Something that makes me angry
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/search/s_186625.html
Okay, let’s think about this.
I am against child porn. I think pretty much everyone wno knows me would know that I am against child porn.
But I feel this is a violation of this girl’s first amendment rights.
Look, the bill of rights might have to be modified somewhat for people under 18, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.
If you, as a 15 year old (or a 90 year old) voluntarily choose, without coercion, to photograph yourself without clothing or doing sexually explicit acts, that is your right. Arresting you for this is morally wrong.
[Oh boy. Now comes the hard part. ]
The problem is, theoretically, I hate child porn. But you know what? I don’t think as a child, you should be legally punished for showing your body. I mean, what’s next, busting people for playing doctor?
If you want to do it, it’s your body, your mind..
I understand that this brings up serious problems.. how do you know if child porn that someone has is consentual or not? How do you know if any porn contains children who were coerced, or children who chose to perform?
I don’t know. This brings up a lot of grey areas, for sure. But they better not do anything to her.
I would LOVE a audio recording of that trial. I’m sure it’s going to have some priceless moments.
I wonder if there’s anywhere that I can donate to her defense fund.
April 4th, 2004 at 11:15 pm
There’s a very good argument for any sex between a child and an adult (or by a child for an adult) as being coerced, at some level, as between the lack of ability of most kids to make informed consent (when exactly one *can* consent is up for debate, but there is certainly some age before one can consent) and the fact that kids are normally expected to do what adults tell them (the power differential) there is no opportunity for consent.
So the issue for child porn is that if sex for an adult’s gratification is always rape (if it involves a child) then every piece of child porn is a recording of an act of rape.
Which actually raises a question — is it illegal to have recordings of rape, if you yourself were not involved in the actual rape (and assuming it’s not for the purposes of an investigation or something like that)? I don’t know the answer to that question.
But in this case I’m inclined to agree with you. Now, if they had found her videos of herself on an adult’s computer (where it wasn’t that she had borrowed the computer to make the videos) then I think that adult should be prosecuted for possessing child porn, but the idea that she was abusing herself by making her own porn is ridiculous.
April 5th, 2004 at 10:23 am
I’m no longer sure what I think. My whole worldview collapsed in a probability wavefront.
Because, the reasons I’m against child porn are twofold:
1) Reinforcement of the neural pathways that find children sexually exciting in a adult might lead to them actually doing something besides looking at kids on a screen. [I’ve never figured out if this one is valid or not]
2) I have always assumed that child porn was coercive.. that is to say, it was the visual equivilant of raping the children in question. This I find abhorrant.
One of the questions I asked a while ago was whether rendered child porn counts as child porn. After all, clearly no one was hurt in the making of it. The answer that came back was no, rendered is kosher. So the laws against child porn do not exist for reason #1. Now we have a case where clearly no coercion was in play – she did it herself, probably because she enjoyed it. No reason someone can’t be a exhibishonist at age 15 at all – certainly my own strange sexual tastes were well cemented by then.
So, in this case, I don’t think the owners of the video should be charged either. No harm, no foul. No one was hurt. And, by the way, we don’t even know that she told them she was a child. Would it be even remotely fair to arrest adults for possessing video of someone who had proported to be 18?
April 5th, 2004 at 4:46 pm
My concern with a blanket “if it’s found on an adult’s computer” dismisses the fact that 15 year olds have passed themselves off as adults… there was an porn actress that managed to pass herself off as an adult to the entire industry… if you’ve seen screen caps of the movies I’d be willing to bet you would be fooled too… (I can’t remeber her name at the moment). So kids could easly frame adults for “rape” by convicing them to d/l a picture and/or movie…
just my two cents