stuff.

While you are right that more protections should be used (I would favor making condoms mandatory unless they are already partners outside the movie set--by mandating it you remove any pressure to take the risk) I think your objections have some problems.

Greater protection of hard-core porno actresses and actors is necessary; not only very regular HIV tests, but also hepatitis C (which can easily be a killer) and

While C is a killer it's generally not transmitted by ordinary sex.

I]chlamydia[/I] (which can lead to acute Pelvic Inflammatory Disease, and consequent sudden sterilization, let alone suffering) tests should be mandatory in all porno studios.

So long as they get routine checkups this shouldn't be a problem.

Legalization and control of porno is also part of over-all sex education; without sex-education, you start getting nasty little problems such as those shown in the UK, where the UK at the moment has the highest number of per capita unmarried teenage mothers in western Europe, with an annual total of about 93,000, and a very high rate of STD's.

My impression is that their numbers are excellent compared to ours--while their education is poor by European standards it's good by ours.