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Essay:The Roman Polanski Circus

2011-12-27T15:08:56Z

Dissident: /* By Dissident */

==By Dissident==
This essay is devoted to an analysis of the several articles that were written by a number of different authors on the liberal/progressive news site Salon.com regarding the belated 2009 arrest of hebephile celebrity Roman Polanski. After reading these articles, I was so incensed due to, once again, seeing those who consider themselves progressives and liberals attacking Polanski for having sex with a girl under the Magic Age in such a mindless and ignorant manner, without even once deviating from the morally absolutist script that Western culture has dictated to our society about this uber-controversial subject.

As usual, the progressives were doing their part to add to the sex abuse hysteria pervading our society, which includes the single-minded condemnation of intergenerational sex as part of its component, and with as little reasoned thought as any writer who deems themselves a social conservative. And some of the authors of these articles were progressives that I usually respect, until I see them writing mindless drivel like this to join in on the sex hysteria bandwagon. And to think these progressives frequently assail the liberal politicians for caving into support for the neocons' endless wars of aggression and failing to challenge or even think critically about the neocon conventional wisdom regarding the need for presidents to be warmongers. Hence, this refutation of their specious claims about the Polanski media circus.

Let's begin with the article from one of my favorite and most respected bloggers, Gene Lyons. His article on this topic carried the title "There's A Special Place In Hell For Roman Polanski," so right away you see how free of bias it's going to be. Let's look at some quotes from Lyons, followed by my responses.

:Lyons: ''"Everybody's least favorite character is French/Polish film director Roman Polanski. Except for a few Hollywood fools and European intellectuals who express the perverse belief that art excuses all crimes, hardly anybody would be upset to see Polanski go to prison. (In polls, ordinary Poles and Frenchmen reject the art alibi by large majorities.) As one who thinks his film 'Chinatown' a masterpiece, I don't much care what happens to him."''

I will start by saying that I agree with Lyons that just because someone is a renowned and talented artist (in Polanski's case, a filmmaker) doesn't mean they should be given special license to commit crimes. What I am questioning here, however, is whether or not we should possibly question the perceived wisdom of certain laws. Lyons says that Polanski is "everyone's least favorite character." That's a rather odd thing for a progressive to conclude, because I would imagine that any "neocon" politician who wage preemptive wars of aggression that kill numerous innocent civilians and erode our civil liberties at home, as well as genuine terrorists who attempt to blow up innocent people along with themselves, would rank higher on such a person's list of "least favorite characters" in the world. But instead, a progressive concludes that a man who had sex with a girl who was under the Magic Age and never actually killed anyone nor waged a preemptive war that killed thousands of innocent civilians is worse than any of them on the villain meter. I would expect someone who considers themselves a social conservative to say such a thing (after all, such moralism fixated people have said that the issue of preventing the legitimization of gay marriage is the most important issue in America) but to hear a progressive utter such words is beyond belief. Or, rather, ''should'' be beyond belief if it wasn't for the extreme PC interpretation of this issue all too often seen from anyone of any belief system in the present day sex abuse hysteria and moral panic. And anyone who does question the dubious wisdom described above is, according to Lyons, a "fool." And this is someone who routinely complains about how anyone who questions the sacred wisdom of the neocons that the American government is always right no matter what it does are "un-American" and "traitors."

:Next up, Lyons says: ''"Polanski's a one-dimensional villain to almost everybody except his 1977 victim, now a 45-year-old mother of three who's forgiven him. She thinks even the seven weeks he served undergoing psychiatric evaluation were excessive. Samantha Geimer has long argued that charges should be dropped."''

An adult who has sex with someone under the Magic Age, regardless of how the younger participant in question says she felt about it, even after more than 30 years to reflect on the incident and is thus no longer considered a helpless and incompetent "kid" in the eyes of society, says she wasn't damaged beyond measure by the tryst, is always a "one dimensional villain." No shades of gray or ambiguity in such a situation at all. Conventional wisdom tells us so, hence one is a "fool" to believe otherwise no matter what the evidence tells us. Is it that unbelievable that perhaps Geimer doesn't think Polanski has anything to be forgiven for, and that it's society that is demanding an apology for breach of one of its most precious customs?

:Lyons: ''"Should her wishes be honored? Not necessarily. However, it also shouldn't be forbidden to wonder why she thinks that way. Wasn't her life irretrievably ruined by the famous director's crime? Evidently, Geimer doesn't think so."''

And since Geimer's assertion that her life wasn't "irretrievably ruined" simply by having sex with an adult man when she was "only" 13, even though our culture's conventional wisdom refuses to allow us to consider any other possible outcome of such trysts, we must wonder and question why she thinks this way. There must be an ulterior motive to her claims, because conventional wisdom tells us that there can be only one outcome to a young teen girl having sex with an adult man, and that is for her to be emotionally scarred for life and to view herself as "damaged goods" forever.

:Lyons: ''"It's also important to call things by their right names. Yes, it's illegal for an adult man to have sex with a 13-year-old girl; the slang term is 'jailbait.' (Remember Louisiana rock 'n' roller Jerry Lee Lewis and his 13-year-old wife being expelled from England?) But that doesn't make Polanski a 'pedophile,' i.e. a deeply disturbed person obsessed with pre-pubescent children. If I had my way, there'd be no need for a 'Megan's Law' tracking paroled pedophiles, because there wouldn't be any parole. Ever."''

The above quote is full of so many incorrect cultural biases that it's almost beyond belief. First of all, Lyons contends that pedophiles (and Polanski is not a true pedophile, but a hebephile, so I don't understand why he is picking on pedophiles here) are "deeply disturbed" due to their attraction to pre-pubescents, and they aren't merely attracted to pre-pubescents but "obsessed." If Lyons had bothered to dispense with these crude stereotypical assumptions in favor of doing some actual research, he could have found out how untrue all of those assertions are, even if doing so would come at the risk of forcing him to think critically about these assumptions he spouts as mindlessly as any social conservative. Many quotes from this research can be found throughout the various pages of the B4U-ACT website, and all are backed up by citations. And it's nice that he doesn't bother to question the wisdom of Megan's Law, despite the fact that several people who actually care about civil liberties, and who actually decry the police state mentality that progressives like Lyons are supposed to be ardent opponents of, are doing this very thing.

:Lyons: ''"Anyway, here's what the now-deceased judge who accepted Polanski's guilty plea said at the hearing: 'The probation report discloses that although just short of her 14th birthday at the time of the offense, the (victim) was a well-developed young girl who looked older than her years; and regrettably not unschooled in sexual matters. She has a 17-year-old boyfriend, with whom she had sexual intercourse at least twice prior to the offense involved. The probation report further reveals that the (victim) was not unfamiliar with the drug Quaalude, she having experimented with it as early as her 10th or 11th year.'"''

Okay, let's take a close look at what the judge said here, because Lyons didn't bother to make a single critical evaluation of these words whatsoever, choosing to just mindlessly condemn them instead. Samantha Geimer was not sexually inexperienced when Polanski had sex with her, so she had no "innocence" (as defined by our society) to be "stolen" at the time (endeavoring to make himself sound as PC as possible, the judge made sure to make the value judgment of Geimer that it was "regrettable" that she wasn't a virgin at her age). Further, Geimer's then boyfriend was 17 years old, and was thus almost a legal adult. So she did have experience with older guys and seemed to have a liking for them, even though Polanski may have been much older than her steady boyfriend at the time. And we all know how obsessed our society is with arbitrary numbers when it comes to gauging whether or not a sexual experience would reduce a young girl to "damaged goods" for life.

Now, onto the matter of the drug use. A while back, I made a post on GirlChat entitled [http://www.annabelleigh.net/messages/480506.htm My Thoughts On the Polanski Situation Reconsidered], where I basically renounced my previous support of Polanski because of info given to me by a youth liberationist friend of mine from off the board who is supportive of mutually consensual relationships between adults and minors, and this info pointed out that Geimer's consent to Polanski's advances was in question because of the quaalude he gave her. Some people on the board agreed with my renouncement of support for Polanski for this reason and posted links to the court records where Geimer made statements that suggested she didn't really want the contact with Polanski. Others vehemently defended Polanski, so the board was a bit divided over this. However, I must concede that my source did not know about the fact that Geimer was apparently already familiar with quaaludes going back a few years, and hence she may have been willing to take the pill that Polanski gave her while knowing full well what effect it would have on her. This, along with the fact that Geimer insists in retrospect that she wasn't a "victim" of Polanski in any way, forces me to question my renouncement of my initial defense of him. It should be noted that Polanski has never been accused of displaying violent behavior of any kind, was never arrested for any crime not related to this one since it occurred (at least not that I know of), and there is effectively zero evidence that he ever threatened Geimer a few decades after the fact into stating that she thinks he should not be charged. There are definite shades of gray in this situation, and this should be considered. Though I do not agree with Polanski giving Geimer the drug, there is good evidence that she was no rookie at drug use and thus may have known how it would affect her.

:Lyons: ''"The child also apparently had the Stage Mother from Hell, a film industry tradition. In short, there may have been excellent reasons why both sides wanted to avoid a highly publicized Hollywood trial, and no reason to treat the grand jury testimony of a 14-year-old girl pressed by her mother and the prosecutor as holy writ. She may have interpreted Polanski's pleading guilty to a reduced charge as a kindness."''

Of course, Lyons insists that we should ascribe ulterior motives on the part of Geimer and her mother for not pushing for charges against Polanski because the idea that she may not have considered her life "irretrievably ruined" after sex with him is inconceivable to someone in Western society. And again, progressives like Lyons routinely denounce the neocons for never challenging the strict orthodoxy of their pro-war and pro-business mindset.

:Lyons: ''"That said, Polanski's 1979 interview with novelist Martin Amis ought to earn him a special place in hell, if not a California penitentiary. 'If I had killed somebody, it wouldn't have had so much appeal to the press, you see?' he said. 'But ... judges want to (bleep) young girls. Juries want to (bleep) young girls. Everyone wants to (bleep) young girls!'"''

Polanski's crude statements add further credence to my oft- stated contention that a poor choice of words on the part of MAAs to make a point can come back to haunt us in a major way (and Polanski is far from inarticulate, so that particular justification wouldn't work for him). We can't expect people like Lyons to see beyond the use of Polanski's words to understand the essence of what he was trying to say at this point in time, which is that attraction to young girls by adults is hardly uncommon despite its taboo nature to acknowledge or act upon, and this may have been recognized by the judge and jury in his case. Nevertheless, as much as many may be tempted to dismiss those particular words of Polanski due to their crudeness, one cannot so easily dismiss the first statement he made to Amis during the interview, where he said the press wouldn't have been nearly as interested in his case if it involved something as "minor" in comparison as cold-blooded murder. Murder may be universally regarded as wrong in our society, but it doesn't pack nearly as much of an emotional punch in the gut as the idea of "stealing" the "innocence" of a young girl. The idea of taking someone's life needlessly is certainly bad enough, but taking a young girl's chastity and innocence from her --that is totally unacceptable!

:Lyons: ''"Actually, no they don't. But a culture that tolerates beauty pageants for heavily made-up little girls, promotes teen bombshells like Britney Spears and Miley Cyrus and a million 'Barely Legal' porn films ought to consider where Polanski got the idea. The law may demand that a fleeing felon be brought to justice, but we Americans should probably be a bit less smug about it."''

And Lyons knows for a fact that judges, juries, and most adults in society outside of "pervs" like Polanski have no sexual attraction to teen girls? Gotcha. The fact that people are so much in the closet about it for obvious reasons is a comfy indication to him that adult attraction to people who are basically young adults who simply happen to be below the legal age of majority is a rare phenomenon confined to a small handful of deviants, despite the fact that art and literature throughout human history easily refute this popular claim. And he feels society should not tolerate beauty pageants for "heavily made-up little girls" despite the fact that the majority of true pedos I know do not find it attractive when little girls are made up to look as "adult" as possible, nor should we tolerate the promotion of teen girl celebrities who express themselves sexually in the most modest ways possible, because these things may convince a few deviants like Polanski that girls under 18 can have sexual appeal to adults when any sane and rational person knows this cannot possibly be the case (after all, our infallible conventional wisdom tells us so, and that is far more believable than the evidence to the contrary that Lyons points out). And he also criticizes the proliferation of the "Barely Legal" porn films even though the women in those films are young though not underage because that also gives a few deviants the idea that young women who are almost below the Magic Age actually have sex appeal, and this could lead these few dangerous deviants to conclude that even younger girls might have sex appeal too. Never mind the fact that the "Barely Legal" videos weren't around in the late '70s when Polanski crossed the legal line with Geimer. Could it be that the proliferation of such videos, and their great popularity, may indicate that adult attraction to younger girls (who will settle for as young as they can legally get on these videos since girls younger than that cannot appear in them) is common and widespread? Of course not. Lyons the progressive cannot possibly fathom such an idea, and he says our society shouldn't tolerate these things, which suggests that he may support the suppression of all instances--or even hints at--the idea that young girls can be sexually attractive to adult men. Maybe he should reinstate the Meese Commission to deal with this "problem."

Next up is the article from columnist Tracy Clark-Florey. "The director sends warm wishes to his many, many supporters," she sarcastically says about Polanski. I guess this means he shouldn't be expected to show appreciation for those who dared to support him rather than just mindlessly condemn him without considering any of the factors I pointed out up above.

:Clark-Florey: ''"That's right -- Polanski's first public words after being imprisoned didn't express remorse or beg for forgiveness. Instead, he gave a shout-out to all of the strangers out there who have had his back this whole time -- despite his having raped a 13 -year-old girl."''

So every adult who has sex with a minor should feel remorse for doing so. For those who think this attitude is totally unreasonable for someone who has committed such an unthinkably horrible crime despite the fact that progressives like Clark-Foley routinely grapple with war-mongering neocons who support wars that kill thousands of innocent people, please consider. No comparison, eh? Polanski's crime sticks out in comparison to the war-mongering politicos who have devastated the world in a way that adults who fancy young girls never could like the proverbial elephant in a small room.

Now, as for Clark- Foley's claim that Polanski "raped" Geimer, that is a default claim made towards any adult who had sex with someone under 18, regardless of whether the girl insists she was not a "victim" 30+ years after the incident in question. Heaven forbid should anyone (i.e., Polanski's supporters) question these attitudes that Clark-Foley mindlessly champions.

:Clark-Foley: ''"The entire stomach-churning communique can be found on the Huffington Post, where it was published Monday by the letter's recipient, French philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy. Thanks to 'the generous access provided by Arianna Huffington and her staff,' Levy has used the site for months now as a dumping ground for his Polanski apologism -- or, as he likes to call it, a point of view that 'contrasts with the howling of the pack.'"''

As I said above, heaven forbid should some progressives actually live up to the standards they espouse and question conventional wisdom. And how dare fools like Levy critique the point of view of those who cling to the caveats of conventional wisdom like lint to a rug and refer to such mindless herd mentality as "the howling of the pack." And damn The Huffington Post for having progressive columnists who lack the "profound wisdom" of those on Salon who weighed in on this issue without bothering to do the slightest degree of open-minded analysis of all the issues Polanski's situation forces us to confront. And if the press can't get enough satisfaction by deriding Polanski for being a monster, then they attack Geimer for refusing to see herself as a "victim" and suggest she must have less than sincere motives for taking a stance that doesn't coincide to what most of society insists is always the case when an underage girl has sex with an adult man. Then again, I wouldn't blame Arianna Huffington for this, since I have heard her make such ignorant comments about MAAs on one of her appearances on Bill Maher's show. However, it's to her credit that she allows writers who have views contrasting with the herd to post them on her blog.

:Clark-Foley: ''"The truth, though, is that early on a significant share of 'the pack' was howling about Polanski's victimhood just like Levy [emphasis in original] -- but sanity finally prevailed. Unfortunately, despite popular opinion turning against the world- renowned director, his letter sadly suggests that Levy is still far from alone."''

Yup, it's a horrible shame that not everyone has turned on Polanski like Clark-Foley and the rest of "the pack" had hoped, though since enough have bowed down to media pressure to do so she sees that as a case of "sanity" prevailing. Let's all note the fact that Clark-Foley, like Lyons before her, didn't bother to put a shred of critical evaluation into any aspect of Polanski's situation, which is supposed to be the job of a progressive blogger to do. All they did was go along with the herd (or, as Levy calls them, "the pack") and express outrage that Polanski was treated by some in any way remotely to the contrary of what our conventional wisdom insists upon. And I must ask, is it really the matter that Polanski is given special treatment for breaking the law because of the value several people feel he has towards the world of cinematography, or can it possibly be the fact that when a renowned celebrity gets in trouble for breaking laws of dubious wisdom people are more likely to question the nature of the law and its supposed infallible absolutist wisdom than they are if Joe Schmoe gets arrested for the same type of crime? Progressives can accept shades of gray in almost anything, such as war, love, and most forms of crimes-- except for the idea of sex between adults and those we today label 'minors.' When it comes to that, moral absolutism reigns.

Now we move onto the article by Kate Harding.

:Harding: ''"The good news: California's 2nd District Court of Appeal rejected Roman Polanski's most recent request for dismissal of all that unpleasant business about his raping a kid and fleeing sentencing."''

Yup, no gray area whatsoever when it comes to sex between adults and minors...it's always "rape." And let's all continue to ignore what Samantha Geimer has to say about this, okay? Nice to hear this from a progressive, but I won't belabor that point again since I already got into it up above. I will say here that it can be construed, as is likely the case by several of Polanski's supporters, that his fleeing the U.S. when faced with his conviction can be the equivalent of someone seeking political asylum in another nation to escape being imprisoned for an unjust law in the same manner as those American citizens who fled to Canada to escape being drafted during the Vietnam War. The progressives see many shades of gray in the situation of the draft-dodgers, even though their opponents on the Right believe those individuals should be thrown in prison to rot for life. It should be noted that the nation Polanski fled to would likely have extradited him to America to face the charges there if he had committed something like murder or even rape where there was no doubt or ambiguity that consent wasn't present with a woman of any age. I guess Harding and her cohorts in "the pack" would never consider the fact that maybe these other nations have a more enlightened view of the subject than America does.

:Harding: ''"The justices seem particularly concerned, says Harriet Ryan in the L.A. Times, with sorting out 'Polanski's allegations of prosecutorial and judicial misconduct in the original handling of the case' -- memorably conveyed to the public in the 2008 documentary 'Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired' -- 'enough so that they took the unusual step of injecting themselves into the details of a specific case.' They wrote: 'We exhort all participants in this extended drama to place the integrity of the criminal justice system above the desire to punish any one individual, whether for his offense or for his flight.' I guess a justice system that punishes both crooked judges and fugitive child rapists is too much to hope for?"''

Why don't you insist that the courts go after the draft-dodgers who fled America during the Vietnam War, Kate? Weren't they all fugitives in the eyes of the law? Not even the conservatives argue for pursuing the case against them after all this time! And I guess that any judge who doesn't have a one-track mind in this situation, and who dared to listen to what the supposed "victim" in the situation felt about her societally-imposed status, are "crooked" in your eyes. And if you happen to see this essau and want to debate with me that the situation of the draft-dodgers during the Vietnam era is ''not'' comparable to Polanski's situation, it would be my pleasure to do so.

Now onto an article on Salon.com that was not credited to any particular author but was instead included as part of the site's "Bogus Stories of the Year 2009."

:Article: ''"The 13-year-old girl wasn't the true victim. Such was the shockingly popular response to Roman Polanski's September arrest in Switzerland. He was the real injured party, the bogus argument went, despite the fact he had pleaded guilty and fled the country before sentencing. The world-renowned director had already paid steep legal fees, faced professional stigma and spent 30 years in European exile. He wasn't even able to pick up his Oscar in person -- poor guy. The 76-year-old Holocaust survivor had suffered enough."''

I think Geimer actually was a victim, but more of the society she lives in than of Polanski. Polanski pleaded guilty because he did indeed commit the crime of having sex with an underage girl--he fled to Europe because (reportedly) he believed that the judge was likely to get pressured into violating the plea bargain he made with Polanski. Also, attitudes about this subject were much more liberal in Polanski's native Europe during the days before the official start of the global "pedophile panic." That is the point many of his supporters are trying to make, but none of the Salon authors seem willing to examine their points or to question this law.

:Article: ''"Many also reasoned that his creative brilliance ultimately outweighed his criminal misdeeds. More than 100 artists -- including Hollywood heavyweights Woody Allen, Pedro Almodovar and Wes Anderson -- signed a petition calling for Polanski's release. France's Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner was similarly appalled: 'A man of such talent, recognized in the entire world, recognized especially in the country that arrested him -- all this just isn't nice.' It just wasn't nice. How often is that said about the punishment of an admitted child rapist? Of course, Whoopi Goldberg infamously argued on 'The View' that what Polanski did with that little girl wasn't actually, you know, 'rape-rape.' Some contended that Polanski hadn't known the girl's real age and that he had been taken advantage of by her fame-seeking stage mom."''

Heaven forbid should celebrities like Whoopi Goldberg suggest that the legal concept of statutory rape isn't actual rape. And questioning this idea is seen as outrageous on a progressive blog? And Geimer--a "little girl"? *Sigh*

:Article: ''"This was a mainstream, accepted response until Salon's Kate Harding stated a simple, no-nonsense fact: 'Roman Polanski raped a child,' she wrote in Broadsheet."''

Ah yes, Harding the great open-minded, critically thinking progressive. Let's take a look at what she said. Geimer being a "child" was a "no-nonsense fact." The idea that a teen is less than a young adult because of her legal status sure is a progressive idea and most certainly a "fact." And the idea that statutory rape is identical to actual rape as the word is correctly defined, without even bothering to distinguish the two, is also entirely factual. Let's look at more of Harding's quote.

:Harding: ''"Let's keep in mind that [he] gave a 13-year-old girl a Quaalude and champagne, then raped her, before we start discussing whether the victim looked older than her 13 years, or that she now says she'd rather not see him prosecuted because she can't stand the media attention."''

Never mind the fact that a judge acknowledged how Geimer was experienced with using Quaaludes (though I would never recommend giving a drug to anyone of any age for recreational purposes and I do condemn Polanski for doing this). The judge was simply "crooked" for this acknowledgment. As for Geimer being criticized because she didn't want the media pushing for her into embracing the "victim" card and telling them how severely damaged for life this mother of three was when she feels otherwise (and never even considering that she may be the best judge of this than anyone else) and thus entering this media circus and having her family pulled into it also...need I say more?

:Harding: ''"Before we discuss how awesome his movies are or what the now-deceased judge did wrong at his trial, let's take a moment to recall that according to the victim's grand jury testimony, Roman Polanski instructed her to get into a jacuzzi naked, refused to take her home when she begged to go, began kissing her even though she said no and asked him to stop; performed cunnilingus on her as she said no and asked him to stop; put his penis in her vagina as she said no and asked him to stop; asked if he could penetrate her anally, to which she replied, 'No,' then went ahead and did it anyway, until he had an orgasm."''

Okay, we are now back to the controversy of Geimer's grand jury testimony. It would seem to be damning evidence against Polanski, and this was cited as such by his detractors in the MAA community as well as my much respected youth liberationist friend who told me that I should renounce my support for Polanski based on that testimony. I agreed to do so, hence my post "My Support For Roman Polanski Reconsidered." But...there may be more to consider here than I realized at the time.

I cannot pretend to know what Geimer's thoughts were back then. However, based on much evidence that we have seen since the era of Polanski's original crime, has it not been the case that cops and social workers have compelled minors who had mutually consensual sex with adults into saying what they wanted to hear? Why hasn't Polanski ever been accused of forcing himself on anyone else? Why just this one isolated incident? And if Geimer's grand jury testimony was entirely her own and had nothing to do with pressure from the cops and social workers (this was before the practice came into vogue with the beginning of the sex abuse hysteria that started just a few years after the Polanski case, but I doubt it didn't happen before), then why her later 'change of heart'? Now before anyone accuses me of being insensitive to the victim, why didn't Geimer and her mom say the same things after the grand jury hearing that Samantha was recorded as saying during that hearing? Why wouldn't Geimer come out in force against Polanski today, when he is at a vulnerable point and where she could easily sway public opinion against him and make fools out of his supporters? Can Harding and her cohorts honestly say that it's all about the ambitions of Geimer's stage mom at this point in time? Is Geimer's mother still a 'Stage Mom from Hell' even now? Could a mere desire to stay out of the media be the motivation for her to support Polanski if her grand jury allegations were entirely unmotivated by the pressure of the cops and social workers, and he really did drug her out and then force himself on her? I admit the high degree of ambiguity in the above situation, and I welcome feedback from everyone on both sides of the issue, though I do think what I said up above should be considered in light of Geimer's statements outside of the grand jury hearing.

:Article: ''"Throughout her exceedingly rational piece, Harding offered the crucial reminder that he had raped a child. It was a call to arms -- and a hugely successful one at that. Her post landed her an appearance on the 'Today' show, Time magazine called it 'the best, most comprehensive rebuttal' of Polanski's supporters, and Newsweek highlighted her post as the most notable of the 'smart and convincing' responses to his arrest. It restored sanity to the national conversation."''

And once again, questioning conventional wisdom is against "sanity" and "rationality." Gotcha.

Next comes the article by Mary Elizabeth Williams, which was much more reasonable than the others on Salon in many ways:

:Williams: ''"The woman at the heart of the Roman Polanski rape case has spoken, and once again, she's explicitly asked for the charges against the director to be dropped.''

:''"In the statement filed by her attorney Lawrence Silver on Friday, the woman said that she has received 'close to 500 phone calls from media as far as Germany, Israel and Japan.' She's received invitations to appear on Oprah and Larry King, and photographers have camped outside her home and offered gifts to her kids in exchange for information."''

Hmmmm...and to think people are actually questioning why she may have asked to be left alone. And I'm sure she doesn't feel the least bit concerned about being swayed into claiming she was a "victim," as she may have been in the past. Oprah asked her to come on her show? If Geimer is the least bit familiar with Oprah's reputation for objectivity and open-mindedness regarding this particular subject, is it any wonder she was concerned about going on the Big O's show? I am glad Williams had the stones to confront this matter in a way that was the pinnacle of open-mindedness in comparison to what was said in the previous articles on Salon about the Polanski situation.

The rest of Williams' article, though not in any way questioning the situation regarding Polanski's guilt, nevertheless further described emphatically why Geimer's wishes to be left alone should be honored. And that, at least, is commendable.

:Williams: ''"It would be great if it were possible to mete out justice for a sex abuser while honoring the privacy of his victim, but in this case it's not. The on and off attention she's lived with for the past 30 years are nothing compared to the deluge of reporters who have been chasing her and her family over the past weeks. In addition, she's had to contend with the very public and high-profile support her rapist has received from the entertainment industry, and a fair measure of subsequent disparagement of her own character. In an interview this week in the Atlantic's online edition, author Gore Vidal sniffed, 'Look, am I going to sit and weep every time a young hooker feels as though she's been taken advantage of? The idea that this girl was in her communion dress, a little angel all in white, being raped by this awful Jew, Polacko -- that's what people were calling him -- well, the story is totally different now from what it was then.'''

Okay, I would like to point out that Polanski has just as many detractors as supporters in this situation, and probably much more so. He has been subjected to at least as many character attacks as Geimer has. Geimer could easily have gotten enough media sympathy and support to insure Polanski's downfall. For instance, I am sure that if she went on Oprah's show the Big O would have done as much as anyone possibly could to defame Polanski and make Geimer look like a true victim. Would anyone argue that Oprah lacks sufficient influence to do this?

As for Vidal's words, he is an idiot to say something like that. There was no call for him to come off like attacking Geimer in that way and to suggest that she was a "hooker," especially not considering how she hasn't attacked Polanski in all the years since the incident. Give the woman some respect. He should have made it more clear that he was attacking the perception of the younger Geimer and other girls her age as "little angels all in white" and living paragons of innocence as crafted by American culture via following the Victorian model, rather than seeming to attack Geimer specifically, even though I understand that he was actually attempting to do the former. Of course, Williams and other enlightened progressive members of "the pack" are not going to see it this way.

:Williams: ''"Her request for dismissal is a tough one for many to fathom."''

For many in ''this'' society and period of time, at least.

:Williams: ''"The Los Angeles Times scolded this weekend that 'Polanski's victim is not judge and jury.' In brushing aside her wishes, the paper said that 'We empathize with [the victim], who has received about 500 media calls in recent weeks, but the case against Polanski was not brought to satisfy her desire for justice or her need for closure.' Yeah, who does she think she is anyway, with her desires and needs?"''

Thank you, Mary Elizabeth.

==Sources==
The URL to the page on Salon.com where all of the Polanski articles can be seen is here:

'''http://www.salon.com/entertainment/movies/roman_polanski'''

Here is the URL to my October 2nd, 2009 post on GirlChat entitled, "My Thoughts On the Polanski Situation Reconsidered," an opinion I repudiated in the above essay/analysis due to my further study of Samantha Geimer's grand jury testimony. This further study took into consideration all the evidence regarding its possible validity, including the fact that Geimer's subsequent actions, including her refusal to help indict Polanski in more recent years and her request that the charges be dropped even when she could have easily swayed public sentiment to her side if she did so--as well as statements she made on other occasions years after the incident--just didn't match up with that of someone who was actually forced to engage in sex without her consent. As a possible explanation as to why she made that testimony at the grand jury hearing if it wasn't actually true, one must consider the well acknowledged tendency of law enforcement officers and social workers to attempt to coax alleged victims of sexual abuse who had actually consented to the activity into fabricating details to make a better case against the accused, a tendency that became crystal clear to the public with the notorious [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Day_care_sex_abuse_hysteria McMartin pre-school incident]. The URL to that post is here:

'''http://www.annabelleigh.net/messages/480506.htm'''

Below is the URL to my October 1st, 2009 post on GirlChat where I defended Roman Polanski from an attack by ''New York Times'' columnist Jonathan Rosenbaum prior to my reading Samantha Geimer's grand jury testimony:

'''http://www.annabelleigh.net/messages/480360.htm'''

[[Category:Dissident's essays]]

Essay:The Ultimate Pandora Box: The Phillip Greaves Case And The First Amendment

2011-12-05T22:08:56Z

Dissident: /* Update */

==by Dissident==

'''The State must declare the child to be the most precious treasure of the people. As long as government is perceived as working for the benefit of children, the people happily will endure almost any curtailment of liberty.'''

'''- Rabbi Daniel Lapin'''

My thanks and appreciation to several members of the GirlChat [GC] forum who edited my early drafts of this essay, and who contributed material to it: Scotty, qtns2di4, Lateralus, Summerdays, Tester, LOD, and Taf-kat.

The December 20th, 2010 arrest of Phillip R. Greaves, author of the uber-controversial self-published e-book ''The Pedophile's Guide to Love and Pleasure: a Child-lover's Code of Conduct'', on obscenity charges filed against him from a Florida court (despite the fact that the author resides in Colorado) makes a very important point very clear in our society: the current anti-pedo hysteria may not be compatible with the Bill of Rights, particularly the First Amendment. The whole story can be read about [http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/12/20/national/main7168315.shtml?tag=strip here].

The words of the Polk County Sheriff who had Greaves arrested, Grady Judd, goes a long way towards revealing the real reason why the powers-that-be in our society argue for the power to single out certain ideas that it considers particularly offensive to warrant an arrest for those expressing such "forbidden" thoughts through the written word despite our pretenses towards a constitutional democracy that is supposed to protect unpopular speech as readily as our most popular and cherished opinions. That is basically what the crime of "obscenity" is designed to do. Its parameters are usually vague enough that you can arrest people for almost any type of speech or imagery that offends the sensibilities of a large number of people in either any given community--or the entire nation--if you can't build up charges for anything more substantive, such as evidence for some type of demonstrable harm suffered by a human being (as opposed to a cherished idea or paradigm). And it's also quite telling how powerful the "obscenity" laws of a single small county within a state can be when the author of the offending words lives in another state located far from the prosecuting court or the jurisdiction of the LEOs [law enforcement officers] who ordered the arrest.

Let's note a few of Sheriff Judd's ever-so-enlightened words for bringing Greaves to what he considers to be "justice" [as excerpted from the above linked article on CBS News]:

"I was outraged by the content," Judd told The Associated Press. "It was clearly a manifesto on how to sexually batter children ... You just can't believe how absolutely disgusting it was."

Sexually battered children? Since Greaves said he in no way promoted any illegal activity in his book, it's quite clear that the powers-that-be--like the vigilantes who run notorious hate groups like Absolute Zero United [AZU]--enjoy twisting words and meanings so that advocating an open-minded or neutral attitude towards intergenerational love and sexuality is automatically encouraging "rape" and "molestation"--or in this case, "sexual battery." This is a classic "trap" situation that these pundits of purity and ideological orthodoxy place before authors who dare to tackle this subject in any way other than total condemnation, because this attitude allows the vigilantes and LEOs to label fully consensual sexual contact as "rape," "molestation," "sexual battery," etc., simply because ''the law says that is the case solely due to the age of one of the two participants regardless of whether or not the matter of consent was present and how the younger participant may have felt about the experience''. This enables the pundits of the law and arbiters of anti-youth sexuality to bring an extremely loaded context to the entire discussion or purpose of the author in question, and to define actions according to what the law refers to them as, rather than what the actual definition of the word entails. If merely arguing that intergenerational sexual contact should be legal if consent from both parties is duly respected constitutes the advocating of "rape" or "molestation" in the eyes of the law, then what does this mean in regards to the First Amendment right of people to peacefully challenge laws which they do not agree with via the written word? Isn't this a massive case of political and intellectual dirty pool being leveled against those who may wish to oppose a certain topic that the current national mindset considers unpopular to challenge? Attorneys who are truly loyal to constitutional rights need to directly confront this issue in the near future, and I can only hope that Greaves' legal team does so.

Another matter brought up by Judd is a classic reason for leveling charges of "obscenity" against someone: that the topic they are discussing, and the stance they take in regards to that topic--and possibly some of the scenarios they use to illustrate their points--come off as "disgusting" (i.e., a visceral, knee-jerk negative emotional reaction) to those who read it. Sheriff Judd actually used that adjective, so I can hardly be accused of putting words in his mouth or distorting the meaning of what he tried to say. So, in other words, if certain types of speech and certain means of conveying points, such as through hypothetical scenarios, happen to offend the personal sensibilities of people badly enough, then the vice police should have the legal power to arrest and indict that person. Is this what you are saying, Sheriff Judd? If so, then you need to take a crash course on constitutional law, and learn what the meaning of the First Amendment is, so that you can understand that a true constitutional democracy doesn't limit its protection of ideas to only those which are popular and do not offend anyone. If such was the case, then we shouldn’t pretend we have a democracy—even a nominal one—in the first place.

I would like to say here that I have spoken with a fellow MAA [Minor Attracted Adult] who reviewed Greaves' e-book, and he said the tome is certainly deserving of a certain degree of criticism. For instance, his hypothetical scenarios of sexual contact spoken from a faux child's point of view may arguably be considered unwise in the present climate, and the inclusion of these scenarios were bound to make the case for an "obscenity" charge somewhere in the nation. This is not to say, however, that I think the charge was justified, because those scenarios he described in his book were not actual events, and it shouldn't matter whether or not the ideas expressed by those scenarios offended a large number of people or not. Change and social evolution cannot occur without a large amount of outrage as the old ideas are challenged and new ones suggested in their place, and the normative ideas of one century are very often the highly controversial or radical ideas of a previous century. Greaves' e-tome and other publications like it are putting our purported commitment to democracy and freedom of speech to a major test, and it's a shame that individuals like Sheriff Judd are determined to make our nation fail that test. What will it mean to future generations if the nation ends up miserably failing that all-important test on a wide scale? This question is especially important when you consider how the U.S. often seems determined to drag the rest of the world down whatever abyss it chooses to plunge into itself by way of its presently unrivaled economic and military power (though China and Russia are both rising powers in the global arena, as if we really needed more "super power" nations in the world; but that is a whole other topic).

Let's take a look at another excerpt from the above linked article, which includes more of Judd's spurious comments:

"‘What's wrong with a society that has gotten to the point that we can't arrest child pornographers and child molesters who write a book about how to rape a child?’ said Judd, who keeps a Bible on his desk and is known throughout Florida as a crusader against child predators.

“Florida'[s] obscenity law - a third-degree felony - prohibits the ‘distribution of obscene material depicting minors engaged in conduct harmful to minors.’"

It's rather interesting how Judd considers Greaves to be a "child pornographer" and a "child molester" despite the fact that he took no illegal pictures of nude minors or of minors engaged in sexual situations, nor has he ever been accused of illegal sexual contact with a minor. Yet, because of his mere ideas, and the first person narrative style he used to explicate fictitious scenarios to illustrate a specific idea to his readers, he has actually been referred to by these shameful monikers from an officer of the law, an obvious attempt to garner a specific emotional reaction of outrage towards Greaves despite the fact that his actions in no way fit the true definition of such terms. Does this not make it clear that these terms are becoming more and more broad, and pretty much slowly evolving in the popular and even legal lexicon to mean nearly anything the person using those terms wants them to mean? Does this mean that pro-choice MAAs who are fully law-abiding are now considered "child molesters" simply because of their views, regardless of having had no actual sexual contact with a minor? Does the exercise of free speech in defense of fully consensual intergenerational romantic/sexual relationships now constitute an act of "child pornography?" I am not currently sure how graphic Greaves' first person fictional narratives were, but I will say that the mere written word is not currently against the law in America, though authors have been arrested on "obscenity" charges for such written material in the past. That is the joy of the "obscenity" charge for prosecutors--the charge can be applied to nearly anything that happens to offend them or others badly enough.

Also, is it any wonder that Sheriff Judd keeps a Bible on his desk? Not to disparage the Bible for whatever truths or insights it can provide to those who read it, but that tome has been infamous for the number of fundamentalists who have used various scriptures within it to justify any number of totalitarian policies or bigoted attitudes. Never mind the fact that there is clearly nothing in the Bible that speaks out against mutually consensual intergenerational relationships, as the "pedophile problem" was a non-issue in the long ago era when the Bible was written since younger people were not conceptualized in the same way then that they are today, i.e., as helpless, naive innocents who are always harmed by participation in even mutually consensual sexual activity. Then again, Bible-thumpers of any given era have always felt free to interpret and twist any given scripture to mean pretty much anything they want it to mean, and to help them rationalize any given moralizing crusade they may have up their sleeves in any given decade or century.

Further, Sheriff Judd is known throughout Florida as a crusader against "child predators," yet another term that appears to be used more and more broadly as time goes on. So Greaves is now a "child predator" because of his ''ideas and opinions''? What does that make anyone who dares to speak in an open-minded fashion about mutually consensual intergenerational sexual contact? Is it any wonder that the mainstream progressives and liberals--a political tendency whose adherents have not been known for their courage over the past three decades since the conservative mindset took over the nation with Reagan's election back in 1980—usually tend to speak out as mindlessly ignorant about this subject as any conservative whenever they care to discuss it publicly? By broadening these terms to apply to individuals with no criminal records who simply have unpopular ideas, this is a clear attempt at intimidating people into not speaking out against the hysteria, to not look at the general subject of youth sexuality in a remotely progressive fashion (at least not publicly), and to not in any way challenge the feeding of people who benefit and acquire power via the ongoing "child predator" and sex abuse hysteria like Judd out of fear of being called all the usual names. It takes real courage to challenge the extreme damage that people like Judd are doing to the foundation of our democracy, and this courage is in short supply today as anyone who merely challenges the popular reigning conception of youth sexuality, or our present day paradigm of the "child" in general, can be labeled a "child predator" or a "child molester."

Of course, Judd made sure to justify his "obscenity" charge against Greaves by saying that it's unlawful in his Florida county to distribute "obscene material depicting minors engaged in conduct harmful to minors." Never mind the fact that all of the available objective and peer-reviewed science has found no evidence that intergenerational sexual activity is harmful to minors if the matter of ''consent'' was honored and respected by the older participant (see Rind, 1998; Green, 2010; and Bailey, 2011). How long are we going to ignore science and continue to allow the law to create policies that are based on a social myth? Isn't this problem especially grave now that freedom of speech and the free expression of unpopular ideas that a lot of people consider to be "disgusting" are at risk of being stifled by the power of the state? If this precedent is allowed to continue, how far will it go? Where will it end? What type of society will be the ultimate result of this tendency taken to its logical conclusion?

Thankfully, this major threat to democracy in general and the First Amendment in particular has not gone entirely unnoticed by those who have worked within the legal system. Note this other excerpt from the above linked article:

“Legal experts questioned whether Greaves' right to free speech would come into play if there's a trial. If prosecutors can charge Greaves for shipping his book, they ask, what would prevent booksellers from facing prosecution for selling Vladimir Nabokov's ''Lolita'', a novel about a pedophile [sic]?

"‘As bad as this book may be, the charge opens a very big Pandora's box,’ said Dennis J. Kenney, a former police officer in Polk County and a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York. ‘The charge sounds to me like a significant overreach.’"

It's nice to see that some people like Prof. Kenney can put aside the emotional effect that this book has on him long enough to realize what is actually at stake when it comes to the type of legal actions taken by Sheriff Judd and his many ideological partners-in-crime. Hence, there is hope on the horizon, but will we end up in a Second Dark Age before this hysteria and those who benefit from it are exposed for what they really are, and for what the implications they represent on our core freedoms really entail? That is the major question we should all be concerned with.

Finally, Sheriff Judd made a comment in the above linked article that is all too common from any pundit looking for an irreproachable excuse to circumvent democracy and arrest people for promulgating "offensive" or "dangerous" ideas:

"‘If we can get jurisdiction ... we're coming after you,’ Judd said. ‘There's nothing in the world more important than our children.’"

As long as that intellectually dishonest excuse is made, virtually any curtailment of our essential freedoms and liberties can be rationalized, and those who do cherish democracy are often afraid to challenge anyone making such statements for fear of being accused of being a "child predator," "child molester," "soft on child abuse," etc., regardless of the fact that it's quite obvious that what Judd is actually concerned about is not the safety of children, but rather an attempt to make it a case of political suicide to challenge the sacrosanct ''idea'' of what the conceptual image of the "child" is supposed to represent in our society.

As one of my fellow MAAs who reviewed this e-book said to me about this situation via e-mail:

"He was arrested for 'distributing obscene material depicting minors engaged in conduct harmful to minors.' Obviously, Amazon is at least as guilty. They, not Greaves, sent it to me. Should I report them to the police?

"Seriously, if Greaves is going to be arrested over this, we should all push for Amazon, Jeff Bezos, and all his minions under him to be arrested. What better way to make people realize the absurdity of all this?"

To further underscore the seriousness of this situation, how much of a threat this hysteria poses to our democracy, and exactly what happens when mob rule takes over and people allow their emotions to cloud their reasoning faculties, my fellow MAA activist Scotty made this observation about the Greaves arrest:

"He did not send the material to a minor; he sent it to an adult police officer. He violated Polk County law, not state law.

"Then the sheriff asks Colorado to arrest the man and extradite him to Florida, and they do it? He WAS NOT arrested by Polk County deputies in Colorado where they have no jurisdiction; Colorado authorities did it.

"Now, a red-neck county in Florida seeks to impose its will upon the rest of the United States.

"I went to AC360 to comment, and I could not believe the things that were posted there.
The vast majority agreed with the sheriff AND said that if the author cannot be prosecuted
under the Constitution of the United States as it is presently written, then we should change
it to allow that!

"Do you see where this is heading? If such a constitutional referendum came before the people now
it would probably pass.

"The powers-that-be are using pedophilia to take away our freedoms! The posters also wanted the
people who purchased the book to be jailed, and Amazon to be prosecuted for selling it!

"''Playboy'' magazine interviewed noted international security consultant Philippe Bacard and asked
him if it were possible to turn America into a police state. His reply:

"'Easy.
First, keep a dossier of every schoolchild from the beginning, so that every future American
will grow up knowing that the government is keeping a record of his activities.

"'Second, scare the people into surrendering their freedoms by filling the news with stories of
drug dealers, pedophiles, and terrorists.

"'In fact, it is happening now!'"

As of December 22nd, 2010, Greaves has declared that he will continue his habit of courage by fighting the charges against him, as reported [http://www.abcactionnews.com/dpp/news/region_polk/infamous-pedophile-guide-author-could-beat-obscenity-charges here].

An excerpt from the above linked article notes:

“Greaves said he plans to fight the obscenity charge, and he expects to win.

“One lawyer says Greaves will walk out of jail a free man.

“ ‘I don’t think that this case has a chance of being successful for Grady Judd and Polk County authorities,’ said defense attorney and First Amendment expert Lawrence Walters.”

Though many people will balk at the fact that a "pedophile" will likely be granted the freedom of speech to express his opinions openly, this predicted resolution will actually be a victory for ''everyone'' in America, because ultimately the Constitution and the principles we defend under American law will prevail over knee-jerk emotional reactionary attitudes, and one less book will be censored as a result.

My thanks to fellow MAA activist LOD for providing me and the rest of the community with the information from the above linked article.

==ADDENDUM==

The early drafts of this essay generated a good degree of further discourse amongst my fellow MAA activists on the GirlChat forum, and their words deserve to be included in the last section of this essay.

My fellow activist qtns2di4 had this to say while quickly evaluating my first draft:

"Obscenity statutes have so far been upheld as valid 1A exceptions.

"I wouldn't fight it, because of this, as a 1A issue.

"I am much, much, much more convinced that it is a violation of the Federation arrangement through the Commerce Clause. This is very clearly Interstate Commerce. Federal jurisdiction. The states have no authority over that. The police officers have to be arrested for possession, but there is no fault either from the Colorado guy [Greaves] or from Amazon because they are in other states, so they are regulated by the Federal in this interaction."

