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Virtual Child Pornography

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vison
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Posted: Mon 21 Mar , 2005 3:43 am
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Excellent post, truehobbit, and I agree with you.

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tolkienpurist
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Posted: Mon 21 Mar , 2005 3:48 am
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vison wrote:
Excellent post, truehobbit, and I agree with you.
Did truehobbit post on this threads? :help:


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vison
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Posted: Mon 21 Mar , 2005 4:05 am
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tolkienpurist wrote:
vison wrote:
Excellent post, truehobbit, and I agree with you.
Did truehobbit post on this threads? :help:
Oh, for pete's sake!!!! I can't believe I did that. Gosh, I'm sorry. What a sap I am. :oops:

tolkienpurist, that was a GOOD POST. Excellent.

And if truehobbit had made it, it would still have been good.

Now, can I get out of this without offending anyone else? :scratch

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The Watcher
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Posted: Mon 21 Mar , 2005 4:45 am
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I am going to comment here, for the first time in nearly five years

Child pornography is just horrible, virtual or not.

My daughter was a victim of virtual child pornography, by noone else than her own stepfather, my second husband and the father of my youngest child.

Do you want to know what it is like to stumble across virtual chats that consist of a man fantasizing about what he would do with a "fictional teenage girl age fourteen who lived in his house?" This, just while RL daughter was going through a terrible problem with eating disorders and other severe behavioral problems? It did not help that my daughter was very pretty, to the point that she was looking into going into modelling, not my choice, but something that she was investigating with her own paternal grandmother at the time.

When I thought that it could not get any worse, I also discovered that he was downloading real child porn off of sites that may now be shut down, I certainly hope so.

It destroyed me, it destroyed all of the progress that we had made with my daughter, the jerk was kicked out of the house, prosecuted, and found guilty, and I have not had anything to do with him since, except for formalities that were required to get divorced from the vile member of the male species. Social Services got involved, I had to take parenting classes and all sorts of tests to show that I was not contributing, despite the fact that he admitted that he was doing this all secretively and deceptively, they still need to go through all of the motions. Not only was I outraged, I was humiliated myself, and there were very few people that I confided to, it was just the worst thing possible to imagine oneself being in the midst of, not to mention what my daughter herself had to deal with, or the other two boys. My youngest son has not seen his father in five years, and, if I have anything to do with it, that may be a permanent situation, although, coward that he is now, "Dad" does not want to see him in any case.

Call me clueless, but I was never in the habit of snooping on other family members usage of the internet - it was my kids who discovered the serious stuff, not me, and when my husband was confronted, he admitted it. I made the mistake of bringing it up to my daughter's therapist at the time, I did not know what to do, and I guess she took my shock as somehow being naive. I have learned all too much about the subject since then. It is not the same as having a penchant for Playboy, Hustler, or porn.

Pedophiles are turned on by the very fact that what they do is forbidden fruit. It is not so much a fantasy as it is a fixation. They do not stop. I do not care if it is a virtual child or a real photo, the results are the same. These people are not going to be able to care about the distinctions, and thank goodness in my case, that it only got to the fantasy phase and not the acting out phase.

By the time that they were through investigating this, and I look like such an idiot here, they found out that my then husband had been doing this for at least three years while he was married to me, and they had over five hundred pieces of evidence, pictorial, chat threads, and other things that he had stashed away in one form or another.

The worst part of it is that they often do wonderful volunteer things for kids - my husband was assistant soccer coach for his stepson, he volunteered at cub scout functions, he always was helping out at the schools.............now it just makes me all sick, even though nothing ever happened with those venues.

I think that I can rest my case. If he ever shows up on my doorstep again, you will be reading about me in the headlines the next day.

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samaranth
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Posted: Mon 21 Mar , 2005 8:25 pm
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The Watcher, that is such a horrific violation, for your children and for you to experience. I hope you all find healing in time. My heart goes out to you.

It doesn't matter whether the child is real or virtual, in the end there is a high likelihood that a child will become a victim.

I should probably give some context to my comments before I make them. I work in an area that investigates Internet content that may be classed ‘prohibited’. In general terms, once we make a finding we notify the host ISP to take the content down (if hosted here), and if it is deemed ‘sufficiently serious’ we will refer to the appropriate police jurisdiction to take action against the content creators.

