Child pornography is pornography the way Date Rape is a date

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

Notes on a morning spent listening to people on TV say that some priest who has been charged with possessing sexually explicit photos of children was charged with possession of "pornography."

Sometimes they say "child pornography" and sometimes they just say "pornography" as if the two were interchangeable.

If it were merely verbal sloppiness it would be bad enough, but the conflation is central to decades of Luntz-esque "messaging" (Mostly from the right but, unfortunately, sometimes from the left.)

The conflation has the effect of stigmatizing pornography while lessening the perceived weight of a serious crime. (Which is why the term "date rape" came to mind. Date rape is a class of date in the same sense child pornography is a class of pornography. And viewing things in that way is trivializing... the significance of date rape is the rape part and the significance of child pornography is the child part.)

"Pornography" featuring adults is as legally legitimate as the New York Times.

"Child pornography" is illegal and highly sanctioned.

In common usage 'pornography' refers to a mass-produced commercial product, such as may be found in a porn store, ordered pay-per-view from a cable system, etc..

No child pornography is a commercial product in that sense. There is no child pornography 'industry'... no advertising, trade shows, distribution centers. (In the 1970s there were some commercially distributed European child movies and magazines and they were sometimes sold in American stores from behind the counter. The thing is, when all pornography was criminalized we didn't have many specific laws about child material because it was all sanctioned. Most laws about pictures of children followed the legalization of adult porn, and there was a temporary gap in the laws of different nations before everyone got on the same page. That was a short-lived thing and has not been the case for at least 30 years.)

Crack cocaine is a drug. CVS is a drug store. It does not follow that CVS sells crack cocaine or that aspirin and crack are conceptually interchangeable because they both happen to fall within a very broad class of things.

Millions believe/imagine child pornography is readily available on the internet, as if there were commercial sites sites you could visit to purchase such. This is the sort of belief one can hold as long as one doesn't give it much thought. There are no such sites available to American or European internet users and the life-span of such a site would be measured in hours or days at the most.

On the other hand, individual criminals can do all sorts of things. Someone could post an illegal photo on DU. It would be pulled fast and presumably reported to authorities.

The question of whether it is readily available depends on ones definition of 'readily' I guess. Perhaps in certain chat-rooms known to a criminal underground but it is not something you just bump into.

Sick people trade and collect amateur photographs of child abuse among themselves, primarily in chat rooms. Individuals pass around images peer-to-peer. There have been cases of someone setting up a bulletin board for traders and charged a fee for accessing the board, which is about as far as the 'commercial' end of things has gotten since all commercial child pornography was banned by all first-world nations circa 1980. That sort of fixed-address bulletin board thing is rare and easily stopped/prosecuted. (There was a Texas case about a decade ago, IIRC.)

In today's world child pornography is a class of amateur snapshots and movies of the commission of real-world crimes. (Obviously there are no "child pornography" actors... they are real-world victims.) The conflation of concepts is analogous to lumping together a Hollywood slasher/horror movie and digital photos a serial killer took of his victims.

We need some new terminology or something.

[etherealtruth]

1. K&R

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

2. Excellent post. Let's bet on when the first idiotic equalizer anti-porn post shows up.

I give it three hours, 30 minutes from the OP's time.

[seabeyond]

3. i bet they dont. i dont see anyone having issue with this op in that respect.

and to suggest someone is going to, i have to assume you dont listen to the argument on porn.

[seaglass]

4. Count me as one of the millions who believed that child porn

could be downloaded accidentally. It seems you are saying that it wouldn't be mixed in with sites that have adult porn? So that someone who claims that they didn't intentionally download child porn is a liar?

I was a jury member last fall on a sex offender case and that was exactly what he claimed.

[tmyers09]

6. I think it's possible, but pretty unlikely.

I read something a few months ago about a guy getting in trouble with authorities because he downloaded child pornography that was labeled as something else. Not sure if it's true, but I've downloaded music before and had it be something other than what it was labeled as.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

7. A forum where individuals post pictures can have anything in it

When I say available I think of accessible... that if you want it here it is.

So if someone posted child porn with a link labeled "The Statue of Liberty" it wouldn't be commercially available... in fact, you could only find it accidentally.

Nothing in my comments is meant to imply the stuff is not out there somewhere. But an exchange between two people in a chat room is very different from a web-site. A child porn web-site would be shut down by the ISP within minutes of becoming aware of it.

On the other hand, we are talking about chat-rooms with passwords and such. People meet then exchange via email or in a private chat-room they set up. It is out there but it is not public. Hence my use of available as something distinct from extant.



It is possible for any of us to accidentally download anything if someone posts it somewhere.

So in an unregulated forum that can happen. You see a link saying "hot picture" and click on it. You have no idea what is on the other side.

Same as DU... you might click on a post that is overtly racist. But DU isn't a racist site or promoting racism or whatever.

So yeah, anything is possible.

But I will say this from personal experience. I have never seen a child porn image on the internet. Never.