Lateralus responded to the above with the following anecdote:

"It doesn't matter on what grounds you fight this; it will stand at the local level, though it might be overturned at the state/federal level. The reason is simple: if you have a jury trying this case, the jury will uphold anything having to do with pedophilia, because most people are ignorant and high-strung when it comes to this issue. I believe juries should be outlawed in the U.S. at this point. They used to be fairly reliable. You could count on the average person to exercise fairness with regard to their peers and be pretty well up on the laws. That time is no more. Juries were invented to counter the biases inherent to the class system, but they are no longer very useful because average people are idiots who make decisions based on emotional gut reactions, not on facts or higher principles."

Though Lateralus' words towards his fellow 'common' citizens were rather harsh and arguably ad hominem territory, it cannot be denied that the essence of his statement was true: too many people think with their emotions when it comes to this issue, and anti-democratic, agenda-pushing pundits like Sheriff Judd count on this. If Judd didn't think that he could count on this type of emotionalistic attitude from his fellow citizens, he never would have wasted the time to push such an unconstitutional case in the first place. He knew Greaves' opinions were unpopular enough that many people in a possible jury--along with many in the press on any side of the political spectrum--wouldn't care about the important foundations of American jurisprudence as long as a "disgusting" pedophile was arrested and his book censored.

In response to the above response by Lateralus, qtns2di4 stated:

"In most states (and for most ''felonies'') the defendant can freely choose whether to go jury or bench trial.

"In this particular case, the Commerce Clause argument would be about admissibility in the court, so it would have to be argued pre-trial, and would always be bench, not jury, because it is a Technicality.

"The First argument is about the merits of the case. Here is where it might be jury (don't know the specifics, there might be choice or there might be a statute determining it is one or the other). Evidently, for the same reasons you point out, I would choose bench. But still, if the presiding judge is only county level, not state level, then it might still stick - at least until it made it to the state level. Any state level judge should know better than that (''should'' is, of course, no guarantee that they ''do'').

"Notice that the book need not be declared legal in Polk County for Greaves to be acquitted; all the defense needs to prove is that it was a legal material to sell or possess in his own jurisdiction and that there was no way he could prevent its sale to pockets within the USA where it is not legal. Much like, e.g., small wineries, breweries, and distilleries that only sell online cannot realistically know when they are selling to a dry county - yet I am sure if any such case was tested the cops are the only ones that would be jailed - and at least they would be very publicly embarrassed. (Now of course, if the verdict makes the book legal, that is welcome! I just wanted to remind [here] that it doesn't have to go that far to acquit Greaves)."

My fellow MAA activist Summerdays then had these important words and observations to add to this discussion:

"Our 1st Amendment 'rights' have been watered down to the point that 'freedom of speech' hardly means anything anymore. That is the insidious way to do it. Most people will say, 'well, we still have freedom of speech, there are just certain kinds of speech that don't deserve protection, that's all.' This is how people are tricked into believing they have freedom of speech when they don't. Into believing that censorship in some way serves our rights - by providing us protection at the expense of liberty. Unfortunately, most people these days seem far more concerned with protection than liberty, they'd gladly sacrifice the latter for the former, and it's apparently beyond them to consider why that's a bad thing. I'd rather take the risk of being free, than the protection of living in a cage.

"And people will still argue, 'the ones in power are sensible, they'll only censor things that really ought to be censored to begin with.' Slippery slope arguments don't seem to faze these people. Most of them are lucky enough to have thoughts and opinions that go along with the status quo, or are otherwise too susceptible to suggestion. If it's censored, then it ought to have been censored. People argue that the topic of pedophilia is rightly censored because what kind of civilized society would allow the spreading of speech that depicts the 'rape' of children? But the reality of it is, I could have an extremely positive romantic fantasy about having an intimate moment with another human being, but if that human being is a minor, and I choose to share that fantasy with the wrong person, I could be subjecting myself to a world of hurt (if not at the hands of the law, then at the hands of my peers at least). There's nothing sensible about censoring the topic of pedophilia. There's nothing civilized about it either."

Summerdays continued with a few responses to various points I made in the above essay (which will be repeated in '''bold face''' to make it clear which points Summerdays is referring to, while Summerdays' responses will be in standard text in quotation marks):

'''"I was outraged by the content," Judd told The Associated Press. "It was clearly a manifesto on how to sexually batter children ... You just can't believe how absolutely disgusting it was."'''

"This cop is going up against a phantom. A 'sexual predator' who wrote a book about committing heinous crimes. Except the predator, and the book, exist only within his mind, and the minds of those who believe his lies. Unfortunately, though, that phantom has been projected onto a real person who wrote a real book, and he's being punished for this cop's tortured fantasies. I can't believe the system encourages this gross abuse of 'justice.'

"Obscenity law is unconstitutional."

Here I must say that I totally agree with Summerdays on that assessment, because the notion of "obscenity" doesn't stand well as a legal concept in a constitutional democracy, since the term is very subjective, what it covers changes not only from decade to decade but also according to the personal opinions and sensibilities of any given judge depending upon what type of community he/she happened to have been brought up in or happened to be adjudicating within. It's not a concept that can have a specific definition that holds up to the test of time or all sensibilities, and as such it results in judges and LEOs using their own discretion upon which material to judge "obscene" or not. Also, and most importantly, what the "obscenity" laws basically legalize is the power of the courts and LEAs [law enforcement agencies] to criminalize any type of text or image that they find personally offensive, or which a majority of people in the nation (or certain areas within the country) may find offensive, and that is not conducive with democratic principles. This is also why hate speech and anti-war speech must be allowed in a true constitutional democracy despite the highly offensive nature of such words or images.

'''So Greaves is now a "child predator" because of his ''ideas and opinions''?'''

"Judd laid a trap for Greaves. I think it's obvious which one of the two is the predator."

'''It takes real courage to challenge the extreme damage that people like Judd are doing to the foundation of our democracy[...]'''

"The people who stand up for democracy are labeled criminals and thrown in jail. The people who continue to erode our democracy are awarded positions like 'sheriff,' 'judge,' 'mayor.' It's disgusting."

I would opine here that all too often people in positions of power attempt to protect the sanctity of certain ideas while masquerading as an attempt to protect actual people. However noble this may sound to too many people in essence, it's not harmonious with the principles of a true constitutional democracy. And before any detractor of ours chimes in here with the following oft-used statement to attempt to defend anti-democratic actions, "the U.S. actually isn't a democracy, it's a republic," let me remind you that the only 'differences' between a democracy and a republic are purely semantic.

'''Of course, Judd made sure to justify his "obscenity" charge against Greaves by saying that it's unlawful in his Florida county to distribute "obscene material depicting minors engaged in conduct harmful to minors."'''

"Personally, I think Judd should be held responsible for requesting material that he knew was illegal in his county. I don't give a damn that he's a cop, that doesn't give him the right to break the law with impunity, especially for the purpose of luring others into legal traps. And it doesn't make a difference to me whether this constitutes legal 'entrapment'; I think the cop should be punished regardless, for his blatant disregard for the law, as well as his petty victimizing (not to mention the lies - no, cops should not be allowed to lie to anyone).

"What a world we live in."

After this, qtns2di4 then weighed in with the following responses to Summerdays' above points [the former of which are in standard text within quotation marks, the latter of which are again in '''bold face''']:

'''Most people will say, "well, we still have freedom of speech, there are just certain kinds of speech that don't deserve protection, that's all."'''

"'Freedom of speech is there to protect the ideas which are uncomfortable to us. The ideas everyone agrees upon need no legal protection.'
(Miloš Forman)"

'''Into believing that censorship in some way serves our rights - by providing us protection at the expense of liberty. Unfortunately, most people these days seem far more concerned with protection than liberty, they'd gladly sacrifice the latter for the former, and it's apparently beyond them to consider why that's a bad thing.'''

"Larry Niven's Equation: F * S = k
"(The product of Freedom and Security is a constant. Any increase in either comes at the expense of the other)."

'''And people will still argue, "the ones in power are sensible, they'll only censor things that really ought to be censored to begin with."'''

"Politicians are not suddenly more sensible or ethical because you happen to agree with their current position. They are the same politicians you hate every other day of the calendar, when they are not busy screwing up pedophiles, but screwing up someone else."

'''Personally, I think Judd should be held responsible for requesting material that he knew was illegal in his county. I don't give a damn that he's a cop, that doesn't give him the right to break the law with impunity, especially for the purpose of luring others into legal traps. And it doesn't make a difference to me whether this constitutes legal "entrapment," I think the cop should be punished regardless, for his blatant disregard for the law, as well as his petty victimizing (not to mention the lies - no, cops should not be allowed to lie to anyone).'''

"If he had requested a product from a country under U.S. embargo, he'd already be in federal jail, no matter what his title is - and independently of whether anyone else would also get charged with distribution (likely yes)."

Thus, it would appear that LEOs are liable for violating some laws when seeking arrests, but not any that happen to more blatantly inconvenience the federal government as opposed to the rights of common citizens.

A single statement/request by Tester is worth mentioning here:

"Anderson Cooper, Bill O'Reilly, and other TV news anchors all said on National TV that they purchased this book. I want these TV news anchors arrested for possession of [obscene material]."

The source for the above can be seen [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOxI52FRVO4&playnext=1&list=PL01FE48A945663615&index=83 here].

If these news anchors are not prosecuted as Tester has requested, then it would appear we are sent the message that what type of material you may have in your possession doesn't matter so much as why you have possession of it. If this is the case, then why do the LEAs continue to prohibit respected journalists from viewing the content of their child pornography files for the purpose of verifying all of the often outrageous claims made by the LEOs in regards to what type of imagery exists in those files? (And yes, you're damn right I'm going to bring this subject up again, even if only briefly!) Once again, it would appear that certain laws are honored or ignored by the courts depending upon whom they may or may not happen to inconvenience.

==Update==

Courtesy of my fellow GChatter LOD, as of April 6, 2011, it was reported in [http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/04/06/2154135/author-of-pedophilia-book-gets.html#ixzz1ImTQnWAf this article] that Phillip Greaves has decided to plead "no contest" to the charges against him.

An excerpt from the above linked article (in '''bold face'''):

'''LAKELAND, Fla. -- A Colorado man who wrote ''The Pedophile's Guide to Love and Pleasure'' has been sentenced to two years probation in Florida.'''

'''As part of a deal with Polk County prosecutors, 48-year-old Phillip R. Greaves II pleaded no contest Wednesday to distributing obscene material depicting minors engaged in conduct harmful to minors. He will serve his probation in Colorado. He will not have to register as a sex offender.'''

In response to that on the GC board, qtns2di4 said:

"No contest ≠ Guilty plea.

"It doesn't set a precedent (good for us), and doesn't necessarily prevent double jeopardy (bad for him).

"I would still have fought it purely by Commerce Clause, trying to create a constitutional crisis."

In response to the above, LOD said:

"I know there are superficial differences but it basically means guilty, otherwise there would be no punishment."

A response from yours truly to the above was:

...it should be noted that his punishment--such as it is--was extremely light, especially when you consider there was no SOR [sex offender registration] requirements. So it may not be the equivalent of a full admission of guilt, and the very light probation may have been added just to make it clear that the court did "something" in exchange for his plea.

Nevertheless, I do wish he had chosen to fight this, and maybe even bring it all the way to the Supreme Court, out of principle rather than simply pleading "no contest" to something he clearly didn't do, when you consider what nebulous and subjective legal terms "obscenity" or "material depicting acts harmful to minors" can be. I suspect that his lawyer talked him into taking the easy way out of this one, probably saying something to him like, "With an accusation like this, you are all but guaranteed to lose in a trial by jury, so I strongly suggest you let me work out a plea bargain deal with the judge, because you don't want this going to a jury trial, and such a plea should be easy and light since the whole thing is simply over words in a book and you have no prior criminal record."

In response to the above comment of mine, Taf-kat weighed in with:

"Diss, I know it smacks of a sell-out, but when you have been given the option of a plea-bargain, like I have, it takes a man braver than me to decline it - despite pleading guilty with tears running down my cheeks it's something I would do again; sometimes you have to lose a battle and hope you win the war at a later date."

My reply to the above was:

Understood, and I'm sure I would have strongly considered taking the plea bargain too, especially such a light one, rather than face a jury trial against accusations of that nature. I have heard how difficult and trying such a situation can be, so I am not unsympathetic.

Nevertheless, I wish he had gone the distance because his case is so important to the issue of civil rights and free speech in general; it was over something as important as unpopular ideas expressed in a book rather than his being caught with illegal pics or engaging in illegal sexual activity; and it was based on an accusation that is very vague and subjective, i.e., the "obscenity" nonsense and the "material that is harmful to minors" claptrap. Your situation was different from his in a major sense, in my opinion. I wish he had found a more courageous and heavily principled defense attorney in the field of constitutional law.

[[Category:Dissident's essays]]

Essay:The Ultimate Pandora Box: The Phillip Greaves Case And The First Amendment

2011-12-05T22:07:23Z

Dissident: /* ADDENDUM */

==by Dissident==

'''The State must declare the child to be the most precious treasure of the people. As long as government is perceived as working for the benefit of children, the people happily will endure almost any curtailment of liberty.'''

'''- Rabbi Daniel Lapin'''

My thanks and appreciation to several members of the GirlChat [GC] forum who edited my early drafts of this essay, and who contributed material to it: Scotty, qtns2di4, Lateralus, Summerdays, Tester, LOD, and Taf-kat.

The December 20th, 2010 arrest of Phillip R. Greaves, author of the uber-controversial self-published e-book ''The Pedophile's Guide to Love and Pleasure: a Child-lover's Code of Conduct'', on obscenity charges filed against him from a Florida court (despite the fact that the author resides in Colorado) makes a very important point very clear in our society: the current anti-pedo hysteria may not be compatible with the Bill of Rights, particularly the First Amendment. The whole story can be read about [http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/12/20/national/main7168315.shtml?tag=strip here].

The words of the Polk County Sheriff who had Greaves arrested, Grady Judd, goes a long way towards revealing the real reason why the powers-that-be in our society argue for the power to single out certain ideas that it considers particularly offensive to warrant an arrest for those expressing such "forbidden" thoughts through the written word despite our pretenses towards a constitutional democracy that is supposed to protect unpopular speech as readily as our most popular and cherished opinions. That is basically what the crime of "obscenity" is designed to do. Its parameters are usually vague enough that you can arrest people for almost any type of speech or imagery that offends the sensibilities of a large number of people in either any given community--or the entire nation--if you can't build up charges for anything more substantive, such as evidence for some type of demonstrable harm suffered by a human being (as opposed to a cherished idea or paradigm). And it's also quite telling how powerful the "obscenity" laws of a single small county within a state can be when the author of the offending words lives in another state located far from the prosecuting court or the jurisdiction of the LEOs [law enforcement officers] who ordered the arrest.

Let's note a few of Sheriff Judd's ever-so-enlightened words for bringing Greaves to what he considers to be "justice" [as excerpted from the above linked article on CBS News]:

"I was outraged by the content," Judd told The Associated Press. "It was clearly a manifesto on how to sexually batter children ... You just can't believe how absolutely disgusting it was."

Sexually battered children? Since Greaves said he in no way promoted any illegal activity in his book, it's quite clear that the powers-that-be--like the vigilantes who run notorious hate groups like Absolute Zero United [AZU]--enjoy twisting words and meanings so that advocating an open-minded or neutral attitude towards intergenerational love and sexuality is automatically encouraging "rape" and "molestation"--or in this case, "sexual battery." This is a classic "trap" situation that these pundits of purity and ideological orthodoxy place before authors who dare to tackle this subject in any way other than total condemnation, because this attitude allows the vigilantes and LEOs to label fully consensual sexual contact as "rape," "molestation," "sexual battery," etc., simply because ''the law says that is the case solely due to the age of one of the two participants regardless of whether or not the matter of consent was present and how the younger participant may have felt about the experience''. This enables the pundits of the law and arbiters of anti-youth sexuality to bring an extremely loaded context to the entire discussion or purpose of the author in question, and to define actions according to what the law refers to them as, rather than what the actual definition of the word entails. If merely arguing that intergenerational sexual contact should be legal if consent from both parties is duly respected constitutes the advocating of "rape" or "molestation" in the eyes of the law, then what does this mean in regards to the First Amendment right of people to peacefully challenge laws which they do not agree with via the written word? Isn't this a massive case of political and intellectual dirty pool being leveled against those who may wish to oppose a certain topic that the current national mindset considers unpopular to challenge? Attorneys who are truly loyal to constitutional rights need to directly confront this issue in the near future, and I can only hope that Greaves' legal team does so.

Another matter brought up by Judd is a classic reason for leveling charges of "obscenity" against someone: that the topic they are discussing, and the stance they take in regards to that topic--and possibly some of the scenarios they use to illustrate their points--come off as "disgusting" (i.e., a visceral, knee-jerk negative emotional reaction) to those who read it. Sheriff Judd actually used that adjective, so I can hardly be accused of putting words in his mouth or distorting the meaning of what he tried to say. So, in other words, if certain types of speech and certain means of conveying points, such as through hypothetical scenarios, happen to offend the personal sensibilities of people badly enough, then the vice police should have the legal power to arrest and indict that person. Is this what you are saying, Sheriff Judd? If so, then you need to take a crash course on constitutional law, and learn what the meaning of the First Amendment is, so that you can understand that a true constitutional democracy doesn't limit its protection of ideas to only those which are popular and do not offend anyone. If such was the case, then we shouldn’t pretend we have a democracy—even a nominal one—in the first place.

I would like to say here that I have spoken with a fellow MAA [Minor Attracted Adult] who reviewed Greaves' e-book, and he said the tome is certainly deserving of a certain degree of criticism. For instance, his hypothetical scenarios of sexual contact spoken from a faux child's point of view may arguably be considered unwise in the present climate, and the inclusion of these scenarios were bound to make the case for an "obscenity" charge somewhere in the nation. This is not to say, however, that I think the charge was justified, because those scenarios he described in his book were not actual events, and it shouldn't matter whether or not the ideas expressed by those scenarios offended a large number of people or not. Change and social evolution cannot occur without a large amount of outrage as the old ideas are challenged and new ones suggested in their place, and the normative ideas of one century are very often the highly controversial or radical ideas of a previous century. Greaves' e-tome and other publications like it are putting our purported commitment to democracy and freedom of speech to a major test, and it's a shame that individuals like Sheriff Judd are determined to make our nation fail that test. What will it mean to future generations if the nation ends up miserably failing that all-important test on a wide scale? This question is especially important when you consider how the U.S. often seems determined to drag the rest of the world down whatever abyss it chooses to plunge into itself by way of its presently unrivaled economic and military power (though China and Russia are both rising powers in the global arena, as if we really needed more "super power" nations in the world; but that is a whole other topic).

Let's take a look at another excerpt from the above linked article, which includes more of Judd's spurious comments:

"‘What's wrong with a society that has gotten to the point that we can't arrest child pornographers and child molesters who write a book about how to rape a child?’ said Judd, who keeps a Bible on his desk and is known throughout Florida as a crusader against child predators.

“Florida'[s] obscenity law - a third-degree felony - prohibits the ‘distribution of obscene material depicting minors engaged in conduct harmful to minors.’"

It's rather interesting how Judd considers Greaves to be a "child pornographer" and a "child molester" despite the fact that he took no illegal pictures of nude minors or of minors engaged in sexual situations, nor has he ever been accused of illegal sexual contact with a minor. Yet, because of his mere ideas, and the first person narrative style he used to explicate fictitious scenarios to illustrate a specific idea to his readers, he has actually been referred to by these shameful monikers from an officer of the law, an obvious attempt to garner a specific emotional reaction of outrage towards Greaves despite the fact that his actions in no way fit the true definition of such terms. Does this not make it clear that these terms are becoming more and more broad, and pretty much slowly evolving in the popular and even legal lexicon to mean nearly anything the person using those terms wants them to mean? Does this mean that pro-choice MAAs who are fully law-abiding are now considered "child molesters" simply because of their views, regardless of having had no actual sexual contact with a minor? Does the exercise of free speech in defense of fully consensual intergenerational romantic/sexual relationships now constitute an act of "child pornography?" I am not currently sure how graphic Greaves' first person fictional narratives were, but I will say that the mere written word is not currently against the law in America, though authors have been arrested on "obscenity" charges for such written material in the past. That is the joy of the "obscenity" charge for prosecutors--the charge can be applied to nearly anything that happens to offend them or others badly enough.

Also, is it any wonder that Sheriff Judd keeps a Bible on his desk? Not to disparage the Bible for whatever truths or insights it can provide to those who read it, but that tome has been infamous for the number of fundamentalists who have used various scriptures within it to justify any number of totalitarian policies or bigoted attitudes. Never mind the fact that there is clearly nothing in the Bible that speaks out against mutually consensual intergenerational relationships, as the "pedophile problem" was a non-issue in the long ago era when the Bible was written since younger people were not conceptualized in the same way then that they are today, i.e., as helpless, naive innocents who are always harmed by participation in even mutually consensual sexual activity. Then again, Bible-thumpers of any given era have always felt free to interpret and twist any given scripture to mean pretty much anything they want it to mean, and to help them rationalize any given moralizing crusade they may have up their sleeves in any given decade or century.

Further, Sheriff Judd is known throughout Florida as a crusader against "child predators," yet another term that appears to be used more and more broadly as time goes on. So Greaves is now a "child predator" because of his ''ideas and opinions''? What does that make anyone who dares to speak in an open-minded fashion about mutually consensual intergenerational sexual contact? Is it any wonder that the mainstream progressives and liberals--a political tendency whose adherents have not been known for their courage over the past three decades since the conservative mindset took over the nation with Reagan's election back in 1980—usually tend to speak out as mindlessly ignorant about this subject as any conservative whenever they care to discuss it publicly? By broadening these terms to apply to individuals with no criminal records who simply have unpopular ideas, this is a clear attempt at intimidating people into not speaking out against the hysteria, to not look at the general subject of youth sexuality in a remotely progressive fashion (at least not publicly), and to not in any way challenge the feeding of people who benefit and acquire power via the ongoing "child predator" and sex abuse hysteria like Judd out of fear of being called all the usual names. It takes real courage to challenge the extreme damage that people like Judd are doing to the foundation of our democracy, and this courage is in short supply today as anyone who merely challenges the popular reigning conception of youth sexuality, or our present day paradigm of the "child" in general, can be labeled a "child predator" or a "child molester."

Of course, Judd made sure to justify his "obscenity" charge against Greaves by saying that it's unlawful in his Florida county to distribute "obscene material depicting minors engaged in conduct harmful to minors." Never mind the fact that all of the available objective and peer-reviewed science has found no evidence that intergenerational sexual activity is harmful to minors if the matter of ''consent'' was honored and respected by the older participant (see Rind, 1998; Green, 2010; and Bailey, 2011). How long are we going to ignore science and continue to allow the law to create policies that are based on a social myth? Isn't this problem especially grave now that freedom of speech and the free expression of unpopular ideas that a lot of people consider to be "disgusting" are at risk of being stifled by the power of the state? If this precedent is allowed to continue, how far will it go? Where will it end? What type of society will be the ultimate result of this tendency taken to its logical conclusion?

Thankfully, this major threat to democracy in general and the First Amendment in particular has not gone entirely unnoticed by those who have worked within the legal system. Note this other excerpt from the above linked article:

“Legal experts questioned whether Greaves' right to free speech would come into play if there's a trial. If prosecutors can charge Greaves for shipping his book, they ask, what would prevent booksellers from facing prosecution for selling Vladimir Nabokov's ''Lolita'', a novel about a pedophile [sic]?

"‘As bad as this book may be, the charge opens a very big Pandora's box,’ said Dennis J. Kenney, a former police officer in Polk County and a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York. ‘The charge sounds to me like a significant overreach.’"

It's nice to see that some people like Prof. Kenney can put aside the emotional effect that this book has on him long enough to realize what is actually at stake when it comes to the type of legal actions taken by Sheriff Judd and his many ideological partners-in-crime. Hence, there is hope on the horizon, but will we end up in a Second Dark Age before this hysteria and those who benefit from it are exposed for what they really are, and for what the implications they represent on our core freedoms really entail? That is the major question we should all be concerned with.

Finally, Sheriff Judd made a comment in the above linked article that is all too common from any pundit looking for an irreproachable excuse to circumvent democracy and arrest people for promulgating "offensive" or "dangerous" ideas:

"‘If we can get jurisdiction ... we're coming after you,’ Judd said. ‘There's nothing in the world more important than our children.’"

As long as that intellectually dishonest excuse is made, virtually any curtailment of our essential freedoms and liberties can be rationalized, and those who do cherish democracy are often afraid to challenge anyone making such statements for fear of being accused of being a "child predator," "child molester," "soft on child abuse," etc., regardless of the fact that it's quite obvious that what Judd is actually concerned about is not the safety of children, but rather an attempt to make it a case of political suicide to challenge the sacrosanct ''idea'' of what the conceptual image of the "child" is supposed to represent in our society.

As one of my fellow MAAs who reviewed this e-book said to me about this situation via e-mail:

"He was arrested for 'distributing obscene material depicting minors engaged in conduct harmful to minors.' Obviously, Amazon is at least as guilty. They, not Greaves, sent it to me. Should I report them to the police?

"Seriously, if Greaves is going to be arrested over this, we should all push for Amazon, Jeff Bezos, and all his minions under him to be arrested. What better way to make people realize the absurdity of all this?"

To further underscore the seriousness of this situation, how much of a threat this hysteria poses to our democracy, and exactly what happens when mob rule takes over and people allow their emotions to cloud their reasoning faculties, my fellow MAA activist Scotty made this observation about the Greaves arrest:

"He did not send the material to a minor; he sent it to an adult police officer. He violated Polk County law, not state law.

"Then the sheriff asks Colorado to arrest the man and extradite him to Florida, and they do it? He WAS NOT arrested by Polk County deputies in Colorado where they have no jurisdiction; Colorado authorities did it.

"Now, a red-neck county in Florida seeks to impose its will upon the rest of the United States.

"I went to AC360 to comment, and I could not believe the things that were posted there.
The vast majority agreed with the sheriff AND said that if the author cannot be prosecuted
under the Constitution of the United States as it is presently written, then we should change
it to allow that!

"Do you see where this is heading? If such a constitutional referendum came before the people now
it would probably pass.

"The powers-that-be are using pedophilia to take away our freedoms! The posters also wanted the
people who purchased the book to be jailed, and Amazon to be prosecuted for selling it!

"''Playboy'' magazine interviewed noted international security consultant Philippe Bacard and asked
him if it were possible to turn America into a police state. His reply:

"'Easy.
First, keep a dossier of every schoolchild from the beginning, so that every future American
will grow up knowing that the government is keeping a record of his activities.

"'Second, scare the people into surrendering their freedoms by filling the news with stories of
drug dealers, pedophiles, and terrorists.

"'In fact, it is happening now!'"

As of December 22nd, 2010, Greaves has declared that he will continue his habit of courage by fighting the charges against him, as reported [http://www.abcactionnews.com/dpp/news/region_polk/infamous-pedophile-guide-author-could-beat-obscenity-charges here].

An excerpt from the above linked article notes:

“Greaves said he plans to fight the obscenity charge, and he expects to win.

“One lawyer says Greaves will walk out of jail a free man.

“ ‘I don’t think that this case has a chance of being successful for Grady Judd and Polk County authorities,’ said defense attorney and First Amendment expert Lawrence Walters.”

Though many people will balk at the fact that a "pedophile" will likely be granted the freedom of speech to express his opinions openly, this predicted resolution will actually be a victory for ''everyone'' in America, because ultimately the Constitution and the principles we defend under American law will prevail over knee-jerk emotional reactionary attitudes, and one less book will be censored as a result.

My thanks to fellow MAA activist LOD for providing me and the rest of the community with the information from the above linked article.

==ADDENDUM==

The early drafts of this essay generated a good degree of further discourse amongst my fellow MAA activists on the GirlChat forum, and their words deserve to be included in the last section of this essay.

My fellow activist qtns2di4 had this to say while quickly evaluating my first draft:

"Obscenity statutes have so far been upheld as valid 1A exceptions.

"I wouldn't fight it, because of this, as a 1A issue.

"I am much, much, much more convinced that it is a violation of the Federation arrangement through the Commerce Clause. This is very clearly Interstate Commerce. Federal jurisdiction. The states have no authority over that. The police officers have to be arrested for possession, but there is no fault either from the Colorado guy [Greaves] or from Amazon because they are in other states, so they are regulated by the Federal in this interaction."

Lateralus responded to the above with the following anecdote:

"It doesn't matter on what grounds you fight this; it will stand at the local level, though it might be overturned at the state/federal level. The reason is simple: if you have a jury trying this case, the jury will uphold anything having to do with pedophilia, because most people are ignorant and high-strung when it comes to this issue. I believe juries should be outlawed in the U.S. at this point. They used to be fairly reliable. You could count on the average person to exercise fairness with regard to their peers and be pretty well up on the laws. That time is no more. Juries were invented to counter the biases inherent to the class system, but they are no longer very useful because average people are idiots who make decisions based on emotional gut reactions, not on facts or higher principles."

Though Lateralus' words towards his fellow 'common' citizens were rather harsh and arguably ad hominem territory, it cannot be denied that the essence of his statement was true: too many people think with their emotions when it comes to this issue, and anti-democratic, agenda-pushing pundits like Sheriff Judd count on this. If Judd didn't think that he could count on this type of emotionalistic attitude from his fellow citizens, he never would have wasted the time to push such an unconstitutional case in the first place. He knew Greaves' opinions were unpopular enough that many people in a possible jury--along with many in the press on any side of the political spectrum--wouldn't care about the important foundations of American jurisprudence as long as a "disgusting" pedophile was arrested and his book censored.

In response to the above response by Lateralus, qtns2di4 stated:

"In most states (and for most ''felonies'') the defendant can freely choose whether to go jury or bench trial.

"In this particular case, the Commerce Clause argument would be about admissibility in the court, so it would have to be argued pre-trial, and would always be bench, not jury, because it is a Technicality.

"The First argument is about the merits of the case. Here is where it might be jury (don't know the specifics, there might be choice or there might be a statute determining it is one or the other). Evidently, for the same reasons you point out, I would choose bench. But still, if the presiding judge is only county level, not state level, then it might still stick - at least until it made it to the state level. Any state level judge should know better than that (''should'' is, of course, no guarantee that they ''do'').

"Notice that the book need not be declared legal in Polk County for Greaves to be acquitted; all the defense needs to prove is that it was a legal material to sell or possess in his own jurisdiction and that there was no way he could prevent its sale to pockets within the USA where it is not legal. Much like, e.g., small wineries, breweries, and distilleries that only sell online cannot realistically know when they are selling to a dry county - yet I am sure if any such case was tested the cops are the only ones that would be jailed - and at least they would be very publicly embarrassed. (Now of course, if the verdict makes the book legal, that is welcome! I just wanted to remind [here] that it doesn't have to go that far to acquit Greaves)."

My fellow MAA activist Summerdays then had these important words and observations to add to this discussion:

"Our 1st Amendment 'rights' have been watered down to the point that 'freedom of speech' hardly means anything anymore. That is the insidious way to do it. Most people will say, 'well, we still have freedom of speech, there are just certain kinds of speech that don't deserve protection, that's all.' This is how people are tricked into believing they have freedom of speech when they don't. Into believing that censorship in some way serves our rights - by providing us protection at the expense of liberty. Unfortunately, most people these days seem far more concerned with protection than liberty, they'd gladly sacrifice the latter for the former, and it's apparently beyond them to consider why that's a bad thing. I'd rather take the risk of being free, than the protection of living in a cage.

"And people will still argue, 'the ones in power are sensible, they'll only censor things that really ought to be censored to begin with.' Slippery slope arguments don't seem to faze these people. Most of them are lucky enough to have thoughts and opinions that go along with the status quo, or are otherwise too susceptible to suggestion. If it's censored, then it ought to have been censored. People argue that the topic of pedophilia is rightly censored because what kind of civilized society would allow the spreading of speech that depicts the 'rape' of children? But the reality of it is, I could have an extremely positive romantic fantasy about having an intimate moment with another human being, but if that human being is a minor, and I choose to share that fantasy with the wrong person, I could be subjecting myself to a world of hurt (if not at the hands of the law, then at the hands of my peers at least). There's nothing sensible about censoring the topic of pedophilia. There's nothing civilized about it either."

Summerdays continued with a few responses to various points I made in the above essay (which will be repeated in '''bold face''' to make it clear which points Summerdays is referring to, while Summerdays' responses will be in standard text in quotation marks):

'''"I was outraged by the content," Judd told The Associated Press. "It was clearly a manifesto on how to sexually batter children ... You just can't believe how absolutely disgusting it was."'''

"This cop is going up against a phantom. A 'sexual predator' who wrote a book about committing heinous crimes. Except the predator, and the book, exist only within his mind, and the minds of those who believe his lies. Unfortunately, though, that phantom has been projected onto a real person who wrote a real book, and he's being punished for this cop's tortured fantasies. I can't believe the system encourages this gross abuse of 'justice.'

"Obscenity law is unconstitutional."

Here I must say that I totally agree with Summerdays on that assessment, because the notion of "obscenity" doesn't stand well as a legal concept in a constitutional democracy, since the term is very subjective, what it covers changes not only from decade to decade but also according to the personal opinions and sensibilities of any given judge depending upon what type of community he/she happened to have been brought up in or happened to be adjudicating within. It's not a concept that can have a specific definition that holds up to the test of time or all sensibilities, and as such it results in judges and LEOs using their own discretion upon which material to judge "obscene" or not. Also, and most importantly, what the "obscenity" laws basically legalize is the power of the courts and LEAs [law enforcement agencies] to criminalize any type of text or image that they find personally offensive, or which a majority of people in the nation (or certain areas within the country) may find offensive, and that is not conducive with democratic principles. This is also why hate speech and anti-war speech must be allowed in a true constitutional democracy despite the highly offensive nature of such words or images.

'''So Greaves is now a "child predator" because of his ''ideas and opinions''?'''

"Judd laid a trap for Greaves. I think it's obvious which one of the two is the predator."

'''It takes real courage to challenge the extreme damage that people like Judd are doing to the foundation of our democracy[...]'''

"The people who stand up for democracy are labeled criminals and thrown in jail. The people who continue to erode our democracy are awarded positions like 'sheriff,' 'judge,' 'mayor.' It's disgusting."

I would opine here that all too often people in positions of power attempt to protect the sanctity of certain ideas while masquerading as an attempt to protect actual people. However noble this may sound to too many people in essence, it's not harmonious with the principles of a true constitutional democracy. And before any detractor of ours chimes in here with the following oft-used statement to attempt to defend anti-democratic actions, "the U.S. actually isn't a democracy, it's a republic," let me remind you that the only 'differences' between a democracy and a republic are purely semantic.

'''Of course, Judd made sure to justify his "obscenity" charge against Greaves by saying that it's unlawful in his Florida county to distribute "obscene material depicting minors engaged in conduct harmful to minors."'''

"Personally, I think Judd should be held responsible for requesting material that he knew was illegal in his county. I don't give a damn that he's a cop, that doesn't give him the right to break the law with impunity, especially for the purpose of luring others into legal traps. And it doesn't make a difference to me whether this constitutes legal 'entrapment'; I think the cop should be punished regardless, for his blatant disregard for the law, as well as his petty victimizing (not to mention the lies - no, cops should not be allowed to lie to anyone).

"What a world we live in."

After this, qtns2di4 then weighed in with the following responses to Summerdays' above points [the former of which are in standard text within quotation marks, the latter of which are again in '''bold face''']:

'''Most people will say, "well, we still have freedom of speech, there are just certain kinds of speech that don't deserve protection, that's all."'''

"'Freedom of speech is there to protect the ideas which are uncomfortable to us. The ideas everyone agrees upon need no legal protection.'
(Miloš Forman)"

'''Into believing that censorship in some way serves our rights - by providing us protection at the expense of liberty. Unfortunately, most people these days seem far more concerned with protection than liberty, they'd gladly sacrifice the latter for the former, and it's apparently beyond them to consider why that's a bad thing.'''

"Larry Niven's Equation: F * S = k
"(The product of Freedom and Security is a constant. Any increase in either comes at the expense of the other)."

'''And people will still argue, "the ones in power are sensible, they'll only censor things that really ought to be censored to begin with."'''

"Politicians are not suddenly more sensible or ethical because you happen to agree with their current position. They are the same politicians you hate every other day of the calendar, when they are not busy screwing up pedophiles, but screwing up someone else."

'''Personally, I think Judd should be held responsible for requesting material that he knew was illegal in his county. I don't give a damn that he's a cop, that doesn't give him the right to break the law with impunity, especially for the purpose of luring others into legal traps. And it doesn't make a difference to me whether this constitutes legal "entrapment," I think the cop should be punished regardless, for his blatant disregard for the law, as well as his petty victimizing (not to mention the lies - no, cops should not be allowed to lie to anyone).'''

"If he had requested a product from a country under U.S. embargo, he'd already be in federal jail, no matter what his title is - and independently of whether anyone else would also get charged with distribution (likely yes)."

Thus, it would appear that LEOs are liable for violating some laws when seeking arrests, but not any that happen to more blatantly inconvenience the federal government as opposed to the rights of common citizens.

A single statement/request by Tester is worth mentioning here:

"Anderson Cooper, Bill O'Reilly, and other TV news anchors all said on National TV that they purchased this book. I want these TV news anchors arrested for possession of [obscene material]."

The source for the above can be seen [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOxI52FRVO4&playnext=1&list=PL01FE48A945663615&index=83 here].

If these news anchors are not prosecuted as Tester has requested, then it would appear we are sent the message that what type of material you may have in your possession doesn't matter so much as why you have possession of it. If this is the case, then why do the LEAs continue to prohibit respected journalists from viewing the content of their child pornography files for the purpose of verifying all of the often outrageous claims made by the LEOs in regards to what type of imagery exists in those files? (And yes, you're damn right I'm going to bring this subject up again, even if only briefly!) Once again, it would appear that certain laws are honored or ignored by the courts depending upon whom they may or may not happen to inconvenience.

==Update==
Courtesy of my fellow GChatter LOD, as of April 6, 2011, it was reported in [http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/04/06/2154135/author-of-pedophilia-book-gets.html#ixzz1ImTQnWAf this article] that Phillip Greaves has decided to plead "no contest" to the charges against him.

An excerpt from the above linked article (in '''bold face'''):

'''LAKELAND, Fla. -- A Colorado man who wrote ''The Pedophile's Guide to Love and Pleasure'' has been sentenced to two years probation in Florida.'''

'''As part of a deal with Polk County prosecutors, 48-year-old Phillip R. Greaves II pleaded no contest Wednesday to distributing obscene material depicting minors engaged in conduct harmful to minors. He will serve his probation in Colorado. He will not have to register as a sex offender.'''

In response to that on the GC board, qtns2di4 said:

"No contest ≠ Guilty plea.

"It doesn't set a precedent (good for us), and doesn't necessarily prevent double jeopardy (bad for him).

"I would still have fought it purely by Commerce Clause, trying to create a constitutional crisis."

In response to the above, LOD said:

"I know there are superficial differences but it basically means guilty, otherwise there would be no punishment."

A response from yours truly to the above was:

...it should be noted that his punishment--such as it is--was extremely light, especially when you consider there was no SOR [sex offender registration] requirements. So it may not be the equivalent of a full admission of guilt, and the very light probation may have been added just to make it clear that the court did "something" in exchange for his plea.

Nevertheless, I do wish he had chosen to fight this, and maybe even bring it all the way to the Supreme Court, out of principle rather than simply pleading "no contest" to something he clearly didn't do, when you consider what nebulous and subjective legal terms "obscenity" or "material depicting acts harmful to minors" can be. I suspect that his lawyer talked him into taking the easy way out of this one, probably saying something to him like, "With an accusation like this, you are all but guaranteed to lose in a trial by jury, so I strongly suggest you let me work out a plea bargain deal with the judge, because you don't want this going to a jury trial, and such a plea should be easy and light since the whole thing is simply over words in a book and you have no prior criminal record."

In response to the above comment of mine, Taf-kat weighed in with:

"Diss, I know it smacks of a sell-out, but when you have been given the option of a plea-bargain, like I have, it takes a man braver than me to decline it - despite pleading guilty with tears running down my cheeks it's something I would do again; sometimes you have to lose a battle and hope you win the war at a later date."

My reply to the above was:

Understood, and I'm sure I would have strongly considered taking the plea bargain too, especially such a light one, rather than face a jury trial against accusations of that nature. I have heard how difficult and trying such a situation can be, so I am not unsympathetic.

Nevertheless, I wish he had gone the distance because his case is so important to the issue of civil rights and free speech in general; it was over something as important as unpopular ideas expressed in a book rather than his being caught with illegal pics or engaging in illegal sexual activity; and it was based on an accusation that is very vague and subjective, i.e., the "obscenity" nonsense and the "material that is harmful to minors" claptrap. Your situation was different from his in a major sense, in my opinion. I wish he had found a more courageous and heavily principled defense attorney in the field of constitutional law.
[[Category:Dissident's essays]]

Essay:The Ultimate Pandora Box: The Phillip Greaves Case And The First Amendment

2011-12-05T22:04:57Z

Dissident: /* by Dissident */

==by Dissident==

'''The State must declare the child to be the most precious treasure of the people. As long as government is perceived as working for the benefit of children, the people happily will endure almost any curtailment of liberty.'''

'''- Rabbi Daniel Lapin'''

My thanks and appreciation to several members of the GirlChat [GC] forum who edited my early drafts of this essay, and who contributed material to it: Scotty, qtns2di4, Lateralus, Summerdays, Tester, LOD, and Taf-kat.

The December 20th, 2010 arrest of Phillip R. Greaves, author of the uber-controversial self-published e-book ''The Pedophile's Guide to Love and Pleasure: a Child-lover's Code of Conduct'', on obscenity charges filed against him from a Florida court (despite the fact that the author resides in Colorado) makes a very important point very clear in our society: the current anti-pedo hysteria may not be compatible with the Bill of Rights, particularly the First Amendment. The whole story can be read about [http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/12/20/national/main7168315.shtml?tag=strip here].

The words of the Polk County Sheriff who had Greaves arrested, Grady Judd, goes a long way towards revealing the real reason why the powers-that-be in our society argue for the power to single out certain ideas that it considers particularly offensive to warrant an arrest for those expressing such "forbidden" thoughts through the written word despite our pretenses towards a constitutional democracy that is supposed to protect unpopular speech as readily as our most popular and cherished opinions. That is basically what the crime of "obscenity" is designed to do. Its parameters are usually vague enough that you can arrest people for almost any type of speech or imagery that offends the sensibilities of a large number of people in either any given community--or the entire nation--if you can't build up charges for anything more substantive, such as evidence for some type of demonstrable harm suffered by a human being (as opposed to a cherished idea or paradigm). And it's also quite telling how powerful the "obscenity" laws of a single small county within a state can be when the author of the offending words lives in another state located far from the prosecuting court or the jurisdiction of the LEOs [law enforcement officers] who ordered the arrest.

Let's note a few of Sheriff Judd's ever-so-enlightened words for bringing Greaves to what he considers to be "justice" [as excerpted from the above linked article on CBS News]:

"I was outraged by the content," Judd told The Associated Press. "It was clearly a manifesto on how to sexually batter children ... You just can't believe how absolutely disgusting it was."

Sexually battered children? Since Greaves said he in no way promoted any illegal activity in his book, it's quite clear that the powers-that-be--like the vigilantes who run notorious hate groups like Absolute Zero United [AZU]--enjoy twisting words and meanings so that advocating an open-minded or neutral attitude towards intergenerational love and sexuality is automatically encouraging "rape" and "molestation"--or in this case, "sexual battery." This is a classic "trap" situation that these pundits of purity and ideological orthodoxy place before authors who dare to tackle this subject in any way other than total condemnation, because this attitude allows the vigilantes and LEOs to label fully consensual sexual contact as "rape," "molestation," "sexual battery," etc., simply because ''the law says that is the case solely due to the age of one of the two participants regardless of whether or not the matter of consent was present and how the younger participant may have felt about the experience''. This enables the pundits of the law and arbiters of anti-youth sexuality to bring an extremely loaded context to the entire discussion or purpose of the author in question, and to define actions according to what the law refers to them as, rather than what the actual definition of the word entails. If merely arguing that intergenerational sexual contact should be legal if consent from both parties is duly respected constitutes the advocating of "rape" or "molestation" in the eyes of the law, then what does this mean in regards to the First Amendment right of people to peacefully challenge laws which they do not agree with via the written word? Isn't this a massive case of political and intellectual dirty pool being leveled against those who may wish to oppose a certain topic that the current national mindset considers unpopular to challenge? Attorneys who are truly loyal to constitutional rights need to directly confront this issue in the near future, and I can only hope that Greaves' legal team does so.

Another matter brought up by Judd is a classic reason for leveling charges of "obscenity" against someone: that the topic they are discussing, and the stance they take in regards to that topic--and possibly some of the scenarios they use to illustrate their points--come off as "disgusting" (i.e., a visceral, knee-jerk negative emotional reaction) to those who read it. Sheriff Judd actually used that adjective, so I can hardly be accused of putting words in his mouth or distorting the meaning of what he tried to say. So, in other words, if certain types of speech and certain means of conveying points, such as through hypothetical scenarios, happen to offend the personal sensibilities of people badly enough, then the vice police should have the legal power to arrest and indict that person. Is this what you are saying, Sheriff Judd? If so, then you need to take a crash course on constitutional law, and learn what the meaning of the First Amendment is, so that you can understand that a true constitutional democracy doesn't limit its protection of ideas to only those which are popular and do not offend anyone. If such was the case, then we shouldn’t pretend we have a democracy—even a nominal one—in the first place.