It probably won’t come as any surprise to learn that the majority of material we are called upon to assess is child pornography. Does it make any difference if the child is not ‘real’? From the point of view of the law I am applying, no. So long as the image depicts ‘in a way that is likely to cause offence to a reasonable adult, a person who is, or who looks like a child under 16 (whether the person is engaged in sexual activity or not)’, then it would be refused classification and thus be prohibited. There is no distinction made about how that depiction is made. It could be taken to mean film, photo, or drawing, even text.

Our actions will remove an offending image from the Internet, at least from one site in one place, at one time. In reality that image may be hosted on countless other sites, mirrored by still countless more. The referrals to the police may add to existing police operations, or may spark new ones. However, to proceed to prosecution of an individual can be more problematic. There are a number of offences which could be prosecuted, from possession and distribution through to causing actual abuse. And, dishearteningly, the conviction rate is not high, even where you think that sufficient evidence surely exists.

Axordil, in your first post in this thread you said:
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Is this [virtual child porn] ethically or morally the same as more traditional kiddie porn? Does the evil lie in the creation or the intent? And if the latter, how is prosecuting it different from prosecuting a thought crime?
My personal response is that virtual child porn is as unethical and immoral as ‘real’ child porn. It’s all despicable. I base this on offender profiles I have read, and the findings of research that indicate that the feeding of an appetite for such material has tended towards the eventual abuse of a real child. It would be an unusual offender who would specialise only in pictures of virtual children. Another point to bear in mind is the sheer mass of this material. In recent operations police have seized computer hard drives containing thousands and thousands of images. Often this is the entry fee to some clubs – the creation of new material. Not everyone is skilled at manipulating virtual images, but the advent of digital cameras, web cams, and so on, would mean there are usually fewer bars to the creation of real images. As vison and Jn have pointed out, the sexual abuse of children has been evident through the ages. The difference now is the way technology makes it so accessible, so easy to sample, and so deceptively anonymous.

I take the point about not convicting on the basis of a predisposition, where the tendency is not acted upon. However, when that predisposition manifests as actual images, which can be stored, shared, or traded, then it leaves the realm of ‘thought’ and becomes a prosecutable offence in many jurisdictions. Very few resist the temptation of going that little bit further. And then further still. They make contact with other like them, and receive validation of their behaviour.

Tolkienpurist, I also understand your concerns about ‘censoring ideas based on their potential harm’. Australia does not have the explicit equivalent of a First Amendment, the grounds on which the US Supreme Court, in 2002, struck down the legislation relating to the production and dissemination of virtual child porn. My understand of that appeal was it found the Act to be framed in too broad terms, catching depictions of minors who may well be over the age of consent. However, striking down that law also removed any legal grounds for action in relation to images of younger children. A great pity, in my opinion.

The classification scheme in Australia is predicated on a number of assumptions, including that ‘adults should be able to read, hear, and see what they want; minors should be protected from material likely to harm or disturb them.’ Material which may not be classified and the possession and distribution of which is likely to be prosecutable includes ultra violent material, depcitions of sexual violence, instruction in or incitement to crime, instruction in paedophilia, and matters relating to the offensive depictions of children. I am not familiar with the US obscenity laws that you refer to, but this is where we have set the bar.


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vincent
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Posted: Tue 22 Mar , 2005 9:24 pm
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I have A friend who works as a parole officer, porn to many of the people on his case load was only a first step, well there worked their way to the real thing. Many offenders as a condtion of their release have court ordered bans on porn of all types, some even have bans on childrens programing, or even PBS.
Now I can't say if it should be banned or not I really dislike making new laws that infringe on personal rights, should something be done? Yes but I would rather its a moral decision not a legal decision, trying to legistate morality is not easy. Perhaps the ISP's hosting these websites should take a hand in controling the content, but even that has problems, really I don't know what the correct anwser is, if there is one. is there perhaps a middle ground? A way of keep virtual child porn of the internet without making laws that violate the 1st amendment?

