More Pedophile Paranoia
So I have the local news channel running in the background and there’s a story about a local man arrested for “kiddy porn”. The video shows a shot of an anonymous uniformed officer toting out a plastic bag full of videocassettes. Now I don’t know anything about the details of this case, and I would not presume to pass judgement on it unless I were called to do so in a jury, but this image struck me.
In that split second of video, this man is convicted in the eye of the viewer…but what’s really on those videocassettes in the bag? Film of an eight year old getting raped…or half a dozen Max Hardcore and Girls Gone Wild tapes? Because listen up folks, those are the kinds of things the government is trying to define as “kiddy porn”. (Click here and here if you don’t believe me) And if you get convicted with something like this your name goes on the big internet list of sex offenders, and your address gets published to concerned parents, and you are just as subject to assault by save-the-children vigilantes as the guy who raped an eight year old.
Am I saying that we ought to all go out and start having sex with teenagers? No, of course not. What I’m saying is that it’s unnatural and harmful to act as if adolescent sexuality - including the potential for teens to have sexual feelings toward adults and vice versa - is a hideous crime. We are doing our children no favors by wrapping them in the cotton-wool of infancy at a time when they need to be learning to be adults, to make adult decisions about things like sex and relationships.
A very interesting subject. I find it odd that in the adult business anyone under 18 is considered a child yet they can legally marry at 16 (I’m in the UK, as far as I know you can legally marry at 15 in some US states?) So how can having sex/filming sex with a 17 yr old be subject to the same charges as with an 8 yr old?
Another way to look at this is adult babies, otherwise known as infantilism, based on the prosecutions against Max Hardcore, because his over 18 porn actresses were portraying 12 yr olds, does infantilism now constitute paedophilia?
I’m all for the protection of children but how does this witch hunt protect children exactly? Isn’t sending resources after pornographers taking the same resources away from the tracking and prosecution of paedophiles?
We in the UK are watching with concern over what the Fundies are trying to impose on you across the pond. Thank goodness all our politicians are kinky adulterers, there’s no way they can even try to moralise the public! haha
Comment by Anna — September 22, 2006 @ 12:29 pm
As a matter of fact Anna, US law states that ANY visual depiction of sex (including drawings and computer-morphed images) involving a CHARACTER who is under age 18 - even if that character is portrayed by a 75 year old grandmother! - is child pornography. Because the POINT is, for the folks who are pushing these laws and prosecutions, that NO porn ought to exist. It’s merely that stuff that’s really gross (like Max Hardcore piss-and-vomit porn) or ethically questionable (like GGW’s lax recordkeeping) are the easiest stuff to get a prosecution on, and making it out to be a matter of protecting the kiddies is the easiest way for the politicians to get elected/ get the anti-porn laws passed. It’s a foot in the door, which they hope to use to gradually tighten restrictions until we’ve gone back to the “good old days” when smut was illegal. Never mind that the same mentality that decried porn back then was also responsible for niggling little problems like racial segregation, sexual discrimination (and the whole idea that women’s place was barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen), etc and so on. Public morality in the politically-correct/sexually adventurous age is FAR superior to what it was back then, but these bozos miss the power they used to hold, and they’ll do just about anything to get it back.
Comment by cherie — September 22, 2006 @ 9:09 pm
I know I shouldn’t feel this way… but I cannot spare an ounce of sympathy for GGW. Of all the porn which exploits women, arggghhhhh, that whole thing drives me crazy. Many a night I have been out and about in the world drinking and having a great time and flashing…(ummm, not to mention just straight up dancing nekkid LOL) and the idea that someone could or would *steal* that moment and use it to make money without my knowledge or consent makes me bonkers. It’s just wrong to me, and I hope not a reflection of the porn community as a whole… at least not the parts of the porn community I support! I know it’s legal to take photos of someone in a public venue and publish them, but you could argue that the premises of a club are not public. (Altho I guess the club owners/managers would have to let these guys in… they aren’t subtle with their camera crew, right?) Anyways it bugs me!
But I do understand your point about the foot in the door/slippery slope and believe it to be true. Have you seen what they are doing to that John Karr guy?!?! He is still in jail… no charges filed on him… they are LOOKING for something to charge him with. Nuts! Freedom!?!? Ya think?
Comment by Tamara — October 3, 2006 @ 10:08 am