I would like to say here that I have spoken with a fellow MAA [Minor Attracted Adult] who reviewed Greaves' e-book, and he said the tome is certainly deserving of a certain degree of criticism. For instance, his hypothetical scenarios of sexual contact spoken from a faux child's point of view may arguably be considered unwise in the present climate, and the inclusion of these scenarios were bound to make the case for an "obscenity" charge somewhere in the nation. This is not to say, however, that I think the charge was justified, because those scenarios he described in his book were not actual events, and it shouldn't matter whether or not the ideas expressed by those scenarios offended a large number of people or not. Change and social evolution cannot occur without a large amount of outrage as the old ideas are challenged and new ones suggested in their place, and the normative ideas of one century are very often the highly controversial or radical ideas of a previous century. Greaves' e-tome and other publications like it are putting our purported commitment to democracy and freedom of speech to a major test, and it's a shame that individuals like Sheriff Judd are determined to make our nation fail that test. What will it mean to future generations if the nation ends up miserably failing that all-important test on a wide scale? This question is especially important when you consider how the U.S. often seems determined to drag the rest of the world down whatever abyss it chooses to plunge into itself by way of its presently unrivaled economic and military power (though China and Russia are both rising powers in the global arena, as if we really needed more "super power" nations in the world; but that is a whole other topic).

Let's take a look at another excerpt from the above linked article, which includes more of Judd's spurious comments:

"‘What's wrong with a society that has gotten to the point that we can't arrest child pornographers and child molesters who write a book about how to rape a child?’ said Judd, who keeps a Bible on his desk and is known throughout Florida as a crusader against child predators.

“Florida'[s] obscenity law - a third-degree felony - prohibits the ‘distribution of obscene material depicting minors engaged in conduct harmful to minors.’"

It's rather interesting how Judd considers Greaves to be a "child pornographer" and a "child molester" despite the fact that he took no illegal pictures of nude minors or of minors engaged in sexual situations, nor has he ever been accused of illegal sexual contact with a minor. Yet, because of his mere ideas, and the first person narrative style he used to explicate fictitious scenarios to illustrate a specific idea to his readers, he has actually been referred to by these shameful monikers from an officer of the law, an obvious attempt to garner a specific emotional reaction of outrage towards Greaves despite the fact that his actions in no way fit the true definition of such terms. Does this not make it clear that these terms are becoming more and more broad, and pretty much slowly evolving in the popular and even legal lexicon to mean nearly anything the person using those terms wants them to mean? Does this mean that pro-choice MAAs who are fully law-abiding are now considered "child molesters" simply because of their views, regardless of having had no actual sexual contact with a minor? Does the exercise of free speech in defense of fully consensual intergenerational romantic/sexual relationships now constitute an act of "child pornography?" I am not currently sure how graphic Greaves' first person fictional narratives were, but I will say that the mere written word is not currently against the law in America, though authors have been arrested on "obscenity" charges for such written material in the past. That is the joy of the "obscenity" charge for prosecutors--the charge can be applied to nearly anything that happens to offend them or others badly enough.

Also, is it any wonder that Sheriff Judd keeps a Bible on his desk? Not to disparage the Bible for whatever truths or insights it can provide to those who read it, but that tome has been infamous for the number of fundamentalists who have used various scriptures within it to justify any number of totalitarian policies or bigoted attitudes. Never mind the fact that there is clearly nothing in the Bible that speaks out against mutually consensual intergenerational relationships, as the "pedophile problem" was a non-issue in the long ago era when the Bible was written since younger people were not conceptualized in the same way then that they are today, i.e., as helpless, naive innocents who are always harmed by participation in even mutually consensual sexual activity. Then again, Bible-thumpers of any given era have always felt free to interpret and twist any given scripture to mean pretty much anything they want it to mean, and to help them rationalize any given moralizing crusade they may have up their sleeves in any given decade or century.

Further, Sheriff Judd is known throughout Florida as a crusader against "child predators," yet another term that appears to be used more and more broadly as time goes on. So Greaves is now a "child predator" because of his ''ideas and opinions''? What does that make anyone who dares to speak in an open-minded fashion about mutually consensual intergenerational sexual contact? Is it any wonder that the mainstream progressives and liberals--a political tendency whose adherents have not been known for their courage over the past three decades since the conservative mindset took over the nation with Reagan's election back in 1980—usually tend to speak out as mindlessly ignorant about this subject as any conservative whenever they care to discuss it publicly? By broadening these terms to apply to individuals with no criminal records who simply have unpopular ideas, this is a clear attempt at intimidating people into not speaking out against the hysteria, to not look at the general subject of youth sexuality in a remotely progressive fashion (at least not publicly), and to not in any way challenge the feeding of people who benefit and acquire power via the ongoing "child predator" and sex abuse hysteria like Judd out of fear of being called all the usual names. It takes real courage to challenge the extreme damage that people like Judd are doing to the foundation of our democracy, and this courage is in short supply today as anyone who merely challenges the popular reigning conception of youth sexuality, or our present day paradigm of the "child" in general, can be labeled a "child predator" or a "child molester."

Of course, Judd made sure to justify his "obscenity" charge against Greaves by saying that it's unlawful in his Florida county to distribute "obscene material depicting minors engaged in conduct harmful to minors." Never mind the fact that all of the available objective and peer-reviewed science has found no evidence that intergenerational sexual activity is harmful to minors if the matter of ''consent'' was honored and respected by the older participant (see Rind, 1998; Green, 2010; and Bailey, 2011). How long are we going to ignore science and continue to allow the law to create policies that are based on a social myth? Isn't this problem especially grave now that freedom of speech and the free expression of unpopular ideas that a lot of people consider to be "disgusting" are at risk of being stifled by the power of the state? If this precedent is allowed to continue, how far will it go? Where will it end? What type of society will be the ultimate result of this tendency taken to its logical conclusion?

Thankfully, this major threat to democracy in general and the First Amendment in particular has not gone entirely unnoticed by those who have worked within the legal system. Note this other excerpt from the above linked article:

“Legal experts questioned whether Greaves' right to free speech would come into play if there's a trial. If prosecutors can charge Greaves for shipping his book, they ask, what would prevent booksellers from facing prosecution for selling Vladimir Nabokov's ''Lolita'', a novel about a pedophile [sic]?

"‘As bad as this book may be, the charge opens a very big Pandora's box,’ said Dennis J. Kenney, a former police officer in Polk County and a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York. ‘The charge sounds to me like a significant overreach.’"

It's nice to see that some people like Prof. Kenney can put aside the emotional effect that this book has on him long enough to realize what is actually at stake when it comes to the type of legal actions taken by Sheriff Judd and his many ideological partners-in-crime. Hence, there is hope on the horizon, but will we end up in a Second Dark Age before this hysteria and those who benefit from it are exposed for what they really are, and for what the implications they represent on our core freedoms really entail? That is the major question we should all be concerned with.

Finally, Sheriff Judd made a comment in the above linked article that is all too common from any pundit looking for an irreproachable excuse to circumvent democracy and arrest people for promulgating "offensive" or "dangerous" ideas:

"‘If we can get jurisdiction ... we're coming after you,’ Judd said. ‘There's nothing in the world more important than our children.’"

As long as that intellectually dishonest excuse is made, virtually any curtailment of our essential freedoms and liberties can be rationalized, and those who do cherish democracy are often afraid to challenge anyone making such statements for fear of being accused of being a "child predator," "child molester," "soft on child abuse," etc., regardless of the fact that it's quite obvious that what Judd is actually concerned about is not the safety of children, but rather an attempt to make it a case of political suicide to challenge the sacrosanct ''idea'' of what the conceptual image of the "child" is supposed to represent in our society.

As one of my fellow MAAs who reviewed this e-book said to me about this situation via e-mail:

"He was arrested for 'distributing obscene material depicting minors engaged in conduct harmful to minors.' Obviously, Amazon is at least as guilty. They, not Greaves, sent it to me. Should I report them to the police?

"Seriously, if Greaves is going to be arrested over this, we should all push for Amazon, Jeff Bezos, and all his minions under him to be arrested. What better way to make people realize the absurdity of all this?"

To further underscore the seriousness of this situation, how much of a threat this hysteria poses to our democracy, and exactly what happens when mob rule takes over and people allow their emotions to cloud their reasoning faculties, my fellow MAA activist Scotty made this observation about the Greaves arrest:

"He did not send the material to a minor; he sent it to an adult police officer. He violated Polk County law, not state law.

"Then the sheriff asks Colorado to arrest the man and extradite him to Florida, and they do it? He WAS NOT arrested by Polk County deputies in Colorado where they have no jurisdiction; Colorado authorities did it.

"Now, a red-neck county in Florida seeks to impose its will upon the rest of the United States.

"I went to AC360 to comment, and I could not believe the things that were posted there.
The vast majority agreed with the sheriff AND said that if the author cannot be prosecuted
under the Constitution of the United States as it is presently written, then we should change
it to allow that!

"Do you see where this is heading? If such a constitutional referendum came before the people now
it would probably pass.

"The powers-that-be are using pedophilia to take away our freedoms! The posters also wanted the
people who purchased the book to be jailed, and Amazon to be prosecuted for selling it!

"''Playboy'' magazine interviewed noted international security consultant Philippe Bacard and asked
him if it were possible to turn America into a police state. His reply:

"'Easy.
First, keep a dossier of every schoolchild from the beginning, so that every future American
will grow up knowing that the government is keeping a record of his activities.

"'Second, scare the people into surrendering their freedoms by filling the news with stories of
drug dealers, pedophiles, and terrorists.

"'In fact, it is happening now!'"

As of December 22nd, 2010, Greaves has declared that he will continue his habit of courage by fighting the charges against him, as reported [http://www.abcactionnews.com/dpp/news/region_polk/infamous-pedophile-guide-author-could-beat-obscenity-charges here].

An excerpt from the above linked article notes:

“Greaves said he plans to fight the obscenity charge, and he expects to win.

“One lawyer says Greaves will walk out of jail a free man.

“ ‘I don’t think that this case has a chance of being successful for Grady Judd and Polk County authorities,’ said defense attorney and First Amendment expert Lawrence Walters.”

Though many people will balk at the fact that a "pedophile" will likely be granted the freedom of speech to express his opinions openly, this predicted resolution will actually be a victory for ''everyone'' in America, because ultimately the Constitution and the principles we defend under American law will prevail over knee-jerk emotional reactionary attitudes, and one less book will be censored as a result.

My thanks to fellow MAA activist LOD for providing me and the rest of the community with the information from the above linked article.

==ADDENDUM==
The early drafts of this essay generated a good degree of further discourse amongst my fellow MAA activists on the GirlChat forum, and their words deserve to be included in the last section of this essay.

My fellow activist qtns2di4 had this to say while quickly evaluating my first draft:

"Obscenity statutes have so far been upheld as valid 1A exceptions.

"I wouldn't fight it, because of this, as a 1A issue.

"I am much, much, much more convinced that it is a violation of the Federation arrangement through the Commerce Clause. This is very clearly Interstate Commerce. Federal jurisdiction. The states have no authority over that. The police officers have to be arrested for possession, but there is no fault either from the Colorado guy [Greaves] or from Amazon because they are in other states, so they are regulated by the Federal in this interaction."

Lateralus responded to the above with the following anecdote:

"It doesn't matter on what grounds you fight this; it will stand at the local level, though it might be overturned at the state/federal level. The reason is simple: if you have a jury trying this case, the jury will uphold anything having to do with pedophilia, because most people are ignorant and high-strung when it comes to this issue. I believe juries should be outlawed in the U.S. at this point. They used to be fairly reliable. You could count on the average person to exercise fairness with regard to their peers and be pretty well up on the laws. That time is no more. Juries were invented to counter the biases inherent to the class system, but they are no longer very useful because average people are idiots who make decisions based on emotional gut reactions, not on facts or higher principles."

Though Lateralus' words towards his fellow 'common' citizens were rather harsh and arguably ad hominem territory, it cannot be denied that the essence of his statement was true: too many people think with their emotions when it comes to this issue, and anti-democratic, agenda-pushing pundits like Sheriff Judd count on this. If Judd didn't think that he could count on this type of emotionalistic attitude from his fellow citizens, he never would have wasted the time to push such an unconstitutional case in the first place. He knew Greaves' opinions were unpopular enough that many people in a possible jury--along with many in the press on any side of the political spectrum--wouldn't care about the important foundations of American jurisprudence as long as a "disgusting" pedophile was arrested and his book censored.

In response to the above response by Lateralus, qtns2di4 stated:

"In most states (and for most ''felonies'') the defendant can freely choose whether to go jury or bench trial.

"In this particular case, the Commerce Clause argument would be about admissibility in the court, so it would have to be argued pre-trial, and would always be bench, not jury, because it is a Technicality.

"The First argument is about the merits of the case. Here is where it might be jury (don't know the specifics, there might be choice or there might be a statute determining it is one or the other). Evidently, for the same reasons you point out, I would choose bench. But still, if the presiding judge is only county level, not state level, then it might still stick - at least until it made it to the state level. Any state level judge should know better than that (''should'' is, of course, no guarantee that they ''do'').

"Notice that the book need not be declared legal in Polk County for Greaves to be acquitted; all the defense needs to prove is that it was a legal material to sell or possess in his own jurisdiction and that there was no way he could prevent its sale to pockets within the USA where it is not legal. Much like, e.g., small wineries, breweries, and distilleries that only sell online cannot realistically know when they are selling to a dry county - yet I am sure if any such case was tested the cops are the only ones that would be jailed - and at least they would be very publicly embarrassed. (Now of course, if the verdict makes the book legal, that is welcome! I just wanted to remind [here] that it doesn't have to go that far to acquit Greaves)."

My fellow MAA activist Summerdays then had these important words and observations to add to this discussion:

"Our 1st Amendment 'rights' have been watered down to the point that 'freedom of speech' hardly means anything anymore. That is the insidious way to do it. Most people will say, 'well, we still have freedom of speech, there are just certain kinds of speech that don't deserve protection, that's all.' This is how people are tricked into believing they have freedom of speech when they don't. Into believing that censorship in some way serves our rights - by providing us protection at the expense of liberty. Unfortunately, most people these days seem far more concerned with protection than liberty, they'd gladly sacrifice the latter for the former, and it's apparently beyond them to consider why that's a bad thing. I'd rather take the risk of being free, than the protection of living in a cage.

"And people will still argue, 'the ones in power are sensible, they'll only censor things that really ought to be censored to begin with.' Slippery slope arguments don't seem to faze these people. Most of them are lucky enough to have thoughts and opinions that go along with the status quo, or are otherwise too susceptible to suggestion. If it's censored, then it ought to have been censored. People argue that the topic of pedophilia is rightly censored because what kind of civilized society would allow the spreading of speech that depicts the 'rape' of children? But the reality of it is, I could have an extremely positive romantic fantasy about having an intimate moment with another human being, but if that human being is a minor, and I choose to share that fantasy with the wrong person, I could be subjecting myself to a world of hurt (if not at the hands of the law, then at the hands of my peers at least). There's nothing sensible about censoring the topic of pedophilia. There's nothing civilized about it either."

Summerdays continued with a few responses to various points I made in the above essay (which will be repeated in '''bold face''' to make it clear which points Summerdays is referring to, while Summerdays' responses will be in standard text in quotation marks):

'''"I was outraged by the content," Judd told The Associated Press. "It was clearly a manifesto on how to sexually batter children ... You just can't believe how absolutely disgusting it was."'''

"This cop is going up against a phantom. A 'sexual predator' who wrote a book about committing heinous crimes. Except the predator, and the book, exist only within his mind, and the minds of those who believe his lies. Unfortunately, though, that phantom has been projected onto a real person who wrote a real book, and he's being punished for this cop's tortured fantasies. I can't believe the system encourages this gross abuse of 'justice.'

"Obscenity law is unconstitutional."

Here I must say that I totally agree with Summerdays on that assessment, because the notion of "obscenity" doesn't stand well as a legal concept in a constitutional democracy, since the term is very subjective, what it covers changes not only from decade to decade but also according to the personal opinions and sensibilities of any given judge depending upon what type of community he/she happened to have been brought up in or happened to be adjudicating within. It's not a concept that can have a specific definition that holds up to the test of time or all sensibilities, and as such it results in judges and LEOs using their own discretion upon which material to judge "obscene" or not. Also, and most importantly, what the "obscenity" laws basically legalize is the power of the courts and LEAs [law enforcement agencies] to criminalize any type of text or image that they find personally offensive, or which a majority of people in the nation (or certain areas within the country) may find offensive, and that is not conducive with democratic principles. This is also why hate speech and anti-war speech must be allowed in a true constitutional democracy despite the highly offensive nature of such words or images.

'''So Greaves is now a "child predator" because of his ''ideas and opinions''?'''

"Judd laid a trap for Greaves. I think it's obvious which one of the two is the predator."

'''It takes real courage to challenge the extreme damage that people like Judd are doing to the foundation of our democracy[...]'''

"The people who stand up for democracy are labeled criminals and thrown in jail. The people who continue to erode our democracy are awarded positions like 'sheriff,' 'judge,' 'mayor.' It's disgusting."

I would opine here that all too often people in positions of power attempt to protect the sanctity of certain ideas while masquerading as an attempt to protect actual people. However noble this may sound to too many people in essence, it's not harmonious with the principles of a true constitutional democracy. And before any detractor of ours chimes in here with the following oft-used statement to attempt to defend anti-democratic actions, "the U.S. actually isn't a democracy, it's a republic," let me remind you that the only 'differences' between a democracy and a republic are purely semantic.

'''Of course, Judd made sure to justify his "obscenity" charge against Greaves by saying that it's unlawful in his Florida county to distribute "obscene material depicting minors engaged in conduct harmful to minors."'''

"Personally, I think Judd should be held responsible for requesting material that he knew was illegal in his county. I don't give a damn that he's a cop, that doesn't give him the right to break the law with impunity, especially for the purpose of luring others into legal traps. And it doesn't make a difference to me whether this constitutes legal 'entrapment'; I think the cop should be punished regardless, for his blatant disregard for the law, as well as his petty victimizing (not to mention the lies - no, cops should not be allowed to lie to anyone).

"What a world we live in."

After this, qtns2di4 then weighed in with the following responses to Summerdays' above points [the former of which are in standard text within quotation marks, the latter of which are again in '''bold face''']:

'''Most people will say, "well, we still have freedom of speech, there are just certain kinds of speech that don't deserve protection, that's all."'''

"'Freedom of speech is there to protect the ideas which are uncomfortable to us. The ideas everyone agrees upon need no legal protection.'
(Miloš Forman)"

'''Into believing that censorship in some way serves our rights - by providing us protection at the expense of liberty. Unfortunately, most people these days seem far more concerned with protection than liberty, they'd gladly sacrifice the latter for the former, and it's apparently beyond them to consider why that's a bad thing.'''

"Larry Niven's Equation: F * S = k
"(The product of Freedom and Security is a constant. Any increase in either comes at the expense of the other)."

'''And people will still argue, "the ones in power are sensible, they'll only censor things that really ought to be censored to begin with."'''

"Politicians are not suddenly more sensible or ethical because you happen to agree with their current position. They are the same politicians you hate every other day of the calendar, when they are not busy screwing up pedophiles, but screwing up someone else."

'''Personally, I think Judd should be held responsible for requesting material that he knew was illegal in his county. I don't give a damn that he's a cop, that doesn't give him the right to break the law with impunity, especially for the purpose of luring others into legal traps. And it doesn't make a difference to me whether this constitutes legal "entrapment," I think the cop should be punished regardless, for his blatant disregard for the law, as well as his petty victimizing (not to mention the lies - no, cops should not be allowed to lie to anyone).'''

"If he had requested a product from a country under U.S. embargo, he'd already be in federal jail, no matter what his title is - and independently of whether anyone else would also get charged with distribution (likely yes)."

Thus, it would appear that LEOs are liable for violating some laws when seeking arrests, but not any that happen to more blatantly inconvenience the federal government as opposed to the rights of common citizens.

A single statement/request by Tester is worth mentioning here:

"Anderson Cooper, Bill O'Reilly, and other TV news anchors all said on National TV that they purchased this book. I want these TV news anchors arrested for possession of [obscene material]."

The source for the above can be seen [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOxI52FRVO4&playnext=1&list=PL01FE48A945663615&index=83 here].

If these news anchors are not prosecuted as Tester has requested, then it would appear we are sent the message that what type of material you may have in your possession doesn't matter so much as why you have possession of it. If this is the case, then why do the LEAs continue to prohibit respected journalists from viewing the content of their child pornography files for the purpose of verifying all of the often outrageous claims made by the LEOs in regards to what type of imagery exists in those files? (And yes, you're damn right I'm going to bring this subject up again, even if only briefly!) Once again, it would appear that certain laws are honored or ignored by the courts depending upon whom they may or may not happen to inconvenience.

==Update==
Courtesy of my fellow GChatter LOD, as of April 6, 2011, it was reported in [http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/04/06/2154135/author-of-pedophilia-book-gets.html#ixzz1ImTQnWAf this article] that Phillip Greaves has decided to plead "no contest" to the charges against him.

An excerpt from the above linked article (in '''bold face'''):

'''LAKELAND, Fla. -- A Colorado man who wrote ''The Pedophile's Guide to Love and Pleasure'' has been sentenced to two years probation in Florida.'''

'''As part of a deal with Polk County prosecutors, 48-year-old Phillip R. Greaves II pleaded no contest Wednesday to distributing obscene material depicting minors engaged in conduct harmful to minors. He will serve his probation in Colorado. He will not have to register as a sex offender.'''

In response to that on the GC board, qtns2di4 said:

"No contest ≠ Guilty plea.

"It doesn't set a precedent (good for us), and doesn't necessarily prevent double jeopardy (bad for him).

"I would still have fought it purely by Commerce Clause, trying to create a constitutional crisis."

In response to the above, LOD said:

"I know there are superficial differences but it basically means guilty, otherwise there would be no punishment."

A response from yours truly to the above was:

...it should be noted that his punishment--such as it is--was extremely light, especially when you consider there was no SOR [sex offender registration] requirements. So it may not be the equivalent of a full admission of guilt, and the very light probation may have been added just to make it clear that the court did "something" in exchange for his plea.

Nevertheless, I do wish he had chosen to fight this, and maybe even bring it all the way to the Supreme Court, out of principle rather than simply pleading "no contest" to something he clearly didn't do, when you consider what nebulous and subjective legal terms "obscenity" or "material depicting acts harmful to minors" can be. I suspect that his lawyer talked him into taking the easy way out of this one, probably saying something to him like, "With an accusation like this, you are all but guaranteed to lose in a trial by jury, so I strongly suggest you let me work out a plea bargain deal with the judge, because you don't want this going to a jury trial, and such a plea should be easy and light since the whole thing is simply over words in a book and you have no prior criminal record."

In response to the above comment of mine, Taf-kat weighed in with:

"Diss, I know it smacks of a sell-out, but when you have been given the option of a plea-bargain, like I have, it takes a man braver than me to decline it - despite pleading guilty with tears running down my cheeks it's something I would do again; sometimes you have to lose a battle and hope you win the war at a later date."

My reply to the above was:

Understood, and I'm sure I would have strongly considered taking the plea bargain too, especially such a light one, rather than face a jury trial against accusations of that nature. I have heard how difficult and trying such a situation can be, so I am not unsympathetic.

Nevertheless, I wish he had gone the distance because his case is so important to the issue of civil rights and free speech in general; it was over something as important as unpopular ideas expressed in a book rather than his being caught with illegal pics or engaging in illegal sexual activity; and it was based on an accusation that is very vague and subjective, i.e., the "obscenity" nonsense and the "material that is harmful to minors" claptrap. Your situation was different from his in a major sense, in my opinion. I wish he had found a more courageous and heavily principled defense attorney in the field of constitutional law.
[[Category:Dissident's essays]]

Essay:The Ultimate Pandora Box: The Phillip Greaves Case And The First Amendment

2011-12-05T22:01:12Z

Dissident: /* by Dissident */

==by Dissident==

'''The State must declare the child to be the most precious treasure of the people. As long as government is perceived as working for the benefit of children, the people happily will endure almost any curtailment of liberty.'''

'''- Rabbi Daniel Lapin'''

My thanks and appreciation to several members of the GirlChat [GC] forum who edited my early drafts of this essay, and who contributed material to it: Scotty, qtns2di4, Lateralus, Summerdays, Tester, LOD, and Taf-kat.

The December 20th, 2010 arrest of Phillip R. Greaves, author of the uber-controversial self-published e-book ''The Pedophile's Guide to Love and Pleasure: a Child-lover's Code of Conduct'', on obscenity charges filed against him from a Florida court (despite the fact that the author resides in Colorado) makes a very important point very clear in our society: the current anti-pedo hysteria may not be compatible with the Bill of Rights, particularly the First Amendment. The whole story can be read about [http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/12/20/national/main7168315.shtml?tag=strip here].

The words of the Polk County Sheriff who had Greaves arrested, Grady Judd, goes a long way towards revealing the real reason why the powers-that-be in our society argue for the power to single out certain ideas that it considers particularly offensive to warrant an arrest for those expressing such "forbidden" thoughts through the written word despite our pretenses towards a constitutional democracy that is supposed to protect unpopular speech as readily as our most popular and cherished opinions. That is basically what the crime of "obscenity" is designed to do. Its parameters are usually vague enough that you can arrest people for almost any type of speech or imagery that offends the sensibilities of a large number of people in either any given community--or the entire nation--if you can't build up charges for anything more substantive, such as evidence for some type of demonstrable harm suffered by a human being (as opposed to a cherished idea or paradigm). And it's also quite telling how powerful the "obscenity" laws of a single small county within a state can be when the author of the offending words lives in another state located far from the prosecuting court or the jurisdiction of the LEOs [law enforcement officers] who ordered the arrest.

Let's note a few of Sheriff Judd's ever-so-enlightened words for bringing Greaves to what he considers to be "justice" [as excerpted from the above linked article on CBS News]:

"I was outraged by the content," Judd told The Associated Press. "It was clearly a manifesto on how to sexually batter children ... You just can't believe how absolutely disgusting it was."

Sexually battered children? Since Greaves said he in no way promoted any illegal activity in his book, it's quite clear that the powers-that-be--like the vigilantes who run notorious hate groups like Absolute Zero United [AZU]--enjoy twisting words and meanings so that advocating an open-minded or neutral attitude towards intergenerational love and sexuality is automatically encouraging "rape" and "molestation"--or in this case, "sexual battery." This is a classic "trap" situation that these pundits of purity and ideological orthodoxy place before authors who dare to tackle this subject in any way other than total condemnation, because this attitude allows the vigilantes and LEOs to label fully consensual sexual contact as "rape," "molestation," "sexual battery," etc., simply because ''the law says that is the case solely due to the age of one of the two participants regardless of whether or not the matter of consent was present and how the younger participant may have felt about the experience''. This enables the pundits of the law and arbiters of anti-youth sexuality to bring an extremely loaded context to the entire discussion or purpose of the author in question, and to define actions according to what the law refers to them as, rather than what the actual definition of the word entails. If merely arguing that intergenerational sexual contact should be legal if consent from both parties is duly respected constitutes the advocating of "rape" or "molestation" in the eyes of the law, then what does this mean in regards to the First Amendment right of people to peacefully challenge laws which they do not agree with via the written word? Isn't this a massive case of political and intellectual dirty pool being leveled against those who may wish to oppose a certain topic that the current national mindset considers unpopular to challenge? Attorneys who are truly loyal to constitutional rights need to directly confront this issue in the near future, and I can only hope that Greaves' legal team does so.

Another matter brought up by Judd is a classic reason for leveling charges of "obscenity" against someone: that the topic they are discussing, and the stance they take in regards to that topic--and possibly some of the scenarios they use to illustrate their points--come off as "disgusting" (i.e., a visceral, knee-jerk negative emotional reaction) to those who read it. Sheriff Judd actually used that adjective, so I can hardly be accused of putting words in his mouth or distorting the meaning of what he tried to say. So, in other words, if certain types of speech and certain means of conveying points, such as through hypothetical scenarios, happen to offend the personal sensibilities of people badly enough, then the vice police should have the legal power to arrest and indict that person. Is this what you are saying, Sheriff Judd? If so, then you need to take a crash course on constitutional law, and learn what the meaning of the First Amendment is, so that you can understand that a true constitutional democracy doesn't limit its protection of ideas to only those which are popular and do not offend anyone. If such was the case, then we shouldn’t pretend we have a democracy—even a nominal one—in the first place.

I would like to say here that I have spoken with a fellow MAA [Minor Attracted Adult] who reviewed Greaves' e-book, and he said the tome is certainly deserving of a certain degree of criticism. For instance, his hypothetical scenarios of sexual contact spoken from a faux child's point of view may arguably be considered unwise in the present climate, and the inclusion of these scenarios were bound to make the case for an "obscenity" charge somewhere in the nation. This is not to say, however, that I think the charge was justified, because those scenarios he described in his book were not actual events, and it shouldn't matter whether or not the ideas expressed by those scenarios offended a large number of people or not. Change and social evolution cannot occur without a large amount of outrage as the old ideas are challenged and new ones suggested in their place, and the normative ideas of one century are very often the highly controversial or radical ideas of a previous century. Greaves' e-tome and other publications like it are putting our purported commitment to democracy and freedom of speech to a major test, and it's a shame that individuals like Sheriff Judd are determined to make our nation fail that test. What will it mean to future generations if the nation ends up miserably failing that all-important test on a wide scale? This question is especially important when you consider how the U.S. often seems determined to drag the rest of the world down whatever abyss it chooses to plunge into itself by way of its presently unrivaled economic and military power (though China and Russia are both rising powers in the global arena, as if we really needed more "super power" nations in the world; but that is a whole other topic).

Let's take a look at another excerpt from the above linked article, which includes more of Judd's spurious comments:

"‘What's wrong with a society that has gotten to the point that we can't arrest child pornographers and child molesters who write a book about how to rape a child?’ said Judd, who keeps a Bible on his desk and is known throughout Florida as a crusader against child predators.

“Florida'[s] obscenity law - a third-degree felony - prohibits the ‘distribution of obscene material depicting minors engaged in conduct harmful to minors.’"

It's rather interesting how Judd considers Greaves to be a "child pornographer" and a "child molester" despite the fact that he took no illegal pictures of nude minors or of minors engaged in sexual situations, nor has he ever been accused of illegal sexual contact with a minor. Yet, because of his mere ideas, and the first person narrative style he used to explicate fictitious scenarios to illustrate a specific idea to his readers, he has actually been referred to by these shameful monikers from an officer of the law, an obvious attempt to garner a specific emotional reaction of outrage towards Greaves despite the fact that his actions in no way fit the true definition of such terms. Does this not make it clear that these terms are becoming more and more broad, and pretty much slowly evolving in the popular and even legal lexicon to mean nearly anything the person using those terms wants them to mean? Does this mean that pro-choice MAAs who are fully law-abiding are now considered "child molesters" simply because of their views, regardless of having had no actual sexual contact with a minor? Does the exercise of free speech in defense of fully consensual intergenerational romantic/sexual relationships now constitute an act of "child pornography?" I am not currently sure how graphic Greaves' first person fictional narratives were, but I will say that the mere written word is not currently against the law in America, though authors have been arrested on "obscenity" charges for such written material in the past. That is the joy of the "obscenity" charge for prosecutors--the charge can be applied to nearly anything that happens to offend them or others badly enough.

Also, is it any wonder that Sheriff Judd keeps a Bible on his desk? Not to disparage the Bible for whatever truths or insights it can provide to those who read it, but that tome has been infamous for the number of fundamentalists who have used various scriptures within it to justify any number of totalitarian policies or bigoted attitudes. Never mind the fact that there is clearly nothing in the Bible that speaks out against mutually consensual intergenerational relationships, as the "pedophile problem" was a non-issue in the long ago era when the Bible was written since younger people were not conceptualized in the same way then that they are today, i.e., as helpless, naive innocents who are always harmed by participation in even mutually consensual sexual activity. Then again, Bible-thumpers of any given era have always felt free to interpret and twist any given scripture to mean pretty much anything they want it to mean, and to help them rationalize any given moralizing crusade they may have up their sleeves in any given decade or century.

Further, Sheriff Judd is known throughout Florida as a crusader against "child predators," yet another term that appears to be used more and more broadly as time goes on. So Greaves is now a "child predator" because of his ''ideas and opinions''? What does that make anyone who dares to speak in an open-minded fashion about mutually consensual intergenerational sexual contact? Is it any wonder that the mainstream progressives and liberals--a political tendency whose adherents have not been known for their courage over the past three decades since the conservative mindset took over the nation with Reagan's election back in 1980—usually tend to speak out as mindlessly ignorant about this subject as any conservative whenever they care to discuss it publicly? By broadening these terms to apply to individuals with no criminal records who simply have unpopular ideas, this is a clear attempt at intimidating people into not speaking out against the hysteria, to not look at the general subject of youth sexuality in a remotely progressive fashion (at least not publicly), and to not in any way challenge the feeding of people who benefit and acquire power via the ongoing "child predator" and sex abuse hysteria like Judd out of fear of being called all the usual names. It takes real courage to challenge the extreme damage that people like Judd are doing to the foundation of our democracy, and this courage is in short supply today as anyone who merely challenges the popular reigning conception of youth sexuality, or our present day paradigm of the "child" in general, can be labeled a "child predator" or a "child molester."

Of course, Judd made sure to justify his "obscenity" charge against Greaves by saying that it's unlawful in his Florida county to distribute "obscene material depicting minors engaged in conduct harmful to minors." Never mind the fact that all of the available objective and peer-reviewed science has found no evidence that intergenerational sexual activity is harmful to minors if the matter of ''consent'' was honored and respected by the older participant. How long are we going to ignore science and continue to allow the law to create policies that are based on a social myth? Isn't this problem especially grave now that freedom of speech and the free expression of unpopular ideas that a lot of people consider to be "disgusting" are at risk of being stifled by the power of the state? If this precedent is allowed to continue, how far will it go? Where will it end? What type of society will be the ultimate result of this tendency taken to its logical conclusion?

Thankfully, this major threat to democracy in general and the First Amendment in particular has not gone entirely unnoticed by those who have worked within the legal system. Note this other excerpt from the above linked article:

“Legal experts questioned whether Greaves' right to free speech would come into play if there's a trial. If prosecutors can charge Greaves for shipping his book, they ask, what would prevent booksellers from facing prosecution for selling Vladimir Nabokov's ''Lolita'', a novel about a pedophile [sic]?

"‘As bad as this book may be, the charge opens a very big Pandora's box,’ said Dennis J. Kenney, a former police officer in Polk County and a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York. ‘The charge sounds to me like a significant overreach.’"

It's nice to see that some people like Prof. Kenney can put aside the emotional effect that this book has on him long enough to realize what is actually at stake when it comes to the type of legal actions taken by Sheriff Judd and his many ideological partners-in-crime. Hence, there is hope on the horizon, but will we end up in a Second Dark Age before this hysteria and those who benefit from it are exposed for what they really are, and for what the implications they represent on our core freedoms really entail? That is the major question we should all be concerned with.

Finally, Sheriff Judd made a comment in the above linked article that is all too common from any pundit looking for an irreproachable excuse to circumvent democracy and arrest people for promulgating "offensive" or "dangerous" ideas:

"‘If we can get jurisdiction ... we're coming after you,’ Judd said. ‘There's nothing in the world more important than our children.’"

As long as that intellectually dishonest excuse is made, virtually any curtailment of our essential freedoms and liberties can be rationalized, and those who do cherish democracy are often afraid to challenge anyone making such statements for fear of being accused of being a "child predator," "child molester," "soft on child abuse," etc., regardless of the fact that it's quite obvious that what Judd is actually concerned about is not the safety of children, but rather an attempt to make it a case of political suicide to challenge the sacrosanct ''idea'' of what the conceptual image of the "child" is supposed to represent in our society.

As one of my fellow MAAs who reviewed this e-book said to me about this situation via e-mail:

"He was arrested for 'distributing obscene material depicting minors engaged in conduct harmful to minors.' Obviously, Amazon is at least as guilty. They, not Greaves, sent it to me. Should I report them to the police?

"Seriously, if Greaves is going to be arrested over this, we should all push for Amazon, Jeff Bezos, and all his minions under him to be arrested. What better way to make people realize the absurdity of all this?"

To further underscore the seriousness of this situation, how much of a threat this hysteria poses to our democracy, and exactly what happens when mob rule takes over and people allow their emotions to cloud their reasoning faculties, my fellow MAA activist Scotty made this observation about the Greaves arrest:

"He did not send the material to a minor; he sent it to an adult police officer. He violated Polk County law, not state law.

"Then the sheriff asks Colorado to arrest the man and extradite him to Florida, and they do it? He WAS NOT arrested by Polk County deputies in Colorado where they have no jurisdiction; Colorado authorities did it.

"Now, a red-neck county in Florida seeks to impose its will upon the rest of the United States.

"I went to AC360 to comment, and I could not believe the things that were posted there.
The vast majority agreed with the sheriff AND said that if the author cannot be prosecuted
under the Constitution of the United States as it is presently written, then we should change
it to allow that!

"Do you see where this is heading? If such a constitutional referendum came before the people now
it would probably pass.

"The powers-that-be are using pedophilia to take away our freedoms! The posters also wanted the
people who purchased the book to be jailed, and Amazon to be prosecuted for selling it!

"''Playboy'' magazine interviewed noted international security consultant Philippe Bacard and asked
him if it were possible to turn America into a police state. His reply:

"'Easy.
First, keep a dossier of every schoolchild from the beginning, so that every future American
will grow up knowing that the government is keeping a record of his activities.

"'Second, scare the people into surrendering their freedoms by filling the news with stories of
drug dealers, pedophiles, and terrorists.

"'In fact, it is happening now!'"

As of December 22nd, 2010, Greaves has declared that he will continue his habit of courage by fighting the charges against him, as reported [http://www.abcactionnews.com/dpp/news/region_polk/infamous-pedophile-guide-author-could-beat-obscenity-charges here].

An excerpt from the above linked article notes:

“Greaves said he plans to fight the obscenity charge, and he expects to win.

“One lawyer says Greaves will walk out of jail a free man.

“ ‘I don’t think that this case has a chance of being successful for Grady Judd and Polk County authorities,’ said defense attorney and First Amendment expert Lawrence Walters.”

Though many people will balk at the fact that a "pedophile" will likely be granted the freedom of speech to express his opinions openly, this predicted resolution will actually be a victory for ''everyone'' in America, because ultimately the Constitution and the principles we defend under American law will prevail over knee-jerk emotional reactionary attitudes, and one less book will be censored as a result.

My thanks to fellow MAA activist LOD for providing me and the rest of the community with the information from the above linked article.

==ADDENDUM==
The early drafts of this essay generated a good degree of further discourse amongst my fellow MAA activists on the GirlChat forum, and their words deserve to be included in the last section of this essay.

My fellow activist qtns2di4 had this to say while quickly evaluating my first draft:

"Obscenity statutes have so far been upheld as valid 1A exceptions.

"I wouldn't fight it, because of this, as a 1A issue.

"I am much, much, much more convinced that it is a violation of the Federation arrangement through the Commerce Clause. This is very clearly Interstate Commerce. Federal jurisdiction. The states have no authority over that. The police officers have to be arrested for possession, but there is no fault either from the Colorado guy [Greaves] or from Amazon because they are in other states, so they are regulated by the Federal in this interaction."

Lateralus responded to the above with the following anecdote:

"It doesn't matter on what grounds you fight this; it will stand at the local level, though it might be overturned at the state/federal level. The reason is simple: if you have a jury trying this case, the jury will uphold anything having to do with pedophilia, because most people are ignorant and high-strung when it comes to this issue. I believe juries should be outlawed in the U.S. at this point. They used to be fairly reliable. You could count on the average person to exercise fairness with regard to their peers and be pretty well up on the laws. That time is no more. Juries were invented to counter the biases inherent to the class system, but they are no longer very useful because average people are idiots who make decisions based on emotional gut reactions, not on facts or higher principles."

Though Lateralus' words towards his fellow 'common' citizens were rather harsh and arguably ad hominem territory, it cannot be denied that the essence of his statement was true: too many people think with their emotions when it comes to this issue, and anti-democratic, agenda-pushing pundits like Sheriff Judd count on this. If Judd didn't think that he could count on this type of emotionalistic attitude from his fellow citizens, he never would have wasted the time to push such an unconstitutional case in the first place. He knew Greaves' opinions were unpopular enough that many people in a possible jury--along with many in the press on any side of the political spectrum--wouldn't care about the important foundations of American jurisprudence as long as a "disgusting" pedophile was arrested and his book censored.

In response to the above response by Lateralus, qtns2di4 stated:

"In most states (and for most ''felonies'') the defendant can freely choose whether to go jury or bench trial.

"In this particular case, the Commerce Clause argument would be about admissibility in the court, so it would have to be argued pre-trial, and would always be bench, not jury, because it is a Technicality.

"The First argument is about the merits of the case. Here is where it might be jury (don't know the specifics, there might be choice or there might be a statute determining it is one or the other). Evidently, for the same reasons you point out, I would choose bench. But still, if the presiding judge is only county level, not state level, then it might still stick - at least until it made it to the state level. Any state level judge should know better than that (''should'' is, of course, no guarantee that they ''do'').

"Notice that the book need not be declared legal in Polk County for Greaves to be acquitted; all the defense needs to prove is that it was a legal material to sell or possess in his own jurisdiction and that there was no way he could prevent its sale to pockets within the USA where it is not legal. Much like, e.g., small wineries, breweries, and distilleries that only sell online cannot realistically know when they are selling to a dry county - yet I am sure if any such case was tested the cops are the only ones that would be jailed - and at least they would be very publicly embarrassed. (Now of course, if the verdict makes the book legal, that is welcome! I just wanted to remind [here] that it doesn't have to go that far to acquit Greaves)."

My fellow MAA activist Summerdays then had these important words and observations to add to this discussion:

"Our 1st Amendment 'rights' have been watered down to the point that 'freedom of speech' hardly means anything anymore. That is the insidious way to do it. Most people will say, 'well, we still have freedom of speech, there are just certain kinds of speech that don't deserve protection, that's all.' This is how people are tricked into believing they have freedom of speech when they don't. Into believing that censorship in some way serves our rights - by providing us protection at the expense of liberty. Unfortunately, most people these days seem far more concerned with protection than liberty, they'd gladly sacrifice the latter for the former, and it's apparently beyond them to consider why that's a bad thing. I'd rather take the risk of being free, than the protection of living in a cage.

"And people will still argue, 'the ones in power are sensible, they'll only censor things that really ought to be censored to begin with.' Slippery slope arguments don't seem to faze these people. Most of them are lucky enough to have thoughts and opinions that go along with the status quo, or are otherwise too susceptible to suggestion. If it's censored, then it ought to have been censored. People argue that the topic of pedophilia is rightly censored because what kind of civilized society would allow the spreading of speech that depicts the 'rape' of children? But the reality of it is, I could have an extremely positive romantic fantasy about having an intimate moment with another human being, but if that human being is a minor, and I choose to share that fantasy with the wrong person, I could be subjecting myself to a world of hurt (if not at the hands of the law, then at the hands of my peers at least). There's nothing sensible about censoring the topic of pedophilia. There's nothing civilized about it either."

Summerdays continued with a few responses to various points I made in the above essay (which will be repeated in '''bold face''' to make it clear which points Summerdays is referring to, while Summerdays' responses will be in standard text in quotation marks):

'''"I was outraged by the content," Judd told The Associated Press. "It was clearly a manifesto on how to sexually batter children ... You just can't believe how absolutely disgusting it was."'''

"This cop is going up against a phantom. A 'sexual predator' who wrote a book about committing heinous crimes. Except the predator, and the book, exist only within his mind, and the minds of those who believe his lies. Unfortunately, though, that phantom has been projected onto a real person who wrote a real book, and he's being punished for this cop's tortured fantasies. I can't believe the system encourages this gross abuse of 'justice.'

"Obscenity law is unconstitutional."

Here I must say that I totally agree with Summerdays on that assessment, because the notion of "obscenity" doesn't stand well as a legal concept in a constitutional democracy, since the term is very subjective, what it covers changes not only from decade to decade but also according to the personal opinions and sensibilities of any given judge depending upon what type of community he/she happened to have been brought up in or happened to be adjudicating within. It's not a concept that can have a specific definition that holds up to the test of time or all sensibilities, and as such it results in judges and LEOs using their own discretion upon which material to judge "obscene" or not. Also, and most importantly, what the "obscenity" laws basically legalize is the power of the courts and LEAs [law enforcement agencies] to criminalize any type of text or image that they find personally offensive, or which a majority of people in the nation (or certain areas within the country) may find offensive, and that is not conducive with democratic principles. This is also why hate speech and anti-war speech must be allowed in a true constitutional democracy despite the highly offensive nature of such words or images.

'''So Greaves is now a "child predator" because of his ''ideas and opinions''?'''

"Judd laid a trap for Greaves. I think it's obvious which one of the two is the predator."

'''It takes real courage to challenge the extreme damage that people like Judd are doing to the foundation of our democracy[...]'''

"The people who stand up for democracy are labeled criminals and thrown in jail. The people who continue to erode our democracy are awarded positions like 'sheriff,' 'judge,' 'mayor.' It's disgusting."

I would opine here that all too often people in positions of power attempt to protect the sanctity of certain ideas while masquerading as an attempt to protect actual people. However noble this may sound to too many people in essence, it's not harmonious with the principles of a true constitutional democracy. And before any detractor of ours chimes in here with the following oft-used statement to attempt to defend anti-democratic actions, "the U.S. actually isn't a democracy, it's a republic," let me remind you that the only 'differences' between a democracy and a republic are purely semantic.

'''Of course, Judd made sure to justify his "obscenity" charge against Greaves by saying that it's unlawful in his Florida county to distribute "obscene material depicting minors engaged in conduct harmful to minors."'''

