'Babes' of the BNP

The law's severity on using child porn sites is because these sites are not just providers of images; they are in effect commissioning them and, for the victims, making their ordeal an endless one because their abuse is constantly available to see which must be an awful thing to live with. And certainly if you pay to view the site then you are financing child rape even if you only view those images on the site that are not explicitly sexual; say photos of naked children on a beach. There may be sites that only include such images and there Plurabelle's point is pertinent, but I highly doubt that there is an, as it were, 'ethical' branch of child porn that is wholly separate from the others. So the debate is not just about whether or not it should ever be illegal to view something because the viewing cannot really be extricated from the doing.

As someone who's watched a beheading on LiveLeak (out of general curiosity and an unhealthy interest in death and Islamic extremism in equal measure), I get the feeling it's an issue of supply and demand. The video of someone's murder is a trophy - bragging to the world; the paedo-porn is created to fulfil a demand. While I don't disagree that the both are horriffic, the motivation for their creation is different.

This is a hugely emotive issue, and as someone with no personal insight into child abuse, I'm already starting to regret bringing it up. However, I'm really not sure that this "creation of a market" point holds water, and I tried to address this in my previous post.

I find it very difficult to imagine someone who is not, "by nature" [another debate there] a child abuser creating these images solely for commercial gain. It's surely not lucrative enough for someone to suspend their revulsion to that extent. I think the abuse would be happening regardless, either unrecorded or shared privately, though I accept Will's point that the record in some way exacerbates the trauma for the victim.

I think part of the reason this is seen as a market is that all the recent high-profile convictions have come through Operation Ore, which involved the feds busting a commercial site ("...though would the abuse have happened anyway, etc"), rather than through the traditional route of a scoutmaster taking in his computer to have a virus removed.

One more quick point - in the specific case of a beheading video, it's created with the express purpose that people view it. Publicity is the point of terrorism. So you could argue that adding pageviews encourages beheadings. Criminalising the viewer, however unsympathetic they may be, seems just as mistaken in both cases. But I'm not pretending there's an easy alternative answer.

Incidentally, I'm happy not to use the phrase "child porn" if it's a loaded term - I only mentioned it for convenience, as it's a term everyone knows.

Anyway, I have to go to bed now, but thanks for the sensible replies. It's given me something to think about, though I haven't changed my mind (at least, not yet).

What about if you pay to view the site and that money is what enables the distribution? Is that not ethically fucked up? I don't accept this certainty that there is a distinction between viewing and doing. You can effectively commission an act by dint of being a ready consumer of that act. I think it's almost sophistry to try to separate them in this example.
Also if you are so unable to contain your morbid curiosity - or come up with other bullshit excuses like Chris Langham did - then I have little sympathy. Being unable to control an urge is a frequent defence of paedophiles (and other rapists) themselves. It may be a reason but it's not an excuse and it deserves no sympathy in law. By viewing 'child porn' you may be encouraging child rape; why take the chance? And if you do take the chance then no ammount of philosophical argument will make you anything other than a selfish scumbag.

I am not for one moment suggesting it should be legal to create or distribute abusive images of children, just that making it illegal to view something is wrong. Will's point is what I was alluding to in my first post: it assumes that viewing is a sort of performative act, or that seeing is inextricable from doing. This is ethically all fucked up. But it's not something that's ever going to be something anyone wants to confront, really, quite understandably.

Ah!

That's what I meant to write. :)

I'm already starting to regret bringing it up.

Think that was me, apologies. Still, at least I've got you back for the David Foster Wallace debacle :p

Good post!

What about if you pay to view the site and that money is what enables the distribution? Is that not ethically fucked up? I don't accept this certainty that there is a distinction between viewing and doing. You can effectively commission an act by dint of being a ready consumer of that act. I think it's almost sophistry to try to separate them in this example.
Also if you are so unable to contain your morbid curiosity - or come up with other bullshit excuses like Chris Langham did - then I have little sympathy. Being unable to control an urge is a frequent defence of paedophiles (and other rapists) themselves. It may be a reason but it's not an excuse and it deserves no sympathy in law. By viewing 'child porn' you may be encouraging child rape; why take the chance? And if you do take the chance then no ammount of philosophical argument will make anything other than a selfish scumbag.

What if you don't pay, and your actions have no concrete effect on the situation? Yes, still a scumbag*, of course of course. But legally? What have you done, legally? 'Created an image'? Clearly not.

*And can we all take this bit as read, please, so that those of us arguing quite a difficult point don't sound like paedo-lovers...

I find it very difficult to imagine someone who is not, "by nature" [another debate there] a child abuser creating these images solely for commercial gain. It's surely not lucrative enough for someone to suspend their revulsion to that extent.

Sort of yes; child porn is probably mostly peer-to-peer. But running a web site isn''t free - just ask Velocio. A web master may not be in it for the money but he still needs money to run his 'business' and the more money he has the more he can distribute.
Much internet child porn has emanated from the former Soviet Union and has been linked to Mafia there who do organise it fro profit.
I may be being wilfully pragmatic but I can''t see that any philosophical rigour that leads even to the possibility of more child rape is a rigour worth possessing.

What if you don't pay, and your actions have no concrete effect on the situation? Yes, still a scumbag*, of course of course. But legally? What have you done, legally? 'Created an image'? Clearly not.