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TIGG
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Posted: Wed 23 Mar , 2005 12:06 am
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vincent wrote:
I have A friend who works as a parole officer, porn to many of the people on his case load was only a first step, well there worked their way to the real thing. Many offenders as a condtion of their release have court ordered bans on porn of all types, some even have bans on childrens programing, or even PBS.
A side issue here: a Huge majority of violent offenders started with a prosecution or warn for cruelty to animals. Victimising the defenceless and voiceless is the very earliest start for most serial offenders.

Watcher :bawl: , you are not naive, you trusted, ( a very big difference IMHO) How devestating for you and your family. :hug: Take care brave lady.

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yovargas
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Posted: Wed 23 Mar , 2005 12:55 am
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:hug: for Watcher :(

This is an incredibly difficult issue. On the surface, I think tolkienpurist's argument is very solid. It is simply too dangerous a precendent to prosecute desire. I think it was eluded to before but what if you could actually show that playing violent video games increases the chances of violent crimes by, say, 10%. Should video games be banned? There are video games out now where the purpose of the game is to shred and maim and torture your victims in as gruesome a manner (I'm thinking Manhunt here, for those familiar, and I've heard God of War is also very extreme). I wouldn't doubt it if regular exposure to this sort of entertainment did increase violent tendencies. But are we actually willing to prosecute based on that. It makes me very nervous, but...

...pedophilia seems to be in a different category. I can't say I know much, but everything I've heard indicates that this is a psychological condition (caused by what? anybody know?) that cannot be succesfully combatted. If that is the case, then knowing a person enjoys watching virtual child porn is the same as knowing that person actively desires to molest children. Is it not? This is very different from something like a violent video game - playing that game does not mean that you actively desire to torture the innocent, even if it increases that tendency in some. As such, I find it hard not to do something to prevent that person from being able to act out on their desires. If we find out that a person has a psychological condition - of any kind - that threatens their safety or the safety of others, we don't simply let them be until somebody gets hurt, do we? I actually don't know, but I don't imagine we do. I'd want to treat this along those lines: a mental illness known to threaten the safety of others. Does that mean incarceration? I don't know, but it doesn't seem like such a person should be free to roam.....I don't know what to think really....agh, such a difficult subject. :(


On a related note (I was thinking about starting up a thread about this), there was some horrible story here in Florida about a child molester. I don't know the details but it was a man who had been convicted, served his time, and upon released proceeded to kidnap, rape, and kill a girl. I heard about this story on a morning radio show and they made the compelling argument that, since we know that this condition doesn't simply go away after some jail time, it's absurd to release these men back into normal society where they have access to children. There proposed solution: mandatory chemical castration after your first offense molesting a child. Do you think that is a resonable solution? (Currently, the judge has discretion to order chemical castration after the second offense, but apparently it is very very rarely done).


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vincent
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Posted: Wed 23 Mar , 2005 1:32 am
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From what I understand its not so much a sexual desire as a desire for power, as was stated before many sex offenders do start on the powerless, not all, but many of the serial offenders are not doing it for a sexual purposes so the agrument goes that castration would do very little in many of the worst offenders.

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Anthriel
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Posted: Wed 23 Mar , 2005 1:40 am
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Does anyone know if castration works to change the behavior of pedophiles? I really don't know. (Edit: Whoops! vincent, thanks for addressing this question... :))

Jn, your post was compelling, as always, but I'd like to address this line:
Quote:
I've seen this dynamic up close and personal and I can tell you that in the US at least there is a grand conspiracy of silence where pedophilia is concerned
I work in Microbiology, as many of you are now aware (since I can't seem to stop mentioning it :roll:) and about two years ago we had a vaginal culture on a 3 year old girl which grew the causative agent for gonorrhea. The first time we saw it was on a Saturday... understanding the implications of our report, and not only out of a desire to confirm our results but out of a desire to hopefully find that a mistake had been made, we went back to the original specimen and cultured it again. On Sunday, we realized it was true... this small child had been raped, and infected with gonorrhea by her rapist.

We called her pediatrician, who was difficult to find on a Sunday. We called our pathologist, and our medical director, to find out if there were any precedents for reporting this type of thing. We called the state Child Protection Agency, the state epidemiologist, and even called the police.

We wanted that kid OUT OF THAT HOUSE, that day, if it was in our powers at all to affect that.