"Personally, I think Judd should be held responsible for requesting material that he knew was illegal in his county. I don't give a damn that he's a cop, that doesn't give him the right to break the law with impunity, especially for the purpose of luring others into legal traps. And it doesn't make a difference to me whether this constitutes legal 'entrapment'; I think the cop should be punished regardless, for his blatant disregard for the law, as well as his petty victimizing (not to mention the lies - no, cops should not be allowed to lie to anyone).

"What a world we live in."

After this, qtns2di4 then weighed in with the following responses to Summerdays' above points [the former of which are in standard text within quotation marks, the latter of which are again in '''bold face''']:

'''Most people will say, "well, we still have freedom of speech, there are just certain kinds of speech that don't deserve protection, that's all."'''

"'Freedom of speech is there to protect the ideas which are uncomfortable to us. The ideas everyone agrees upon need no legal protection.'
(Miloš Forman)"

'''Into believing that censorship in some way serves our rights - by providing us protection at the expense of liberty. Unfortunately, most people these days seem far more concerned with protection than liberty, they'd gladly sacrifice the latter for the former, and it's apparently beyond them to consider why that's a bad thing.'''

"Larry Niven's Equation: F * S = k
"(The product of Freedom and Security is a constant. Any increase in either comes at the expense of the other)."

'''And people will still argue, "the ones in power are sensible, they'll only censor things that really ought to be censored to begin with."'''

"Politicians are not suddenly more sensible or ethical because you happen to agree with their current position. They are the same politicians you hate every other day of the calendar, when they are not busy screwing up pedophiles, but screwing up someone else."

'''Personally, I think Judd should be held responsible for requesting material that he knew was illegal in his county. I don't give a damn that he's a cop, that doesn't give him the right to break the law with impunity, especially for the purpose of luring others into legal traps. And it doesn't make a difference to me whether this constitutes legal "entrapment," I think the cop should be punished regardless, for his blatant disregard for the law, as well as his petty victimizing (not to mention the lies - no, cops should not be allowed to lie to anyone).'''

"If he had requested a product from a country under U.S. embargo, he'd already be in federal jail, no matter what his title is - and independently of whether anyone else would also get charged with distribution (likely yes)."

Thus, it would appear that LEOs are liable for violating some laws when seeking arrests, but not any that happen to more blatantly inconvenience the federal government as opposed to the rights of common citizens.

A single statement/request by Tester is worth mentioning here:

"Anderson Cooper, Bill O'Reilly, and other TV news anchors all said on National TV that they purchased this book. I want these TV news anchors arrested for possession of [obscene material]."

The source for the above can be seen [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOxI52FRVO4&playnext=1&list=PL01FE48A945663615&index=83 here].

If these news anchors are not prosecuted as Tester has requested, then it would appear we are sent the message that what type of material you may have in your possession doesn't matter so much as why you have possession of it. If this is the case, then why do the LEAs continue to prohibit respected journalists from viewing the content of their child pornography files for the purpose of verifying all of the often outrageous claims made by the LEOs in regards to what type of imagery exists in those files? (And yes, you're damn right I'm going to bring this subject up again, even if only briefly!) Once again, it would appear that certain laws are honored or ignored by the courts depending upon whom they may or may not happen to inconvenience.

==Update==
Courtesy of my fellow GChatter LOD, as of April 6, 2011, it was reported in [http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/04/06/2154135/author-of-pedophilia-book-gets.html#ixzz1ImTQnWAf this article] that Phillip Greaves has decided to plead "no contest" to the charges against him.

An excerpt from the above linked article (in '''bold face'''):

'''LAKELAND, Fla. -- A Colorado man who wrote ''The Pedophile's Guide to Love and Pleasure'' has been sentenced to two years probation in Florida.'''

'''As part of a deal with Polk County prosecutors, 48-year-old Phillip R. Greaves II pleaded no contest Wednesday to distributing obscene material depicting minors engaged in conduct harmful to minors. He will serve his probation in Colorado. He will not have to register as a sex offender.'''

In response to that on the GC board, qtns2di4 said:

"No contest ≠ Guilty plea.

"It doesn't set a precedent (good for us), and doesn't necessarily prevent double jeopardy (bad for him).

"I would still have fought it purely by Commerce Clause, trying to create a constitutional crisis."

In response to the above, LOD said:

"I know there are superficial differences but it basically means guilty, otherwise there would be no punishment."

A response from yours truly to the above was:

...it should be noted that his punishment--such as it is--was extremely light, especially when you consider there was no SOR [sex offender registration] requirements. So it may not be the equivalent of a full admission of guilt, and the very light probation may have been added just to make it clear that the court did "something" in exchange for his plea.

Nevertheless, I do wish he had chosen to fight this, and maybe even bring it all the way to the Supreme Court, out of principle rather than simply pleading "no contest" to something he clearly didn't do, when you consider what nebulous and subjective legal terms "obscenity" or "material depicting acts harmful to minors" can be. I suspect that his lawyer talked him into taking the easy way out of this one, probably saying something to him like, "With an accusation like this, you are all but guaranteed to lose in a trial by jury, so I strongly suggest you let me work out a plea bargain deal with the judge, because you don't want this going to a jury trial, and such a plea should be easy and light since the whole thing is simply over words in a book and you have no prior criminal record."

In response to the above comment of mine, Taf-kat weighed in with:

"Diss, I know it smacks of a sell-out, but when you have been given the option of a plea-bargain, like I have, it takes a man braver than me to decline it - despite pleading guilty with tears running down my cheeks it's something I would do again; sometimes you have to lose a battle and hope you win the war at a later date."

My reply to the above was:

Understood, and I'm sure I would have strongly considered taking the plea bargain too, especially such a light one, rather than face a jury trial against accusations of that nature. I have heard how difficult and trying such a situation can be, so I am not unsympathetic.

Nevertheless, I wish he had gone the distance because his case is so important to the issue of civil rights and free speech in general; it was over something as important as unpopular ideas expressed in a book rather than his being caught with illegal pics or engaging in illegal sexual activity; and it was based on an accusation that is very vague and subjective, i.e., the "obscenity" nonsense and the "material that is harmful to minors" claptrap. Your situation was different from his in a major sense, in my opinion. I wish he had found a more courageous and heavily principled defense attorney in the field of constitutional law.
[[Category:Dissident's essays]]

Essay:The Ultimate Pandora Box: The Phillip Greaves Case And The First Amendment

2011-12-05T21:25:34Z

Dissident: /* by Dissident */

==by Dissident==

'''The State must declare the child to be the most precious treasure of the people. As long as government is perceived as working for the benefit of children, the people happily will endure almost any curtailment of liberty.'''

'''- Rabbi Daniel Lapin'''

My thanks and appreciation to several members of the GirlChat [GC] forum who edited my early drafts of this essay, and who contributed material to it: Scotty, qtns2di4, Lateralus, Summerdays, Tester, LOD, and Taf-kat.

The December 20th, 2010 arrest of Phillip R. Greaves, author of the uber-controversial self-published e-book ''The Pedophile's Guide to Love and Pleasure: a Child-lover's Code of Conduct'', on obscenity charges filed against him from a Florida court (despite the fact that the author resides in Colorado) makes a very important point very clear in our society: the current anti-pedo hysteria may not be compatible with the Bill of Rights, particularly the First Amendment. The whole story can be read about [http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/12/20/national/main7168315.shtml?tag=strip here].

The words of the Polk County Sheriff who had Greaves arrested, Grady Judd, goes a long way towards revealing the real reason why the powers-that-be in our society argue for the power to single out certain ideas that it considers particularly offensive to warrant an arrest for those expressing such "forbidden" thoughts through the written word despite our pretenses towards a constitutional democracy that is supposed to protect unpopular speech as readily as our most popular and cherished opinions. That is basically what the crime of "obscenity" is designed to do. Its parameters are usually vague enough that you can arrest people for almost any type of speech or imagery that offends the sensibilities of a large number of people in either any given community--or the entire nation--if you can't build up charges for anything more substantive, such as evidence for some type of demonstrable harm suffered by a human being (as opposed to a cherished idea or paradigm). And it's also quite telling how powerful the "obscenity" laws of a single small county within a state can be when the author of the offending words lives in another state located far from the prosecuting court or the jurisdiction of the LEOs [law enforcement officers] who ordered the arrest.

Let's note a few of Sheriff Judd's ever-so-enlightened words for bringing Greaves to what he considers to be "justice" [as excerpted from the above linked article on CBS News]:

"I was outraged by the content," Judd told The Associated Press. "It was clearly a manifesto on how to sexually batter children ... You just can't believe how absolutely disgusting it was."

Sexually battered children? Since Greaves said he in no way promoted any illegal activity in his book, it's quite clear that the powers-that-be--like the vigilantes who run notorious hate groups like Absolute Zero United [AZU]--enjoy twisting words and meanings so that advocating an open-minded or neutral attitude towards intergenerational love and sexuality is automatically encouraging "rape" and "molestation"--or in this case, "sexual battery." This is a classic "trap" situation that these pundits of purity and ideological orthodoxy place before authors who dare to tackle this subject in any way other than total condemnation, because this attitude allows the vigilantes and LEOs to label fully consensual sexual contact as "rape," "molestation," "sexual battery," etc., simply because ''the law says that is the case solely due to the age of one of the two participants regardless of whether or not the matter of consent was present and how the younger participant may have felt about the experience''. This enables the pundits of the law and arbiters of anti-youth sexuality to bring an extremely loaded context to the entire discussion or purpose of the author in question, and to define actions according to what the law refers to them as, rather than what the actual definition of the word entails. If merely arguing that intergenerational sexual contact should be legal if consent from both parties is duly respected constitutes the advocating of "rape" or "molestation" in the eyes of the law, then what does this mean in regards to the First Amendment right of people to peacefully challenge laws which they do not agree with via the written word? Isn't this a massive case of political and intellectual dirty pool being leveled against those who may wish to oppose a certain topic that the current national mindset considers unpopular to challenge? Attorneys who are truly loyal to constitutional rights need to directly confront this issue in the near future, and I can only hope that Greaves' legal team does so.

Another matter brought up by Judd is a classic reason for leveling charges of "obscenity" against someone: that the topic they are discussing, and the stance they take in regards to that topic--and possibly some of the scenarios they use to illustrate their points--come off as "disgusting" (i.e., a visceral, knee-jerk negative emotional reaction) to those who read it. Sheriff Judd actually used that adjective, so I can hardly be accused of putting words in his mouth or distorting the meaning of what he tried to say. So, in other words, if certain types of speech and certain means of conveying points, such as through hypothetical scenarios, happen to offend the personal sensibilities of people badly enough, then the vice police should have the legal power to arrest and indict that person. Is this what you are saying, Sheriff Judd? If so, then you need to take a crash course on constitutional law, and learn what the meaning of the First Amendment is, so that you can understand that a true constitutional democracy doesn't limit its protection of ideas to only those which are popular and do not offend anyone. If such was the case, then we shouldn’t pretend we have a democracy—even a nominal one—in the first place.

I would like to say here that I have spoken with a fellow MAAs [Minor Attracted Adults] who reviewed Greaves' e-book, and he said the tome is certainly deserving of a certain degree of criticism. For instance, his hypothetical scenarios of sexual contact spoken from a faux child's point of view may arguably be considered unwise in the present climate, and the inclusion of these scenarios were bound to make the case for an "obscenity" charge somewhere in the nation. This is not to say, however, that I think the charge was justified, because those scenarios he described in his book were not actual events, and it shouldn't matter whether or not the ideas expressed by those scenarios offended a large number of people or not. Change and social evolution cannot occur without a large amount of outrage as the old ideas are challenged and new ones suggested in their place, and the normative ideas of one century are very often the highly controversial or radical ideas of a previous century. Greaves' e-tome and other publications like it are putting our purported commitment to democracy and freedom of speech to a major test, and it's a shame that individuals like Sheriff Judd are determined to make our nation fail that test. What will it mean to future generations if the nation ends up miserably failing that all-important test on a wide scale? This question is especially important when you consider how the U.S. often seems determined to drag the rest of the world down whatever abyss it chooses to plunge into itself by way of its presently unrivaled economic and military power (though China and Russia are both rising powers in the global arena, as if we really needed more "super power" nations in the world; but that is a whole other topic).

Let's take a look at another excerpt from the above linked article, which includes more of Judd's spurious comments:

" ‘What's wrong with a society that has gotten to the point that we can't arrest child pornographers and child molesters who write a book about how to rape a child?’ said Judd, who keeps a Bible on his desk and is known throughout Florida as a crusader against child predators.

“Florida'[s] obscenity law - a third-degree felony - prohibits the ‘distribution of obscene material depicting minors engaged in conduct harmful to minors.’"

It's rather interesting how Judd considers Greaves to be a "child pornographer" and a "child molester" despite the fact that he took no illegal pictures of nude minors or of minors engaged in sexual situations, nor has he ever been accused of illegal sexual contact with a minor. Yet, because of his mere ideas, and the first person narrative style he used to explicate fictitious scenarios to illustrate a specific idea to his readers, he has actually been referred to by these shameful monikers from an officer of the law, an obvious attempt to garner a specific emotional reaction of outrage towards Greaves despite the fact that his actions in no way fit the true definition of such terms. Does this not make it clear that these terms are becoming more and more broad, and pretty much slowly evolving in the popular and even legal lexicon to mean nearly anything the person using those terms wants them to mean? Does this mean that pro-choice MAAs who are fully law-abiding are now considered "child molesters" simply because of their views, regardless of having had no actual sexual contact with a minor? Does the exercise of free speech in defense of fully consensual intergenerational romantic/sexual relationships now constitute an act of "child pornography?" I am not currently sure how graphic Greaves' first person fictional narratives were, but I will say that the mere written word is not currently against the law in America, though authors have been arrested on "obscenity" charges for such written material in the past. That is the joy of the "obscenity" charge for prosecutors--the charge can be applied to nearly anything that happens to offend them or others badly enough.

Also, is it any wonder that Sheriff Judd keeps a Bible on his desk? Not to disparage the Bible for whatever truths or insights it can provide to those who read it, but that tome has been infamous for the number of fundamentalists who have used various scriptures within it to justify any number of totalitarian policies or bigoted attitudes. Never mind the fact that there is clearly nothing in the Bible that speaks out against mutually consensual intergenerational relationships, as the "pedophile problem" was a non-issue in the long ago era when the Bible was written since younger people were not conceptualized in the same way then that they are today, i.e., as helpless, naive innocents who are always harmed by participation in even mutually consensual sexual activity. Then again, Bible-thumpers of any given era have always felt free to interpret and twist any given scripture to mean pretty much anything they want it to mean, and to help them rationalize any given moralizing crusade they may have up their sleeves in any given decade or century.

Further, Sheriff Judd is known throughout Florida as a crusader against "child predators," yet another term that appears to be used more and more broadly as time goes on. So Greaves is now a "child predator" because of his ''ideas and opinions''? What does that make anyone who dares to speak in an open-minded fashion about mutually consensual intergenerational sexual contact? Is it any wonder that the mainstream progressives and liberals--a political tendency whose adherents have not been known for their courage over the past three decades since the conservative mindset took over the nation with Reagan's election back in 1980—usually tend to speak out as mindlessly ignorant about this subject as any conservative whenever they care to discuss it publicly? By broadening these terms to apply to individuals with no criminal records who simply have unpopular ideas, this is a clear attempt at intimidating people into not speaking out against the hysteria, to not look at the general subject of youth sexuality in a remotely progressive fashion (at least not publicly), and to not in any way challenge the feeding of people who benefit and acquire power via the ongoing "child predator" and sex abuse hysteria like Judd out of fear of being called all the usual names. It takes real courage to challenge the extreme damage that people like Judd are doing to the foundation of our democracy, and this courage is in short supply today as anyone who merely challenges the popular reigning conception of youth sexuality, or our present day paradigm of the "child" in general, can be labeled a "child predator" or a "child molester."

Of course, Judd made sure to justify his "obscenity" charge against Greaves by saying that it's unlawful in his Florida county to distribute "obscene material depicting minors engaged in conduct harmful to minors." Never mind the fact that all of the available objective and peer-reviewed science has found no evidence that intergenerational sexual activity is harmful to minors if the matter of ''consent'' was honored and respected by the older participant. How long are we going to ignore science and continue to allow the law to create policies that are based on a social myth? Isn't this problem especially grave now that freedom of speech and the free expression of unpopular ideas that a lot of people consider to be "disgusting" are at risk of being stifled by the power of the state? If this precedent is allowed to continue, how far will it go? Where will it end? What type of society will be the ultimate result of this tendency taken to its logical conclusion?

Thankfully, this major threat to democracy in general and the First Amendment in particular has not gone entirely unnoticed by those who have worked within the legal system. Note this other excerpt from the above linked article:

“Legal experts questioned whether Greaves' right to free speech would come into play if there's a trial. If prosecutors can charge Greaves for shipping his book, they ask, what would prevent booksellers from facing prosecution for selling Vladimir Nabokov's ''Lolita'', a novel about a pedophile [sic]?

"‘As bad as this book may be, the charge opens a very big Pandora's box,’ said Dennis J. Kenney, a former police officer in Polk County and a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York. ‘The charge sounds to me like a significant overreach.’"

It's nice to see that some people like Prof. Kenney can put aside the emotional effect that this book has on him long enough to realize what is actually at stake when it comes to the type of legal actions taken by Sheriff Judd and his many ideological partners-in-crime. Hence, there is hope on the horizon, but will we end up in a Second Dark Age before this hysteria and those who benefit from it are exposed for what they really are, and for what the implications they represent on our core freedoms really entail? That is the major question we should all be concerned with.

Finally, Sheriff Judd made a comment in the above linked article that is all too common from any pundit looking for an irreproachable excuse to circumvent democracy and arrest people for promulgating "offensive" or "dangerous" ideas:

" ‘If we can get jurisdiction ... we're coming after you,’ Judd said. ‘There's nothing in the world more important than our children.’"

As long as that intellectually dishonest excuse is made, virtually any curtailment of our essential freedoms and liberties can be rationalized, and those who do cherish democracy are often afraid to challenge anyone making such statements for fear of being accused of being a "child predator," "child molester," "soft on child abuse," etc., regardless of the fact that it's quite obvious that what Judd is actually concerned about is not the safety of children, but rather an attempt to make it a case of political suicide to challenge the sacrosanct ''idea'' of what the conceptual image of the "child" is supposed to represent in our society.

As one of my fellow MAAs who reviewed this e-book said to me about this situation via e-mail:

"He was arrested for 'distributing obscene material depicting minors engaged in conduct harmful to minors.' Obviously, Amazon is at least as guilty. They, not Greaves, sent it to me. Should I report them to the police?

"Seriously, if Greaves is going to be arrested over this, we should all push for Amazon, Jeff Bezos, and all his minions under him to be arrested. What better way to make people realize the absurdity of all this?"

To further underscore the seriousness of this situation, how much of a threat this hysteria poses to our democracy, and exactly what happens when mob rule takes over and people allow their emotions to cloud their reasoning faculties, my fellow MAA activist Scotty made this observation about the Greaves arrest:

"He did not send the material to a minor; he sent it to an adult police officer. He violated Polk County law, not state law.

"Then the sheriff asks Colorado to arrest the man and extradite him to Florida, and they do it? He WAS NOT arrested by Polk County deputies in Colorado where they have no jurisdiction; Colorado authorities did it.

"Now, a red-neck county in Florida seeks to impose its will upon the rest of the United States.

"I went to AC360 to comment, and I could not believe the things that were posted there.
The vast majority agreed with the sheriff AND said that if the author cannot be prosecuted
under the Constitution of the United States as it is presently written, then we should change
it to allow that!

"Do you see where this is heading? If such a constitutional referendum came before the people now
it would probably pass.

"The powers-that-be are using pedophilia to take away our freedoms! The posters also wanted the
people who purchased the book to be jailed, and Amazon to be prosecuted for selling it!

"''Playboy'' magazine interviewed noted international security consultant Philippe Bacard and asked
him if it were possible to turn America into a police state. His reply:

"'Easy.
First, keep a dossier of every schoolchild from the beginning, so that every future American
will grow up knowing that the government is keeping a record of his activities.

"'Second, scare the people into surrendering their freedoms by filling the news with stories of
drug dealers, pedophiles, and terrorists.

"'In fact, it is happening now!'"

As of December 22nd, 2010, Greaves has declared that he will continue his habit of courage by fighting the charges against him, as reported [http://www.abcactionnews.com/dpp/news/region_polk/infamous-pedophile-guide-author-could-beat-obscenity-charges here].

An excerpt from the above linked article notes:

“Greaves said he plans to fight the obscenity charge, and he expects to win.

“One lawyer says Greaves will walk out of jail a free man.

“ ‘I don’t think that this case has a chance of being successful for Grady Judd and Polk County authorities,’ said defense attorney and First Amendment expert Lawrence Walters.”

Though many people will balk at the fact that a "pedophile" will be likely be granted the freedom of speech to express his opinions openly, this predicted resolution will actually be a victory for ''everyone'' in America, because ultimately the Constitution and the principles we defend under American law will prevail over knee-jerk emotional reactionary attitudes, and one less book will be censored as a result.

My thanks to fellow MAA activist LOD for providing me and the rest of the community with the information from the above linked article.

==ADDENDUM==
The early drafts of this essay generated a good degree of further discourse amongst my fellow MAA activists on the GirlChat forum, and their words deserve to be included in the last section of this essay.

My fellow activist qtns2di4 had this to say while quickly evaluating my first draft:

"Obscenity statutes have so far been upheld as valid 1A exceptions.

"I wouldn't fight it, because of this, as a 1A issue.

"I am much, much, much more convinced that it is a violation of the Federation arrangement through the Commerce Clause. This is very clearly Interstate Commerce. Federal jurisdiction. The states have no authority over that. The police officers have to be arrested for possession, but there is no fault either from the Colorado guy [Greaves] or from Amazon because they are in other states, so they are regulated by the Federal in this interaction."

Lateralus responded to the above with the following anecdote:

"It doesn't matter on what grounds you fight this; it will stand at the local level, though it might be overturned at the state/federal level. The reason is simple: if you have a jury trying this case, the jury will uphold anything having to do with pedophilia, because most people are ignorant and high-strung when it comes to this issue. I believe juries should be outlawed in the U.S. at this point. They used to be fairly reliable. You could count on the average person to exercise fairness with regard to their peers and be pretty well up on the laws. That time is no more. Juries were invented to counter the biases inherent to the class system, but they are no longer very useful because average people are idiots who make decisions based on emotional gut reactions, not on facts or higher principles."

Though Lateralus' words towards his fellow 'common' citizens were rather harsh and arguably ad hominem territory, it cannot be denied that the essence of his statement was true: too many people think with their emotions when it comes to this issue, and anti-democratic, agenda-pushing pundits like Sheriff Judd count on this. If Judd didn't think that he could count on this type of emotionalistic attitude from his fellow citizens, he never would have wasted the time to push such an unconstitutional case in the first place. He knew Greaves' opinions were unpopular enough that many people in a possible jury--along with many in the press on any side of the political spectrum--wouldn't care about the important foundations of American jurisprudence as long as a "disgusting" pedophile was arrested and his book censored.

In response to the above response by Lateralus, qtns2di4 stated:

"In most states (and for most ''felonies'') the defendant can freely choose whether to go jury or bench trial.

"In this particular case, the Commerce Clause argument would be about admissibility in the court, so it would have to be argued pre-trial, and would always be bench, not jury, because it is a Technicality.

"The First argument is about the merits of the case. Here is where it might be jury (don't know the specifics, there might be choice or there might be a statute determining it is one or the other). Evidently, for the same reasons you point out, I would choose bench. But still, if the presiding judge is only county level, not state level, then it might still stick - at least until it made it to the state level. Any state level judge should know better than that (''should'' is, of course, no guarantee that they ''do'').

"Notice that the book need not be declared legal in Polk County for Greaves to be acquitted; all the defense needs to prove is that it was a legal material to sell or possess in his own jurisdiction and that there was no way he could prevent its sale to pockets within the USA where it is not legal. Much like, e.g., small wineries, breweries, and distilleries that only sell online cannot realistically know when they are selling to a dry county - yet I am sure if any such case was tested the cops are the only ones that would be jailed - and at least they would be very publicly embarrassed. (Now of course, if the verdict makes the book legal, that is welcome! I just wanted to remind [here] that it doesn't have to go that far to acquit Greaves)."

My fellow MAA activist Summerdays then had these important words and observations to add to this discussion:

"Our 1st Amendment 'rights' have been watered down to the point that 'freedom of speech' hardly means anything anymore. That is the insidious way to do it. Most people will say, 'well, we still have freedom of speech, there are just certain kinds of speech that don't deserve protection, that's all.' This is how people are tricked into believing they have freedom of speech when they don't. Into believing that censorship in some way serves our rights - by providing us protection at the expense of liberty. Unfortunately, most people these days seem far more concerned with protection than liberty, they'd gladly sacrifice the latter for the former, and it's apparently beyond them to consider why that's a bad thing. I'd rather take the risk of being free, than the protection of living in a cage.

"And people will still argue, 'the ones in power are sensible, they'll only censor things that really ought to be censored to begin with.' Slippery slope arguments don't seem to faze these people. Most of them are lucky enough to have thoughts and opinions that go along with the status quo, or are otherwise too susceptible to suggestion. If it's censored, then it ought to have been censored. People argue that the topic of pedophilia is rightly censored because what kind of civilized society would allow the spreading of speech that depicts the 'rape' of children? But the reality of it is, I could have an extremely positive romantic fantasy about having an intimate moment with another human being, but if that human being is a minor, and I choose to share that fantasy with the wrong person, I could be subjecting myself to a world of hurt (if not at the hands of the law, then at the hands of my peers at least). There's nothing sensible about censoring the topic of pedophilia. There's nothing civilized about it either."

Summerdays continued with a few responses to various points I made in the above essay (which will be repeated in '''bold face''' to make it clear which points Summerdays is referring to, while Summerdays' responses will be in standard text in quotation marks):

'''"I was outraged by the content," Judd told The Associated Press. "It was clearly a manifesto on how to sexually batter children ... You just can't believe how absolutely disgusting it was."'''

"This cop is going up against a phantom. A 'sexual predator' who wrote a book about committing heinous crimes. Except the predator, and the book, exist only within his mind, and the minds of those who believe his lies. Unfortunately, though, that phantom has been projected onto a real person who wrote a real book, and he's being punished for this cop's tortured fantasies. I can't believe the system encourages this gross abuse of 'justice.'

"Obscenity law is unconstitutional."

Here I must say that I totally agree with Summerdays on that assessment, because the notion of "obscenity" doesn't stand well as a legal concept in a constitutional democracy, since the term is very subjective, what it covers changes not only from decade to decade but also according to the personal opinions and sensibilities of any given judge depending upon what type of community he/she happened to have been brought up in or happened to be adjudicating within. It's not a concept that can have a specific definition that holds up to the test of time or all sensibilities, and as such it results in judges and LEOs using their own discretion upon which material to judge "obscene" or not. Also, and most importantly, what the "obscenity" laws basically legalize is the power of the courts and LEAs [law enforcement agencies] to criminalize any type of text or image that they find personally offensive, or which a majority of people in the nation (or certain areas within the country) may find offensive, and that is not conducive with democratic principles. This is also why hate speech and anti-war speech must be allowed in a true constitutional democracy despite the highly offensive nature of such words or images.

'''So Greaves is now a "child predator" because of his ''ideas and opinions''?'''

"Judd laid a trap for Greaves. I think it's obvious which one of the two is the predator."

'''It takes real courage to challenge the extreme damage that people like Judd are doing to the foundation of our democracy[...]'''

"The people who stand up for democracy are labeled criminals and thrown in jail. The people who continue to erode our democracy are awarded positions like 'sheriff,' 'judge,' 'mayor.' It's disgusting."

I would opine here that all too often people in positions of power attempt to protect the sanctity of certain ideas while masquerading as an attempt to protect actual people. However noble this may sound to too many people in essence, it's not harmonious with the principles of a true constitutional democracy. And before any detractor of ours chimes in here with the following oft-used statement to attempt to defend anti-democratic actions, "the U.S. actually isn't a democracy, it's a republic," let me remind you that the only 'differences' between a democracy and a republic are purely semantic.

'''Of course, Judd made sure to justify his "obscenity" charge against Greaves by saying that it's unlawful in his Florida county to distribute "obscene material depicting minors engaged in conduct harmful to minors."'''

"Personally, I think Judd should be held responsible for requesting material that he knew was illegal in his county. I don't give a damn that he's a cop, that doesn't give him the right to break the law with impunity, especially for the purpose of luring others into legal traps. And it doesn't make a difference to me whether this constitutes legal 'entrapment'; I think the cop should be punished regardless, for his blatant disregard for the law, as well as his petty victimizing (not to mention the lies - no, cops should not be allowed to lie to anyone).

"What a world we live in."

After this, qtns2di4 then weighed in with the following responses to Summerdays' above points [the former of which are in standard text within quotation marks, the latter of which are again in '''bold face''']:

'''Most people will say, "well, we still have freedom of speech, there are just certain kinds of speech that don't deserve protection, that's all."'''

"'Freedom of speech is there to protect the ideas which are uncomfortable to us. The ideas everyone agrees upon need no legal protection.'
(Miloš Forman)"

'''Into believing that censorship in some way serves our rights - by providing us protection at the expense of liberty. Unfortunately, most people these days seem far more concerned with protection than liberty, they'd gladly sacrifice the latter for the former, and it's apparently beyond them to consider why that's a bad thing.'''

"Larry Niven's Equation: F * S = k
"(The product of Freedom and Security is a constant. Any increase in either comes at the expense of the other)."

'''And people will still argue, "the ones in power are sensible, they'll only censor things that really ought to be censored to begin with."'''

"Politicians are not suddenly more sensible or ethical because you happen to agree with their current position. They are the same politicians you hate every other day of the calendar, when they are not busy screwing up pedophiles, but screwing up someone else."

'''Personally, I think Judd should be held responsible for requesting material that he knew was illegal in his county. I don't give a damn that he's a cop, that doesn't give him the right to break the law with impunity, especially for the purpose of luring others into legal traps. And it doesn't make a difference to me whether this constitutes legal "entrapment," I think the cop should be punished regardless, for his blatant disregard for the law, as well as his petty victimizing (not to mention the lies - no, cops should not be allowed to lie to anyone).'''

"If he had requested a product from a country under U.S. embargo, he'd already be in federal jail, no matter what his title is - and independently of whether anyone else would also get charged with distribution (likely yes)."

Thus, it would appear that LEOs are liable for violating some laws when seeking arrests, but not any that happen to more blatantly inconvenience the federal government as opposed to the rights of common citizens.

A single statement/request by Tester is worth mentioning here:

"Anderson Cooper, Bill O'Reilly, and other TV news anchors all said on National TV that they purchased this book. I want these TV news anchors arrested for possession of [obscene material]."

The source for the above can be seen [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOxI52FRVO4&playnext=1&list=PL01FE48A945663615&index=83 here].

If these news anchors are not prosecuted as Tester has requested, then it would appear we are sent the message that what type of material you may have in your possession doesn't matter so much as why you have possession of it. If this is the case, then why do the LEAs continue to prohibit respected journalists from viewing the content of their child pornography files for the purpose of verifying all of the often outrageous claims made by the LEOs in regards to what type of imagery exists in those files? (And yes, you're damn right I'm going to bring this subject up again, even if only briefly!) Once again, it would appear that certain laws are honored or ignored by the courts depending upon whom they may or may not happen to inconvenience.

==Update==
Courtesy of my fellow GChatter LOD, as of April 6, 2011, it was reported in [http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/04/06/2154135/author-of-pedophilia-book-gets.html#ixzz1ImTQnWAf this article] that Phillip Greaves has decided to plead "no contest" to the charges against him.

An excerpt from the above linked article (in '''bold face'''):

'''LAKELAND, Fla. -- A Colorado man who wrote ''The Pedophile's Guide to Love and Pleasure'' has been sentenced to two years probation in Florida.'''

'''As part of a deal with Polk County prosecutors, 48-year-old Phillip R. Greaves II pleaded no contest Wednesday to distributing obscene material depicting minors engaged in conduct harmful to minors. He will serve his probation in Colorado. He will not have to register as a sex offender.'''

In response to that on the GC board, qtns2di4 said:

"No contest ≠ Guilty plea.

"It doesn't set a precedent (good for us), and doesn't necessarily prevent double jeopardy (bad for him).

"I would still have fought it purely by Commerce Clause, trying to create a constitutional crisis."

In response to the above, LOD said:

"I know there are superficial differences but it basically means guilty, otherwise there would be no punishment."

A response from yours truly to the above was:

...it should be noted that his punishment--such as it is--was extremely light, especially when you consider there was no SOR [sex offender registration] requirements. So it may not be the equivalent of a full admission of guilt, and the very light probation may have been added just to make it clear that the court did "something" in exchange for his plea.

Nevertheless, I do wish he had chosen to fight this, and maybe even bring it all the way to the Supreme Court, out of principle rather than simply pleading "no contest" to something he clearly didn't do, when you consider what nebulous and subjective legal terms "obscenity" or "material depicting acts harmful to minors" can be. I suspect that his lawyer talked him into taking the easy way out of this one, probably saying something to him like, "With an accusation like this, you are all but guaranteed to lose in a trial by jury, so I strongly suggest you let me work out a plea bargain deal with the judge, because you don't want this going to a jury trial, and such a plea should be easy and light since the whole thing is simply over words in a book and you have no prior criminal record."

In response to the above comment of mine, Taf-kat weighed in with:

"Diss, I know it smacks of a sell-out, but when you have been given the option of a plea-bargain, like I have, it takes a man braver than me to decline it - despite pleading guilty with tears running down my cheeks it's something I would do again; sometimes you have to lose a battle and hope you win the war at a later date."

My reply to the above was:

Understood, and I'm sure I would have strongly considered taking the plea bargain too, especially such a light one, rather than face a jury trial against accusations of that nature. I have heard how difficult and trying such a situation can be, so I am not unsympathetic.

Nevertheless, I wish he had gone the distance because his case is so important to the issue of civil rights and free speech in general; it was over something as important as unpopular ideas expressed in a book rather than his being caught with illegal pics or engaging in illegal sexual activity; and it was based on an accusation that is very vague and subjective, i.e., the "obscenity" nonsense and the "material that is harmful to minors" claptrap. Your situation was different from his in a major sense, in my opinion. I wish he had found a more courageous and heavily principled defense attorney in the field of constitutional law.
[[Category:Dissident's essays]]

Essay:Why The Legality Of Child Pornography Is Relevant To The Youth Liberation Movement

2011-11-28T23:36:37Z

Dissident: /* ADDENDUM */

==By Dissident==
:"''Whenever any government, or any church, or anyone else for that matter, undertakes to say to its subjects: 'This book you may not read, this film you may not watch, this image you may not see, this knowledge you may not have,' then the end result is tyranny and oppression, no matter how holy the motives.''" '''- Robert A. Heinlein, "If This Goes On..."'''

I extend many thanks to the crew of GirlChat [GC] for their invaluable editorial assist on the earliest draft of this essay, and I have incorporated several suggestions and anecdotes from them. Particular thanks goes to my fellow GC posters Baldur, qtns2di4, Summerdays, CatcherintheRye, Sancho Panza, Little Girl Lover, and FreeThinkerGL.

Recently I composed an essay designed to answer a question I often hear from individuals as to why the age of consent [AoC] laws are of any importance to the youth liberation movement, and if perhaps the pro-choice faction of the MAA [Minor Attracted Adult] community is simply being "selfish" for arguing that it is. Today, I move on to what may be considered the second part of that essay, which brings the same question to the fore regarding the many types of imagery and writing that may be classified as CP [child pornography] by the government of any given country. In other words, in this essay I will give a response to the many variations of the following question and an accompanying comment that I often hear in concert with it: "What does CP have to do with youth liberation? I don't think any youth under the age of 18 would ever have the slightest interest in appearing in erotic photography or videos, so I think it's foolish, selfish, and counter-productive for the pro-choice faction of the MAA community to support its legalization even in a future youth liberated society." That is quite a bold question and follow-up statement, but does it actually hold up to close scrutiny and logical analysis?

To begin with, one who has the above contention would have to answer the question as to why so many young people over the age of 18 so obviously have a desire to appear in films and photoshoots of an erotic nature, yet be simultaneously certain that absolutely no young person under the age of 18--even just a few years younger--would have a similar desire to do so. Does it make logical sense for youth liberationists to argue that those we today designate 'underagers'--particularly those in adolescence--have many of the same capabilities or desires as older people with the ''sole exception'' of the desire to publicly express their sexuality?

First of all, what does the heavy proliferation of the ''sexting'' phenomenon amongst underagers who own cell phones say about this? Please note the following online news reports--[http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/01/15/national/main4723161.shtml here], [http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34422197/ns/technology_and_science-tech_and_gadgets here], and [http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/WorldNews/sexting-teens/story?id=6456834 here].

----
The above linked articles provide just a few examples that one can find with a simple Google search. Although one can and will argue that sexted pics are designed entirely for the eyes of significant others and not for public consumption, one has to consider a few things: 1) it's illegal for underagers to post nude or overly provocative pics of themselves on public venues, and 2) many do so anyway on their socnet pages on MySpace and Facebook, and not all who do this keep those pages--and therefore access to their photo sections--private.

One then has to consider the proliferation over the past two decades of the online youth modeling sites, many of which remain legal despite strong attempts by the American government to criminalize the entire industry. These modeling sites often feature girls (and sometimes boys) in highly revealing clothing and sometimes even arguably provocative poses. When one of the biggest and most well known companies producing material for youth models, Webe Web, was eradicated from existence after its three owners were brought up on CP charges (some say spuriously), the hope of the government that the entire industry based in the U.S. would be destroyed along with Webe Web was ultimately quashed. This is because several of the young models previously hosted by Webe Web subsequently went off on their own following Webe's demise and continued working in the industry, many of them under new websites run by their parents. When the legal European youth modeling company known as the Gegg Agency fell for similar reasons, several of the girl models who were hosted by that site have likewise reappeared on other sites, also often under the auspices of their parents, who have interestingly refused to cooperate with LEAs [law enforcement agencies] in many cases; very few of these parents actually made a fuzz in the media about alleged "abuse" going on at the Gegg Agency, thus suggesting that the closing of the agency was more the result of pressure coming from the U.S. and Britain than anything more substantial. Pressure from the U.S. with likely help from Britain was known to have a large effect on the closure and indictment of youth modeling agencies situated in the Ukraine, who produced images--sometimes including nudity--that were not legal in the U.S. and certain other jurisdictions, but as my fellow activist qtns2di4 said, "it's not clear that they broke local laws." As he also noted, "As with Webe and C&G, girls and parents reappeared [on other youth modeling sites] and did not collaborate with police." Clearly, the government and parents are often at odds when it comes to the subject of youth modeling, and what does or does not constitute "appropriate" images, including the matter of simple nudity.

There are some in the MAA community who totally enjoy these still legal modeling sites but seem to be totally against young models and actresses appearing in more obviously erotic films regardless of what the youths themselves may feel about appearing in such videos. These dissenting voices strongly deny that any of the youths who appear in today's legal but controversial modeling sites would ever have the slightest desire to appear in actual erotica even in a youth liberated society. Because of this belief, they argue, the CP question is entirely irrelevant to the general youth liberation platform, and pro-choice MAAs--along with youth liberationists in general, of course--need to leave this topic alone for the "good" of the movement. Apparently, some people seem to believe that adolescent youth activists themselves do not want people in their age group to have certain choices that they have no problem with people over the age of 18 to possess. And the reason for this appears to be that they personally consider some of these possible choices to be so "icky" that the right to choose should be forfeit in these cases. In other words, if certain choices would offend society's sensibilities enough, and if it's strongly believed that very few, if any, people in a certain group would even want to make these choices in the first place, then it's okay to legally deny freedom of choice for such people in these particular cases.

As my fellow activist Summerdays noted, "Freedom [includes] the freedom to let others do things we don't like (as long as it doesn't hurt us or anyone else non-consensually, and in a real way)." He further notes, "If youths are to be free, they must be allowed the freedom to pursue avenues that are morally offensive to some, if they so choose.

"It's the same argument made against adult performers in the field of erotic entertainment - but again, with adults, we allow them the freedom to pursue their own vision of happiness, even if that vision disgusts and offends us. Minors, however, are not given such freedom. They may only pursue their vision of happiness if it falls within accepted boundaries as defined by certain adults."

The problem is that the above examples of sexting, uploading nude and provocative pics of themselves to socnet sites, and the proliferation of the youth modeling industry would seem to indicate, quite logically, that in a youth liberated society there may be some youths--perhaps a sizable amount—who would not only be happily willing to make films where they do nude scenes and even appear in outright erotic scenarios, but some may even be willing to appear in films or photoshoots that specialize in erotic content. Why is one to assume that exhibitionist tendencies would be entirely unique to people 18 years of age and older? Does the empirical evidence really suggest this to be the case?

While some assert that arguing for the legalization of much of what we today call "CP" in a youth liberated society--or even in today's society--is counter-productive and is not in the best interests of the young people we are fighting on behalf of, there are actually much better reasons to argue that the exact opposite may be the case.

For one thing, what type of message does the condemnation of all forms of youth erotica give to society when uttered by youth libbers? Such a message would appear to be that youths engaged in erotic activity on film, or in any way publicly expressing their sexual desires, is somehow inherently "disgusting" and "improper" despite the fact that youths are well known to have such desires. Yet, at the same time, it's believed by most of these same people that such activities are perfectly okay and proper for someone who is of the arbitrary age of 18 or over to do to any degree that they please, as if young people under this arbitrary age doing the same thing has some type of innate "ickiness" factor attached to it.

What, exactly, is inherently ugly about the nude body of youths under a certain arbitrary age? Or, perhaps more specifically, what is particularly ugly for young girls under 18 displaying their breasts and genital region on camera that is not similarly inherently ugly, demeaning, or exploitative for young women 18 and over who choose to do the same thing? What is it about youths willingly engaging in the mutual exchange of a pleasurable display like sexual activity on camera somehow disgusting or "wrong" in an inherent sense? Conversely, why is it perfectly okay and non-exploitative for young people of the arbitrary age of 18 and over to do the exact same thing? Why is the right to sexual expression liberating for people over one specific arbitrary age demarcation, yet somehow demeaning and exploitative for any person with the same desires who may fall anywhere beneath that same arbitrary chronological demarcation? What is it about sexual expression in particular that is so inherently anti-youth that no one under a certain arbitrary age would ever want to do it? What is so inherently anti-youth about sexual expression that even some purported youth libbers appear to insist that we must continue to legally prohibit anyone under the age of 18 from having the opportunity to make this choice? What is so inherently pivotal about the specific chronological age of 18 that suddenly allows everything of this nature to become “ok” in the eyes of our culture? Why does this specific age carry so much divine weight in our society’s collective mind, as if its great legal importance was somehow akin to a law of cosmic significance? And again, perhaps most importantly, what type of message does this send to the public when it comes from a political platform that is supposed to be based upon liberation rather than some type of moralizing form of protectionism? In what way would the continued criminalization of such erotica benefit the general principle of liberation amongst any group of people? When, exactly, has censorship of any sort and the concept of liberation ever walked hand-in-hand with each other and comfortably shared a proverbial bed?

Some of these individuals will argue that the legalization of CP would hurt young people under 18 even in a youth liberated society, and is therefore against their best interests. Let us take a look at this claim by using a few excerpts from one of the above linked online articles (specifically, the third) about what the current CP and "obscenity" laws have done to some underagers who were caught sexting [excerpt in '''bold face''']:

:'''News reports are increasingly documenting legal repercussions after indecent photos appear online. And attorneys say there are many unanswered questions about whether young people who send their own photos could face prosecution for obscenity or child pornography.

:'''This year in Wisconsin, a 17-year-old was charged with possessing child pornography after he posted naked pictures of his 16-year-old ex-girlfriend online.'''

:'''In Alabama, authorities arrested four middle-school students for exchanging nude photos of themselves. In Rochester, N.Y., a 16-year-old boy is now facing up to seven years in prison for forwarding a nude photo of a 15-year-old girlfriend to his friends.'''

:'''"I don't think that's what was contemplated when the laws were written," says the Rochester teen's attorney, Tom Splain, who has worked on several similar cases this year. "I think it was more for the older pedophile [sic] collecting pictures of young children; we're now running into high school students getting swept up in these charges."'''

So it would appear that these pundits of protectionism now claim that laws originally intended to prevent "older pedophiles" (actually, hebephiles) from obtaining pics of underage teens that they may end up (god forbid!) fantasizing about in the privacy of their own mind had unforeseen negative consequences on another segment of the greater population: the very segment of the population that such laws were intended to "protect" in the first place. Many activists, however, believe that it's entirely hypocritical for these pundits to act as if they are shocked that underagers themselves ended up being prosecuted under these laws instead of just the older "perverts" that these laws were allegedly created to "protect" them from. These pundits are clearly playing dumb here, since it's well known amongst any politician with an I.Q. over 40 that any type of draconian law will inevitably have such "unforeseen" consequences on every segment of society, including those whom these laws were supposedly intended to "protect" from the horrible crime of having an older person fantasize to their image in the privacy of his or her own thoughts.

