Dominus Paradoxum

"Well, I thought it was interesting that you chose to say this:

Maturity is something that only comes with years of experience. Even child progidies still act like children."

One's actions are often the best guide to one's thoughts. My point was that, despite their intelligence, their behaviour belies their immaturity. But it is their mind, and not their behaviour that is the important point.

"LOL! Now you are comaring sex to murder."

Lol! You're comaring pedophilia to "sex"!

I compare one crime to another.

"Obviously no one is capable of handling being murdered. But who is capable of experiencing sex? My sources say nearly everything."

Everything? How very interesting. I'm sure you meant to say "everyone". And some people are quite capable of "handling" being murdered, some suicidals might even want it. But even so, the murderer does not know this, and in any case, he is not in a position to make that descision.

And btw, what might these "sources" be? Sounds very mysterious.

"That is a good point. However, I am sure many adults, both mature and immature, do not actively seek sex with anyone. Does this make them incapable of having sex? Or rather, does this make them incapable of consenting?"

I also said it was important that they desire it. Some adults might be too shy, or have other reasons for not haveing sex and yet still not mind if it happened. And there are degrees of consent. If they were faily immature I might say that they'd been taken advantage of, and if they had the mind of around a twelve year old or younger I would say that the partner was every bit as guilty as someone who molests a child, or coerces them into it.

"Name one negative, potential consequence of said action. Note: you must exclude all cases of molestation. "

How about having to become a parent at a very young age? Do you think an average twelve or thirteen year old could "handle" that.? And even if they "consented" there still might be psychological damage. Perhaps when they grew up they would feel as though they'd been violated. And you can never erase something like that.

"Probably not. I am more interested in osculation."

Lol! Do you call it 'osculation' with her? It is a 'her', isn't it? And I assume you must be talking about someone your own age.

"The same can be said about any relationship."

Could it be said of the "relationship" between an adult and a six year old?


"This has been dealt with previously. What if he is twelve and is nevertheless of the requisite maturity?"

If he were, then I guess it is a special case. But nevertheless, the "partner" is in no position to judge that. It is not their right.


"What do you mean? Are you asking what age is "too young" (morally), or what ages I prefer? "

Both.

"What do you mean "things"?"

You know perfectly well what kind of "things" .

Dominus Paradoxum

"In my opinion, non-procreative and underaged sex is morally incorrect. I am fifteen; few persons of my age have sex. "

You must be behind in keeping up with statistics. Either that, or things are *really* different over in canada.

So I'm one year your senior. How delicious.

Let me tell you something, totalitarian, as one "friend" to another. This road you're traveling down is a bad one, and you won't like where it leads. Trust me, I've been there. Your moral solipsism (for that is what it is) will only bring down pain upon yourself. As I'm sure you've discovered, most people do not like an egoist, especially one so blatant as you. You think that if you care only for yourself, you'll reap the benifits, but you won't. I think you've found that already, and if not, I am certain that one day you will discover it. You said once, in another tread, that you used to care about hurting a fly, or some such thing, but now the death of others does not bother you. (My apologies if my paraphrase is a mischaracterization, but my memory is far from perfect.) I don't know what happened, but whatever it is, nothing can be done to change it. It is also true that nothing can be done to take back any of the things you've felt or thought since you've "changed". And the longer this change persists the worse things are going to be, because some day you may come to regret it. Now I know what you're thinking: "How unlikely!" But don't be so sure. You've changed once, you might change again, and one can never tell until it happens whether these things are going to occur.

HeatherD

You have obviously have never had sex with someone you love, probably including yourself.

If you truly love someone, having sex with that person can be the greatest thing. If you hate yourself, even masturbation is repugnant.

bleubird

"The ugliest part of the body is the brain"
Frank Zappa

bleubird

Hubble head

The so-called greatest legal system in the world is peppered with inconsistancies for penalties. It never makes any sense. I'd say the guy should have gotten 10-20 years and I'll bet that comes out in the appeal.

But hey, you can still rip off investors and workers for billions here and never see the inside of a jail cell.

Marruk

I think you should reread your post. First it begins with a very dismal view of sex and then it ends with you saying you had a very sexual experience as a child. From your own experiences you have shown that a sexual experience with a child has negative consequences on that child. I do not know weather your experience was with another child or someone older, but I assume it is with someone older because most childrens normal sexual experiences involve masturbation and maybe kissing of other children.

The reason that sex between a child and someone much older is wrong is because the child has not developed fully in regards to sexuality physically or mentally. As I said before children are still experiencing the self exploration at that stage of life wich is perfectly normal and necessary for a healthy sexual future as an adult. When a child skips ahead and has sex with an adult (and this is usually not the childs idea) I think that causes them to miss many of their own experiences with their body and mind and thus make the child very confussed about sexuality in general.

Sex is more than just physical sensations, look how your sexual experience has affected your veiws of sex, and I think if you had not had a sexual experience as a child you would be much more excited about haveing experiences as an adult and you would not have such a negative view on sex.

