Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Hidden in the crowd. on December 5, 2010 at 3:39pm

legalized or not i think it's morally repulsive to even think about making something like child pornography, not to mention make it legal to produce and distribute.



i also can't imagine how fucked up you would have to be to make digital child porn for a living >.>

Permalink Reply by Mick Wright on December 5, 2010 at 3:42pm

I'm a little torn on this, surprisingly (even surprising myself). First, obviously, it's awful stuff. I can't see anything close to acceptable about it.

On the other hand, it occurs to me that people with such tendencies will still have such tendencies regardless of the law. And, frankly, if you show me a guy sitting at his computer and playing with himself, I'll show you a guy who's not out causing any fucking trouble. In that sense, there might be something in at least letting the bastards get at the existing pictures, if only to potentially distract them from trying it with kids themselves (which seems to be backed up by these surveys) - while still keeping up jaw-shattering legal pressure against the images' creation, which obviously is just as foul.

Still, hypotheses aside, legal or not, people will continue to pull shit like this. Take them out, by all means, but if there's a way to reduce the possibility of more attacks, then it's probably worth a try.

Permalink Reply by Hidden in the crowd. on December 5, 2010 at 3:52pm

i say we get rid of the priests and 99% of the cases will disappear =P

Permalink Reply by Mick Wright on December 5, 2010 at 3:53pm

Or just have them fixed.

Seriously, when a priest takes holy orders, take him to a hospital and lop off his sack. Assured celibacy, and a visible safety measure that'll do wonders for the church's PR image - which needs all the fucking help it can get.

Permalink Reply by Hidden in the crowd. on December 5, 2010 at 4:15pm

or cut the whole thing off since the sack only helps in reproduction and shit, and give the poor man a straw to pee out of

Permalink Reply by Dustin Williams on December 5, 2010 at 7:56pm

A man who has been castrated is ineligible for the priesthood per some passage from the Pentateuch and about 1800 years of church tradition.

Quite a few ascetic monks and the like were castrating themselves in the third century to avoid the temptation to sin, Origin went as far as to remove his penis as well. Even though he was popular with the local bishops and a prominent theologian of the era, he could not be ordained.

Now, if castration was both a requirement for ordination and prevented someone from ordination, then that would effectively eliminate the Catholic priesthood.

Permalink Reply by Joseph P on December 5, 2010 at 8:35pm

So, what you're saying is there's no downside.

Permalink Reply by John Jubinsky on December 5, 2010 at 4:15pm

Firstly, I am not so sure the studies are credible because, reasonably, if society says looking at it isn't so bad it must mitigate the seriousness of participating in it. This would give potential child sex abusers more of a green light to indulge. The people who conducted these studies could have their own sick agendas and I am not so willing to jump on their band wagon especially at the risk of an explosion in child molestation. Moreover, the black market supply of the pornography would be made with real children probably from third world countries that don' t have the infrastructure to protect them. Some of their parents might even sell them to it for money or property. One need not be a rocket scientist to realize this. To the contrary, one would have to have his head in the sand to not realize it. The last thing we need as Atheists is to have the church attack us as being in favor of such a thing. Reason is not something I abandoned easily and these studies tend to fly in the face of it from a number of perspectives.

Permalink Reply by Mick Wright on December 5, 2010 at 4:18pm

True, the argument from authority ain't just a scripture thing. This whole thing needs a Citation Needed mark slapped on the studies at the very least.

Permalink Reply by Prog Rock Girl on December 5, 2010 at 5:30pm

The study is apparently saying that sex crimes fell...but that is probably only in their own country. Meanwhile, sex crimes would be rising in whatever country it is that makes the pornography. This seems kind of like saying the environment has improved b/c you dispose of your trash in another country.

It could be made similar to other crimes (drugs, prostitution--whether they should be legal or not is beside the point) in that law enforcement should go after the dealers (or pimps) rather than focusing on the customers (yes, some people look at porn to avoid molesting someone in real life) and it's more important to find out where the customers got it from.

Permalink Reply by Joseph P on December 5, 2010 at 4:33pm

Ick, yeah, the only way to make it even vaguely tolerable would be to use CGI or other art or animation. It's not like with normal pornography or even prostitution, in which it's a consenting adult making a decision to participate in the production of the material (unless there's some other illegal, coercive activity going on). Even making use of existing material would be unworkable, in practice. You'd never know what was really previously existing material ... and you'd still prosecute the sick bastards who made it in the first place.

I'd also be worried as hell about the desensitizing effect of acceptance of the pornography, even with the rider about only using artistic representations. And even if it was effective as reported, I'd still have so freaking many issues with it. I dunno.

Permalink Reply by Mick Wright on December 5, 2010 at 4:37pm

That's a better idea. Art and fakery. No victims...and yet it's still illegal.

I think this actually sums up the 'not causing trouble' thing I mentioned before far better than the context in which I originally said it. Art depicting it hurts absolutely no one, and people who look at it are doing no harm and *condoning* no harm - and yet it's still illegal in a lot of places, which is bloody stupid as far as I'm concerned. It's like outlawing skeet-shooting under animal cruelty laws or hunting legislation.

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