One now feels obliged to ask some very important questions whose answers may be disturbing to contemplate. What will happen in the future once these laws continue to expand so that underage teen girls get into legal trouble for sending pics of themselves in their strapless or otherwise “sexy” homecoming or prom dresses to a friend? Moreover, what will happen to parents in the future if they should send such a pic to one of their adult friends simply to show off how beautiful their daughter looked on that special evening? What would happen, for example, if the law suspected that one of the adults these parents sent the pic to may be likely to get aroused by viewing it? If you think I am being comically facetious here, then please consider how nebulous and broad all of the various things that fit under the general umbrella of CP are becoming. Consider, for instance, the many occurrences since the beginning of the sex abuse hysteria at the close of the 1970s and its resulting draconian laws of parents being arrested for taking nude pics of their babies and young children while the latter were in the bathtub or happily frolicking on the beach. This has been a common thing done by families since the invention of the camera that was intended to be entirely innocent, yet the very laws that most parents initially applauded have--predictably--come back to bite even them on the proverbial ass in many cases. No segment of society--not even the very architects of these laws themselves in some instances (*waves to former Senator Mark Foley*)--are spared the consequences of these draconian legislative measures.

If you look back to my previous essay where I dealt with the AoC laws and their relevance to youth liberation in general, you will remember that I noted how even the passage and toleration of a single draconian law in a purportedly democratic society will almost certainly have a cumulative effect on future legislation in this area. The result will invariably be further and further rationalizations for greater and increasingly insidious and far-reaching draconian laws. Predictably, as the years roll on large segments of the population are being convicted for things that they never would have realized were covered under the aegis of these laws when they were first instituted under totally noble pretenses. The ultimate result is an inexorable dive towards a borderline police and surveillance state where privacy is an alien concept, and anxiety over inadvertently breaking some pernicious law is a common fact of life. How is this supposed to benefit or protect younger people from harm? What about the serious implications upon the general adult population and the civil rights that they, unlike people under 18, currently enjoy? And how could it be argued that most teen activists who support youth liberation would actually agree with continued restrictions on their choices in just this one particular area? (The only other area in the realm of youth liberation that even approaches sexual rights in terms of the level of emotional contention is respect for youths' Second Amendment rights, but that is a whole other topic.)

Of course, one will then argue that the act of sexting can have many unforeseen consequences of its own [see endnote 1 for example]. Such concerns are certainly valid, but is the outright criminalization of something that people over the age of majority are allowed to do despite the same attendant risk factors constitute the correct solution to this problem?

The above question needs to be asked, because freedom of choice is extremely important to any platform dedicated to liberation, and this prominently includes the right to take risks. There are any number of ways in which girls (and boys) can be cautioned about indiscriminately sending nude pics of themselves to significant others or friends over their cell phones that belie the need for protectionist prohibitions on freedom of choice [see endnote 2 for some examples of these fully democratic alternatives].

The question of how many youths under a certain arbitrary age would or would not want to appear in erotic films or photoshoots is totally irrelevant to the importance of freedom of choice [see endnote 3]. Freedom of choice is perhaps the most important aspect to any program or platform that purports to be based upon liberation, and this includes choices that the activists involved may not be totally comfortable with, or which they personally deem "inappropriate" for someone to make for whatever reason [see endnote 4].

Another question the naysayers have to consider is how the full range of these CP laws as we know them today hurt the very foundation of a democratic society in a general sense. This includes the well-being of everyone in society, regardless of what their personal tastes in erotica--or the lack of same--may happen to be. How could such a thing be the case, you may ask? The answer is very simple and very logical, and would be much more clear to everyone if they simply compelled themselves to put logic and reason before emotion when confronting any given subject.

As I have said numerous times before, any society that purports to be based on democratic principles suffers immensely with the introduction of even a single draconian law into the penal framework, no matter how genuinely noble or good the intentions of those who pass or support such a law may be. History has shown, over and over again, that draconian laws passed within the context of a democratic society are clearly cumulative in nature and ultimately destructive to such a society's most cherished principles. In other words, the passage and toleration of even one such law within a democratic system tends to gradually lead to further and further justifications of more draconian laws of increasing severity and scope as time marches on. This is because the rationalization of the "need" for one such law can easily lead to further rationalizations for other such laws as time progresses, especially when a certain type of hysteria rears its hideous metaphorical head.

This is why placing laws pertaining to the possession and viewing of CP in a "special" class of image (and sometimes text) that is immune to First Amendment protections has gradually escalated into further and increasingly irrational prohibitions that have begun encroaching upon imagery where no actual minors are involved and erotic material that consists entirely of actors who are legal adults [see endnote 5 for specific examples]. This makes it clear that such legislation inevitably ends up targeting ''ideas'' rather than imagery of material beings or objects, a very dangerous prospect for a democratic system to engage in.

The above factors make it abundantly clear why it's so highly detrimental for a purportedly democratic society to allow any type of draconian law, or any type of censorship regarding what type of imagery or text that people can or cannot view or possess--or any type of idea that they may advocate, either in a subtle or overt fashion, or access information about (be it written or visual). This is regardless of whatever good intentions one may offer to justify banning such imagery or text--and the "dangerous" ideas one feels to be implicit in each--and regardless of how much you may be offended or upset by the imagery or text in question. And this, of course, goes equally for the politically motivated rationales for censoring footage or reports of war atrocities, but that is a whole other topic despite its equal level of importance to the realm of censorship law and its implications on a supposedly free society [again, see endnote 5 for more examples of imagery and footage that are banned by various Western governments under similar justifications].

Now, just so I am clear on this and no misinterpretation can be made, I ''do not'', of course, support the production of CP that features children or teens literally being forced into sexual activity against their will and/or actually tortured in brutal ways on camera, or allowing these heinous producers to sell such imagery on the open market for profit, any more than I would support the existence of adult "snuff" porn if a burgeoning international market for such a product was actually true as per the claims once made by our esteemed bastions of the truth, i.e., the law enforcement agencies [LEAs] and their frequent enablers in deception, the corporate-controlled media. Unfortunately, when one thinks of the term "CP," such imagery is precisely the first thing to come to mind thanks to the constant popular image promulgated endlessly by the mass media, much as (with equal relevance to youth liberation) people automatically thinking of horrid sweatshop conditions whenever the term "child labor" is mentioned, as if it was totally impossible for younger people to desire employment, or to find such employment under perfectly humane and reasonable conditions in an advanced society like our own (though again, this is a whole other subject for another essay).

The fact of the matter remains, the various LEAs have never bothered to provide the public with proof of the frequent and often totally outrageous claims of what the CP they have in their vaulted collection consists of. Further, their utter refusal to allow even a few objective and well-respected journalists to view such material for the purpose of confirming the veracity of these often incredible claims is very telling [see endnote 6 for more examples of such chicanery perpetrated by the LEAs with a lot of help from the media in the not too distant past]. Hence, it's utterly absurd for even those who hate the very thought of CP to claim that it's in no way fishy or suspicious that the LEAs in question will not allow the viewing of these pics and vids even to a few well-respected journalists so they can confirm the veracity of the former statements about what the imagery in those pics and vids largely consist of. This is especially pertinent given the long record of dishonesty amongst the world of law enforcement and the frequently bizarre nature of the claims being made by them about different things they target. It's been said that extraordinary claims demand extraordinary proof (or at least some evidence), but people seem all too willing to make exceptions in the case of anything that they want to believe for purely emotional reasons, no matter how much these comforting beliefs may defy common sense (note the popular but highly incorrect belief in the "stranger danger" epidemic, but more on that below).

But what reason would the LEAs have for so massively deceiving the public about this subject, as they have with other subjects in the past? [Again, see endnote 6 for three major examples] This is actually a silly question for anyone with even a modicum of knowledge about law enforcement and politics--and how each of them works--to ask, but I will explicate the three major reasons for such deception here anyway:

1. The hefty paychecks enjoyed by the officers who comprise the various task forces of the LEAs that are dedicated to combating what the system refers to as crimes of "vice" depend upon the continuation of public hysteria and exaggerated moral "concern" about certain activities going on in our society. Hence, the LEAs have to convince the public and the media that the "problem" they are paid so handsomely to combat is one of such extremely high magnitude to the safety of our children and society in general that the common rules of democracy must be dispensed with to deal with them effectively. In other words, the highly lucrative career opportunities for LEOs [law enforcement officers] that can potentially arise via the generous flow of government funds are seen as extremely important by LEAs to maintain. These heavily valued career opportunities include the creation of future task forces and promotions within them, and they require a steady stream of arrests to build the reputations of the officers involved, and to justify the steep government (read: taxpayer) expenditures required to keep the cash flowing from Congress. This is why the officers who comprise these particular LEAs try to assure a constant supply of arrests by going after the easiest targets, such as those who download, possess, or simply view the banned imagery online rather than conducting the more sensible and less draconian action of tracking down and arresting the alleged plethora of people producing this new CP, and rescuing the supposed legion of kidnapped and horribly abused kids whom these officers claim are forced into making this product by the producers for profit.

2. In order for the public and the media to continue supporting the vast amount of government funding--read: taxpayer support--of such expensive and ultimately futile programs for combating the appearance and expression of every instance of youth sexuality on camera they can find necessitates the claims of the various LEAs that the perceived problem is one of extreme magnitude. Therefore, the LEAs frequently claim that as many as several million children worldwide are being victimized by this allegedly underground but powerful industry, and that the purveyors of these atrocities are so powerful, well-connected, and crafty--and that the demand for such product is so incredibly high across the globe--that they always remain one step ahead of the best and most well-funded of these LEAs' efforts. This enables the LEAs to demand a continuously larger amount of taxpayer-acquired funds every several months to a year, along with further encroachments on our democratic liberties every year, in order to combat this "menace." Of course, any demand for proof of the validity of these claims that are used to justify the perceived need for the Orwellian legislation and the excessive pilfering of taxpayer monies to fund the task forces to carry out its directives are never provided. Instead, we are expected to simply trust our government-funded "protectors" and take absolutely everything they say at face value, despite the fact that their record for honesty when it comes to matters of this nature is alarmingly poor [once again, see endnote 6 for a little sojourn down memory lane in regards to the honesty of law enforcement officers]. Worse, those of us who are disgusted with the very idea of CP on an emotional level truly want to believe the claims of these LEAs. This results in such citizens forming strong attempts to rationalize away the LEAs' refusal to grant freedom of the press to journalists who want to confirm the validity of their claims despite the fact that such people may be well aware of their duplicity in other aspects of the ongoing sex abuse hysteria over the past three decades [ibid]. Note the similar lamentations given to the notorious War On Drugs, though again that is a whole other if equally important topic.

3. Not only does the ongoing panic and disgust with any possible depiction of youth sexuality on camera throughout our culture enable the aforementioned lucrative careers for those officers who work in this particular area of law enforcement, they also serve to increase the rationale of these organizations to continuously demand increased police powers over society in a general sense [see endnote 7]. This is another reason why the successful passage of even one draconian law within a democratic framework can result in the latter framework being gradually eradicated as more and more draconian legislation is rationalized as different aspects of the hysteria or differing simultaneous hysterias (more than one often occur at once) combine to constantly create new aspects of the panic from which the government and its enablers in the media claim we need to be "protected" from.

In other words, those who work within law enforcement and other areas of government have a lot to gain from these hysterias, even as we, the common citizens, and anyone who may--now or in the future--dissent in any way from the imposition of any established norm, will end up paying a huge penalty in the long run. But terrified and intolerant people all too often do not think with their reasoning faculties, and instead let their emotions take over during such manufactured crises.

This is why I believe that it's entirely justified to accuse the various LEAs of yet another horrendous act of duplicity due to their adamant refusal to allow their highly outrageous claims to be validated by a few objective and well-respected journalists in the name of freedom of the press and freedom of information. There is no reason whatsoever to believe that the bulk of CP consists of children or teens being forced into sexual acts against their will and brutally tortured on camera, let alone the existence of a multi-billion dollar international industry that deals in the widespread production and sale of such horrific material. Such pics of genuine abuse do exist, of course, but there is no evidence to suggest that they make up a sizable proportion of the overall rubric of what is broadly defined as CP. Further, there are no known outlets for such product to be distributed profitably just as there was never a large-scale profitable business for adult "snuff" films as the LEAs once claimed. There are many truly depraved human beings in the world, granted, but there is no evidence that there are organized bastions of depravity of such a huge scale who possess such a vast amount of capital and exceptional technical skill amongst their number that an international demand of such a degree for this type of product is being successfully produced and sold for such a huge amount of profit. Arguing otherwise is to argue that MAAs with "extreme" tastes are so disproportionately vile and nasty compared to teleiophiles [people who have a preference for members of the same general age group] with similar "extreme" tastes that simulations of such activity featuring actors who aren't being tortured in actuality will not suffice in place of the real thing for these particular MAAs or child and teen fetishists.

Yet there is no evidence that an adult with a preferential attraction to minors, or even one who has a mere sexual fetish for minors, is in any way more likely than a teleiophile to be of such an aberrant or violent nature that they will absolutely demand the real thing over acted simulations on a large scale. To say otherwise is, whether intentionally or not, admitting that you buy into the worst form of stereotype towards MAAs imaginable sans a single shred of evidence that this stereotype is in any way a part of reality. We need to let common sense and simple logic prevail before we adopt such extremist beliefs about any single group of people. Let's not forget what happened to the Jews and other ethnic and sexual minorities living in Germany during the Holocaust when similar hysterical claims became widespread beliefs amongst the general populace of a particular nation, with government policies reacting accordingly.

As fellow activist Summerdays noted: "...I think this idea is fueled by the (erroneous) belief that the sexual attraction to minors is itself a vile and nasty perversion of normal adult attraction. Thus, anyone who could be so twisted as to be attracted to children [or adolescents] must undoubtedly harbor such disturbing tastes that would lead them to desire things - and to pursue those things - that not even the most perverted teleiophile would consider. But this is quite ridiculous. It's a bogeyman. It's not reality."

Also, such naysayers appear to buy into the common belief that the bulk of what is legally considered CP involves pre-pubescents as young as five years of age. The few individuals who have reported seeing such material--both within and outside of the law enforcement vocation--have stated that the majority of such images consists of adolescents, not pre-pubescents; that the vast majority of these images are old and were produced prior to the criminalization of CP beginning in the early 1980s; and those that feature explicit sexual acts are far fewer than those that feature 'simple' nudity which may or may not highlight the breasts (of teen girls) or genitalia. The type of pics that seem to be actual depictions of real acts of violence and torture appear to encompass by far the smallest amounts of this material in existence. Further, it's very difficult to tell which of the small amount of pics depicting torture and bondage themes are simulated and which are actual footage of real non-consensual abuse.

One must also consider the following logical questions: if such a vast amount of underagers across the globe were literally being kidnapped and forced into sexual activity against their will before a camera, and this material is being distributed to a huge corrupt clientele with deep pockets, then why has there been virtually no instance of such girls appearing in public after they had reached adulthood to make a plea before the world media to end such a horrific global industry? Where are the supposed multitude of adults who one would expect to have a body full of cigarette burns, savage wounds made by blades, or lacerations made by a whip appearing before the media to show these horrific wounds to the public in attempts to get this alleged powerful and heavily profitable industry eradicated once and for all? Moreover, where are the parents of all of these allegedly millions of kidnapped kids who one would expect to appear in the media daily making similar pleas on behalf of their missing children, especially since such parental public pleas and media noise is well known to be very common whenever one of the very small cases of stranger abduction occurs every year? Are we to believe that almost every single one of these multitudes of children supposedly being kidnapped and enslaved for the CP industry are killed and effectively disposed of after the films are made? And even if such was actually the case, what about the multitude of parents and other family members that we should expect to hear the impassioned pleas from on the public airwaves?

In other words, how do the LEAs--along with those who believe these claims--rationalize what may be called '''The Great Silence''' regarding an issue such as this? The only voices we ever usually hear are those of the LEAs and a certain number of CAs ["child advocates," who should never be confused with youth liberationists] and a smidgeon of miscellaneous Web surfers (including a few within the MAA community, it must be noted) who claim to have come across whole websites that are allegedly full of pics depicting such horrendous material. No proof or even any good evidence is ever offered that such a thing is occurring on anywhere near the scale that the LEAs and CAs often claim, yet the belief continues to proliferate via the sheer force of emotion that such propaganda stirs up amongst the masses. Hitler and Stalin would truly be proud of the contemporary American media if they were still alive to see the current sex abuse hysteria and its attendant "pedophile panic," along with the widespread irrational beliefs and draconian laws spawned by them.

Of course, I have no doubt that such abusive films have been made, and continue to be made, from time to time, but in such cases, it often turns out that the perpetrators of these non-consensual films and even on camera torture are usually not some stranger who abducted the kids in question for the purpose of selling videos of the abuse and torture on some nefarious underground market, but rather ''the parents or stepparents'' of these abused kids. This is very likely to be true because it would certainly explain why the great parental silence on this subject is so ubiquitous across the media, and why the media would be highly reluctant to report these facts due to what they may say about what happens to the supposedly sacrosanct institution of parenthood due to the reality of the present hierarchal nature of the much-beloved nuclear family unit in our modern non-youth-liberated society that the current status quo loves to promote so devotedly--and attempt to preserve at all costs--as inherently good. The latter statement is ''not'' intended by this author to disparage the institution of parenthood and the close bond shared between members of the family; rather, it's to make clear that the very concerns this essay was written to address most often occurs--when it actually does occur--as the result of the same laws that legally and civilly disempower younger people, and leave them as little more than the property of their parents. This situation leaves children and teens all the more vulnerable to the very thing that the platform of youth liberation in general is hoping to rectify. Hence, the eventual success of this movement will decrease the likelihood of the more unscrupulous parents out there from successfully forcing their kids into sexual servitude, or genuine abuse of any sort for that matter.

As Summerdays noted on this topic:
:"''I could imagine a completely alternate reality where pedophiles [and hebephiles] worked in tandem with peace officers to prevent the abuse (actual abuse) of children. By allowing the [MAAs] their trade - most of whom, as human beings, would be concerned about the treatment of the children in the pictures - they could bring to the attention of peace officers any pictures that looked suspect, which could then be followed by an investigation. If abuse is proved, then score one for the good guys. Otherwise, if the material has not been produced through abuse (and of course, the child's opinion will be paramount in this determination), then let it flow.''"

As such, I--and the entire pro-choice segment of the MAA community that I am aware of who supports the general legality of youth erotica--only support the production of such erotica that was made with the willing consent of the young people in question. This is particularly true concerning such material that is created by young people themselves; the idea that it's mostly or entirely adults who produce youth erotica is yet another falsehood that the twin phenomena of sexting and uploading of nude pics to socnet sites clearly debunk in no uncertain terms.

Moreover, I do not support any type of "hardcore" production of erotica for pre-pubescents, or anything that would be developmentally injurious to their age group (such as full onscreen sexual penetration of either their vaginas or anuses), so my support of the legalization of youth erotica is entirely geared towards mutually consensually produced products that are ''within reason'', and I do not by any means take an "absolutely anything goes" type of attitude towards youth erotica, especially not when applied to pre-pubescents. Of course, I would never have a problem with any depiction of simple nudity, especially not within the context of a mainstream film that is designed to explore the intimate lives of youths in every detail to a realistic extent [see endnote 8].

One thing we should all keep in mind is that since what is often considered CP has such a great and ever-increasing broadness to it, one must first define what they consider to be CP rather than attacking "CP" in a general sense, since anything that is today legal can be declared CP by a single legislative decision tomorrow. Thus, many personally believe that the legal youth modeling sites of today should be considered CP, and are actively petitioning the Western governments to officially declare them illegal on those grounds. Hence, what does or does not constitute CP can be a personal as well as a legal definition, and the two are often incorrectly and irresponsibly conflated with each other by anyone discussing the subject.

Now, onto the final very important question as to why any type of imagery should be legal to possess or at least to view, even if not to produce or distribute for financial gain.

The idea that even the most deplorable images of CP should be criminalized to view or download because they depict a crime scene and will cause great emotional distress to the victims and family of such crimes must consider the following questions to prove that imagery specifically depicting the sexual exploitation of younger people must be considered part of a very special category of 'crime scene.' For starters, why isn't it illegal to download or view images or vids of actual war carnage, including that involving children getting or having had their limbs blown off as a result of accidentally getting caught in the crossfire of two opposing military forces (i.e., what our government and media loves to call "collateral damage")?

Why aren't pics and vids of actual murders and the horrible torture and execution of reporters and other non-military personnel by terrorists and foreign armies illegal to possess or view? What about the many actual pics of the horrifying carnage wreaked by real serial killers upon their victims that are fully legal to print in any number of serious books about the nature of serial killers? Perhaps very importantly, why isn't it illegal for anyone to possess or view pics of the extreme and very non-consensual sexual humiliation inflicted upon many Middle Eastern male prisoners by American security guards (some of them women) that occurred at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq a few years ago, which resulted in one of several major scandals to erupt from this duplicitous war? The latter case is especially true when you consider the deep level of humiliation that a man raised under a conservative Islamic culture will experience as a result of being forced to engage in simulated homoerotic contact with several other males while being photographed in the act for the amusement of their captors. And please note that many of these men were never even accused, let alone convicted, of a crime--in case some of you attempt to say that these men deserved this atrocious humiliation for allegedly being terrorists, or for being nationalist insurgents who dared to oppose the invasion and lengthy occupation of their nation by a foreign military that too many Americans wrongly identify with their own interests simply due to their citizenship. I am sure it can be cogently argued that these men and their families will be heavily emotionally distressed to realize that people across the world have possession of, and unencumbered access to, these pics.

Further, I am sure that there are many homosexual male and probably even some female bondage fetishists out there--that are otherwise very good and decent people in their dealings with anyone they know in real life--who are actually sexually aroused by viewing such pics and fantasizing about either being in the place of those guards, or of the men who were sexually victimized by them (since many people harbor fantasies of actually being raped). The Islamic male victims in question would certainly be highly emotionally distressed to receive confirmation of those pics being used for such a purpose. Yet I have seen all of the aforedescribed type of pics legally distributed all over the Web and in print, and all ostensibly for informative and/or political purposes. Why isn't anyone arrested for the possession or even simple viewing of such pics, especially when we do not have the slightest idea what happens to be going through the minds of anyone who may be viewing them? Can we possibly take the chance that some of these viewers may have such filthy and depraved thoughts while viewing these pics of what to many constitutes actual footage of a war crime? Is this, perhaps, because we do not favor any type of thought control, no matter how deplorable or vile we may consider such thoughts to be? Should any type of fantasy be criminalized, no matter how awful it may be to our collective sensibilities, as long as it stays entirely within the realm of fantasy? Is there any proof that anyone who has truly awful fantasies are likely to eventually "act out" these fantasies on a real victim? Have we seen even a single Abu Ghraib "copycat" crime perpetrated in the few years these pics have been legally available all over the Web?

As my fellow MAA activist who posts under the nick Little Girl Lover noted in regards to the Abu Ghraib debacle:
:"The thing you hear the anti-CP crowd holler is that children cannot consent, so this is another reason why CP should be illegal. But what of the men who had their pictures taken in Abu Ghraib? These men did not consent to these videos and pictures. They were humiliated. It's even legal to possess these pictures and upload them, but it's illegal to have LS model type pictures even though the girls were paid for posing. They are about the same as ''Playboy'' or ''Penthouse''."

Little Girl Lover further laments:
:"''And what of the victims of the Holocaust? You can buy books in many bookstores with pictures of women and children stripped naked [and] heading off to be slaughtered. This was humiliating and terrifying for all these people involved. They did not consent, yet these pictures are [publicly accessible and legal to view and possess]. I'm sure that the survivors feel traumatized by such an experience, yet this crime is viewed by millions of people over time.''"

:"''All these pictures, including CP and child erotica, should be legal to possess and view. There's a lot of pictures and videos I do not care to look at or own but I will fight for the right to be able to look, read, view, own, and distribute any source of media available.''"

Let us also keep in mind the famous pic of a Vietnam War atrocity where an 11-year-old girl was photographed running through her village streets in extraordinary agony after napalm was dropped on her by American military forces (it should perhaps be noted that the girl is entirely nude in the pic, and her secondary sexual characteristics are clearly visible). The girl is known to have survived this horrific incident despite incurring a great amount of permanent scars, both physical and emotional, as a result. Yet this pic is widely and legally available to view and possess in many print and online resources that cover war atrocities. Can it not be argued that the now adult woman and her surviving family may be extremely emotionally distressed as a result of coming across this pic in so many sources? Do we know beyond a shadow of a doubt what purpose absolutely everyone who takes possession of this pic may use it for, or what thoughts everyone who views this pic may possibly have while viewing it? Do we ever make such assumptions in regards to this pic? Or is the simple fact that it doesn't have a sexual context to it automatically cause us to accept the fact that it has the possibility of being viewed or possessed for non-puerile or non-insidious reasons?

What exactly justifies the legality of this pic to view or possess, but not anything considered CP by the various governments? Does anyone accuse people who possess the above-mentioned pic for whatever conceivable reason, and for supporting the continued legality of possessing it, to be supportive of war atrocities? What if some bigot or American with a twisted sense of patriotism (and there are many of those, unfortunately) uploaded that pic to a website with a horrible statement saying something like, "Burn the Gooks!"? Isn't there a possibility of that happening if this pic remains legal to view, possess, download, and upload wherever and for whatever purposes one pleases? If someone insists that this matter is "different" than CP, and that these questions should not apply to pics of atrocities inflicted upon a minor that does not have an obvious sexual context to it no matter how much emotional distress the public distribution of such pics may have on the victim and her family, then can they explain exactly why the presence or absence of an overt or suggested sexual context should make or break the legality of any type of imagery? What is it about sexuality that Western society is so hysterical about? Why does that subject elicit such a disproportionate degree of irrationality in our culture?

In regards to the oft-made assertion that the simple distribution of such pics or vids without the expectation of monetary gain will automatically create a huge swelling of demand that will result in a huge surfeit of such material being produced in the future is totally without proof, especially if the demand in question is of material that is illegal. Without the hope of a vast amount of financial remuneration being present to make the production of such dangerously illegal material on a large scale worth the effort for any number of insidious individuals who would comprise such an industry--which would include the high degree of logistical difficulties in doing so [see endnote 9]--then why would they do it? This is why such incidents are extremely low, why there is no logical way possible that such material could constitute a sizable degree of what is considered CP by the law, and it explains exactly why The Great Silence described above exists [see endnote 10 for a logical but highly disturbing reason as to why both the LEAs and the media may be highly reluctant to explain the truth behind the tiny amount of genuinely abusive CP, though this matter was already strongly hinted at above].

These are all of the reasons why CP should be entirely legal to possess and view in a democratic society, why all forms of censorship and draconian laws should never be tolerated or resorted to in a democratic system (or one that purports to be) in order to combat any perceived problem or threat, and why the issue of CP most certainly does pertain to the platform of youth liberation.

==Endnotes==

1. One such example is the possibility of a girl who sends nude pics of herself to her boyfriend being double-crossed as he shares the pic with several of his friends without her permission, or which he may even post online.

A cogent statement made by my friend and fellow activist CatcherintheRye on this point is the following:
:"''One thing that frustrates me about cases of sexting is how people hardly ever confront the people that bully young girls who have sexted and tell them how wrong their behavior is. Instead, they seem to instill guilt in the girls themselves. Sure, it is risky to sext with the laws the way they are, so I guess there's nothing wrong with informing young people about that, but I just find that they are really placing a sense of guilt and shame onto the wrong people.''"

Several months later, in regards to a case of the U.S. practice of bullying people under 18 who sext each other that was being discussed on GC, another friend and fellow activist of mine, Summerdays, made this valuable anecdote:

:"''The moral of this story is: if you sext, we will make your life hell. So don't sext.''"

:"''Notice how the bullies protect themselves by emphasizing the dangers of sexting, placing the blame on kids who make the 'poor decision' to sext, and not those who make sexting dangerous (i.e., the bullies themselves, be they peers, or school administrators, or prosecutors, or what have you).''"

:"''You know, because bullying kids to the point of suicide is a whole lot better than telling them it's ''okay'' to take sexy pictures and share them with friends.''"

2. Democratic solutions to the risk factors involved with sexting includes such eminently common sense options as parents offering cautionary advice to their kids the first time the youths in question purchase a cell phone and start an account. In a youth liberated society, parents will accept the fact that their kids may utilize the technology for this purpose, and will not have to feel hesitant to offer this advice to them.

Further, sex education courses can offer similar advice during the teaching of the section that includes risks that young people should be aware of in regards to any type of sexual-oriented activity. This cautionary, value neutral advice doesn't have to be limited to discussions of the possible physical consequences of sexual intercourse amongst adolescents, such as STDs and unwanted pregnancies. The advice given in these courses can also include risk factors amongst the various social choices that young people may make in the course of a relationship, including those related to the use of technology such as cell phone cameras and that pertaining to the online world. '''Every problem a democratic society will ever face, either perceived or totally legitimate, can always be dealt with effectively via a democratic solution, and a draconian response that denies freedom of choice should never be the preferred solution in such a society, no matter how "serious" the problem is considered to be, or how good or noble the intentions behind it are believed to be''' (as noted above in the main text).

As my fellow activist Summerdays opined in regards to including objective and value neutral discussions about the risk factors associated with sexting in sex education courses:
:"''It's the same problem I see often with sex education in general. Assuming kids will practice abstinence (in this case, from taking sexy pictures and sharing them), and gearing the education toward that assumption, results in kids being kept from some very important safety information they should know. And the ones who don't abstain - and they will always exist - suffer because of it. Whether we want kids to sext or not, we ought to recognize that it's going to happen anyway, and we ought to have the responsibility to inform them about what the risks are, and the best ways to do it safely if that's what they end up choosing to do. No moral judgments, no behavioral prescriptions (or proscriptions) - just honest, accurate information.''"

3. Such possible sources of youth erotica that may exist in a future youth liberated society may include print and/or online publications similar to ''Playboy'', but which are instead dedicated exclusively to displaying and celebrating the great beauty of youth.

4. Any alleged platform of liberation that denies or prohibits freedom of choice in its itinerary of goals, or which defines freedom in the context of "freedom from..." rather than "freedom to..." (as explicated in the classic book ''The Handmaiden's Tale''), is in actuality a protectionist racket masquerading as "liberation." Do not be fooled by tyrants dressed in a liberator's clothing, or enticed by the proposition of safety in the arms of a "benevolent" dictator. Any platform of solutions to any perceived problems in society must offer much more than simply good intentions; their proposed solutions must be in harmony with the principles of a free society regardless of the genuine nature of their intentions.

5. Specifically, the aforementioned escalation that has arisen following the passing of the initial CP laws has exponentially increased from the simple viewing or possession of pics featuring minors engaged in explicitly sexual acts to the...

#criminalization of pics or vids featuring simple nudity of minors without any blatant signs of sexuality;

#criminalization of pics or vids featuring legal adults pretending to be minors engaged in sexual activity or appearing nude;

#criminalization of cartoon representations and drawings or CGI [computer generated imagery] of sexually active or nude minors;

#criminalization of any serious attempt at artwork which may depict nude or "provocative" imagery of minors;

#criminalization of minors wearing scanty clothing (since such imagery might arouse a "pedophile");

#criminalization of fully clothed minors who may be posing in a "provocative" manner or having an "enticing" expression on their faces, for the same reason as above;

#utterly absurd and mind-blowing serious proposal amongst the Australian parliament to criminalize adult pornography featuring adult women of legal age with small breasts. In case anyone thinks I'm actually making this last one up, check out the following excerpt that can be found by scrolling down a bit on [http://exileonmoanstreet.blogspot.com/2010/01/wtf-australian-censor-board-demands.html this blog].

The blog states (quotes in '''bold face'''):

:'''Australian Classification Board (ACB) is now banning depictions of small-breasted women in adult publications and films. They banned mainstream pornography from showing women with A-cup breasts, apparently on the grounds that they encourage paedophilia, and in spite of the fact this is a normal breast size for many adult women. Presumably small breasted women taking photographs of themselves will now be guilty of creating simulated child pornography, to say nothing of the message this sends to women with modestly sized chests or those who favour them. Australia has also banned pornographic depictions of female ejaculation, a normal orgasmic sexual response in many women, with censors branding it as "abhorrent."'''

:'''The Board has also started to ban depictions of small-breasted women in adult publications and films. This is in response to a campaign led by Kids Free 2 B Kids and promoted by Barnaby Joyce and Guy Barnett in Senate Estimates late last year. Mainstream companies such as Larry Flint's Hustler produce some of the publications that have been banned. These companies are regulated by the FBI to ensure that only adult performers are featured in their publications. "We are starting to see depictions of women in their late 20s being banned because they have an A cup size", she said. "It may be an unintended consequence of the Senator's actions but they are largely responsible for the sharp increase in breast size in Australian adult magazines of late.”'''

For further clarification of what the toleration of any type of draconian law or justification for censorship of any sort eventually leads--and so you do not think the above excerpt was posted on that blog by yours truly and thus has no actual validity--check out [http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/weird-politics-of-small-boobs-and-bodily-fluids-20100129-n278.html?comments=27 this link] (as columnist Bella Counihan said of this topic: "You can't make this stuff up").

And be sure to check out the coverage of this topic on the following [http://encyclopediadramatica.com/Operation_Titstorm parody site] -- parody often does a very good job of pointing out the sheer idiocy of very serious political matters, something seen regularly in the pages of ''MAD'' magazine, TV shows like ''Saturday Night Live'', and the work of many excellent stand-up comedians such as Bill Maher and the late, great George Carlin.

Is it a coincidence that the move by Australian parliament to ban the appearance of small-breasted women in erotic films and mags occurred in the same legislation that is also trying to ban filmed or photographed depictions of female ejaculation? Is it so important that our society goes out of its way to such an extent to ban anything that may be remotely believed to "encourage 'pedophilia'" (or hebephilia, as the case may be) that certain rights of how legal adults may be depicted on camera should now be curtailed? Is it just a coincidence that encroachments on what legal adults can and cannot do on camera appear to be the result of legislators with a moralizing agenda starting out with censoring "easy" targets like CP before moving on to more "difficult" targets like adult porn? The answer to all three of these interrelated questions would appear to be a resounding '''no'''.

Since it's becoming increasingly evident, as noted in the main text of this essay, that these laws are intended to target a specific idea rather than to actually "protect" minors from appearing on camera while engaged in sexual activities, the common argument in defense of the continuation of this Orwellian legislation is that the proliferation of such imagery may encourage MAAs to "act out" on their urges with real minors. The problem comes when these individuals are asked to provide actual scientific evidence that this is actually the case, and not simply to make assumptions in the absence of such evidence. A far bigger problem arises, with far-reaching negative implications for the survival of what is left of our democracy, when those individuals who actually bother to respond to the above concern do so with a variation of, "We shouldn't have to ask for evidence! If there is even the slightest chance something like that may happen, and even one child per year may be 'abused' as a result, then that possibility makes these laws more than justified! And I don't care how draconian these laws may be when the 'safety' of children is at stake!"

My fellow MAA activist and youth liberationist, qtns2di4, made the following very important statement regarding the above argument being used to justify the criminalization of the viewing and possession of any type of image or text, by making a comparison to the only other two types of imagery or text that are routinely legally banned by governments in the Western world (both outside of America):

"Regarding bans on imagery that are rationalized as helping prevent copycats, there are two non-CP, non-blasphemy-laws, categories that have been made illegal or of controlled access in many countries. One is animal cruelty, and pics or vids featuring it have been banned in some countries. While the argument is [to prevent] an inspiration for others to do the same, a) as you argue, devoting resources to the banning of the images distracts them from prosecuting the culprits of the acts, and b) the [public accessibility of the] images themselves act as prevention and as awareness-building. The second category I am thinking of is Nazi and Nazi camp imagery. Apart from the above objections, which still apply, it is hard to see how [the public accessibility of] Nazi camp imagery helps create another Holocaust. That needs thousands, maybe millions, of collaborators, and they have to be in the broad daylight. A random Neo-Nazi, on the other hand, will not need a camp image to get inspired to commit any atrocity themselves, but will still be limited to what a single person can do. Though these cases are not identical, they are both cases of censorship allegedly as prevention of the commission of the action, akin to that of CP laws."

6. The concern with the validity of the often sensational claims made about the content of much of the CP collected by law enforcement task forces since the first laws were instituted is especially crucial in light of the fact that the LEAs and their hangers-on in the media once thoroughly promoted the reality of the "snuff" film market, the prevalence of rampant satanic ritual abuse of children occurring within day care centers across the entire breadth of North America, and their promotion and widespread acceptance of the "repressed memory" phenomenon that had (and still has, in some cases) a major effect on the mental health industry in the Western world--all of which has since been proven to be total bunk [the satanic ritual abuse and "repressed memory syndrome" phenomena were tackled in detail in my previous essay, [http://newgon.com/wiki/Essay:The_Importance_of_Truth The Importance of Truth], which includes a large amount of links and citations to relevant sources; info on the once widely circulated and non-existent "snuff" film industry can be obtained via a simple Google search.

7. All of the justified admonitions by civil rights advocates against the government's increasing rationalizations for increased police powers over society, which includes: 1) greater surveillance on the general public; 2) increased intrusions in our privacy, such as monitoring our phone calls and e-mail transmissions; 3) increasing the creation of the number of "special" categories of crimes and groups of people that are exempt from common constitutional protections (note what is occurring in the simultaneously ongoing "War On Terror"); 4) and the increased justifications for various forms of censorship that such hysteria's and "moral panics" cause, are thrown by the wayside by a terrified public and cowardly politicians who are too afraid to argue against these continued Orwellian encroachments on our basic civil liberties due to the perceived magnitude of the "threat."

8. These include the many examples of cinema that were produced in foreign countries like France and Denmark for the "coming of age" genre that featured pre-pubescent nudity, any type of artistic production designed to celebrate the beauty of the youthful form of children or adolescents, or any type of film that is intended to be of an educational nature. This would include the re-legalization of once renowned and heavily lauded educational books such as ''Show Me'', as well as all artistic photojournals produced by artists like Sally Mann, Tierney Gearon, Violeta Gómez, and Bill Henson, which feature the celebration of the nude youthful form that has been a major subject of art throughout human history.

9. The logistical nightmares would include the obtainment of a continued supply of victims and what to do with those victims once the films are made and sent to the hypothetical buyers without gaining the attention of the young person's family, friends, or the local police in the process, totally belies common sense and credulity. This is why it's far more likely that in the instances in which genuinely abusive CP is actually produced, it is most often done by parents or stepparents who have continual closeted access to the child victims in question, rather than an organized network of strangers who are motivated entirely by profit on a large scale. This is also why such highly rare products are most often not intended for public consumption but rather for the small number of utterly corrupt fetishists who may share such a horrid interest.

Note the following excerpt of a quote taken from German defense attorney Udo Vetter from [http://archiv.sueddeutsche.de/25F38V/2996588/Simple-Loesungen-fuer-ein-komplexes-Problem.html this article] that appeared on the ''Süddeutsche Zeitung'' news site (translated into English courtesy of GirlChat's webmaster NFiH, who is fluent in German, and which can be confirmed via a translation from Google's software):

'''You cannot physically abuse children on the Internet. But you can look at pictures or movies of child abuse and trade them. "Of course paedophiles use the Internet to trade child porn," says lawyer Udo Vetter, who has acted as a defense lawyer in hundreds of child porn cases. "But there is no such thing as a commercial market."'''

'''...There is no effective system of money transfer for the distribution of illegal pictures and movies. According to Vetter, "you simply can't receive millions of dollars online anonymously." Money flow is monitored by the authorities of many states, including the USA.'''

'''...According to Vetter, none of his clients ever paid for pictures or movies[;] 80 to 90 percent of the files found by the police are identical. "Some of these pictures are 30 to 40 years old." In contrast to the claims made to justify Net censorship[,] the amount of child porn available on the Internet is rising extremely slowly. ''None of these pictures and movies have been produced professionally'' (the only exceptions being movies with teenage victims which may have been legal when they were produced) [emphasis mine].'''

If you remove the value judgment terms "abuse" and "victim" from the above excerpt--which were likely made to appease the readers of this article by using the type of language that they are used to seeing in the media when it comes to this subject--the entire article pretty much says it all about the silliness of the widespread claims by LEAs and their status quo-defending allies in the press that CP production is a huge multi-billion dollar international business.

See also [http://lapsiporno.info/landslide.html this article] about the infamous Texas case involving Landslide Productions, where its webmaster Paul Reeve was arrested for what amounted to a witch hunt. This article also shows the length that LEAs will go to get someone indicted even when the evidence collected doesn't warrant it.

My thanks to NFiH and qtns2di4 for the above tidbits of info.

10. An examination of the two most prominent of the very few victims of what they described as truly non-consensual CP while in their childhood to come forward via the media would appear to reveal the reality behind the tiny amount of genuinely coercive examples of underagers participating in CP production. This reality clearly doesn't lead towards the common, conspiratorial conception of CP being largely the product of an organized, well-funded group of criminal strangers kidnapping kids across the globe and forcing them to participate in sexual activity with adults on camera for the purpose of selling the footage for a sizable profit.

Two of the very few girls to loudly come out in the media for such a reason after reaching adulthood are Masha Allen, who participated in a relatively lengthy series of sexually explicit videos in her childhood--she was given the nickname "Disney Girl" in the media due to the fact that some of the pics of her were taken next to Disney World--and Kylie Freeman, who participated in a similar series of videos during her childhood under the nickname of "Vicky." These two girls, now adults, are perhaps the only two prominent victims of what were said to be coerced participants in the production of new CP that occurred during the age of the Internet, and Masha in particular has become something of a poster girl for LEAs as they engage in their never-ending battle to combat the dissemination of CP. There is a good degree of info on Masha [http://www.inquisition21.com/index.php?module=pagemaster&PAGE_user_op=view_page&PAGE_id=150 here] on the Inquisition 21 website, and I thank my fellow activist Baldur for bringing this to my attention, and FreeThinkerGL for finding me the specific link.

However, as noted above, neither of these girls were the victims of an organized group of criminal strangers who kidnapped them and forced them to appear in such films for intended sale to a corrupt, international clientele of buyers who demanded such product. According to Masha, she was coerced into participation in such films by her adopted father, and Kylie was forced into doing the same thing by her biological father. Neither series of CP videos were produced with the intention of selling them for profit to some corrupt underground market, but were the result of fetishistic parents who made them for free distribution on P2P [peer to peer] video sharing networks that were available to a small circle of private acquaintances during the earlier days of public access to the Internet. There have been subsequent claims by those in the know that the very small amount of truly coercive CP produced for free consumption in the P2P online file sharing networks have all been the product of parents who have this sort of fetishistic "hobby," and not by organized criminal cartels controlled by strangers who kidnap kids for the purpose of producing CP for sale to a large international group of clients (see below for a highly important shared anecdote about the prevalence of CP distribution on P2P networks, now and in the past).

The above evidence and claims are actually entirely logical, because it's well known to both the FBI and youth liberationist orgs alike that the greatest amount of genuine abuse of all kinds perpetrated on minors by adults--including physical and emotional abuse in addition to that of a sexual nature, and even including murder--occurs at the hands of parents and stepparents, but not strangers. This unsettling fact is obviously very uncomfortable for the present day status quo to accept, and since the political overseers of modern society are dedicated to preserving the currently hierarchical version of the nuclear family unit at any cost, it's fully understandable as to why it's far preferable for the media to promote the concept of "stranger danger" and to portray the home as the safest place for children and young teens to be despite all the readily available evidence to the contrary.

Again, this reality is ''not'' mentioned here as an attempt to disparage the institution of parenthood or the sanctity of the family, but simply to make it clear that the current state of affairs with young people lacking most of their civil rights and the parents having such a near-total control over every aspect of their children's lives, as well as a near-monopoly on adult interaction with their kids--save for a few "authorized" non-familial adults, such as teachers and coaches, who are currently discouraged from actually befriending the kids under their charge for obvious reasons related to the ongoing sex abuse hysteria--is the very crux of the greatest and usually the most severe cases of genuine child abuse that occurs in society today. Love shared by family members is a very good thing, but the introduction of such a high degree of power into the equation predictably corrupts this love in too many cases and results in abuse, with some of the less scrupulous parents all too often taking this abuse into some truly horrific directions. The solution that youth libbers promote is not to break up the family unit or destroy the bond between parents and children, but simply to legally empower kids so that they can much more easily resist or escape being subject to any type of abuse or harm by others in their lives, whether it originates from the hands of strangers, teachers, co-workers, peers, or parents.

This is also why, despite the impassioned declarations of Masha and Kylie themselves, arresting people who simply download and view their pics--including the many who likely have no idea that they were supposedly taken under coerced circumstances, and also considering the only place these pics remain readily accessible to the public is on entrapment sites set up by the FBI in sting operations of highly questionable ethical and constitutional acceptability--is not conducive to democratic principles. The only solution that works within a democratic framework is to empower children and teens in a legal and civil manner so as to greatly increase their ability to willingly escape from truly abusive situations of any sort, and to prosecute the producers of any non-consensual material of this nature. Ironically, it should be noted that Masha Allen is now suing the state as a result of their 'post-rescue' operations, including the use of imagery she says were made under coerced circumstances for use in federal entrapment schemes, such as phony sting websites.

Doesn't the fact that upon 'rescuing' Masha from the reportedly abusive clutches of her adoptive father, she was placed under the foster care of a woman who claims to be a victim of sexual abuse who not only lost a case in court where she apparently frivolously accused her pastor of sexually abusing her, but also accused her parents of being part of a satanic cult who forced her to take part in human sacrifice (remember my discussions of the now thoroughly debunked satanic ritual abuse hysteria in my previous essay, “The Importance of Truth"?), mean that such foster care parents were bound to have a distorting effect on Masha's ideology, fueling her with feelings of revenge rather than healing, and into becoming an advocate of vengeful draconian rather than productive empowering solutions for other kids who may find their way into situations similar to hers as the result of abusive parents? Can this be the reason why Masha is so stringent upon penalizing people for looking at pics of her alleged abuse rather than focusing upon the notion of parental power that prevented her from leaving the abusive situation she found herself in? It should also be noted that the U.S. attorney who handled Masha's case following her 'rescue,' Mary Beth Buchanan, was fully aware of the past of Masha's foster mothers whose custody she was placed in. This forces us to wonder if Buchanan did so purposely, so as to increase the chance that victims like Masha would be subject to the type of irrational, vengeance-driven rhetoric from her foster parent so as to better ensure that the girl would develop a mindset conducive to furthering any political agenda that Buchanan and other LEOs like her may have. For the source of this info, go [http://www.inquisition21.com/index.php?module=pagemaster&PAGE_user_op=view_page&PAGE_id=150 here].