CALDONIA

It looks to me that the thread is really addressing whether the crime of possessing kiddie porn deserves the punishment of a sentence of 200 years in jail. In my view, it does not.

A depiction of an act is not an endorsement of an act itself, and possession of a point of view or an artifact is not direct evidence of advocation by the possessor. If I were to be arrested for owning autographed copies of Hitler's Mein Kampf , would I deserve to be called a Nazi? Would a collection of the Halloween movies prove one to be a sadist? If a Christian had a library of atheist studies would that person deserve to be shunned as a un-believer?

There is no argument to justify sexual exploitation of children. But when we seek and persecute "potential" predators of such artifacts and depictions in the absence of any crime, we engage in a modern witch-hunt. Under a government of a fundamentalist theocracy, this persecution could run to arrest for ownership of pool tables, Sports Illustrated swimsuit issues, dice, and beer.

When possesion of a substance is considered a crime equal to the act that is depicted by that substance, we are venturing into the realm of "thoughtcrime" of the book, "1984."

Don't forget that the ACLU defended the KKK's march through downtown Skokie, Illinois (a district of high Jewish residence). Sometimes freedom requires a certain tolerance that appeals to the brain more than the heart.

NobleSavage

Total agreement!

What really bothers me is the ease that someone could be unknowingly convicted of this. It would be very easy for some one to send you an e-mail Trojan with out you knowledge. Once the Trojan is on your computer they could simply upload a few child porn images to your computer a give the police an anonymous tip. Seriously, this is very easy to do if you are a little computer savvy. A common Trojan is Back Orifice that is put out by the hacker group Cult of the Dead Cow. They "claim" it is a network admin tool, but it was and is designed to be a Trojan. You can download it here:
http://www.bo2k.com/whatis.html

Have anyone of you ever gotten an e-mail virus? They are very common. Microsoft Outlook usually has a new security hole ever other month. Have you ever gotten e-mail spam with embedded HTML. What if you got a spam e-mail and BOOM kiddy porn pops in you inbox? If you delete the image it only removes the file name from the directory index. The image is still on your hard drive and will be there for quite some time -- until you computer writes over the data. There are software tools that will easily retrieve "deleted" files. What if you go to a web site and you get a pop up add displaying kiddy porn. It's possible! How do you argue in court that it was unintentional? I sure hope you have an extra 100,000 sitting around to hire a good defense attorney.

What is to keep perverted fundy, after God instructed him to, from sending kid porn to unsuspecting evil atheists?

Other problems: has anyone looked at the "Photoshop contest" in the Humor archive? It is very easy to manipulate images. A lot of child porn may be manufactured. There are software programs that will digitally create child porn. The Supreme Court struck down the key provisions of the 1996 Child Pornography Prevention Act that would make simulated child porn illegal. As imaging tools get more sophisticated how is real child porn distinguish from simulated? I see nothing but a legal quagmire ahead lining the pockets of attorneys while destroying many innocent people in the process.

Totalitarianist

No one is capable of handling being murdered. They die. No one can overcome death.

My own experience at a young age.

"That is a good point. However, I am sure many adults, both mature and immature, do not actively seek sex with anyone. Does this make them incapable of having sex? Or rather, does this make them incapable of consenting?"

Some adults might not desire it. They can still consent. And I highly doubt that a twelve year old absolutely has no desire for sex.

However, we are excluding all cases of molestation and coercion. We are limiting ourselves to consensual sex, just as we would when discussing homosexuality or heterosexuality.

Ah, then I shall exclude females. I do not know what it is like to be a female. I cannot say anything about this.

"Probably not. I am more interested in osculation."

I am not much interested in women or girls.

Exactly, for that would be coercion/molestation, and that is precisely what we are excluding.

Morally: This is a question of maturity.
me: Any male that I do not consider ugly, in rare cases females. I have seen attractive twenty-five year olds males, and attractive eight year old males. Although I have sen many sexually attractive older males, I have only had "crushes" on people my age (or slightly older) and (considerably) younger.
If you mean sexual things, for the most part, kissing only appeals to me, perhaps some other things of secondary importance to me.

Misso

quoted from Marruk
That's a rather quick conclusion. Maybe Totalitarianist lived amongst prostitutes for fourteen years, maybe he went crazy after smelling too much gasoline fumes, who knows? Having a sexual experience as a child might not have had influence on his ideas on sexuality, maybe it even had a positive influence that got balanced out by other (i.e. negative) influences.
Besides that, there is the assumption that thinking sex is in some way wrong is something negative.

Personally I agree with Totalitairian on many of the points he raized.


quoted from Dominus Paradoxum
Two things being a crime doesn't mean they're equally bad. In Iran it's a crime to commit adultery, but I think most agree that adultery isn't as bad as killing a man. In the US it's a crime to smoke weed, but smoking weed is fairly innocent compared to rape.


And in reply to the original post: I think 200 years is far too much for something like this, especially when someone who actually has sex with a child instead of just looks at them naked gets 22 months.