*And can we all take this bit as read, please, so that those of us arguing quite a difficult point don't sound like paedo-lovers...

Well, yes, clearly police officers investigating child porn have this 'out'; they are allowed to do what for others is illegal. And in the instance you outline then no maybe your actions have no consequences. And maybe that leads to a law that is too broad, has no philosophical basis and prosecutes people who have viewed child porn for (non-professional) reasons other than sexual gratification. And I am content with that; I think it is good enough and a price worth paying.

What if you don't pay, and your actions have no concrete effect on the situation? Yes, still a scumbag*, of course of course. But legally? What have you done, legally? 'Created an image'? Clearly not.

*And can we all take this bit as read, please, so that those of us arguing quite a difficult point don't sound like paedo-lovers...

Why still a scumbag if your actions have no consequence? I don''t think being sexually attracted to young children makes you a scumbag any more than only being turned on by old people makes you a scumbag. There are no immoral thoughts. You become a scumbag when you act out in any of the ways I have adumbrated.

Well, yes, clearly police officers investigating child porn have this 'out'; they are allowed to do what for others is illegal. And in the instance you outline then no maybe your actions have no consequences. And maybe that leads to a law that is too broad, has no philosophical basis and prosecutes people who have viewed child porn for (non-professional) reasons other than sexual gratification. And I am content with that; I think it is good enough and a price worth paying.

I don't entirely disagree on a practical level, for the reasons you give. But it is unavoidable that what we are left with is the criminalization of what is going on inside a person's head – the example of the pampers advert, benign or malign depending on the observer, makes this point. And I think that our collective abhorrence has blinded us to that fact. I believe that laws need to be made on the basis of rational, ethical, and yes, philosophical considerations, not on brute emotions like repulsion or anger; no matter how righteous they might be in this case.

Why still a scumbag if your actions have no consequence? I don''t think being sexually attracted to young children makes you a scumbag any more than only being turned on by old people makes you a scumbag. There are no immoral thoughts. You become a scumbag when you act out in any of the ways I have adumbrated.

Well, that's another point. Theoretically I think that men, who, say want desperately to rape women but constantly stop themselves – and it's analogous – are probably arseholes too: I'd say both are urges borne of the desire to exercise brute power over those weaker than they are. And people like that are not usually my favourites. They are doing nothing illegal, though, as you say, and I would let them go on their way. But I don't have to like them.

Pragmatism can't be rational, ethical or philosophical? :)
It's a false dichotomy between laws based on emotion and laws based on reason anyway; anger can be the spur to introduce new laws but it doesn't follow that those laws are not rational or ethical.
I doubt it is illegal to have a folder full of pictures of children in swimwear if those pictures are from a mail order catalogue even if your interest and motivation are clear. A more interesting point when it comes to policing thought on this question is the idea that cartoons of child sex should be illegal. There is obviously no 'victim', no reality and the only justification is the one you mention as regards all porn; that of it being a spur to real life action. It's an argument I don't accept because I haven't seen any convincing evidence of it and without that it really is making thoughts illegal.

I thought you conceded that the law was flawed but said you were happy with it anyway, for pragmatic reasons? :p I would argue that laws brought about by anger are bound to be a bit iffy, but it's too late at night to go digging round for examples. I can think of Megan's Law in the States, which is bound to lead to vigilantism etc – did they bring in Sarah's Law, here? I forget.

Well, that's another point. Theoretically I think that men, who, say want desperately to rape women but constantly stop themselves – and it's analogous – are probably arseholes too: I'd say both are urges borne of the desire to exercise brute power over those weaker than they are. And people like that are not usually my favourites. They are doing nothing illegal, though, as you say, and I would let them go on their way. But I don't have to like them.

Well, possibly yes.
I think it's unlikely that anyone with such deep seated urges can keep those urges from expressing themselves in some way or another and probably in a way that makes them unappealing. On the other hand the one myth that has been fully dispelled about child abusers is that they are easy to spot, that they are oddballs or losers. They are, generally, well integrated in to society, as representative of society as, say, the average crowd at a football match.
I take a pretty bleak view of people; the day it becomes possible to read other people's minds is the day we radically adjust our ideas of what is normal. And not for the better.

I thought you conceded that the law was flawed but said you were happy with it anyway, for pragmatic reasons? :p I would argue that laws brought about by anger are bound to be a bit iffy, but it's too late at night to go digging round for examples. I can think of Megan's Law in the States, which is bound to lead to vigilantism etc – did they bring in Sarah's Law, here? I forget.

you say flawed, I say good enough. But it still does not follow that anger always leads to bad laws. Anger over the conditions endured by children working in factories brought about very good laws.

Anger, in that case, being the spur to a sober consideration of the ethical, moral and societal implications of such exploitation, though? When I say laws based on emotions, I mean the sort which preclude this sort of debate: like laws against paedophiles, where the emotion generated in the general public fudges any dissent over their application. Anti-terrorism legislation is another example, where peoples' kneejerk impulses to hammer the bad men shuts down any sort of discourse that might throw the finer distinctions into question.

N'night, will.

It's still not axiomatic that anger or disgust produce bad laws.
G'night J.

Guess who's back / back again:

http://www.viceland.com/wp/2009/07/babes-of-the-bnp-revisited/