Nevertheless, despite the very few lone voices in the wilderness like Masha and Kylie, the Great Silence continues, and these few voices of protest that do arise are from girls who were forced into abusive sexual situations on camera by parents, not by an organized, multi-national cabal of strangers, and their resulting pics and vids were produced for consumption by a small group of like-minded fetishists via a P2P online network with no money passing any hands, and not for profit to a huge underground international market of vile MAAs. The cases of these two girls should speak volumes about the reality of CP, a reality that bears no resemblance to the urban legends created by the LEAs and their allies in the mass media.

Also courtesy of my fellow activist FreeThinkerGL is this link to another essay on Inquisition21 that explains exactly how the American police often create crimes: [http://www.inquisition21.com/index.php?module=pagemaster&PAGE_user_op=view_page&PAGE_id=146 Two Little Girls in a Doorway]. As FreeThinkerGL mentioned to me about the latter article, "This was written before the Masha story above, but Masha's story gives it new significance." Many thanks and appreciation to FreeThinkerGL for the link to this article.

On the subject of P2P file sharing networks and their relation to CP distribution and all the myths that have sprung out of that, my fellow activist qtns2di4 makes the following important observations [in '''bold face''']:

'''A few words about P2P.'''

'''P2P requires every user to identify themselves, therefore IP addresses are always visible to others, either by default or with little technical expertise needed to uncover them. This makes it an extremely vulnerable platform for sharing, and esp. for sharing illegal content. Any step taken to protect IP address information also makes the use of P2P less efficient to the user, so users will normally try to avoid doing it. That is not even to mention the dangers of malware transmitting through P2P, which are independent from the risks of giving IP address information publicly.'''

'''P2P reached its peak of use during the music sharing days. It was very adaptive to the technology of the time. It declined [in popular usage] as copyright lobbies and LEAs infiltrated it in order to combat music piracy. Obviously, while this use is also illegal, it doesn't have the emotional load, the harsh legal penalties, and the niche market characteristics that CP has, so it is not surprising that traffic involving music piracy, at any time, accounted for far more P2P traffic than CP ever could. I don't know if there is any analysis about the use of P2P that relates it directly to the sharing of CP. However, simple intuition would dictate that as P2P declined in use with the combat of music piracy and greater infiltration by LEAs, so did sharing of CP through it. Notice that, because of its structure, it is impossible to establish a payment system that works in assigning you rights of downloading in P2P sharing. That is why music pirates can use it but recording companies cannot. It also means that any CP that arrived into a P2P network became pirate, and therefore impossible to earn money from.'''

'''Traditional P2P networks today still exist, but, because of (otherwise legal) music and video piracy, they are completely full of LEOs [law enforcement officers], thereby making it ever less safe for sharing of any content, and CP will always be much less safe than any pirated music album. Their obvious successors are torrent networks, which work under some of the same basic assumptions of P2P, but which are more stable in themselves, less vulnerable (though not 100% safe) to malware, better adapted to larger file sizes, where it is possible to establish some form of payments system, and it is easier to hide IP addresses without obvious efficiency losses. However, the structure of sharing in torrents would also make it harder to share CP openly.'''

'''In short:'''

'''- P2P overall use coincided with the curve of (pirated) music sharing.'''

'''- There are no reasons to suspect CP was ever a large part of P2P traffic.'''

'''- P2P sharing has declined the more that LEOs and copyright lobbies have infiltrated it in their anti-piracy operations, but there is no reason to suppose that this doesn't spill over to CP, as it is also illegal content.'''

'''- Since the P2P structure doesn't allow for payments to be used, any CP diffused through this means was diffused for free (whether or not it was originally produced for profit)'''

'''- same as music [in the form of mp3 files] always was.'''

'''- Because of the changes undergone since then, it currently should be far more difficult to diffuse CP, new or not, via publicly accessible channels than it was during the golden age of P2P.'''

My thanks and appreciation to qtns2di4 for sharing this important info with me and thereby enhancing the informational basis of this essay.

A few important anecdotes have also been offered by my fellow Girl Lover in the MAA community who hails from the Netherlands and posts under the name Sancho Panza [in '''bold face''']:

'''The view on what CP really is has changed dramatically over the years; I remember our Lolita magazine in the '70s of the last century. Freely available back then, but probably good for a couple of months on water and bread these days.'''

'''The Ukrainian child pornography raids are also interesting; the LS material I saw didn't look like CP by any standard to me, yet American influences managed to shut down the whole thing.'''

'''[P2P networks] like [LimeWire] will be history soon, not because of the availability of CP, but because of copyright infringements (as confirmed by the following excerpt from the [http://www.limewire.com/nl LimeWire home page]):'''

'''''LimeWire is under a court order dated October 26, 2010 to stop distributing the LimeWire software. A copy of the injunction can be found here. LimeWire LLC, its directors and officers, are taking all steps to comply with the injunction. We have very recently become aware of unauthorized applications on the internet purporting to use the LimeWire name. We demand that all persons using the LimeWire software, name, or trademark in order to upload or download copyrighted works in any manner cease and desist from doing so. We further remind you that the unauthorized uploading and downloading of copyrighted works is illegal.'''''

'''It's all about money; few people are really concerned with the well being of children, I'm afraid.'''

Sancho's latter statement is quite interesting when you think about it. Despite the fact that P2P networks have allegedly been a bastion of CP trading over the past decade, the biggest creators of such software were never shut down by any of the LEAs for that reason as long as they cooperated with the police. But now they are rapidly getting shut down by LEAs for entirely financial reasons related to the money allegedly being lost by the big record companies due to the well known proliferation of mp3 file sharing through these networks. The fact that money trumps proclaimed morality shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone in our capitalistic society, since that's pretty much business as usual. It also makes you wonder if the U.S. government and the many large corporations that control it wouldn't be covertly financing the production and sale of CP if their ridiculous claims that it was actually an international multi-billion dollar a year industry were actually true.

=ADDENDUM=

The following "bonus" essay was composed by my fellow activist Summerdays in response to my above article, where he discusses 'The Paradigm of Innocence,' which contains some good insights about our present society's seeming deification of the notion of "childhood innocence" [in '''bold face''']:

'''Most people regard childhood "innocence" as an inherently positive thing. For many, this may be true. Indeed, not knowing the full nature of the tragedy that is life (understanding death, the fact that good things end, that there is not a benevolent all-protecting God watching over you (because if there is a God, it's empirically verifiable that he doesn't mind if bad things happen to you, regardless of whether or not it's for a good reason [at least in God's mind]) - it's pleasant not to have to deal with these heavy truths, and there seems to be a lightness about childhood, at least when we think back on it, that it seems to be so much better than adulthood (provided we didn't have a rough childhood where our innocence was taken away from us prematurely).'''

'''The truth may be that childhood wasn't so light as we imagine it during fits of nostalgia. But to go even further than that, I have personal experience that casts the concept of "innocence" in a negative light. Innocence terrified me. I am terrified of the things I don't know and don't understand. For me, a child who knew so little about the world, the world was a terrifying place. It's only now, as I am growing up and learning about the world, that its mysteries are being revealed to me and its shadows brought under the light. The more I know, the more I understand, the less I fear, and the stronger I become. As an innocent child, I was weak and vulnerable - and I knew it. Experience, for me, is the path towards levity. Sure, life is hard, but it's so much easier when I know exactly what to expect. And what not to expect - like knowing, as a result of decades of firsthand experience, that there can be no inhuman monsters hiding in my closet waiting to eat me. And having enough of an understanding to justify not constantly worrying about the human monsters that may be hiding there, because I know the likelihood is so slim that it's not worth getting bothered about.'''

'''Now, I don't want to say that everyone experiences innocence in this way - but that's exactly the point. Innocence is not the same thing to everyone, and it is not always a desirable state. To preserve a child's innocence because we presume that innocence is a good thing, could do damage to the child if the truth is different (as it was in my case). So in some cases, preserving a child's innocence could be more abusive than dispelling it, and we ought not to assume that it is something that should universally be protected.'''

'''And who knows, maybe a lot more people feel the way I do about innocence. After all, how often is it the child who asks to have her innocence preserved, and how often does she go out of her way to do the opposite, wanting to experience life? And when she asks us if there's a monster in the closet, do we tell her she's better off not knowing, or do we reassure her by going over and opening the closet to let her know exactly what is (and is not) in there?'''
[[Category:Dissident's essays]]

Essay:Why The Legality Of Child Pornography Is Relevant To The Youth Liberation Movement

2011-11-28T23:32:19Z

Dissident: /* Endnotes */

==By Dissident==
:"''Whenever any government, or any church, or anyone else for that matter, undertakes to say to its subjects: 'This book you may not read, this film you may not watch, this image you may not see, this knowledge you may not have,' then the end result is tyranny and oppression, no matter how holy the motives.''" '''- Robert A. Heinlein, "If This Goes On..."'''

I extend many thanks to the crew of GirlChat [GC] for their invaluable editorial assist on the earliest draft of this essay, and I have incorporated several suggestions and anecdotes from them. Particular thanks goes to my fellow GC posters Baldur, qtns2di4, Summerdays, CatcherintheRye, Sancho Panza, Little Girl Lover, and FreeThinkerGL.

Recently I composed an essay designed to answer a question I often hear from individuals as to why the age of consent [AoC] laws are of any importance to the youth liberation movement, and if perhaps the pro-choice faction of the MAA [Minor Attracted Adult] community is simply being "selfish" for arguing that it is. Today, I move on to what may be considered the second part of that essay, which brings the same question to the fore regarding the many types of imagery and writing that may be classified as CP [child pornography] by the government of any given country. In other words, in this essay I will give a response to the many variations of the following question and an accompanying comment that I often hear in concert with it: "What does CP have to do with youth liberation? I don't think any youth under the age of 18 would ever have the slightest interest in appearing in erotic photography or videos, so I think it's foolish, selfish, and counter-productive for the pro-choice faction of the MAA community to support its legalization even in a future youth liberated society." That is quite a bold question and follow-up statement, but does it actually hold up to close scrutiny and logical analysis?

To begin with, one who has the above contention would have to answer the question as to why so many young people over the age of 18 so obviously have a desire to appear in films and photoshoots of an erotic nature, yet be simultaneously certain that absolutely no young person under the age of 18--even just a few years younger--would have a similar desire to do so. Does it make logical sense for youth liberationists to argue that those we today designate 'underagers'--particularly those in adolescence--have many of the same capabilities or desires as older people with the ''sole exception'' of the desire to publicly express their sexuality?

First of all, what does the heavy proliferation of the ''sexting'' phenomenon amongst underagers who own cell phones say about this? Please note the following online news reports--[http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/01/15/national/main4723161.shtml here], [http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34422197/ns/technology_and_science-tech_and_gadgets here], and [http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/WorldNews/sexting-teens/story?id=6456834 here].

----
The above linked articles provide just a few examples that one can find with a simple Google search. Although one can and will argue that sexted pics are designed entirely for the eyes of significant others and not for public consumption, one has to consider a few things: 1) it's illegal for underagers to post nude or overly provocative pics of themselves on public venues, and 2) many do so anyway on their socnet pages on MySpace and Facebook, and not all who do this keep those pages--and therefore access to their photo sections--private.

One then has to consider the proliferation over the past two decades of the online youth modeling sites, many of which remain legal despite strong attempts by the American government to criminalize the entire industry. These modeling sites often feature girls (and sometimes boys) in highly revealing clothing and sometimes even arguably provocative poses. When one of the biggest and most well known companies producing material for youth models, Webe Web, was eradicated from existence after its three owners were brought up on CP charges (some say spuriously), the hope of the government that the entire industry based in the U.S. would be destroyed along with Webe Web was ultimately quashed. This is because several of the young models previously hosted by Webe Web subsequently went off on their own following Webe's demise and continued working in the industry, many of them under new websites run by their parents. When the legal European youth modeling company known as the Gegg Agency fell for similar reasons, several of the girl models who were hosted by that site have likewise reappeared on other sites, also often under the auspices of their parents, who have interestingly refused to cooperate with LEAs [law enforcement agencies] in many cases; very few of these parents actually made a fuzz in the media about alleged "abuse" going on at the Gegg Agency, thus suggesting that the closing of the agency was more the result of pressure coming from the U.S. and Britain than anything more substantial. Pressure from the U.S. with likely help from Britain was known to have a large effect on the closure and indictment of youth modeling agencies situated in the Ukraine, who produced images--sometimes including nudity--that were not legal in the U.S. and certain other jurisdictions, but as my fellow activist qtns2di4 said, "it's not clear that they broke local laws." As he also noted, "As with Webe and C&G, girls and parents reappeared [on other youth modeling sites] and did not collaborate with police." Clearly, the government and parents are often at odds when it comes to the subject of youth modeling, and what does or does not constitute "appropriate" images, including the matter of simple nudity.

There are some in the MAA community who totally enjoy these still legal modeling sites but seem to be totally against young models and actresses appearing in more obviously erotic films regardless of what the youths themselves may feel about appearing in such videos. These dissenting voices strongly deny that any of the youths who appear in today's legal but controversial modeling sites would ever have the slightest desire to appear in actual erotica even in a youth liberated society. Because of this belief, they argue, the CP question is entirely irrelevant to the general youth liberation platform, and pro-choice MAAs--along with youth liberationists in general, of course--need to leave this topic alone for the "good" of the movement. Apparently, some people seem to believe that adolescent youth activists themselves do not want people in their age group to have certain choices that they have no problem with people over the age of 18 to possess. And the reason for this appears to be that they personally consider some of these possible choices to be so "icky" that the right to choose should be forfeit in these cases. In other words, if certain choices would offend society's sensibilities enough, and if it's strongly believed that very few, if any, people in a certain group would even want to make these choices in the first place, then it's okay to legally deny freedom of choice for such people in these particular cases.

As my fellow activist Summerdays noted, "Freedom [includes] the freedom to let others do things we don't like (as long as it doesn't hurt us or anyone else non-consensually, and in a real way)." He further notes, "If youths are to be free, they must be allowed the freedom to pursue avenues that are morally offensive to some, if they so choose.

"It's the same argument made against adult performers in the field of erotic entertainment - but again, with adults, we allow them the freedom to pursue their own vision of happiness, even if that vision disgusts and offends us. Minors, however, are not given such freedom. They may only pursue their vision of happiness if it falls within accepted boundaries as defined by certain adults."

The problem is that the above examples of sexting, uploading nude and provocative pics of themselves to socnet sites, and the proliferation of the youth modeling industry would seem to indicate, quite logically, that in a youth liberated society there may be some youths--perhaps a sizable amount—who would not only be happily willing to make films where they do nude scenes and even appear in outright erotic scenarios, but some may even be willing to appear in films or photoshoots that specialize in erotic content. Why is one to assume that exhibitionist tendencies would be entirely unique to people 18 years of age and older? Does the empirical evidence really suggest this to be the case?

While some assert that arguing for the legalization of much of what we today call "CP" in a youth liberated society--or even in today's society--is counter-productive and is not in the best interests of the young people we are fighting on behalf of, there are actually much better reasons to argue that the exact opposite may be the case.

For one thing, what type of message does the condemnation of all forms of youth erotica give to society when uttered by youth libbers? Such a message would appear to be that youths engaged in erotic activity on film, or in any way publicly expressing their sexual desires, is somehow inherently "disgusting" and "improper" despite the fact that youths are well known to have such desires. Yet, at the same time, it's believed by most of these same people that such activities are perfectly okay and proper for someone who is of the arbitrary age of 18 or over to do to any degree that they please, as if young people under this arbitrary age doing the same thing has some type of innate "ickiness" factor attached to it.

What, exactly, is inherently ugly about the nude body of youths under a certain arbitrary age? Or, perhaps more specifically, what is particularly ugly for young girls under 18 displaying their breasts and genital region on camera that is not similarly inherently ugly, demeaning, or exploitative for young women 18 and over who choose to do the same thing? What is it about youths willingly engaging in the mutual exchange of a pleasurable display like sexual activity on camera somehow disgusting or "wrong" in an inherent sense? Conversely, why is it perfectly okay and non-exploitative for young people of the arbitrary age of 18 and over to do the exact same thing? Why is the right to sexual expression liberating for people over one specific arbitrary age demarcation, yet somehow demeaning and exploitative for any person with the same desires who may fall anywhere beneath that same arbitrary chronological demarcation? What is it about sexual expression in particular that is so inherently anti-youth that no one under a certain arbitrary age would ever want to do it? What is so inherently anti-youth about sexual expression that even some purported youth libbers appear to insist that we must continue to legally prohibit anyone under the age of 18 from having the opportunity to make this choice? What is so inherently pivotal about the specific chronological age of 18 that suddenly allows everything of this nature to become “ok” in the eyes of our culture? Why does this specific age carry so much divine weight in our society’s collective mind, as if its great legal importance was somehow akin to a law of cosmic significance? And again, perhaps most importantly, what type of message does this send to the public when it comes from a political platform that is supposed to be based upon liberation rather than some type of moralizing form of protectionism? In what way would the continued criminalization of such erotica benefit the general principle of liberation amongst any group of people? When, exactly, has censorship of any sort and the concept of liberation ever walked hand-in-hand with each other and comfortably shared a proverbial bed?

Some of these individuals will argue that the legalization of CP would hurt young people under 18 even in a youth liberated society, and is therefore against their best interests. Let us take a look at this claim by using a few excerpts from one of the above linked online articles (specifically, the third) about what the current CP and "obscenity" laws have done to some underagers who were caught sexting [excerpt in '''bold face''']:

:'''News reports are increasingly documenting legal repercussions after indecent photos appear online. And attorneys say there are many unanswered questions about whether young people who send their own photos could face prosecution for obscenity or child pornography.

:'''This year in Wisconsin, a 17-year-old was charged with possessing child pornography after he posted naked pictures of his 16-year-old ex-girlfriend online.'''

:'''In Alabama, authorities arrested four middle-school students for exchanging nude photos of themselves. In Rochester, N.Y., a 16-year-old boy is now facing up to seven years in prison for forwarding a nude photo of a 15-year-old girlfriend to his friends.'''

:'''"I don't think that's what was contemplated when the laws were written," says the Rochester teen's attorney, Tom Splain, who has worked on several similar cases this year. "I think it was more for the older pedophile [sic] collecting pictures of young children; we're now running into high school students getting swept up in these charges."'''

So it would appear that these pundits of protectionism now claim that laws originally intended to prevent "older pedophiles" (actually, hebephiles) from obtaining pics of underage teens that they may end up (god forbid!) fantasizing about in the privacy of their own mind had unforeseen negative consequences on another segment of the greater population: the very segment of the population that such laws were intended to "protect" in the first place. Many activists, however, believe that it's entirely hypocritical for these pundits to act as if they are shocked that underagers themselves ended up being prosecuted under these laws instead of just the older "perverts" that these laws were allegedly created to "protect" them from. These pundits are clearly playing dumb here, since it's well known amongst any politician with an I.Q. over 40 that any type of draconian law will inevitably have such "unforeseen" consequences on every segment of society, including those whom these laws were supposedly intended to "protect" from the horrible crime of having an older person fantasize to their image in the privacy of his or her own thoughts.

One now feels obliged to ask some very important questions whose answers may be disturbing to contemplate. What will happen in the future once these laws continue to expand so that underage teen girls get into legal trouble for sending pics of themselves in their strapless or otherwise “sexy” homecoming or prom dresses to a friend? Moreover, what will happen to parents in the future if they should send such a pic to one of their adult friends simply to show off how beautiful their daughter looked on that special evening? What would happen, for example, if the law suspected that one of the adults these parents sent the pic to may be likely to get aroused by viewing it? If you think I am being comically facetious here, then please consider how nebulous and broad all of the various things that fit under the general umbrella of CP are becoming. Consider, for instance, the many occurrences since the beginning of the sex abuse hysteria at the close of the 1970s and its resulting draconian laws of parents being arrested for taking nude pics of their babies and young children while the latter were in the bathtub or happily frolicking on the beach. This has been a common thing done by families since the invention of the camera that was intended to be entirely innocent, yet the very laws that most parents initially applauded have--predictably--come back to bite even them on the proverbial ass in many cases. No segment of society--not even the very architects of these laws themselves in some instances (*waves to former Senator Mark Foley*)--are spared the consequences of these draconian legislative measures.

If you look back to my previous essay where I dealt with the AoC laws and their relevance to youth liberation in general, you will remember that I noted how even the passage and toleration of a single draconian law in a purportedly democratic society will almost certainly have a cumulative effect on future legislation in this area. The result will invariably be further and further rationalizations for greater and increasingly insidious and far-reaching draconian laws. Predictably, as the years roll on large segments of the population are being convicted for things that they never would have realized were covered under the aegis of these laws when they were first instituted under totally noble pretenses. The ultimate result is an inexorable dive towards a borderline police and surveillance state where privacy is an alien concept, and anxiety over inadvertently breaking some pernicious law is a common fact of life. How is this supposed to benefit or protect younger people from harm? What about the serious implications upon the general adult population and the civil rights that they, unlike people under 18, currently enjoy? And how could it be argued that most teen activists who support youth liberation would actually agree with continued restrictions on their choices in just this one particular area? (The only other area in the realm of youth liberation that even approaches sexual rights in terms of the level of emotional contention is respect for youths' Second Amendment rights, but that is a whole other topic.)

Of course, one will then argue that the act of sexting can have many unforeseen consequences of its own [see endnote 1 for example]. Such concerns are certainly valid, but is the outright criminalization of something that people over the age of majority are allowed to do despite the same attendant risk factors constitute the correct solution to this problem?

The above question needs to be asked, because freedom of choice is extremely important to any platform dedicated to liberation, and this prominently includes the right to take risks. There are any number of ways in which girls (and boys) can be cautioned about indiscriminately sending nude pics of themselves to significant others or friends over their cell phones that belie the need for protectionist prohibitions on freedom of choice [see endnote 2 for some examples of these fully democratic alternatives].

The question of how many youths under a certain arbitrary age would or would not want to appear in erotic films or photoshoots is totally irrelevant to the importance of freedom of choice [see endnote 3]. Freedom of choice is perhaps the most important aspect to any program or platform that purports to be based upon liberation, and this includes choices that the activists involved may not be totally comfortable with, or which they personally deem "inappropriate" for someone to make for whatever reason [see endnote 4].

Another question the naysayers have to consider is how the full range of these CP laws as we know them today hurt the very foundation of a democratic society in a general sense. This includes the well-being of everyone in society, regardless of what their personal tastes in erotica--or the lack of same--may happen to be. How could such a thing be the case, you may ask? The answer is very simple and very logical, and would be much more clear to everyone if they simply compelled themselves to put logic and reason before emotion when confronting any given subject.

As I have said numerous times before, any society that purports to be based on democratic principles suffers immensely with the introduction of even a single draconian law into the penal framework, no matter how genuinely noble or good the intentions of those who pass or support such a law may be. History has shown, over and over again, that draconian laws passed within the context of a democratic society are clearly cumulative in nature and ultimately destructive to such a society's most cherished principles. In other words, the passage and toleration of even one such law within a democratic system tends to gradually lead to further and further justifications of more draconian laws of increasing severity and scope as time marches on. This is because the rationalization of the "need" for one such law can easily lead to further rationalizations for other such laws as time progresses, especially when a certain type of hysteria rears its hideous metaphorical head.

This is why placing laws pertaining to the possession and viewing of CP in a "special" class of image (and sometimes text) that is immune to First Amendment protections has gradually escalated into further and increasingly irrational prohibitions that have begun encroaching upon imagery where no actual minors are involved and erotic material that consists entirely of actors who are legal adults [see endnote 5 for specific examples]. This makes it clear that such legislation inevitably ends up targeting ''ideas'' rather than imagery of material beings or objects, a very dangerous prospect for a democratic system to engage in.

The above factors make it abundantly clear why it's so highly detrimental for a purportedly democratic society to allow any type of draconian law, or any type of censorship regarding what type of imagery or text that people can or cannot view or possess--or any type of idea that they may advocate, either in a subtle or overt fashion, or access information about (be it written or visual). This is regardless of whatever good intentions one may offer to justify banning such imagery or text--and the "dangerous" ideas one feels to be implicit in each--and regardless of how much you may be offended or upset by the imagery or text in question. And this, of course, goes equally for the politically motivated rationales for censoring footage or reports of war atrocities, but that is a whole other topic despite its equal level of importance to the realm of censorship law and its implications on a supposedly free society [again, see endnote 5 for more examples of imagery and footage that are banned by various Western governments under similar justifications].

Now, just so I am clear on this and no misinterpretation can be made, I ''do not'', of course, support the production of CP that features children or teens literally being forced into sexual activity against their will and/or actually tortured in brutal ways on camera, or allowing these heinous producers to sell such imagery on the open market for profit, any more than I would support the existence of adult "snuff" porn if a burgeoning international market for such a product was actually true as per the claims once made by our esteemed bastions of the truth, i.e., the law enforcement agencies [LEAs] and their frequent enablers in deception, the corporate-controlled media. Unfortunately, when one thinks of the term "CP," such imagery is precisely the first thing to come to mind thanks to the constant popular image promulgated endlessly by the mass media, much as (with equal relevance to youth liberation) people automatically thinking of horrid sweatshop conditions whenever the term "child labor" is mentioned, as if it was totally impossible for younger people to desire employment, or to find such employment under perfectly humane and reasonable conditions in an advanced society like our own (though again, this is a whole other subject for another essay).

The fact of the matter remains, the various LEAs have never bothered to provide the public with proof of the frequent and often totally outrageous claims of what the CP they have in their vaulted collection consists of. Further, their utter refusal to allow even a few objective and well-respected journalists to view such material for the purpose of confirming the veracity of these often incredible claims is very telling [see endnote 6 for more examples of such chicanery perpetrated by the LEAs with a lot of help from the media in the not too distant past]. Hence, it's utterly absurd for even those who hate the very thought of CP to claim that it's in no way fishy or suspicious that the LEAs in question will not allow the viewing of these pics and vids even to a few well-respected journalists so they can confirm the veracity of the former statements about what the imagery in those pics and vids largely consist of. This is especially pertinent given the long record of dishonesty amongst the world of law enforcement and the frequently bizarre nature of the claims being made by them about different things they target. It's been said that extraordinary claims demand extraordinary proof (or at least some evidence), but people seem all too willing to make exceptions in the case of anything that they want to believe for purely emotional reasons, no matter how much these comforting beliefs may defy common sense (note the popular but highly incorrect belief in the "stranger danger" epidemic, but more on that below).

But what reason would the LEAs have for so massively deceiving the public about this subject, as they have with other subjects in the past? [Again, see endnote 6 for three major examples] This is actually a silly question for anyone with even a modicum of knowledge about law enforcement and politics--and how each of them works--to ask, but I will explicate the three major reasons for such deception here anyway:

1. The hefty paychecks enjoyed by the officers who comprise the various task forces of the LEAs that are dedicated to combating what the system refers to as crimes of "vice" depend upon the continuation of public hysteria and exaggerated moral "concern" about certain activities going on in our society. Hence, the LEAs have to convince the public and the media that the "problem" they are paid so handsomely to combat is one of such extremely high magnitude to the safety of our children and society in general that the common rules of democracy must be dispensed with to deal with them effectively. In other words, the highly lucrative career opportunities for LEOs [law enforcement officers] that can potentially arise via the generous flow of government funds are seen as extremely important by LEAs to maintain. These heavily valued career opportunities include the creation of future task forces and promotions within them, and they require a steady stream of arrests to build the reputations of the officers involved, and to justify the steep government (read: taxpayer) expenditures required to keep the cash flowing from Congress. This is why the officers who comprise these particular LEAs try to assure a constant supply of arrests by going after the easiest targets, such as those who download, possess, or simply view the banned imagery online rather than conducting the more sensible and less draconian action of tracking down and arresting the alleged plethora of people producing this new CP, and rescuing the supposed legion of kidnapped and horribly abused kids whom these officers claim are forced into making this product by the producers for profit.

2. In order for the public and the media to continue supporting the vast amount of government funding--read: taxpayer support--of such expensive and ultimately futile programs for combating the appearance and expression of every instance of youth sexuality on camera they can find necessitates the claims of the various LEAs that the perceived problem is one of extreme magnitude. Therefore, the LEAs frequently claim that as many as several million children worldwide are being victimized by this allegedly underground but powerful industry, and that the purveyors of these atrocities are so powerful, well-connected, and crafty--and that the demand for such product is so incredibly high across the globe--that they always remain one step ahead of the best and most well-funded of these LEAs' efforts. This enables the LEAs to demand a continuously larger amount of taxpayer-acquired funds every several months to a year, along with further encroachments on our democratic liberties every year, in order to combat this "menace." Of course, any demand for proof of the validity of these claims that are used to justify the perceived need for the Orwellian legislation and the excessive pilfering of taxpayer monies to fund the task forces to carry out its directives are never provided. Instead, we are expected to simply trust our government-funded "protectors" and take absolutely everything they say at face value, despite the fact that their record for honesty when it comes to matters of this nature is alarmingly poor [once again, see endnote 6 for a little sojourn down memory lane in regards to the honesty of law enforcement officers]. Worse, those of us who are disgusted with the very idea of CP on an emotional level truly want to believe the claims of these LEAs. This results in such citizens forming strong attempts to rationalize away the LEAs' refusal to grant freedom of the press to journalists who want to confirm the validity of their claims despite the fact that such people may be well aware of their duplicity in other aspects of the ongoing sex abuse hysteria over the past three decades [ibid]. Note the similar lamentations given to the notorious War On Drugs, though again that is a whole other if equally important topic.

3. Not only does the ongoing panic and disgust with any possible depiction of youth sexuality on camera throughout our culture enable the aforementioned lucrative careers for those officers who work in this particular area of law enforcement, they also serve to increase the rationale of these organizations to continuously demand increased police powers over society in a general sense [see endnote 7]. This is another reason why the successful passage of even one draconian law within a democratic framework can result in the latter framework being gradually eradicated as more and more draconian legislation is rationalized as different aspects of the hysteria or differing simultaneous hysterias (more than one often occur at once) combine to constantly create new aspects of the panic from which the government and its enablers in the media claim we need to be "protected" from.

In other words, those who work within law enforcement and other areas of government have a lot to gain from these hysterias, even as we, the common citizens, and anyone who may--now or in the future--dissent in any way from the imposition of any established norm, will end up paying a huge penalty in the long run. But terrified and intolerant people all too often do not think with their reasoning faculties, and instead let their emotions take over during such manufactured crises.

This is why I believe that it's entirely justified to accuse the various LEAs of yet another horrendous act of duplicity due to their adamant refusal to allow their highly outrageous claims to be validated by a few objective and well-respected journalists in the name of freedom of the press and freedom of information. There is no reason whatsoever to believe that the bulk of CP consists of children or teens being forced into sexual acts against their will and brutally tortured on camera, let alone the existence of a multi-billion dollar international industry that deals in the widespread production and sale of such horrific material. Such pics of genuine abuse do exist, of course, but there is no evidence to suggest that they make up a sizable proportion of the overall rubric of what is broadly defined as CP. Further, there are no known outlets for such product to be distributed profitably just as there was never a large-scale profitable business for adult "snuff" films as the LEAs once claimed. There are many truly depraved human beings in the world, granted, but there is no evidence that there are organized bastions of depravity of such a huge scale who possess such a vast amount of capital and exceptional technical skill amongst their number that an international demand of such a degree for this type of product is being successfully produced and sold for such a huge amount of profit. Arguing otherwise is to argue that MAAs with "extreme" tastes are so disproportionately vile and nasty compared to teleiophiles [people who have a preference for members of the same general age group] with similar "extreme" tastes that simulations of such activity featuring actors who aren't being tortured in actuality will not suffice in place of the real thing for these particular MAAs or child and teen fetishists.

Yet there is no evidence that an adult with a preferential attraction to minors, or even one who has a mere sexual fetish for minors, is in any way more likely than a teleiophile to be of such an aberrant or violent nature that they will absolutely demand the real thing over acted simulations on a large scale. To say otherwise is, whether intentionally or not, admitting that you buy into the worst form of stereotype towards MAAs imaginable sans a single shred of evidence that this stereotype is in any way a part of reality. We need to let common sense and simple logic prevail before we adopt such extremist beliefs about any single group of people. Let's not forget what happened to the Jews and other ethnic and sexual minorities living in Germany during the Holocaust when similar hysterical claims became widespread beliefs amongst the general populace of a particular nation, with government policies reacting accordingly.

As fellow activist Summerdays noted: "...I think this idea is fueled by the (erroneous) belief that the sexual attraction to minors is itself a vile and nasty perversion of normal adult attraction. Thus, anyone who could be so twisted as to be attracted to children [or adolescents] must undoubtedly harbor such disturbing tastes that would lead them to desire things - and to pursue those things - that not even the most perverted teleiophile would consider. But this is quite ridiculous. It's a bogeyman. It's not reality."

Also, such naysayers appear to buy into the common belief that the bulk of what is legally considered CP involves pre-pubescents as young as five years of age. The few individuals who have reported seeing such material--both within and outside of the law enforcement vocation--have stated that the majority of such images consists of adolescents, not pre-pubescents; that the vast majority of these images are old and were produced prior to the criminalization of CP beginning in the early 1980s; and those that feature explicit sexual acts are far fewer than those that feature 'simple' nudity which may or may not highlight the breasts (of teen girls) or genitalia. The type of pics that seem to be actual depictions of real acts of violence and torture appear to encompass by far the smallest amounts of this material in existence. Further, it's very difficult to tell which of the small amount of pics depicting torture and bondage themes are simulated and which are actual footage of real non-consensual abuse.

One must also consider the following logical questions: if such a vast amount of underagers across the globe were literally being kidnapped and forced into sexual activity against their will before a camera, and this material is being distributed to a huge corrupt clientele with deep pockets, then why has there been virtually no instance of such girls appearing in public after they had reached adulthood to make a plea before the world media to end such a horrific global industry? Where are the supposed multitude of adults who one would expect to have a body full of cigarette burns, savage wounds made by blades, or lacerations made by a whip appearing before the media to show these horrific wounds to the public in attempts to get this alleged powerful and heavily profitable industry eradicated once and for all? Moreover, where are the parents of all of these allegedly millions of kidnapped kids who one would expect to appear in the media daily making similar pleas on behalf of their missing children, especially since such parental public pleas and media noise is well known to be very common whenever one of the very small cases of stranger abduction occurs every year? Are we to believe that almost every single one of these multitudes of children supposedly being kidnapped and enslaved for the CP industry are killed and effectively disposed of after the films are made? And even if such was actually the case, what about the multitude of parents and other family members that we should expect to hear the impassioned pleas from on the public airwaves?

In other words, how do the LEAs--along with those who believe these claims--rationalize what may be called '''The Great Silence''' regarding an issue such as this? The only voices we ever usually hear are those of the LEAs and a certain number of CAs ["child advocates," who should never be confused with youth liberationists] and a smidgeon of miscellaneous Web surfers (including a few within the MAA community, it must be noted) who claim to have come across whole websites that are allegedly full of pics depicting such horrendous material. No proof or even any good evidence is ever offered that such a thing is occurring on anywhere near the scale that the LEAs and CAs often claim, yet the belief continues to proliferate via the sheer force of emotion that such propaganda stirs up amongst the masses. Hitler and Stalin would truly be proud of the contemporary American media if they were still alive to see the current sex abuse hysteria and its attendant "pedophile panic," along with the widespread irrational beliefs and draconian laws spawned by them.

Of course, I have no doubt that such abusive films have been made, and continue to be made, from time to time, but in such cases, it often turns out that the perpetrators of these non-consensual films and even on camera torture are usually not some stranger who abducted the kids in question for the purpose of selling videos of the abuse and torture on some nefarious underground market, but rather ''the parents or stepparents'' of these abused kids. This is very likely to be true because it would certainly explain why the great parental silence on this subject is so ubiquitous across the media, and why the media would be highly reluctant to report these facts due to what they may say about what happens to the supposedly sacrosanct institution of parenthood due to the reality of the present hierarchal nature of the much-beloved nuclear family unit in our modern non-youth-liberated society that the current status quo loves to promote so devotedly--and attempt to preserve at all costs--as inherently good. The latter statement is ''not'' intended by this author to disparage the institution of parenthood and the close bond shared between members of the family; rather, it's to make clear that the very concerns this essay was written to address most often occurs--when it actually does occur--as the result of the same laws that legally and civilly disempower younger people, and leave them as little more than the property of their parents. This situation leaves children and teens all the more vulnerable to the very thing that the platform of youth liberation in general is hoping to rectify. Hence, the eventual success of this movement will decrease the likelihood of the more unscrupulous parents out there from successfully forcing their kids into sexual servitude, or genuine abuse of any sort for that matter.

As Summerdays noted on this topic:
:"''I could imagine a completely alternate reality where pedophiles [and hebephiles] worked in tandem with peace officers to prevent the abuse (actual abuse) of children. By allowing the [MAAs] their trade - most of whom, as human beings, would be concerned about the treatment of the children in the pictures - they could bring to the attention of peace officers any pictures that looked suspect, which could then be followed by an investigation. If abuse is proved, then score one for the good guys. Otherwise, if the material has not been produced through abuse (and of course, the child's opinion will be paramount in this determination), then let it flow.''"

As such, I--and the entire pro-choice segment of the MAA community that I am aware of who supports the general legality of youth erotica--only support the production of such erotica that was made with the willing consent of the young people in question. This is particularly true concerning such material that is created by young people themselves; the idea that it's mostly or entirely adults who produce youth erotica is yet another falsehood that the twin phenomena of sexting and uploading of nude pics to socnet sites clearly debunk in no uncertain terms.

Moreover, I do not support any type of "hardcore" production of erotica for pre-pubescents, or anything that would be developmentally injurious to their age group (such as full onscreen sexual penetration of either their vaginas or anuses), so my support of the legalization of youth erotica is entirely geared towards mutually consensually produced products that are ''within reason'', and I do not by any means take an "absolutely anything goes" type of attitude towards youth erotica, especially not when applied to pre-pubescents. Of course, I would never have a problem with any depiction of simple nudity, especially not within the context of a mainstream film that is designed to explore the intimate lives of youths in every detail to a realistic extent [see endnote 8].

One thing we should all keep in mind is that since what is often considered CP has such a great and ever-increasing broadness to it, one must first define what they consider to be CP rather than attacking "CP" in a general sense, since anything that is today legal can be declared CP by a single legislative decision tomorrow. Thus, many personally believe that the legal youth modeling sites of today should be considered CP, and are actively petitioning the Western governments to officially declare them illegal on those grounds. Hence, what does or does not constitute CP can be a personal as well as a legal definition, and the two are often incorrectly and irresponsibly conflated with each other by anyone discussing the subject.

Now, onto the final very important question as to why any type of imagery should be legal to possess or at least to view, even if not to produce or distribute for financial gain.

The idea that even the most deplorable images of CP should be criminalized to view or download because they depict a crime scene and will cause great emotional distress to the victims and family of such crimes must consider the following questions to prove that imagery specifically depicting the sexual exploitation of younger people must be considered part of a very special category of 'crime scene.' For starters, why isn't it illegal to download or view images or vids of actual war carnage, including that involving children getting or having had their limbs blown off as a result of accidentally getting caught in the crossfire of two opposing military forces (i.e., what our government and media loves to call "collateral damage")?

Why aren't pics and vids of actual murders and the horrible torture and execution of reporters and other non-military personnel by terrorists and foreign armies illegal to possess or view? What about the many actual pics of the horrifying carnage wreaked by real serial killers upon their victims that are fully legal to print in any number of serious books about the nature of serial killers? Perhaps very importantly, why isn't it illegal for anyone to possess or view pics of the extreme and very non-consensual sexual humiliation inflicted upon many Middle Eastern male prisoners by American security guards (some of them women) that occurred at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq a few years ago, which resulted in one of several major scandals to erupt from this duplicitous war? The latter case is especially true when you consider the deep level of humiliation that a man raised under a conservative Islamic culture will experience as a result of being forced to engage in simulated homoerotic contact with several other males while being photographed in the act for the amusement of their captors. And please note that many of these men were never even accused, let alone convicted, of a crime--in case some of you attempt to say that these men deserved this atrocious humiliation for allegedly being terrorists, or for being nationalist insurgents who dared to oppose the invasion and lengthy occupation of their nation by a foreign military that too many Americans wrongly identify with their own interests simply due to their citizenship. I am sure it can be cogently argued that these men and their families will be heavily emotionally distressed to realize that people across the world have possession of, and unencumbered access to, these pics.

Further, I am sure that there are many homosexual male and probably even some female bondage fetishists out there--that are otherwise very good and decent people in their dealings with anyone they know in real life--who are actually sexually aroused by viewing such pics and fantasizing about either being in the place of those guards, or of the men who were sexually victimized by them (since many people harbor fantasies of actually being raped). The Islamic male victims in question would certainly be highly emotionally distressed to receive confirmation of those pics being used for such a purpose. Yet I have seen all of the aforedescribed type of pics legally distributed all over the Web and in print, and all ostensibly for informative and/or political purposes. Why isn't anyone arrested for the possession or even simple viewing of such pics, especially when we do not have the slightest idea what happens to be going through the minds of anyone who may be viewing them? Can we possibly take the chance that some of these viewers may have such filthy and depraved thoughts while viewing these pics of what to many constitutes actual footage of a war crime? Is this, perhaps, because we do not favor any type of thought control, no matter how deplorable or vile we may consider such thoughts to be? Should any type of fantasy be criminalized, no matter how awful it may be to our collective sensibilities, as long as it stays entirely within the realm of fantasy? Is there any proof that anyone who has truly awful fantasies are likely to eventually "act out" these fantasies on a real victim? Have we seen even a single Abu Ghraib "copycat" crime perpetrated in the few years these pics have been legally available all over the Web?

As my fellow MAA activist who posts under the nick Little Girl Lover noted in regards to the Abu Ghraib debacle:
:"The thing you hear the anti-CP crowd holler is that children cannot consent, so this is another reason why CP should be illegal. But what of the men who had their pictures taken in Abu Ghraib? These men did not consent to these videos and pictures. They were humiliated. It's even legal to possess these pictures and upload them, but it's illegal to have LS model type pictures even though the girls were paid for posing. They are about the same as ''Playboy'' or ''Penthouse''."

Little Girl Lover further laments:
:"''And what of the victims of the Holocaust? You can buy books in many bookstores with pictures of women and children stripped naked [and] heading off to be slaughtered. This was humiliating and terrifying for all these people involved. They did not consent, yet these pictures are [publicly accessible and legal to view and possess]. I'm sure that the survivors feel traumatized by such an experience, yet this crime is viewed by millions of people over time.''"

:"''All these pictures, including CP and child erotica, should be legal to possess and view. There's a lot of pictures and videos I do not care to look at or own but I will fight for the right to be able to look, read, view, own, and distribute any source of media available.''"

Let us also keep in mind the famous pic of a Vietnam War atrocity where an 11-year-old girl was photographed running through her village streets in extraordinary agony after napalm was dropped on her by American military forces (it should perhaps be noted that the girl is entirely nude in the pic, and her secondary sexual characteristics are clearly visible). The girl is known to have survived this horrific incident despite incurring a great amount of permanent scars, both physical and emotional, as a result. Yet this pic is widely and legally available to view and possess in many print and online resources that cover war atrocities. Can it not be argued that the now adult woman and her surviving family may be extremely emotionally distressed as a result of coming across this pic in so many sources? Do we know beyond a shadow of a doubt what purpose absolutely everyone who takes possession of this pic may use it for, or what thoughts everyone who views this pic may possibly have while viewing it? Do we ever make such assumptions in regards to this pic? Or is the simple fact that it doesn't have a sexual context to it automatically cause us to accept the fact that it has the possibility of being viewed or possessed for non-puerile or non-insidious reasons?

What exactly justifies the legality of this pic to view or possess, but not anything considered CP by the various governments? Does anyone accuse people who possess the above-mentioned pic for whatever conceivable reason, and for supporting the continued legality of possessing it, to be supportive of war atrocities? What if some bigot or American with a twisted sense of patriotism (and there are many of those, unfortunately) uploaded that pic to a website with a horrible statement saying something like, "Burn the Gooks!"? Isn't there a possibility of that happening if this pic remains legal to view, possess, download, and upload wherever and for whatever purposes one pleases? If someone insists that this matter is "different" than CP, and that these questions should not apply to pics of atrocities inflicted upon a minor that does not have an obvious sexual context to it no matter how much emotional distress the public distribution of such pics may have on the victim and her family, then can they explain exactly why the presence or absence of an overt or suggested sexual context should make or break the legality of any type of imagery? What is it about sexuality that Western society is so hysterical about? Why does that subject elicit such a disproportionate degree of irrationality in our culture?

In regards to the oft-made assertion that the simple distribution of such pics or vids without the expectation of monetary gain will automatically create a huge swelling of demand that will result in a huge surfeit of such material being produced in the future is totally without proof, especially if the demand in question is of material that is illegal. Without the hope of a vast amount of financial remuneration being present to make the production of such dangerously illegal material on a large scale worth the effort for any number of insidious individuals who would comprise such an industry--which would include the high degree of logistical difficulties in doing so [see endnote 9]--then why would they do it? This is why such incidents are extremely low, why there is no logical way possible that such material could constitute a sizable degree of what is considered CP by the law, and it explains exactly why The Great Silence described above exists [see endnote 10 for a logical but highly disturbing reason as to why both the LEAs and the media may be highly reluctant to explain the truth behind the tiny amount of genuinely abusive CP, though this matter was already strongly hinted at above].