I have seen a lot of every other kind of image, often unbidden. I have never sought out pictures of bestiality or excretion or violence but I have seen those things on the internet without trying so I would say they are widely available. The damnedest things pop up if you click the wrong link.

I have also never tried to see children, and I never have seen children. Back before the major ISPs dropped Usenet there were usenet groups that certainly sounded like they were full of child porn, but I never clicked on them.

My point is not that such things are not widespread, but that they are underground. Individual. Non-commercial. Since I have never stumbled across it I assume it would take some real effort.

(The Pete Townshend incident arose from what he said was researching child porn... even in his defense he was actively looking for it.)

Doesn't prove anything, but when someone says it was accidental it makes me wonder where the heck they were. I have never had such an accident and the odds are I should have if it was something that just happens.



Keep in mind that someone posting such a picture in a forum where it can be found accidentally is committing a major crime. Rick-rolling is common, but would probably not be if rick-rolling carried a twenty year sentence.

Personally I think that as common sense thing (rather than a reasonable doubt standard, which is a whole 'nother matter) the 'accident' defense is unlikely. Which is not to say I would not have voted the same way you did on a jury.

But again, never say never.

Most of my comments are, by the way, things we can all deduce. Child porn is vigorously prosecuted. Widespread commercial activity would be easiest to prosecute. There haven't been any prosecutions of that sort. QED.

[smoogatz]

12. Usenet was totally creepy.

Some dark stuff going on there, for sure. Glad it's gone, for the most part.

[marshall]

13. I don't think the child porn photos would show up in a search engine

I recall the case where the Duke university professor was pimping out his adopted child a year or so ago. He was on some kind of communication website where ostensibly people who were interested in legal pornography or legal sex were posting and emailing each other. My understanding was that he posted something that ambiguously referred to an interest in children (his screen name was something like "perv dad 4 fun".) Then it was in the private email that the conversation got more explicit and the illegal activity began including sending nude photos of the unfortunate child.

So I think it's unlikely that anyone would encounter child pornography in routine use of the internet. I think it's still fairly unlikely that anyone would encounter it in casual perusal of pornographic images. But I think if somebody digs, even if they are just digging for legal pornography, eventually the illegal kind will appear.

[smoogatz]

10. It's possible that some adult porn sites may unintentionally include images

or video of underaged girls/boys, particularly if those images were made outside the U.S. or E.U., which have strict ID requirements. But they'd be borderline in appearance, most likely--teenaged girls that could be fifteen or could be eighteen or could be twenty-two. Recent precedent could be someone like Traci Lords, who made hundreds of mainstream porn films in the U.S. starting around age fourteen, using a fake ID (she was also able to obtain a US passport with a fake ID, so it wasn't just sleazeball porn producers who were fooled). It was a pretty big shocker when the truth about her age was revealed--her old films were pulled from the shelves, etc. But "real" child porn that exploits and victimizes pre-pubescent kids, or obviously adolescent kids, would be almost impossible to download by accident--even from the sketchiest overseas porn sites on the web. Basically, you know it when you see it, and when you see it you get the hell away from it as fast as possible, unless you're a pedophile.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

16. Agreed

I am shocked how young girls in bars look sometimes and I know they must be 21. I'm old. Everyone looks like a kid.

But my comments are about unambiguous images... pre-pubescent.

Nobody can distinguish 17 and 19 by appearance, including an ISP.

But in the terms of the OP, though a picture may be of a 17 year old in calendar-reality the commercial operators believe the models to be of age and market them on that basis.


But if the priest in question had a collection of pictures of young men who *might* be 16 or 17 I hope/assume wouldn't be in jail today, so we are presumably talking about unambiguous stuff.

[localroger]

14. The definition of 'underage' varies

As others have said sites where members can upload can have anything, and there is stuff out there that is legal in other countries (and therefore accessible anywhere, the internet working the way it does) but is not legal in the US.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

17. There was actually a trade dispute about 16 vs. 18

In parts of Europe 16 is/was considered okay. After the Euro-zone was set up the difference was argued as a US trade infringement. It was resolved somehow or another. I don't recall the particulars.

But the OP and all that follows from it refers to what a reasonable observer would identify as child porn from its content, as opposed to a technical examination of birth records.

None of us can reliably distinguish 16 and 18... including the police.

I am talking about the sort of thing they arrest people for based on the image itself which is, one hopes, unambiguous stuff.

So yes, though there are different standards regarding majority and late adolescence, the sort of images I am referring to are not legal in any nation on Earth.

[localroger]

30. It's not quite that simple

In the US it's been established -- stupidly IMO but the precedent is set -- that drawings and legal models made up to look illegally young are illegal, where many other countries only consider it child porn if there is actual proof the person in the photo is underage. I once knew a person who regularly passed for 18 when she was 12, not 16, and there are plenty of small framed people with good skin who can pull it off the other way. In the US if I take a model like that, put her hair in ponytails, and take her picture naked holding a big lollipop it's probably illegal. Do that in a lot of other places and as long as I've got the paper proving her age, it's OK. There is a lot more gray in this than most people want to admit.