I believe that you would not have typed your sentence about a grand conspiracy of silence without having a compelling reason, and I understand that one exception does not disprove a trend.

But we were anything but silent that day. I still am shaking, remembering it...


Watcher: :hug: No mother should have to face such a thing!


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The Watcher
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Posted: Wed 23 Mar , 2005 2:22 am
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To my knowledge, chemical castration only suppresses the levels of testosterone, which makes it difficult physically to allow a male to achieve any state of arousal, but as far as what it does psychologically in terms of desires and such, I really could not comment on. I suppose that urges may not be as intense, but they certainly do not just "go away."

There also should in all fairness be allowed distinctions between the "voyeurs" and the "actors" if this makes some sense. Many people with a penchant for pedophilia and related behaviours are often content to do it in a purely "fantastical format" and get their kicks out of the taboos that it involves and the "clandestine" meetings that they form with other pedophiles, voyeurs, and such. This phenomenon is relatively new, so there is very little to go by in terms of what such "virtual acts" will do over the long run as contrasted with the "actors." Actors are not content to just let the imagination rule, bolstered by what they have at hand, be it photos, the internet, their "secret socieities" etc. These people now are acting on their impulses in a very physical manner - trying to engage minors into their own little twisted view of desires. It may be blatant and brutal, it may be something that develops over years, it is not so easy to pinpoint. But, the one thing that these people do have in common is that they do not stop on their own, jsut like a drug user, there are different levels of where certain people end up, but, they rarely for the most part will stop on their own.

I also abhor thoughts of things like ruling on "what if" situations. But, at the same time, I do believe that the stringent laws in place for people who are found to be dealing in such matters are vital. Such persons need to be aware that society simply has a ZERO tolerence level towards it. Think what the repercussions would be if that was not the expectation.

I guess I would draw the line at someone posting such thoughts in a diary, drawings or photoshopped images that one had kept entirely to oneself, etc. Once that these things become shared in a legally non-confidential manner, I feel that those persons are validly subject to the laws in place, and should be prosecuted. I sound harsh, but, it is not a funny subject, and it cetainly does not involve what I would consider normal healthy adult sexual activity.

And, thanks everyone. You do not know how difficult that this was to even bring up, but as many have often observed, it is the festering wounds that hurt the most. I think I am past this stage now. My kids and I are well along the healing process. :)

edit for clarity.

Last edited by The Watcher on Wed 23 Mar , 2005 3:54 am, edited 1 time in total.

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yovargas
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Posted: Wed 23 Mar , 2005 2:43 am
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The Watcher wrote:
I guess I would draw the line at someone posting such thoughts in a diary, drawings or photoshopped images that one had kept entirely to oneself, etc. Once that these things become shared in a legally non-confidential manner, I feel that those persons are validly subject to the laws in place, and should be prosecuted.


That's an interesting suggestion and one worth thinking about. It strikes me as the difference between using drugs and dealing drugs. One is a personal matter, the other is intentionally spreading harm.
The Watcher wrote:
And, thanks everyone. You do not know how difficult that this was to even bring up, but as many have often observed, it is the festering wounds that hurt the most. I think I am past this stage now. My kids and I are well along the healing process. :)
I am glad to hear that. More :hug:s your way. :)


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MariaHobbit
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Posted: Wed 23 Mar , 2005 7:47 pm
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:hug: Watcher!

I don't know about the effects of chemical castration, but the effects of actual castration on male animal behavior are quite profound. All the drives are gone, personality is quite different. Aggressiveness plunges.

There is a thing in horses called "cut proud" where the vet didn't quite get all of both testicals and some testosterone is still being produced. These geldings still have the arched neck and fiesty behaviour of their full male counterparts.

I imagine that human chemical castration would be something like being "cut proud" if the organs are not removed completely.

I vote for actual castration. And if that doesn't doesn't work, draw & quarter 'em!


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Winged Balrog
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Posted: Wed 23 Mar , 2005 10:14 pm
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Watcher: :hug: What a terrible experience for both you and your family. I truly admire the way you handled it.

Anth: That must have been a very difficult situation to deal with. Did you manage to get that poor child away from that environment?

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