These are all of the reasons why CP should be entirely legal to possess and view in a democratic society, why all forms of censorship and draconian laws should never be tolerated or resorted to in a democratic system (or one that purports to be) in order to combat any perceived problem or threat, and why the issue of CP most certainly does pertain to the platform of youth liberation.

==Endnotes==

1. One such example is the possibility of a girl who sends nude pics of herself to her boyfriend being double-crossed as he shares the pic with several of his friends without her permission, or which he may even post online.

A cogent statement made by my friend and fellow activist CatcherintheRye on this point is the following:
:"''One thing that frustrates me about cases of sexting is how people hardly ever confront the people that bully young girls who have sexted and tell them how wrong their behavior is. Instead, they seem to instill guilt in the girls themselves. Sure, it is risky to sext with the laws the way they are, so I guess there's nothing wrong with informing young people about that, but I just find that they are really placing a sense of guilt and shame onto the wrong people.''"

Several months later, in regards to a case of the U.S. practice of bullying people under 18 who sext each other that was being discussed on GC, another friend and fellow activist of mine, Summerdays, made this valuable anecdote:

:"''The moral of this story is: if you sext, we will make your life hell. So don't sext.''"

:"''Notice how the bullies protect themselves by emphasizing the dangers of sexting, placing the blame on kids who make the 'poor decision' to sext, and not those who make sexting dangerous (i.e., the bullies themselves, be they peers, or school administrators, or prosecutors, or what have you).''"

:"''You know, because bullying kids to the point of suicide is a whole lot better than telling them it's ''okay'' to take sexy pictures and share them with friends.''"

2. Democratic solutions to the risk factors involved with sexting includes such eminently common sense options as parents offering cautionary advice to their kids the first time the youths in question purchase a cell phone and start an account. In a youth liberated society, parents will accept the fact that their kids may utilize the technology for this purpose, and will not have to feel hesitant to offer this advice to them.

Further, sex education courses can offer similar advice during the teaching of the section that includes risks that young people should be aware of in regards to any type of sexual-oriented activity. This cautionary, value neutral advice doesn't have to be limited to discussions of the possible physical consequences of sexual intercourse amongst adolescents, such as STDs and unwanted pregnancies. The advice given in these courses can also include risk factors amongst the various social choices that young people may make in the course of a relationship, including those related to the use of technology such as cell phone cameras and that pertaining to the online world. '''Every problem a democratic society will ever face, either perceived or totally legitimate, can always be dealt with effectively via a democratic solution, and a draconian response that denies freedom of choice should never be the preferred solution in such a society, no matter how "serious" the problem is considered to be, or how good or noble the intentions behind it are believed to be''' (as noted above in the main text).

As my fellow activist Summerdays opined in regards to including objective and value neutral discussions about the risk factors associated with sexting in sex education courses:
:"''It's the same problem I see often with sex education in general. Assuming kids will practice abstinence (in this case, from taking sexy pictures and sharing them), and gearing the education toward that assumption, results in kids being kept from some very important safety information they should know. And the ones who don't abstain - and they will always exist - suffer because of it. Whether we want kids to sext or not, we ought to recognize that it's going to happen anyway, and we ought to have the responsibility to inform them about what the risks are, and the best ways to do it safely if that's what they end up choosing to do. No moral judgments, no behavioral prescriptions (or proscriptions) - just honest, accurate information.''"

3. Such possible sources of youth erotica that may exist in a future youth liberated society may include print and/or online publications similar to ''Playboy'', but which are instead dedicated exclusively to displaying and celebrating the great beauty of youth.

4. Any alleged platform of liberation that denies or prohibits freedom of choice in its itinerary of goals, or which defines freedom in the context of "freedom from..." rather than "freedom to..." (as explicated in the classic book ''The Handmaiden's Tale''), is in actuality a protectionist racket masquerading as "liberation." Do not be fooled by tyrants dressed in a liberator's clothing, or enticed by the proposition of safety in the arms of a "benevolent" dictator. Any platform of solutions to any perceived problems in society must offer much more than simply good intentions; their proposed solutions must be in harmony with the principles of a free society regardless of the genuine nature of their intentions.

5. Specifically, the aforementioned escalation that has arisen following the passing of the initial CP laws has exponentially increased from the simple viewing or possession of pics featuring minors engaged in explicitly sexual acts to the...

#criminalization of pics or vids featuring simple nudity of minors without any blatant signs of sexuality;

#criminalization of pics or vids featuring legal adults pretending to be minors engaged in sexual activity or appearing nude;

#criminalization of cartoon representations and drawings or CGI [computer generated imagery] of sexually active or nude minors;

#criminalization of any serious attempt at artwork which may depict nude or "provocative" imagery of minors;

#criminalization of minors wearing scanty clothing (since such imagery might arouse a "pedophile");

#criminalization of fully clothed minors who may be posing in a "provocative" manner or having an "enticing" expression on their faces, for the same reason as above;

#utterly absurd and mind-blowing serious proposal amongst the Australian parliament to criminalize adult pornography featuring adult women of legal age with small breasts. In case anyone thinks I'm actually making this last one up, check out the following excerpt that can be found by scrolling down a bit on [http://exileonmoanstreet.blogspot.com/2010/01/wtf-australian-censor-board-demands.html this blog].

The blog states (quotes in '''bold face'''):

:'''Australian Classification Board (ACB) is now banning depictions of small-breasted women in adult publications and films. They banned mainstream pornography from showing women with A-cup breasts, apparently on the grounds that they encourage paedophilia, and in spite of the fact this is a normal breast size for many adult women. Presumably small breasted women taking photographs of themselves will now be guilty of creating simulated child pornography, to say nothing of the message this sends to women with modestly sized chests or those who favour them. Australia has also banned pornographic depictions of female ejaculation, a normal orgasmic sexual response in many women, with censors branding it as "abhorrent."'''

:'''The Board has also started to ban depictions of small-breasted women in adult publications and films. This is in response to a campaign led by Kids Free 2 B Kids and promoted by Barnaby Joyce and Guy Barnett in Senate Estimates late last year. Mainstream companies such as Larry Flint's Hustler produce some of the publications that have been banned. These companies are regulated by the FBI to ensure that only adult performers are featured in their publications. "We are starting to see depictions of women in their late 20s being banned because they have an A cup size", she said. "It may be an unintended consequence of the Senator's actions but they are largely responsible for the sharp increase in breast size in Australian adult magazines of late.”'''

For further clarification of what the toleration of any type of draconian law or justification for censorship of any sort eventually leads--and so you do not think the above excerpt was posted on that blog by yours truly and thus has no actual validity--check out [http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/weird-politics-of-small-boobs-and-bodily-fluids-20100129-n278.html?comments=27 this link] (as columnist Bella Counihan said of this topic: "You can't make this stuff up").

And be sure to check out the coverage of this topic on the following [http://encyclopediadramatica.com/Operation_Titstorm parody site] -- parody often does a very good job of pointing out the sheer idiocy of very serious political matters, something seen regularly in the pages of ''MAD'' magazine, TV shows like ''Saturday Night Live'', and the work of many excellent stand-up comedians such as Bill Maher and the late, great George Carlin.

Is it a coincidence that the move by Australian parliament to ban the appearance of small-breasted women in erotic films and mags occurred in the same legislation that is also trying to ban filmed or photographed depictions of female ejaculation? Is it so important that our society goes out of its way to such an extent to ban anything that may be remotely believed to "encourage 'pedophilia'" (or hebephilia, as the case may be) that certain rights of how legal adults may be depicted on camera should now be curtailed? Is it just a coincidence that encroachments on what legal adults can and cannot do on camera appear to be the result of legislators with a moralizing agenda starting out with censoring "easy" targets like CP before moving on to more "difficult" targets like adult porn? The answer to all three of these interrelated questions would appear to be a resounding '''no'''.

Since it's becoming increasingly evident, as noted in the main text of this essay, that these laws are intended to target a specific idea rather than to actually "protect" minors from appearing on camera while engaged in sexual activities, the common argument in defense of the continuation of this Orwellian legislation is that the proliferation of such imagery may encourage MAAs to "act out" on their urges with real minors. The problem comes when these individuals are asked to provide actual scientific evidence that this is actually the case, and not simply to make assumptions in the absence of such evidence. A far bigger problem arises, with far-reaching negative implications for the survival of what is left of our democracy, when those individuals who actually bother to respond to the above concern do so with a variation of, "We shouldn't have to ask for evidence! If there is even the slightest chance something like that may happen, and even one child per year may be 'abused' as a result, then that possibility makes these laws more than justified! And I don't care how draconian these laws may be when the 'safety' of children is at stake!"

My fellow MAA activist and youth liberationist, qtns2di4, made the following very important statement regarding the above argument being used to justify the criminalization of the viewing and possession of any type of image or text, by making a comparison to the only other two types of imagery or text that are routinely legally banned by governments in the Western world (both outside of America):

"Regarding bans on imagery that are rationalized as helping prevent copycats, there are two non-CP, non-blasphemy-laws, categories that have been made illegal or of controlled access in many countries. One is animal cruelty, and pics or vids featuring it have been banned in some countries. While the argument is [to prevent] an inspiration for others to do the same, a) as you argue, devoting resources to the banning of the images distracts them from prosecuting the culprits of the acts, and b) the [public accessibility of the] images themselves act as prevention and as awareness-building. The second category I am thinking of is Nazi and Nazi camp imagery. Apart from the above objections, which still apply, it is hard to see how [the public accessibility of] Nazi camp imagery helps create another Holocaust. That needs thousands, maybe millions, of collaborators, and they have to be in the broad daylight. A random Neo-Nazi, on the other hand, will not need a camp image to get inspired to commit any atrocity themselves, but will still be limited to what a single person can do. Though these cases are not identical, they are both cases of censorship allegedly as prevention of the commission of the action, akin to that of CP laws."

6. The concern with the validity of the often sensational claims made about the content of much of the CP collected by law enforcement task forces since the first laws were instituted is especially crucial in light of the fact that the LEAs and their hangers-on in the media once thoroughly promoted the reality of the "snuff" film market, the prevalence of rampant satanic ritual abuse of children occurring within day care centers across the entire breadth of North America, and their promotion and widespread acceptance of the "repressed memory" phenomenon that had (and still has, in some cases) a major effect on the mental health industry in the Western world--all of which has since been proven to be total bunk [the satanic ritual abuse and "repressed memory syndrome" phenomena were tackled in detail in my previous essay, [http://newgon.com/wiki/Essay:The_Importance_of_Truth The Importance of Truth], which includes a large amount of links and citations to relevant sources; info on the once widely circulated and non-existent "snuff" film industry can be obtained via a simple Google search.

7. All of the justified admonitions by civil rights advocates against the government's increasing rationalizations for increased police powers over society, which includes: 1) greater surveillance on the general public; 2) increased intrusions in our privacy, such as monitoring our phone calls and e-mail transmissions; 3) increasing the creation of the number of "special" categories of crimes and groups of people that are exempt from common constitutional protections (note what is occurring in the simultaneously ongoing "War On Terror"); 4) and the increased justifications for various forms of censorship that such hysteria's and "moral panics" cause, are thrown by the wayside by a terrified public and cowardly politicians who are too afraid to argue against these continued Orwellian encroachments on our basic civil liberties due to the perceived magnitude of the "threat."

8. These include the many examples of cinema that were produced in foreign countries like France and Denmark for the "coming of age" genre that featured pre-pubescent nudity, any type of artistic production designed to celebrate the beauty of the youthful form of children or adolescents, or any type of film that is intended to be of an educational nature. This would include the re-legalization of once renowned and heavily lauded educational books such as ''Show Me'', as well as all artistic photojournals produced by artists like Sally Mann, Tierney Gearon, Violeta Gómez, and Bill Henson, which feature the celebration of the nude youthful form that has been a major subject of art throughout human history.

9. The logistical nightmares would include the obtainment of a continued supply of victims and what to do with those victims once the films are made and sent to the hypothetical buyers without gaining the attention of the young person's family, friends, or the local police in the process, totally belies common sense and credulity. This is why it's far more likely that in the instances in which genuinely abusive CP is actually produced, it is most often done by parents or stepparents who have continual closeted access to the child victims in question, rather than an organized network of strangers who are motivated entirely by profit on a large scale. This is also why such highly rare products are most often not intended for public consumption but rather for the small number of utterly corrupt fetishists who may share such a horrid interest.

Note the following excerpt of a quote taken from German defense attorney Udo Vetter from [http://archiv.sueddeutsche.de/25F38V/2996588/Simple-Loesungen-fuer-ein-komplexes-Problem.html this article] that appeared on the ''Süddeutsche Zeitung'' news site (translated into English courtesy of GirlChat's webmaster NFiH, who is fluent in German, and which can be confirmed via a translation from Google's software):

'''You cannot physically abuse children on the Internet. But you can look at pictures or movies of child abuse and trade them. "Of course paedophiles use the Internet to trade child porn," says lawyer Udo Vetter, who has acted as a defense lawyer in hundreds of child porn cases. "But there is no such thing as a commercial market."'''

'''...There is no effective system of money transfer for the distribution of illegal pictures and movies. According to Vetter, "you simply can't receive millions of dollars online anonymously." Money flow is monitored by the authorities of many states, including the USA.'''

'''...According to Vetter, none of his clients ever paid for pictures or movies[;] 80 to 90 percent of the files found by the police are identical. "Some of these pictures are 30 to 40 years old." In contrast to the claims made to justify Net censorship[,] the amount of child porn available on the Internet is rising extremely slowly. ''None of these pictures and movies have been produced professionally'' (the only exceptions being movies with teenage victims which may have been legal when they were produced) [emphasis mine].'''

If you remove the value judgment terms "abuse" and "victim" from the above excerpt--which were likely made to appease the readers of this article by using the type of language that they are used to seeing in the media when it comes to this subject--the entire article pretty much says it all about the silliness of the widespread claims by LEAs and their status quo-defending allies in the press that CP production is a huge multi-billion dollar international business.

See also [http://lapsiporno.info/landslide.html this article] about the infamous Texas case involving Landslide Productions, where its webmaster Paul Reeve was arrested for what amounted to a witch hunt. This article also shows the length that LEAs will go to get someone indicted even when the evidence collected doesn't warrant it.

My thanks to NFiH and qtns2di4 for the above tidbits of info.

10. An examination of the two most prominent of the very few victims of what they described as truly non-consensual CP while in their childhood to come forward via the media would appear to reveal the reality behind the tiny amount of genuinely coercive examples of underagers participating in CP production. This reality clearly doesn't lead towards the common, conspiratorial conception of CP being largely the product of an organized, well-funded group of criminal strangers kidnapping kids across the globe and forcing them to participate in sexual activity with adults on camera for the purpose of selling the footage for a sizable profit.

Two of the very few girls to loudly come out in the media for such a reason after reaching adulthood are Masha Allen, who participated in a relatively lengthy series of sexually explicit videos in her childhood--she was given the nickname "Disney Girl" in the media due to the fact that some of the pics of her were taken next to Disney World--and Kylie Freeman, who participated in a similar series of videos during her childhood under the nickname of "Vicky." These two girls, now adults, are perhaps the only two prominent victims of what were said to be coerced participants in the production of new CP that occurred during the age of the Internet, and Masha in particular has become something of a poster girl for LEAs as they engage in their never-ending battle to combat the dissemination of CP. There is a good degree of info on Masha [http://www.inquisition21.com/index.php?module=pagemaster&PAGE_user_op=view_page&PAGE_id=150 here] on the Inquisition 21 website, and I thank my fellow activist Baldur for bringing this to my attention, and FreeThinkerGL for finding me the specific link.

However, as noted above, neither of these girls were the victims of an organized group of criminal strangers who kidnapped them and forced them to appear in such films for intended sale to a corrupt, international clientele of buyers who demanded such product. According to Masha, she was coerced into participation in such films by her adopted father, and Kylie was forced into doing the same thing by her biological father. Neither series of CP videos were produced with the intention of selling them for profit to some corrupt underground market, but were the result of fetishistic parents who made them for free distribution on P2P [peer to peer] video sharing networks that were available to a small circle of private acquaintances during the earlier days of public access to the Internet. There have been subsequent claims by those in the know that the very small amount of truly coercive CP produced for free consumption in the P2P online file sharing networks have all been the product of parents who have this sort of fetishistic "hobby," and not by organized criminal cartels controlled by strangers who kidnap kids for the purpose of producing CP for sale to a large international group of clients (see below for a highly important shared anecdote about the prevalence of CP distribution on P2P networks, now and in the past).

The above evidence and claims are actually entirely logical, because it's well known to both the FBI and youth liberationist orgs alike that the greatest amount of genuine abuse of all kinds perpetrated on minors by adults--including physical and emotional abuse in addition to that of a sexual nature, and even including murder--occurs at the hands of parents and stepparents, but not strangers. This unsettling fact is obviously very uncomfortable for the present day status quo to accept, and since the political overseers of modern society are dedicated to preserving the currently hierarchical version of the nuclear family unit at any cost, it's fully understandable as to why it's far preferable for the media to promote the concept of "stranger danger" and to portray the home as the safest place for children and young teens to be despite all the readily available evidence to the contrary.

Again, this reality is ''not'' mentioned here as an attempt to disparage the institution of parenthood or the sanctity of the family, but simply to make it clear that the current state of affairs with young people lacking most of their civil rights and the parents having such a near-total control over every aspect of their children's lives, as well as a near-monopoly on adult interaction with their kids--save for a few "authorized" non-familial adults, such as teachers and coaches, who are currently discouraged from actually befriending the kids under their charge for obvious reasons related to the ongoing sex abuse hysteria--is the very crux of the greatest and usually the most severe cases of genuine child abuse that occurs in society today. Love shared by family members is a very good thing, but the introduction of such a high degree of power into the equation predictably corrupts this love in too many cases and results in abuse, with some of the less scrupulous parents all too often taking this abuse into some truly horrific directions. The solution that youth libbers promote is not to break up the family unit or destroy the bond between parents and children, but simply to legally empower kids so that they can much more easily resist or escape being subject to any type of abuse or harm by others in their lives, whether it originates from the hands of strangers, teachers, co-workers, peers, or parents.

This is also why, despite the impassioned declarations of Masha and Kylie themselves, arresting people who simply download and view their pics--including the many who likely have no idea that they were supposedly taken under coerced circumstances, and also considering the only place these pics remain readily accessible to the public is on entrapment sites set up by the FBI in sting operations of highly questionable ethical and constitutional acceptability--is not conducive to democratic principles. The only solution that works within a democratic framework is to empower children and teens in a legal and civil manner so as to greatly increase their ability to willingly escape from truly abusive situations of any sort, and to prosecute the producers of any non-consensual material of this nature. Ironically, it should be noted that Masha Allen is now suing the state as a result of their 'post-rescue' operations, including the use of imagery she says were made under coerced circumstances for use in federal entrapment schemes, such as phony sting websites.

Doesn't the fact that upon 'rescuing' Masha from the reportedly abusive clutches of her adoptive father, she was placed under the foster care of a woman who claims to be a victim of sexual abuse who not only lost a case in court where she apparently frivolously accused her pastor of sexually abusing her, but also accused her parents of being part of a satanic cult who forced her to take part in human sacrifice (remember my discussions of the now thoroughly debunked satanic ritual abuse hysteria in my previous essay, “The Importance of Truth"?), mean that such foster care parents were bound to have a distorting effect on Masha's ideology, fueling her with feelings of revenge rather than healing, and into becoming an advocate of vengeful draconian rather than productive empowering solutions for other kids who may find their way into situations similar to hers as the result of abusive parents? Can this be the reason why Masha is so stringent upon penalizing people for looking at pics of her alleged abuse rather than focusing upon the notion of parental power that prevented her from leaving the abusive situation she found herself in? It should also be noted that the U.S. attorney who handled Masha's case following her 'rescue,' Mary Beth Buchanan, was fully aware of the past of Masha's foster mothers whose custody she was placed in. This forces us to wonder if Buchanan did so purposely, so as to increase the chance that victims like Masha would be subject to the type of irrational, vengeance-driven rhetoric from her foster parent so as to better ensure that the girl would develop a mindset conducive to furthering any political agenda that Buchanan and other LEOs like her may have. For the source of this info, go [http://www.inquisition21.com/index.php?module=pagemaster&PAGE_user_op=view_page&PAGE_id=150 here].

Nevertheless, despite the very few lone voices in the wilderness like Masha and Kylie, the Great Silence continues, and these few voices of protest that do arise are from girls who were forced into abusive sexual situations on camera by parents, not by an organized, multi-national cabal of strangers, and their resulting pics and vids were produced for consumption by a small group of like-minded fetishists via a P2P online network with no money passing any hands, and not for profit to a huge underground international market of vile MAAs. The cases of these two girls should speak volumes about the reality of CP, a reality that bears no resemblance to the urban legends created by the LEAs and their allies in the mass media.

Also courtesy of my fellow activist FreeThinkerGL is this link to another essay on Inquisition21 that explains exactly how the American police often create crimes: [http://www.inquisition21.com/index.php?module=pagemaster&PAGE_user_op=view_page&PAGE_id=146 Two Little Girls in a Doorway]. As FreeThinkerGL mentioned to me about the latter article, "This was written before the Masha story above, but Masha's story gives it new significance." Many thanks and appreciation to FreeThinkerGL for the link to this article.

On the subject of P2P file sharing networks and their relation to CP distribution and all the myths that have sprung out of that, my fellow activist qtns2di4 makes the following important observations [in '''bold face''']:

'''A few words about P2P.'''

'''P2P requires every user to identify themselves, therefore IP addresses are always visible to others, either by default or with little technical expertise needed to uncover them. This makes it an extremely vulnerable platform for sharing, and esp. for sharing illegal content. Any step taken to protect IP address information also makes the use of P2P less efficient to the user, so users will normally try to avoid doing it. That is not even to mention the dangers of malware transmitting through P2P, which are independent from the risks of giving IP address information publicly.'''

'''P2P reached its peak of use during the music sharing days. It was very adaptive to the technology of the time. It declined [in popular usage] as copyright lobbies and LEAs infiltrated it in order to combat music piracy. Obviously, while this use is also illegal, it doesn't have the emotional load, the harsh legal penalties, and the niche market characteristics that CP has, so it is not surprising that traffic involving music piracy, at any time, accounted for far more P2P traffic than CP ever could. I don't know if there is any analysis about the use of P2P that relates it directly to the sharing of CP. However, simple intuition would dictate that as P2P declined in use with the combat of music piracy and greater infiltration by LEAs, so did sharing of CP through it. Notice that, because of its structure, it is impossible to establish a payment system that works in assigning you rights of downloading in P2P sharing. That is why music pirates can use it but recording companies cannot. It also means that any CP that arrived into a P2P network became pirate, and therefore impossible to earn money from.'''

'''Traditional P2P networks today still exist, but, because of (otherwise legal) music and video piracy, they are completely full of LEOs [law enforcement officers], thereby making it ever less safe for sharing of any content, and CP will always be much less safe than any pirated music album. Their obvious successors are torrent networks, which work under some of the same basic assumptions of P2P, but which are more stable in themselves, less vulnerable (though not 100% safe) to malware, better adapted to larger file sizes, where it is possible to establish some form of payments system, and it is easier to hide IP addresses without obvious efficiency losses. However, the structure of sharing in torrents would also make it harder to share CP openly.'''

'''In short:'''

'''- P2P overall use coincided with the curve of (pirated) music sharing.'''

'''- There are no reasons to suspect CP was ever a large part of P2P traffic.'''

'''- P2P sharing has declined the more that LEOs and copyright lobbies have infiltrated it in their anti-piracy operations, but there is no reason to suppose that this doesn't spill over to CP, as it is also illegal content.'''

'''- Since the P2P structure doesn't allow for payments to be used, any CP diffused through this means was diffused for free (whether or not it was originally produced for profit)'''

'''- same as music [in the form of mp3 files] always was.'''

'''- Because of the changes undergone since then, it currently should be far more difficult to diffuse CP, new or not, via publicly accessible channels than it was during the golden age of P2P.'''

My thanks and appreciation to qtns2di4 for sharing this important info with me and thereby enhancing the informational basis of this essay.

A few important anecdotes have also been offered by my fellow Girl Lover in the MAA community who hails from the Netherlands and posts under the name Sancho Panza [in '''bold face''']:

'''The view on what CP really is has changed dramatically over the years; I remember our Lolita magazine in the '70s of the last century. Freely available back then, but probably good for a couple of months on water and bread these days.'''

'''The Ukrainian child pornography raids are also interesting; the LS material I saw didn't look like CP by any standard to me, yet American influences managed to shut down the whole thing.'''

'''[P2P networks] like [LimeWire] will be history soon, not because of the availability of CP, but because of copyright infringements (as confirmed by the following excerpt from the [http://www.limewire.com/nl LimeWire home page]):'''

'''''LimeWire is under a court order dated October 26, 2010 to stop distributing the LimeWire software. A copy of the injunction can be found here. LimeWire LLC, its directors and officers, are taking all steps to comply with the injunction. We have very recently become aware of unauthorized applications on the internet purporting to use the LimeWire name. We demand that all persons using the LimeWire software, name, or trademark in order to upload or download copyrighted works in any manner cease and desist from doing so. We further remind you that the unauthorized uploading and downloading of copyrighted works is illegal.'''''

'''It's all about money; few people are really concerned with the well being of children, I'm afraid.'''

Sancho's latter statement is quite interesting when you think about it. Despite the fact that P2P networks have allegedly been a bastion of CP trading over the past decade, the biggest creators of such software were never shut down by any of the LEAs for that reason as long as they cooperated with the police. But now they are rapidly getting shut down by LEAs for entirely financial reasons related to the money allegedly being lost by the big record companies due to the well known proliferation of mp3 file sharing through these networks. The fact that money trumps proclaimed morality shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone in our capitalistic society, since that's pretty much business as usual. It also makes you wonder if the U.S. government and the many large corporations that control it wouldn't be covertly financing the production and sale of CP if their ridiculous claims that it was actually an international multi-billion dollar a year industry were actually true.

=ADDENDUM=
The following "bonus" essay was composed by my fellow activist Summerdays in response to my above article, where he discusses 'The Paradigm of Innocence,' which contains some good insights about our present society's seeming deification of the notion of "childhood innocence" [in '''bold face''']:

'''Most people regard childhood "innocence" as an inherently positive thing. For many, this may be true. Indeed, not knowing the full nature of the tragedy that is life (understanding death, the fact that good things end, that there is not a benevolent all-protecting God watching over you (because if there is a God, it's empirically verifiable that he doesn't mind if bad things happen to you, regardless of whether or not it's for a good reason [at least in God's mind]) - it's pleasant not to have to deal with these heavy truths, and there seems to be a lightness about childhood, at least when we think back on it, that it seems to be so much better than adulthood (provided we didn't have a rough childhood where our innocence was taken away from us prematurely).'''

'''The truth may be that childhood wasn't so light as we imagine it during fits of nostalgia. But to go even further than that, I have personal experience that casts the concept of "innocence" in a negative light. Innocence terrified me. I am terrified of the things I don't know and don't understand. For me, a child who knew so little about the world, the world was a terrifying place. It's only now, as I am growing up and learning about the world, that its mysteries are being revealed to me and its shadows brought under the light. The more I know, the more I understand, the less I fear, and the stronger I become. As an innocent child, I was weak and vulnerable - and I knew it. Experience, for me, is the path towards levity. Sure, life is hard, but it's so much easier when I know exactly what to expect. And what not to expect - like knowing, as a result of decades of firsthand experience, that there can be no inhuman monsters hiding in my closet waiting to eat me. And having enough of an understanding to justify not constantly worrying about the human monsters that may be hiding there, because I know the likelihood is so slim that it's not worth getting bothered about.'''

'''Now, I don't want to say that everyone experiences innocence in this way - but that's exactly the point. Innocence is not the same thing to everyone, and it is not always a desirable state. To preserve a child's innocence because we presume that innocence is a good thing, could do damage to the child if the truth is different (as it was in my case). So in some cases, preserving a child's innocence could be more abusive than dispelling it, and we ought not to assume that it is something that should universally be protected.'''

'''And who knows, maybe a lot more people feel the way I do about innocence. After all, how often is it the child who asks to have her innocence preserved, and how often does she go out of her way to do the opposite, wanting to experience life? And when she asks us if there's a monster in the closet, do we tell her she's better off not knowing, or do we reassure her by going over and opening the closet to let her know exactly what is (and is not) in there?'''
[[Category:Dissident's essays]]

Essay:Why The Legality Of Child Pornography Is Relevant To The Youth Liberation Movement

2011-11-28T23:20:40Z

Dissident: /* By Dissident */

==By Dissident==
:"''Whenever any government, or any church, or anyone else for that matter, undertakes to say to its subjects: 'This book you may not read, this film you may not watch, this image you may not see, this knowledge you may not have,' then the end result is tyranny and oppression, no matter how holy the motives.''" '''- Robert A. Heinlein, "If This Goes On..."'''

I extend many thanks to the crew of GirlChat [GC] for their invaluable editorial assist on the earliest draft of this essay, and I have incorporated several suggestions and anecdotes from them. Particular thanks goes to my fellow GC posters Baldur, qtns2di4, Summerdays, CatcherintheRye, Sancho Panza, Little Girl Lover, and FreeThinkerGL.

Recently I composed an essay designed to answer a question I often hear from individuals as to why the age of consent [AoC] laws are of any importance to the youth liberation movement, and if perhaps the pro-choice faction of the MAA [Minor Attracted Adult] community is simply being "selfish" for arguing that it is. Today, I move on to what may be considered the second part of that essay, which brings the same question to the fore regarding the many types of imagery and writing that may be classified as CP [child pornography] by the government of any given country. In other words, in this essay I will give a response to the many variations of the following question and an accompanying comment that I often hear in concert with it: "What does CP have to do with youth liberation? I don't think any youth under the age of 18 would ever have the slightest interest in appearing in erotic photography or videos, so I think it's foolish, selfish, and counter-productive for the pro-choice faction of the MAA community to support its legalization even in a future youth liberated society." That is quite a bold question and follow-up statement, but does it actually hold up to close scrutiny and logical analysis?

To begin with, one who has the above contention would have to answer the question as to why so many young people over the age of 18 so obviously have a desire to appear in films and photoshoots of an erotic nature, yet be simultaneously certain that absolutely no young person under the age of 18--even just a few years younger--would have a similar desire to do so. Does it make logical sense for youth liberationists to argue that those we today designate 'underagers'--particularly those in adolescence--have many of the same capabilities or desires as older people with the ''sole exception'' of the desire to publicly express their sexuality?

First of all, what does the heavy proliferation of the ''sexting'' phenomenon amongst underagers who own cell phones say about this? Please note the following online news reports--[http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/01/15/national/main4723161.shtml here], [http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34422197/ns/technology_and_science-tech_and_gadgets here], and [http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/WorldNews/sexting-teens/story?id=6456834 here].

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The above linked articles provide just a few examples that one can find with a simple Google search. Although one can and will argue that sexted pics are designed entirely for the eyes of significant others and not for public consumption, one has to consider a few things: 1) it's illegal for underagers to post nude or overly provocative pics of themselves on public venues, and 2) many do so anyway on their socnet pages on MySpace and Facebook, and not all who do this keep those pages--and therefore access to their photo sections--private.

One then has to consider the proliferation over the past two decades of the online youth modeling sites, many of which remain legal despite strong attempts by the American government to criminalize the entire industry. These modeling sites often feature girls (and sometimes boys) in highly revealing clothing and sometimes even arguably provocative poses. When one of the biggest and most well known companies producing material for youth models, Webe Web, was eradicated from existence after its three owners were brought up on CP charges (some say spuriously), the hope of the government that the entire industry based in the U.S. would be destroyed along with Webe Web was ultimately quashed. This is because several of the young models previously hosted by Webe Web subsequently went off on their own following Webe's demise and continued working in the industry, many of them under new websites run by their parents. When the legal European youth modeling company known as the Gegg Agency fell for similar reasons, several of the girl models who were hosted by that site have likewise reappeared on other sites, also often under the auspices of their parents, who have interestingly refused to cooperate with LEAs [law enforcement agencies] in many cases; very few of these parents actually made a fuzz in the media about alleged "abuse" going on at the Gegg Agency, thus suggesting that the closing of the agency was more the result of pressure coming from the U.S. and Britain than anything more substantial. Pressure from the U.S. with likely help from Britain was known to have a large effect on the closure and indictment of youth modeling agencies situated in the Ukraine, who produced images--sometimes including nudity--that were not legal in the U.S. and certain other jurisdictions, but as my fellow activist qtns2di4 said, "it's not clear that they broke local laws." As he also noted, "As with Webe and C&G, girls and parents reappeared [on other youth modeling sites] and did not collaborate with police." Clearly, the government and parents are often at odds when it comes to the subject of youth modeling, and what does or does not constitute "appropriate" images, including the matter of simple nudity.

There are some in the MAA community who totally enjoy these still legal modeling sites but seem to be totally against young models and actresses appearing in more obviously erotic films regardless of what the youths themselves may feel about appearing in such videos. These dissenting voices strongly deny that any of the youths who appear in today's legal but controversial modeling sites would ever have the slightest desire to appear in actual erotica even in a youth liberated society. Because of this belief, they argue, the CP question is entirely irrelevant to the general youth liberation platform, and pro-choice MAAs--along with youth liberationists in general, of course--need to leave this topic alone for the "good" of the movement. Apparently, some people seem to believe that adolescent youth activists themselves do not want people in their age group to have certain choices that they have no problem with people over the age of 18 to possess. And the reason for this appears to be that they personally consider some of these possible choices to be so "icky" that the right to choose should be forfeit in these cases. In other words, if certain choices would offend society's sensibilities enough, and if it's strongly believed that very few, if any, people in a certain group would even want to make these choices in the first place, then it's okay to legally deny freedom of choice for such people in these particular cases.

As my fellow activist Summerdays noted, "Freedom [includes] the freedom to let others do things we don't like (as long as it doesn't hurt us or anyone else non-consensually, and in a real way)." He further notes, "If youths are to be free, they must be allowed the freedom to pursue avenues that are morally offensive to some, if they so choose.

"It's the same argument made against adult performers in the field of erotic entertainment - but again, with adults, we allow them the freedom to pursue their own vision of happiness, even if that vision disgusts and offends us. Minors, however, are not given such freedom. They may only pursue their vision of happiness if it falls within accepted boundaries as defined by certain adults."

The problem is that the above examples of sexting, uploading nude and provocative pics of themselves to socnet sites, and the proliferation of the youth modeling industry would seem to indicate, quite logically, that in a youth liberated society there may be some youths--perhaps a sizable amount—who would not only be happily willing to make films where they do nude scenes and even appear in outright erotic scenarios, but some may even be willing to appear in films or photoshoots that specialize in erotic content. Why is one to assume that exhibitionist tendencies would be entirely unique to people 18 years of age and older? Does the empirical evidence really suggest this to be the case?

While some assert that arguing for the legalization of much of what we today call "CP" in a youth liberated society--or even in today's society--is counter-productive and is not in the best interests of the young people we are fighting on behalf of, there are actually much better reasons to argue that the exact opposite may be the case.

For one thing, what type of message does the condemnation of all forms of youth erotica give to society when uttered by youth libbers? Such a message would appear to be that youths engaged in erotic activity on film, or in any way publicly expressing their sexual desires, is somehow inherently "disgusting" and "improper" despite the fact that youths are well known to have such desires. Yet, at the same time, it's believed by most of these same people that such activities are perfectly okay and proper for someone who is of the arbitrary age of 18 or over to do to any degree that they please, as if young people under this arbitrary age doing the same thing has some type of innate "ickiness" factor attached to it.

What, exactly, is inherently ugly about the nude body of youths under a certain arbitrary age? Or, perhaps more specifically, what is particularly ugly for young girls under 18 displaying their breasts and genital region on camera that is not similarly inherently ugly, demeaning, or exploitative for young women 18 and over who choose to do the same thing? What is it about youths willingly engaging in the mutual exchange of a pleasurable display like sexual activity on camera somehow disgusting or "wrong" in an inherent sense? Conversely, why is it perfectly okay and non-exploitative for young people of the arbitrary age of 18 and over to do the exact same thing? Why is the right to sexual expression liberating for people over one specific arbitrary age demarcation, yet somehow demeaning and exploitative for any person with the same desires who may fall anywhere beneath that same arbitrary chronological demarcation? What is it about sexual expression in particular that is so inherently anti-youth that no one under a certain arbitrary age would ever want to do it? What is so inherently anti-youth about sexual expression that even some purported youth libbers appear to insist that we must continue to legally prohibit anyone under the age of 18 from having the opportunity to make this choice? What is so inherently pivotal about the specific chronological age of 18 that suddenly allows everything of this nature to become “ok” in the eyes of our culture? Why does this specific age carry so much divine weight in our society’s collective mind, as if its great legal importance was somehow akin to a law of cosmic significance? And again, perhaps most importantly, what type of message does this send to the public when it comes from a political platform that is supposed to be based upon liberation rather than some type of moralizing form of protectionism? In what way would the continued criminalization of such erotica benefit the general principle of liberation amongst any group of people? When, exactly, has censorship of any sort and the concept of liberation ever walked hand-in-hand with each other and comfortably shared a proverbial bed?

Some of these individuals will argue that the legalization of CP would hurt young people under 18 even in a youth liberated society, and is therefore against their best interests. Let us take a look at this claim by using a few excerpts from one of the above linked online articles (specifically, the third) about what the current CP and "obscenity" laws have done to some underagers who were caught sexting [excerpt in '''bold face''']:

:'''News reports are increasingly documenting legal repercussions after indecent photos appear online. And attorneys say there are many unanswered questions about whether young people who send their own photos could face prosecution for obscenity or child pornography.

:'''This year in Wisconsin, a 17-year-old was charged with possessing child pornography after he posted naked pictures of his 16-year-old ex-girlfriend online.'''

:'''In Alabama, authorities arrested four middle-school students for exchanging nude photos of themselves. In Rochester, N.Y., a 16-year-old boy is now facing up to seven years in prison for forwarding a nude photo of a 15-year-old girlfriend to his friends.'''

:'''"I don't think that's what was contemplated when the laws were written," says the Rochester teen's attorney, Tom Splain, who has worked on several similar cases this year. "I think it was more for the older pedophile [sic] collecting pictures of young children; we're now running into high school students getting swept up in these charges."'''

So it would appear that these pundits of protectionism now claim that laws originally intended to prevent "older pedophiles" (actually, hebephiles) from obtaining pics of underage teens that they may end up (god forbid!) fantasizing about in the privacy of their own mind had unforeseen negative consequences on another segment of the greater population: the very segment of the population that such laws were intended to "protect" in the first place. Many activists, however, believe that it's entirely hypocritical for these pundits to act as if they are shocked that underagers themselves ended up being prosecuted under these laws instead of just the older "perverts" that these laws were allegedly created to "protect" them from. These pundits are clearly playing dumb here, since it's well known amongst any politician with an I.Q. over 40 that any type of draconian law will inevitably have such "unforeseen" consequences on every segment of society, including those whom these laws were supposedly intended to "protect" from the horrible crime of having an older person fantasize to their image in the privacy of his or her own thoughts.

One now feels obliged to ask some very important questions whose answers may be disturbing to contemplate. What will happen in the future once these laws continue to expand so that underage teen girls get into legal trouble for sending pics of themselves in their strapless or otherwise “sexy” homecoming or prom dresses to a friend? Moreover, what will happen to parents in the future if they should send such a pic to one of their adult friends simply to show off how beautiful their daughter looked on that special evening? What would happen, for example, if the law suspected that one of the adults these parents sent the pic to may be likely to get aroused by viewing it? If you think I am being comically facetious here, then please consider how nebulous and broad all of the various things that fit under the general umbrella of CP are becoming. Consider, for instance, the many occurrences since the beginning of the sex abuse hysteria at the close of the 1970s and its resulting draconian laws of parents being arrested for taking nude pics of their babies and young children while the latter were in the bathtub or happily frolicking on the beach. This has been a common thing done by families since the invention of the camera that was intended to be entirely innocent, yet the very laws that most parents initially applauded have--predictably--come back to bite even them on the proverbial ass in many cases. No segment of society--not even the very architects of these laws themselves in some instances (*waves to former Senator Mark Foley*)--are spared the consequences of these draconian legislative measures.

If you look back to my previous essay where I dealt with the AoC laws and their relevance to youth liberation in general, you will remember that I noted how even the passage and toleration of a single draconian law in a purportedly democratic society will almost certainly have a cumulative effect on future legislation in this area. The result will invariably be further and further rationalizations for greater and increasingly insidious and far-reaching draconian laws. Predictably, as the years roll on large segments of the population are being convicted for things that they never would have realized were covered under the aegis of these laws when they were first instituted under totally noble pretenses. The ultimate result is an inexorable dive towards a borderline police and surveillance state where privacy is an alien concept, and anxiety over inadvertently breaking some pernicious law is a common fact of life. How is this supposed to benefit or protect younger people from harm? What about the serious implications upon the general adult population and the civil rights that they, unlike people under 18, currently enjoy? And how could it be argued that most teen activists who support youth liberation would actually agree with continued restrictions on their choices in just this one particular area? (The only other area in the realm of youth liberation that even approaches sexual rights in terms of the level of emotional contention is respect for youths' Second Amendment rights, but that is a whole other topic.)

Of course, one will then argue that the act of sexting can have many unforeseen consequences of its own [see endnote 1 for example]. Such concerns are certainly valid, but is the outright criminalization of something that people over the age of majority are allowed to do despite the same attendant risk factors constitute the correct solution to this problem?

The above question needs to be asked, because freedom of choice is extremely important to any platform dedicated to liberation, and this prominently includes the right to take risks. There are any number of ways in which girls (and boys) can be cautioned about indiscriminately sending nude pics of themselves to significant others or friends over their cell phones that belie the need for protectionist prohibitions on freedom of choice [see endnote 2 for some examples of these fully democratic alternatives].

The question of how many youths under a certain arbitrary age would or would not want to appear in erotic films or photoshoots is totally irrelevant to the importance of freedom of choice [see endnote 3]. Freedom of choice is perhaps the most important aspect to any program or platform that purports to be based upon liberation, and this includes choices that the activists involved may not be totally comfortable with, or which they personally deem "inappropriate" for someone to make for whatever reason [see endnote 4].

Another question the naysayers have to consider is how the full range of these CP laws as we know them today hurt the very foundation of a democratic society in a general sense. This includes the well-being of everyone in society, regardless of what their personal tastes in erotica--or the lack of same--may happen to be. How could such a thing be the case, you may ask? The answer is very simple and very logical, and would be much more clear to everyone if they simply compelled themselves to put logic and reason before emotion when confronting any given subject.

As I have said numerous times before, any society that purports to be based on democratic principles suffers immensely with the introduction of even a single draconian law into the penal framework, no matter how genuinely noble or good the intentions of those who pass or support such a law may be. History has shown, over and over again, that draconian laws passed within the context of a democratic society are clearly cumulative in nature and ultimately destructive to such a society's most cherished principles. In other words, the passage and toleration of even one such law within a democratic system tends to gradually lead to further and further justifications of more draconian laws of increasing severity and scope as time marches on. This is because the rationalization of the "need" for one such law can easily lead to further rationalizations for other such laws as time progresses, especially when a certain type of hysteria rears its hideous metaphorical head.

This is why placing laws pertaining to the possession and viewing of CP in a "special" class of image (and sometimes text) that is immune to First Amendment protections has gradually escalated into further and increasingly irrational prohibitions that have begun encroaching upon imagery where no actual minors are involved and erotic material that consists entirely of actors who are legal adults [see endnote 5 for specific examples]. This makes it clear that such legislation inevitably ends up targeting ''ideas'' rather than imagery of material beings or objects, a very dangerous prospect for a democratic system to engage in.

The above factors make it abundantly clear why it's so highly detrimental for a purportedly democratic society to allow any type of draconian law, or any type of censorship regarding what type of imagery or text that people can or cannot view or possess--or any type of idea that they may advocate, either in a subtle or overt fashion, or access information about (be it written or visual). This is regardless of whatever good intentions one may offer to justify banning such imagery or text--and the "dangerous" ideas one feels to be implicit in each--and regardless of how much you may be offended or upset by the imagery or text in question. And this, of course, goes equally for the politically motivated rationales for censoring footage or reports of war atrocities, but that is a whole other topic despite its equal level of importance to the realm of censorship law and its implications on a supposedly free society [again, see endnote 5 for more examples of imagery and footage that are banned by various Western governments under similar justifications].

Now, just so I am clear on this and no misinterpretation can be made, I ''do not'', of course, support the production of CP that features children or teens literally being forced into sexual activity against their will and/or actually tortured in brutal ways on camera, or allowing these heinous producers to sell such imagery on the open market for profit, any more than I would support the existence of adult "snuff" porn if a burgeoning international market for such a product was actually true as per the claims once made by our esteemed bastions of the truth, i.e., the law enforcement agencies [LEAs] and their frequent enablers in deception, the corporate-controlled media. Unfortunately, when one thinks of the term "CP," such imagery is precisely the first thing to come to mind thanks to the constant popular image promulgated endlessly by the mass media, much as (with equal relevance to youth liberation) people automatically thinking of horrid sweatshop conditions whenever the term "child labor" is mentioned, as if it was totally impossible for younger people to desire employment, or to find such employment under perfectly humane and reasonable conditions in an advanced society like our own (though again, this is a whole other subject for another essay).