[951-Riverside]

26. Don't worry the guys arrested for possession of child porn usually have a directory dedicated...

for those photos, videos, etc or bookmarks filled with links. Its rarely "ooops! I accidently viewed CP the other day now its in my cache". :eyes:

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

5. PS: Notes on the OP

My comments refer to the US and Europe and what can be accessed through western first-world ISPs.

I don't doubt that there is open commercialization of hardcore sex images of children in some places, but probably as an adjunct to the sale of actual children (!) That is to say, if some business in Thailand shows pictures of their roster of child prostitutes it would be perverse to focus on the image rather than the real-world child brothel. That said, it might be easiest to prosecute the image because an image is persistent evidence.



Also, I want to clean up the date rape comment. In saying the significance of child porn is the child part I do understand that sexuality of image is an element of the crime. On the other hand, the crime of rape does not require a date be involved. The point is, of course, that dating and pornography are both legal, though one is free to consider dating or pornography shameful or immoral. The criminal elements (child and rape, respectively) are not intrinsic to the class (date, pornography)



And, pre-empting any "why do you know so much about this?" snark, I know a hell of a lot about expressive rights and the history of censorship. Pornography is only a subset of that, but it has been the most widely argued and adjudicated in my lifetime. (As opposed to sedition, laws against blasphemy, etc.)

[TransitJohn]

8. Why do you impugn Thailand so?

You mean Cambodia, right?

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

9. Sorry... I have heard that Thailand has cracked down a lot, but it used to be the most notorious

Some eastern European country may be the worst these days.

[TransitJohn]

11. I think you just picked Thailand

It never "used to be the most notorious."

[seabeyond]

15. i saw recently U.S. has become number one in demand... but thailand is up there in delivery

The most common destinations for victims of human trafficking are Thailand, Japan, Israel, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Italy, Turkey and the US, according to a report by the UNODC (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime).<31>

The major sources of trafficked persons include Thailand, China, Nigeria, Albania, Bulgaria, Belarus, Moldova, and Ukraine.<31>

In a 2006 report the Future Group, a Canadian humanitarian organization dedicated to combatting human trafficking and the child sex trade, ranked eight industrialized nations. In the report, titled "Falling Short of the Mark: An International Study on the Treatment of Human Trafficking Victims", Canada received an F rating, the United Kingdom received a D, while the United States received a B+ and Australia, Norway, Sweden, Germany and Italy all received grades of B or B-.<32>

It is common that Thai women are lured to Japan and sold to Yakuza-controlled brothels where they are forced to work off their price

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_trafficking

Thailand and Brazil are considered to have the worst child sex trafficking ...

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

19. Destination, transit and source countries

I don't see Brazil in the lists of worst offenders there.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_trafficking#Destination.2C_transit_and_source_countries

[seabeyond]

20. not in that article. but in another on google (a couple) they had said thailand was two to

brazil.

i am poor at googling. but the jest.... it is all over the place. certain countries shift in position. laws tightening up in thailand from what i read. and demand (u.s. highest ranking of this year) is pretty damn important.

i am not into who is highest... just an easy google does show thailand has problems, and that was why i posted to the person challenging thailand having any issue at all.

not a point of arguing.

one can check it out themselves.

or not

[TransitJohn]

21. Who challenged Thailand having "any issue at all"?

Why do you always just make shit up?

[seabeyond]

23. i think your posts are evidence enough. no need for me to argue. i thought maybe

you actually were not informed, so merely giving you info. since i dont know you from adam, i can not say.... you always????

but it seems you arent opposed to making shit up accusing me of "always"

[TransitJohn]

25. and I think your posts are evidence of something

but I won't say what so as not to break DU rules, but does that make me right? No, opinion is opinion, and you'll continue to construe what I said to fit what you wish the world to be anyway. :hi:

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

28. In case you didn't know the term, it's called "straw man". Lookie here:

http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/straw-man.html

A comprehensive list of fallacies from the same site. Which is dedicated to fighting Holocaust denial. These folks know their shit:

http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies

My understanding of disingenuous rhetoric was boosted enormously after reading that.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

22. I'll gladly stop assuming you're making shit up if you enlighten yourself in the art of googling

and provide a link.

[seabeyond]

24. bah hahah. you two are getting to be funny. i dont care what anyone thinks of thailand.

the info is out there. not really anything to fight about.... but now both of you are beyond even chatting with.

[femrap]

18. I don't get

your analogy. Date rape is rape. It certainly isn't considered a type of 'date.'

Honestly, I wish the OP would just compare pornography to an experience of his/her own.

John Lennon was right...

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

27. Hrm. I retrospect, I seem to have been off by two hours and twenty-nine minutes.

Ah well. I'll aim for better accuracy next time.

[Odin2005]

29. K&R