The fact of the matter remains, the various LEAs have never bothered to provide the public with proof of the frequent and often totally outrageous claims of what the CP they have in their vaulted collection consists of. Further, their utter refusal to allow even a few objective and well-respected journalists to view such material for the purpose of confirming the veracity of these often incredible claims is very telling [see endnote 6 for more examples of such chicanery perpetrated by the LEAs with a lot of help from the media in the not too distant past]. Hence, it's utterly absurd for even those who hate the very thought of CP to claim that it's in no way fishy or suspicious that the LEAs in question will not allow the viewing of these pics and vids even to a few well-respected journalists so they can confirm the veracity of the former statements about what the imagery in those pics and vids largely consist of. This is especially pertinent given the long record of dishonesty amongst the world of law enforcement and the frequently bizarre nature of the claims being made by them about different things they target. It's been said that extraordinary claims demand extraordinary proof (or at least some evidence), but people seem all too willing to make exceptions in the case of anything that they want to believe for purely emotional reasons, no matter how much these comforting beliefs may defy common sense (note the popular but highly incorrect belief in the "stranger danger" epidemic, but more on that below).

But what reason would the LEAs have for so massively deceiving the public about this subject, as they have with other subjects in the past? [Again, see endnote 6 for three major examples] This is actually a silly question for anyone with even a modicum of knowledge about law enforcement and politics--and how each of them works--to ask, but I will explicate the three major reasons for such deception here anyway:

1. The hefty paychecks enjoyed by the officers who comprise the various task forces of the LEAs that are dedicated to combating what the system refers to as crimes of "vice" depend upon the continuation of public hysteria and exaggerated moral "concern" about certain activities going on in our society. Hence, the LEAs have to convince the public and the media that the "problem" they are paid so handsomely to combat is one of such extremely high magnitude to the safety of our children and society in general that the common rules of democracy must be dispensed with to deal with them effectively. In other words, the highly lucrative career opportunities for LEOs [law enforcement officers] that can potentially arise via the generous flow of government funds are seen as extremely important by LEAs to maintain. These heavily valued career opportunities include the creation of future task forces and promotions within them, and they require a steady stream of arrests to build the reputations of the officers involved, and to justify the steep government (read: taxpayer) expenditures required to keep the cash flowing from Congress. This is why the officers who comprise these particular LEAs try to assure a constant supply of arrests by going after the easiest targets, such as those who download, possess, or simply view the banned imagery online rather than conducting the more sensible and less draconian action of tracking down and arresting the alleged plethora of people producing this new CP, and rescuing the supposed legion of kidnapped and horribly abused kids whom these officers claim are forced into making this product by the producers for profit.

2. In order for the public and the media to continue supporting the vast amount of government funding--read: taxpayer support--of such expensive and ultimately futile programs for combating the appearance and expression of every instance of youth sexuality on camera they can find necessitates the claims of the various LEAs that the perceived problem is one of extreme magnitude. Therefore, the LEAs frequently claim that as many as several million children worldwide are being victimized by this allegedly underground but powerful industry, and that the purveyors of these atrocities are so powerful, well-connected, and crafty--and that the demand for such product is so incredibly high across the globe--that they always remain one step ahead of the best and most well-funded of these LEAs' efforts. This enables the LEAs to demand a continuously larger amount of taxpayer-acquired funds every several months to a year, along with further encroachments on our democratic liberties every year, in order to combat this "menace." Of course, any demand for proof of the validity of these claims that are used to justify the perceived need for the Orwellian legislation and the excessive pilfering of taxpayer monies to fund the task forces to carry out its directives are never provided. Instead, we are expected to simply trust our government-funded "protectors" and take absolutely everything they say at face value, despite the fact that their record for honesty when it comes to matters of this nature is alarmingly poor [once again, see endnote 6 for a little sojourn down memory lane in regards to the honesty of law enforcement officers]. Worse, those of us who are disgusted with the very idea of CP on an emotional level truly want to believe the claims of these LEAs. This results in such citizens forming strong attempts to rationalize away the LEAs' refusal to grant freedom of the press to journalists who want to confirm the validity of their claims despite the fact that such people may be well aware of their duplicity in other aspects of the ongoing sex abuse hysteria over the past three decades [ibid]. Note the similar lamentations given to the notorious War On Drugs, though again that is a whole other if equally important topic.

3. Not only does the ongoing panic and disgust with any possible depiction of youth sexuality on camera throughout our culture enable the aforementioned lucrative careers for those officers who work in this particular area of law enforcement, they also serve to increase the rationale of these organizations to continuously demand increased police powers over society in a general sense [see endnote 7]. This is another reason why the successful passage of even one draconian law within a democratic framework can result in the latter framework being gradually eradicated as more and more draconian legislation is rationalized as different aspects of the hysteria or differing simultaneous hysterias (more than one often occur at once) combine to constantly create new aspects of the panic from which the government and its enablers in the media claim we need to be "protected" from.

In other words, those who work within law enforcement and other areas of government have a lot to gain from these hysterias, even as we, the common citizens, and anyone who may--now or in the future--dissent in any way from the imposition of any established norm, will end up paying a huge penalty in the long run. But terrified and intolerant people all too often do not think with their reasoning faculties, and instead let their emotions take over during such manufactured crises.

This is why I believe that it's entirely justified to accuse the various LEAs of yet another horrendous act of duplicity due to their adamant refusal to allow their highly outrageous claims to be validated by a few objective and well-respected journalists in the name of freedom of the press and freedom of information. There is no reason whatsoever to believe that the bulk of CP consists of children or teens being forced into sexual acts against their will and brutally tortured on camera, let alone the existence of a multi-billion dollar international industry that deals in the widespread production and sale of such horrific material. Such pics of genuine abuse do exist, of course, but there is no evidence to suggest that they make up a sizable proportion of the overall rubric of what is broadly defined as CP. Further, there are no known outlets for such product to be distributed profitably just as there was never a large-scale profitable business for adult "snuff" films as the LEAs once claimed. There are many truly depraved human beings in the world, granted, but there is no evidence that there are organized bastions of depravity of such a huge scale who possess such a vast amount of capital and exceptional technical skill amongst their number that an international demand of such a degree for this type of product is being successfully produced and sold for such a huge amount of profit. Arguing otherwise is to argue that MAAs with "extreme" tastes are so disproportionately vile and nasty compared to teleiophiles [people who have a preference for members of the same general age group] with similar "extreme" tastes that simulations of such activity featuring actors who aren't being tortured in actuality will not suffice in place of the real thing for these particular MAAs or child and teen fetishists.

Yet there is no evidence that an adult with a preferential attraction to minors, or even one who has a mere sexual fetish for minors, is in any way more likely than a teleiophile to be of such an aberrant or violent nature that they will absolutely demand the real thing over acted simulations on a large scale. To say otherwise is, whether intentionally or not, admitting that you buy into the worst form of stereotype towards MAAs imaginable sans a single shred of evidence that this stereotype is in any way a part of reality. We need to let common sense and simple logic prevail before we adopt such extremist beliefs about any single group of people. Let's not forget what happened to the Jews and other ethnic and sexual minorities living in Germany during the Holocaust when similar hysterical claims became widespread beliefs amongst the general populace of a particular nation, with government policies reacting accordingly.

As fellow activist Summerdays noted: "...I think this idea is fueled by the (erroneous) belief that the sexual attraction to minors is itself a vile and nasty perversion of normal adult attraction. Thus, anyone who could be so twisted as to be attracted to children [or adolescents] must undoubtedly harbor such disturbing tastes that would lead them to desire things - and to pursue those things - that not even the most perverted teleiophile would consider. But this is quite ridiculous. It's a bogeyman. It's not reality."

Also, such naysayers appear to buy into the common belief that the bulk of what is legally considered CP involves pre-pubescents as young as five years of age. The few individuals who have reported seeing such material--both within and outside of the law enforcement vocation--have stated that the majority of such images consists of adolescents, not pre-pubescents; that the vast majority of these images are old and were produced prior to the criminalization of CP beginning in the early 1980s; and those that feature explicit sexual acts are far fewer than those that feature 'simple' nudity which may or may not highlight the breasts (of teen girls) or genitalia. The type of pics that seem to be actual depictions of real acts of violence and torture appear to encompass by far the smallest amounts of this material in existence. Further, it's very difficult to tell which of the small amount of pics depicting torture and bondage themes are simulated and which are actual footage of real non-consensual abuse.

One must also consider the following logical questions: if such a vast amount of underagers across the globe were literally being kidnapped and forced into sexual activity against their will before a camera, and this material is being distributed to a huge corrupt clientele with deep pockets, then why has there been virtually no instance of such girls appearing in public after they had reached adulthood to make a plea before the world media to end such a horrific global industry? Where are the supposed multitude of adults who one would expect to have a body full of cigarette burns, savage wounds made by blades, or lacerations made by a whip appearing before the media to show these horrific wounds to the public in attempts to get this alleged powerful and heavily profitable industry eradicated once and for all? Moreover, where are the parents of all of these allegedly millions of kidnapped kids who one would expect to appear in the media daily making similar pleas on behalf of their missing children, especially since such parental public pleas and media noise is well known to be very common whenever one of the very small cases of stranger abduction occurs every year? Are we to believe that almost every single one of these multitudes of children supposedly being kidnapped and enslaved for the CP industry are killed and effectively disposed of after the films are made? And even if such was actually the case, what about the multitude of parents and other family members that we should expect to hear the impassioned pleas from on the public airwaves?

In other words, how do the LEAs--along with those who believe these claims--rationalize what may be called '''The Great Silence''' regarding an issue such as this? The only voices we ever usually hear are those of the LEAs and a certain number of CAs ["child advocates," who should never be confused with youth liberationists] and a smidgeon of miscellaneous Web surfers (including a few within the MAA community, it must be noted) who claim to have come across whole websites that are allegedly full of pics depicting such horrendous material. No proof or even any good evidence is ever offered that such a thing is occurring on anywhere near the scale that the LEAs and CAs often claim, yet the belief continues to proliferate via the sheer force of emotion that such propaganda stirs up amongst the masses. Hitler and Stalin would truly be proud of the contemporary American media if they were still alive to see the current sex abuse hysteria and its attendant "pedophile panic," along with the widespread irrational beliefs and draconian laws spawned by them.

Of course, I have no doubt that such abusive films have been made, and continue to be made, from time to time, but in such cases, it often turns out that the perpetrators of these non-consensual films and even on camera torture are usually not some stranger who abducted the kids in question for the purpose of selling videos of the abuse and torture on some nefarious underground market, but rather ''the parents or stepparents'' of these abused kids. This is very likely to be true because it would certainly explain why the great parental silence on this subject is so ubiquitous across the media, and why the media would be highly reluctant to report these facts due to what they may say about what happens to the supposedly sacrosanct institution of parenthood due to the reality of the present hierarchal nature of the much-beloved nuclear family unit in our modern non-youth-liberated society that the current status quo loves to promote so devotedly--and attempt to preserve at all costs--as inherently good. The latter statement is ''not'' intended by this author to disparage the institution of parenthood and the close bond shared between members of the family; rather, it's to make clear that the very concerns this essay was written to address most often occurs--when it actually does occur--as the result of the same laws that legally and civilly disempower younger people, and leave them as little more than the property of their parents. This situation leaves children and teens all the more vulnerable to the very thing that the platform of youth liberation in general is hoping to rectify. Hence, the eventual success of this movement will decrease the likelihood of the more unscrupulous parents out there from successfully forcing their kids into sexual servitude, or genuine abuse of any sort for that matter.

As Summerdays noted on this topic:
:"''I could imagine a completely alternate reality where pedophiles [and hebephiles] worked in tandem with peace officers to prevent the abuse (actual abuse) of children. By allowing the [MAAs] their trade - most of whom, as human beings, would be concerned about the treatment of the children in the pictures - they could bring to the attention of peace officers any pictures that looked suspect, which could then be followed by an investigation. If abuse is proved, then score one for the good guys. Otherwise, if the material has not been produced through abuse (and of course, the child's opinion will be paramount in this determination), then let it flow.''"

As such, I--and the entire pro-choice segment of the MAA community that I am aware of who supports the general legality of youth erotica--only support the production of such erotica that was made with the willing consent of the young people in question. This is particularly true concerning such material that is created by young people themselves; the idea that it's mostly or entirely adults who produce youth erotica is yet another falsehood that the twin phenomena of sexting and uploading of nude pics to socnet sites clearly debunk in no uncertain terms.

Moreover, I do not support any type of "hardcore" production of erotica for pre-pubescents, or anything that would be developmentally injurious to their age group (such as full onscreen sexual penetration of either their vaginas or anuses), so my support of the legalization of youth erotica is entirely geared towards mutually consensually produced products that are ''within reason'', and I do not by any means take an "absolutely anything goes" type of attitude towards youth erotica, especially not when applied to pre-pubescents. Of course, I would never have a problem with any depiction of simple nudity, especially not within the context of a mainstream film that is designed to explore the intimate lives of youths in every detail to a realistic extent [see endnote 8].

One thing we should all keep in mind is that since what is often considered CP has such a great and ever-increasing broadness to it, one must first define what they consider to be CP rather than attacking "CP" in a general sense, since anything that is today legal can be declared CP by a single legislative decision tomorrow. Thus, many personally believe that the legal youth modeling sites of today should be considered CP, and are actively petitioning the Western governments to officially declare them illegal on those grounds. Hence, what does or does not constitute CP can be a personal as well as a legal definition, and the two are often incorrectly and irresponsibly conflated with each other by anyone discussing the subject.

Now, onto the final very important question as to why any type of imagery should be legal to possess or at least to view, even if not to produce or distribute for financial gain.

The idea that even the most deplorable images of CP should be criminalized to view or download because they depict a crime scene and will cause great emotional distress to the victims and family of such crimes must consider the following questions to prove that imagery specifically depicting the sexual exploitation of younger people must be considered part of a very special category of 'crime scene.' For starters, why isn't it illegal to download or view images or vids of actual war carnage, including that involving children getting or having had their limbs blown off as a result of accidentally getting caught in the crossfire of two opposing military forces (i.e., what our government and media loves to call "collateral damage")?

Why aren't pics and vids of actual murders and the horrible torture and execution of reporters and other non-military personnel by terrorists and foreign armies illegal to possess or view? What about the many actual pics of the horrifying carnage wreaked by real serial killers upon their victims that are fully legal to print in any number of serious books about the nature of serial killers? Perhaps very importantly, why isn't it illegal for anyone to possess or view pics of the extreme and very non-consensual sexual humiliation inflicted upon many Middle Eastern male prisoners by American security guards (some of them women) that occurred at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq a few years ago, which resulted in one of several major scandals to erupt from this duplicitous war? The latter case is especially true when you consider the deep level of humiliation that a man raised under a conservative Islamic culture will experience as a result of being forced to engage in simulated homoerotic contact with several other males while being photographed in the act for the amusement of their captors. And please note that many of these men were never even accused, let alone convicted, of a crime--in case some of you attempt to say that these men deserved this atrocious humiliation for allegedly being terrorists, or for being nationalist insurgents who dared to oppose the invasion and lengthy occupation of their nation by a foreign military that too many Americans wrongly identify with their own interests simply due to their citizenship. I am sure it can be cogently argued that these men and their families will be heavily emotionally distressed to realize that people across the world have possession of, and unencumbered access to, these pics.

Further, I am sure that there are many homosexual male and probably even some female bondage fetishists out there--that are otherwise very good and decent people in their dealings with anyone they know in real life--who are actually sexually aroused by viewing such pics and fantasizing about either being in the place of those guards, or of the men who were sexually victimized by them (since many people harbor fantasies of actually being raped). The Islamic male victims in question would certainly be highly emotionally distressed to receive confirmation of those pics being used for such a purpose. Yet I have seen all of the aforedescribed type of pics legally distributed all over the Web and in print, and all ostensibly for informative and/or political purposes. Why isn't anyone arrested for the possession or even simple viewing of such pics, especially when we do not have the slightest idea what happens to be going through the minds of anyone who may be viewing them? Can we possibly take the chance that some of these viewers may have such filthy and depraved thoughts while viewing these pics of what to many constitutes actual footage of a war crime? Is this, perhaps, because we do not favor any type of thought control, no matter how deplorable or vile we may consider such thoughts to be? Should any type of fantasy be criminalized, no matter how awful it may be to our collective sensibilities, as long as it stays entirely within the realm of fantasy? Is there any proof that anyone who has truly awful fantasies are likely to eventually "act out" these fantasies on a real victim? Have we seen even a single Abu Ghraib "copycat" crime perpetrated in the few years these pics have been legally available all over the Web?

As my fellow MAA activist who posts under the nick Little Girl Lover noted in regards to the Abu Ghraib debacle:
:"The thing you hear the anti-CP crowd holler is that children cannot consent, so this is another reason why CP should be illegal. But what of the men who had their pictures taken in Abu Ghraib? These men did not consent to these videos and pictures. They were humiliated. It's even legal to possess these pictures and upload them, but it's illegal to have LS model type pictures even though the girls were paid for posing. They are about the same as ''Playboy'' or ''Penthouse''."

Little Girl Lover further laments:
:"''And what of the victims of the Holocaust? You can buy books in many bookstores with pictures of women and children stripped naked [and] heading off to be slaughtered. This was humiliating and terrifying for all these people involved. They did not consent, yet these pictures are [publicly accessible and legal to view and possess]. I'm sure that the survivors feel traumatized by such an experience, yet this crime is viewed by millions of people over time.''"

:"''All these pictures, including CP and child erotica, should be legal to possess and view. There's a lot of pictures and videos I do not care to look at or own but I will fight for the right to be able to look, read, view, own, and distribute any source of media available.''"

Let us also keep in mind the famous pic of a Vietnam War atrocity where an 11-year-old girl was photographed running through her village streets in extraordinary agony after napalm was dropped on her by American military forces (it should perhaps be noted that the girl is entirely nude in the pic, and her secondary sexual characteristics are clearly visible). The girl is known to have survived this horrific incident despite incurring a great amount of permanent scars, both physical and emotional, as a result. Yet this pic is widely and legally available to view and possess in many print and online resources that cover war atrocities. Can it not be argued that the now adult woman and her surviving family may be extremely emotionally distressed as a result of coming across this pic in so many sources? Do we know beyond a shadow of a doubt what purpose absolutely everyone who takes possession of this pic may use it for, or what thoughts everyone who views this pic may possibly have while viewing it? Do we ever make such assumptions in regards to this pic? Or is the simple fact that it doesn't have a sexual context to it automatically cause us to accept the fact that it has the possibility of being viewed or possessed for non-puerile or non-insidious reasons?

What exactly justifies the legality of this pic to view or possess, but not anything considered CP by the various governments? Does anyone accuse people who possess the above-mentioned pic for whatever conceivable reason, and for supporting the continued legality of possessing it, to be supportive of war atrocities? What if some bigot or American with a twisted sense of patriotism (and there are many of those, unfortunately) uploaded that pic to a website with a horrible statement saying something like, "Burn the Gooks!"? Isn't there a possibility of that happening if this pic remains legal to view, possess, download, and upload wherever and for whatever purposes one pleases? If someone insists that this matter is "different" than CP, and that these questions should not apply to pics of atrocities inflicted upon a minor that does not have an obvious sexual context to it no matter how much emotional distress the public distribution of such pics may have on the victim and her family, then can they explain exactly why the presence or absence of an overt or suggested sexual context should make or break the legality of any type of imagery? What is it about sexuality that Western society is so hysterical about? Why does that subject elicit such a disproportionate degree of irrationality in our culture?

In regards to the oft-made assertion that the simple distribution of such pics or vids without the expectation of monetary gain will automatically create a huge swelling of demand that will result in a huge surfeit of such material being produced in the future is totally without proof, especially if the demand in question is of material that is illegal. Without the hope of a vast amount of financial remuneration being present to make the production of such dangerously illegal material on a large scale worth the effort for any number of insidious individuals who would comprise such an industry--which would include the high degree of logistical difficulties in doing so [see endnote 9]--then why would they do it? This is why such incidents are extremely low, why there is no logical way possible that such material could constitute a sizable degree of what is considered CP by the law, and it explains exactly why The Great Silence described above exists [see endnote 10 for a logical but highly disturbing reason as to why both the LEAs and the media may be highly reluctant to explain the truth behind the tiny amount of genuinely abusive CP, though this matter was already strongly hinted at above].

These are all of the reasons why CP should be entirely legal to possess and view in a democratic society, why all forms of censorship and draconian laws should never be tolerated or resorted to in a democratic system (or one that purports to be) in order to combat any perceived problem or threat, and why the issue of CP most certainly does pertain to the platform of youth liberation.

==Endnotes==
1. One such example is the possibility of a girl who sends nude pics of herself to her boyfriend being double-crossed as he shares the pic with several of his friends without her permission, or which he may even post online.

A cogent statement made by my friend and fellow activist CatcherintheRye on this point is the following:
:"''One thing that frustrates me about cases of sexting is how people hardly ever confront the people that bully young girls who have sexted and tell them how wrong their behavior is. Instead, they seem to instill guilt in the girls themselves. Sure, it is risky to sext with the laws the way they are, so I guess there's nothing wrong with informing young people about that, but I just find that they are really placing a sense of guilt and shame onto the wrong people.''"

Several months later, in regards to a case of the U.S. practice of bullying people under 18 who sext each other that was being discussed on GC, another friend and fellow activist of mine, Summerdays, made this valuable anecdote:
:"''The moral of this story is: if you sext, we will make your life hell. So don't sext.''"
:"''Notice how the bullies protect themselves by emphasizing the dangers of sexting, placing the blame on kids who make the 'poor decision' to sext, and not those who make sexting dangerous (i.e., the bullies themselves, be they peers, or school administrators, or prosecutors, or what have you).''"
:"''You know, because bullying kids to the point of suicide is a whole lot better than telling them it's ''okay'' to take sexy pictures and share them with friends.''"

2. Democratic solutions to the risk factors involved with sexting includes such eminently common sense options as parents offering cautionary advice to their kids the first time the youths in question purchase a cell phone and start an account. In a youth liberated society, parents will accept the fact that their kids may utilize the technology for this purpose, and will not have to feel hesitant to offer this advice to them.

Further, sex education courses can offer similar advice during the teaching of the section that includes risks that young people should be aware of in regards to any type of sexual-oriented activity. This cautionary, value neutral advice doesn't have to be limited to discussions of the possible physical consequences of sexual intercourse amongst adolescents, such as STDs and unwanted pregnancies. The advice given in these courses can also include risk factors amongst the various social choices that young people may make in the course of a relationship, including those related to the use of technology such as cell phone cameras and that pertaining to the online world. '''Every problem a democratic society will ever face, either perceived or totally legitimate, can always be dealt with effectively via a democratic solution, and a draconian response that denies freedom of choice should never be the preferred solution in such a society, no matter how "serious" the problem is considered to be, or how good or noble the intentions behind it are believed to be''' (as noted above in the main text).

As my fellow activist Summerdays opined in regards to including objective and value neutral discussions about the risk factors associated with sexting in sex education courses:
:"''It's the same problem I see often with sex education in general. Assuming kids will practice abstinence (in this case, from taking sexy pictures and sharing them), and gearing the education toward that assumption, results in kids being kept from some very important safety information they should know. And the ones who don't abstain - and they will always exist - suffer because of it. Whether we want kids to sext or not, we ought to recognize that it's going to happen anyway, and we ought to have the responsibility to inform them about what the risks are, and the best ways to do it safely if that's what they end up choosing to do. No moral judgments, no behavioral prescriptions (or proscriptions) - just honest, accurate information.''"

3. Such possible sources of youth erotica that may exist in a future youth liberated society may include print and/or online publications similar to ''Playboy'', but which are instead dedicated exclusively to displaying and celebrating the great beauty of youth.

4. Any alleged platform of liberation that denies or prohibits freedom of choice in its itinerary of goals, or which defines freedom in the context of "freedom from..." rather than "freedom to..." (as explicated in the classic book ''The Handmaiden's Tale''), is in actuality a protectionist racket masquerading as "liberation." Do not be fooled by tyrants dressed in a liberator's clothing, or enticed by the proposition of safety in the arms of a "benevolent" dictator. Any platform of solutions to any perceived problems in society must offer much more than simply good intentions; their proposed solutions must be in harmony with the principles of a free society regardless of the genuine nature of their intentions.

5. Specifically, the aforementioned escalation that has arisen following the passing of the initial CP laws has exponentially increased from the simple viewing or possession of pics featuring minors engaged in explicitly sexual acts to the...
#criminalization of pics or vids featuring simple nudity of minors without any blatant signs of sexuality;
#criminalization of pics or vids featuring legal adults pretending to be minors engaged in sexual activity or appearing nude;
#criminalization of cartoon representations and drawings or CGI [computer generated imagery] of sexually active or nude minors;
#criminalization of any serious attempt at artwork which may depict nude or "provocative" imagery of minors;
#criminalization of minors wearing scanty clothing (since such imagery might arouse a "pedophile");
#criminalization of fully clothed minors who may be posing in a "provocative" manner or having an "enticing" expression on their faces, for the same reason as above;
#utterly absurd and mind-blowing serious proposal amongst the Australian parliament to criminalize adult pornography featuring adult women of legal age with small breasts. In case anyone thinks I'm actually making this last one up, check out the following excerpt that can be found by scrolling down a bit on [http://exileonmoanstreet.blogspot.com/2010/01/wtf-australian-censor-board-demands.html this blog].

The blog states (quotes in '''bold face'''):
:'''Australian Classification Board (ACB) is now banning depictions of small-breasted women in adult publications and films. They banned mainstream pornography from showing women with A-cup breasts, apparently on the grounds that they encourage paedophilia, and in spite of the fact this is a normal breast size for many adult women. Presumably small breasted women taking photographs of themselves will now be guilty of creating simulated child pornography, to say nothing of the message this sends to women with modestly sized chests or those who favour them. Australia has also banned pornographic depictions of female ejaculation, a normal orgasmic sexual response in many women, with censors branding it as "abhorrent."'''

:'''The Board has also started to ban depictions of small-breasted women in adult publications and films. This is in response to a campaign led by Kids Free 2 B Kids and promoted by Barnaby Joyce and Guy Barnett in Senate Estimates late last year. Mainstream companies such as Larry Flint's Hustler produce some of the publications that have been banned. These companies are regulated by the FBI to ensure that only adult performers are featured in their publications. "We are starting to see depictions of women in their late 20s being banned because they have an A cup size", she said. "It may be an unintended consequence of the Senator's actions but they are largely responsible for the sharp increase in breast size in Australian adult magazines of late.”'''

For further clarification of what the toleration of any type of draconian law or justification for censorship of any sort eventually leads--and so you do not think the above excerpt was posted on that blog by yours truly and thus has no actual validity--check out [http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/weird-politics-of-small-boobs-and-bodily-fluids-20100129-n278.html?comments=27 this link] (as columnist Bella Counihan said of this topic: "You can't make this stuff up").

And be sure to check out the coverage of this topic on the following [http://encyclopediadramatica.com/Operation_Titstorm parody site] -- parody often does a very good job of pointing out the sheer idiocy of very serious political matters, something seen regularly in the pages of ''MAD'' magazine, TV shows like ''Saturday Night Live'', and the work of many excellent stand-up comedians such as Bill Maher and the late, great George Carlin.

Is it a coincidence that the move by Australian parliament to ban the appearance of small-breasted women in erotic films and mags occurred in the same legislation that is also trying to ban filmed or photographed depictions of female ejaculation? Is it so important that our society goes out of its way to such an extent to ban anything that may be remotely believed to "encourage 'pedophilia'" (or hebephilia, as the case may be) that certain rights of how legal adults may be depicted on camera should now be curtailed? Is it just a coincidence that encroachments on what legal adults can and cannot do on camera appear to be the result of legislators with a moralizing agenda starting out with censoring "easy" targets like CP before moving on to more "difficult" targets like adult porn? The answer to all three of these interrelated questions would appear to be a resounding '''no'''.

Since it's becoming increasingly evident, as noted in the main text of this essay, that these laws are intended to target a specific idea rather than to actually "protect" minors from appearing on camera while engaged in sexual activities, the common argument in defense of the continuation of this Orwellian legislation is that the proliferation of such imagery may encourage MAAs to "act out" on their urges with real minors. The problem comes when these individuals are asked to provide actual scientific evidence that this is actually the case, and not simply to make assumptions in the absence of such evidence. A far bigger problem arises, with far-reaching negative implications for the survival of what is left of our democracy, when those individuals who actually bother to respond to the above concern do so with a variation of, "We shouldn't have to ask for evidence! If there is even the slightest chance something like that may happen, and even one child per year may be 'abused' as a result, then that possibility makes these laws more than justified! And I don't care how draconian these laws may be when the 'safety' of children is at stake!"

My fellow MAA activist and youth liberationist, qtns2di4, made the following very important statement regarding the above argument being used to justify the criminalization of the viewing and possession of any type of image or text, by making a comparison to the only other two types of imagery or text that are routinely legally banned by governments in the Western world (both outside of America):

"Regarding bans on imagery that are rationalized as helping prevent copycats, there are two non-CP, non-blasphemy-laws, categories that have been made illegal or of controlled access in many countries. One is animal cruelty, and pics or vids featuring it have been banned in some countries. While the argument is [to prevent] an inspiration for others to do the same, a) as you argue, devoting resources to the banning of the images distracts them from prosecuting the culprits of the acts, and b) the [public accessibility of the] images themselves act as prevention and as awareness-building. The second category I am thinking of is Nazi and Nazi camp imagery. Apart from the above objections, which still apply, it is hard to see how [the public accessibility of] Nazi camp imagery helps create another Holocaust. That needs thousands, maybe millions, of collaborators, and they have to be in the broad daylight. A random Neo-Nazi, on the other hand, will not need a camp image to get inspired to commit any atrocity themselves, but will still be limited to what a single person can do. Though these cases are not identical, they are both cases of censorship allegedly as prevention of the commission of the action, akin to that of CP laws."

6. The concern with the validity of the often sensational claims made about the content of much of the CP collected by law enforcement task forces since the first laws were instituted is especially crucial in light of the fact that the LEAs and their hangers-on in the media once thoroughly promoted the reality of the "snuff" film market, the prevalence of rampant satanic ritual abuse of children occurring within day care centers across the entire breadth of North America, and their promotion and widespread acceptance of the "repressed memory" phenomenon that had (and still has, in some cases) a major effect on the mental health industry in the Western world--all of which has since been proven to be total bunk [the satanic ritual abuse and "repressed memory syndrome" phenomena were tackled in detail in my previous essay, [http://newgon.com/wiki/Essay:The_Importance_of_Truth The Importance of Truth], which includes a large amount of links and citations to relevant sources; info on the once widely circulated and non-existent "snuff" film industry can be obtained via a simple Google search.

7. All of the justified admonitions by civil rights advocates against the government's increasing rationalizations for increased police powers over society, which includes: 1) greater surveillance on the general public; 2) increased intrusions in our privacy, such as monitoring our phone calls and e-mail transmissions; 3) increasing the creation of the number of "special" categories of crimes and groups of people that are exempt from common constitutional protections (note what is occurring in the simultaneously ongoing "War On Terror"); 4) and the increased justifications for various forms of censorship that such hysterias and "moral panics" cause, are thrown by the wayside by a terrified public and cowardly politicians who are too afraid to argue against these continued Orwellian encroachments on our basic civil liberties due to the perceived magnitude of the "threat."

8. These include the many examples of cinema that were produced in foreign countries like France and Denmark for the "coming of age" genre that featured pre-pubescent nudity, any type of artistic production designed to celebrate the beauty of the youthful form of children or adolescents, or any type of film that is intended to be of an educational nature. This would include the re-legalization of once renowned and heavily lauded educational books such as ''Show Me'', as well as all artistic photojournals produced by artists like Sally Mann, Tierney Gearon, Violeta Gómez, and Bill Henson, which feature the celebration of the nude youthful form that has been a major subject of art throughout human history.

9. The logistical nightmares would include the obtainment of a continued supply of victims and what to do with those victims once the films are made and sent to the hypothetical buyers without gaining the attention of the young person's family, friends, or the local police in the process, totally belies common sense and credulity. This is why it's far more likely that in the instances in which genuinely abusive CP is actually produced, it is most often done by parents or stepparents who have continual closeted access to the child victims in question, rather than an organized network of strangers who are motivated entirely by profit on a large scale. This is also why such highly rare products are most often not intended for public consumption but rather for the small number of utterly corrupt fetishists who may share such a horrid interest.

Note the following excerpt of a quote taken from German defense attorney Udo Vetter from [http://archiv.sueddeutsche.de/25F38V/2996588/Simple-Loesungen-fuer-ein-komplexes-Problem.html this article] that appeared on the ''Süddeutsche Zeitung'' news site (translated into English courtesy of GirlChat's webmaster NFiH, who is fluent in German, and which can be confirmed via a translation from Google's software):

'''You cannot physically abuse children on the Internet. But you can look at pictures or movies of child abuse and trade them. "Of course paedophiles use the Internet to trade child porn," says lawyer Udo Vetter, who has acted as a defense lawyer in hundreds of child porn cases. "But there is no such thing as a commercial market."'''

'''...There is no effective system of money transfer for the distribution of illegal pictures and movies. According to Vetter, "you simply can't receive millions of dollars online anonymously." Money flow is monitored by the authorities of many states, including the USA.'''

'''...According to Vetter, none of his clients ever paid for pictures or movies[;] 80 to 90 percent of the files found by the police are identical. "Some of these pictures are 30 to 40 years old." In contrast to the claims made to justify Net censorship[,] the amount of child porn available on the Internet is rising extremely slowly. ''None of these pictures and movies have been produced professionally'' (the only exceptions being movies with teenage victims which may have been legal when they were produced) [emphasis mine].'''

If you remove the value judgment terms "abuse" and "victim" from the above excerpt--which were likely made to appease the readers of this article by using the type of language that they are used to seeing in the media when it comes to this subject--the entire article pretty much says it all about the silliness of the widespread claims by LEAs and their status quo-defending allies in the press that CP production is a huge multi-billion dollar international business.

See also [http://lapsiporno.info/landslide.html this article] about the infamous Texas case involving Landslide Productions, where its webmaster Paul Reeve was arrested for what amounted to a witch hunt. This article also shows the length that LEAs will go to get someone indicted even when the evidence collected doesn't warrant it.

My thanks to NFiH and qtns2di4 for the above tidbits of info.

10. An examination of the two most prominent of the very few victims of what they described as truly non-consensual CP while in their childhood to come forward via the media would appear to reveal the reality behind the tiny amount of genuinely coercive examples of underagers participating in CP production. This reality clearly doesn't lead towards the common, conspiratorial conception of CP being largely the product of an organized, well-funded group of criminal strangers kidnapping kids across the globe and forcing them to participate in sexual activity with adults on camera for the purpose of selling the footage for a sizable profit.

Two of the very few girls to loudly come out in the media for such a reason after reaching adulthood are Masha Allen, who participated in a relatively lengthy series of sexually explicit videos in her childhood--she was given the nickname "Disney Girl" in the media due to the fact that some of the pics of her were taken next to Disney World--and Kylie Freeman, who participated in a similar series of videos during her childhood under the nickname of "Vicky." These two girls, now adults, are perhaps the only two prominent victims of what were said to be coerced participants in the production of new CP that occurred during the age of the Internet, and Masha in particular has become something of a poster girl for LEAs as they engage in their never-ending battle to combat the dissemination of CP. There is a good degree of info on Masha [http://www.inquisition21.com/index.php?module=pagemaster&PAGE_user_op=view_page&PAGE_id=150 here] on the Inquisition 21 website, and I thank my fellow activist Baldur for bringing this to my attention, and FreeThinkerGL for finding me the specific link.

However, as noted above, neither of these girls were the victims of an organized group of criminal strangers who kidnapped them and forced them to appear in such films for intended sale to a corrupt, international clientele of buyers who demanded such product. According to Masha, she was coerced into participation in such films by her adopted father, and Kylie was forced into doing the same thing by her biological father. Neither series of CP videos were produced with the intention of selling them for profit to some corrupt underground market, but were the result of fetishistic parents who made them for free distribution on P2P [peer to peer] video sharing networks that were available to a small circle of private acquaintances during the earlier days of public access to the Internet. There have been subsequent claims by those in the know that the very small amount of truly coercive CP produced for free consumption in the P2P online file sharing networks have all been the product of parents who have this sort of fetishistic "hobby," and not by organized criminal cartels controlled by strangers who kidnap kids for the purpose of producing CP for sale to a large international group of clients (see below for a highly important shared anecdote about the prevalence of CP distribution on P2P networks, now and in the past).

The above evidence and claims are actually entirely logical, because it's well known to both the FBI and youth liberationist orgs alike that the greatest amount of genuine abuse of all kinds perpetrated on minors by adults--including physical and emotional abuse in addition to that of a sexual nature, and even including murder--occurs at the hands of parents and stepparents, but not strangers. This unsettling fact is obviously very uncomfortable for the present day status quo to accept, and since the political overseers of modern society are dedicated to preserving the currently hierarchal version of the nuclear family unit at any cost, it's fully understandable as to why it's far preferable for the media to promote the concept of "stranger danger" and to portray the home as the safest place for children and young teens to be despite all the readily available evidence to the contrary.

Again, this reality is ''not'' mentioned here as an attempt to disparage the institution of parenthood or the sanctity of the family, but simply to make it clear that the current state of affairs with young people lacking most of their civil rights and the parents having such a near-total control over every aspect of their children's lives, as well as a near-monopoly on adult interaction with their kids--save for a few "authorized" non-familial adults, such as teachers and coaches, who are currently discouraged from actually befriending the kids under their charge for obvious reasons related to the ongoing sex abuse hysteria--is the very crux of the greatest and usually the most severe cases of genuine child abuse that occurs in society today. Love shared by family members is a very good thing, but the introduction of such a high degree of power into the equation predictably corrupts this love in too many cases and results in abuse, with some of the less scrupulous parents all too often taking this abuse into some truly horrific directions. The solution that youth libbers promote is not to break up the family unit or destroy the bond between parents and children, but simply to legally empower kids so that they can much more easily resist or escape being subject to any type of abuse or harm by others in their lives, whether it originates from the hands of strangers, teachers, co-workers, peers, or parents.

This is also why, despite the impassioned declarations of Masha and Kylie themselves, arresting people who simply download and view their pics--including the many who likely have no idea that they were supposedly taken under coerced circumstances, and also considering the only place these pics remain readily accessible to the public is on entrapment sites set up by the FBI in sting operations of highly questionable ethical and constitutional acceptability--is not conducive to democratic principles. The only solution that works within a democratic framework is to empower children and teens in a legal and civil manner so as to greatly increase their ability to willingly escape from truly abusive situations of any sort, and to prosecute the producers of any non-consensual material of this nature. Ironically, it should be noted that Masha Allen is now suing the state as a result of their 'post-rescue' operations, including the use of imagery she says were made under coerced circumstances for use in federal entrapment schemes, such as phony sting websites.

Doesn't the fact that upon 'rescuing' Masha from the reportedly abusive clutches of her adoptive father, she was placed under the foster care of a woman who claims to be a victim of sexual abuse who not only lost a case in court where she apparently frivolously accused her pastor of sexually abusing her, but also accused her parents of being part of a satanic cult who forced her to take part in human sacrifice (remember my discussions of the now thoroughly debunked satanic ritual abuse hysteria in my previous essay, “The Importance of Truth"?), mean that such foster care parents were bound to have a distorting effect on Masha's ideology, fueling her with feelings of revenge rather than healing, and into becoming an advocate of vengeful draconian rather than productive empowering solutions for other kids who may find their way into situations similar to hers as the result of abusive parents? Can this be the reason why Masha is so stringent upon penalizing people for looking at pics of her alleged abuse rather than focusing upon the notion of parental power that prevented her from leaving the abusive situation she found herself in? It should also be noted that the U.S. attorney who handled Masha's case following her 'rescue,' Mary Beth Buchanan, was fully aware of the past of Masha's foster mothers whose custody she was placed in. This forces us to wonder if Buchanan did so purposely, so as to increase the chance that victims like Masha would be subject to the type of irrational, vengeance-driven rhetoric from her foster parent so as to better ensure that the girl would develop a mindset conducive to furthering any political agenda that Buchanan and other LEOs like her may have. For the source of this info, go [http://www.inquisition21.com/index.php?module=pagemaster&PAGE_user_op=view_page&PAGE_id=150 here].

Nevertheless, despite the very few lone voices in the wilderness like Masha and Kylie, the Great Silence continues, and these few voices of protest that do arise are from girls who were forced into abusive sexual situations on camera by parents, not by an organized, multi-national cabal of strangers, and their resulting pics and vids were produced for consumption by a small group of like-minded fetishists via a P2P online network with no money passing any hands, and not for profit to a huge underground international market of vile MAAs. The cases of these two girls should speak volumes about the reality of CP, a reality that bears no resemblance to the urban legends created by the LEAs and their allies in the mass media.

Also courtesy of my fellow activist FreeThinkerGL is this link to another essay on Inquisition21 that explains exactly how the American police often create crimes: [http://www.inquisition21.com/index.php?module=pagemaster&PAGE_user_op=view_page&PAGE_id=146 Two Little Girls in a Doorway]. As FreeThinkerGL mentioned to me about the latter article, "This was written before the Masha story above, but Masha's story gives it new significance." Many thanks and appreciation to FreeThinkerGL for the link to this article.

On the subject of P2P file sharing networks and their relation to CP distribution and all the myths that have sprung out of that, my fellow activist qtns2di4 makes the following important observations [in '''bold face''']:

'''A few words about P2P.'''

'''P2P requires every user to identify themselves, therefore IP addresses are always visible to others, either by default or with little technical expertise needed to uncover them. This makes it an extremely vulnerable platform for sharing, and esp. for sharing illegal content. Any step taken to protect IP address information also makes the use of P2P less efficient to the user, so users will normally try to avoid doing it. That is not even to mention the dangers of malware transmitting through P2P, which are independent from the risks of giving IP address information publicly.'''

'''P2P reached its peak of use during the music sharing days. It was very adaptive to the technology of the time. It declined [in popular usage] as copyright lobbies and LEAs infiltrated it in order to combat music piracy. Obviously, while this use is also illegal, it doesn't have the emotional load, the harsh legal penalties, and the niche market characteristics that CP has, so it is not surprising that traffic involving music piracy, at any time, accounted for far more P2P traffic than CP ever could. I don't know if there is any analysis about the use of P2P that relates it directly to the sharing of CP. However, simple intuition would dictate that as P2P declined in use with the combat of music piracy and greater infiltration by LEAs, so did sharing of CP through it. Notice that, because of its structure, it is impossible to establish a payment system that works in assigning you rights of downloading in P2P sharing. That is why music pirates can use it but recording companies cannot. It also means that any CP that arrived into a P2P network became pirate, and therefore impossible to earn money from.'''

'''Traditional P2P networks today still exist, but, because of (otherwise legal) music and video piracy, they are completely full of LEOs [law enforcement officers], thereby making it ever less safe for sharing of any content, and CP will always be much less safe than any pirated music album. Their obvious successors are torrent networks, which work under some of the same basic assumptions of P2P, but which are more stable in themselves, less vulnerable (though not 100% safe) to malware, better adapted to larger file sizes, where it is possible to establish some form of payments system, and it is easier to hide IP addresses without obvious efficiency losses. However, the structure of sharing in torrents would also make it harder to share CP openly.'''

'''In short:'''

'''- P2P overall use coincided with the curve of (pirated) music sharing.'''

'''- There are no reasons to suspect CP was ever a large part of P2P traffic.'''

'''- P2P sharing has declined the more that LEOs and copyright lobbies have infiltrated it in their anti-piracy operations, but there is no reason to suppose that this doesn't spill over to CP, as it is also illegal content.'''

'''- Since the P2P structure doesn't allow for payments to be used, any CP diffused through this means was diffused for free (whether or not it was originally produced for profit)'''

'''- same as music [in the form of mp3 files] always was.'''

'''- Because of the changes undergone since then, it currently should be far more difficult to diffuse CP, new or not, via publicly accessible channels than it was during the golden age of P2P.'''

My thanks and appreciation to qtns2di4 for sharing this important info with me and thereby enhancing the informational basis of this essay.

A few important anecdotes have also been offered by my fellow Girl Lover in the MAA community who hails from the Netherlands and posts under the name Sancho Panza [in '''bold face''']:

'''The view on what CP really is has changed dramatically over the years; I remember our Lolita magazine in the '70s of the last century. Freely available back then, but probably good for a couple of months on water and bread these days.'''

'''The Ukrainian child pornography raids are also interesting; the LS material I saw didn't look like CP by any standard to me, yet American influences managed to shut down the whole thing.'''

'''[P2P networks] like [LimeWire] will be history soon, not because of the availability of CP, but because of copyright infringements (as confirmed by the following excerpt from the [http://www.limewire.com/nl LimeWire home page]):'''

'''''LimeWire is under a court order dated October 26, 2010 to stop distributing the LimeWire software. A copy of the injunction can be found here. LimeWire LLC, its directors and officers, are taking all steps to comply with the injunction. We have very recently become aware of unauthorized applications on the internet purporting to use the LimeWire name. We demand that all persons using the LimeWire software, name, or trademark in order to upload or download copyrighted works in any manner cease and desist from doing so. We further remind you that the unauthorized uploading and downloading of copyrighted works is illegal.'''''

'''It's all about money; few people are really concerned with the well being of children, I'm afraid.'''

Sancho's latter statement is quite interesting when you think about it. Despite the fact that P2P networks have allegedly been a bastion of CP trading over the past decade, the biggest creators of such software were never shut down by any of the LEAs for that reason as long as they cooperated with the police. But now they are rapidly getting shut down by LEAs for entirely financial reasons related to the money allegedly being lost by the big record companies due to the well known proliferation of mp3 file sharing through these networks. The fact that money trumps proclaimed morality shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone in our capitalistic society, since that's pretty much business as usual. It also makes you wonder if the U.S. government and the many large corporations that control it wouldn't be covertly financing the production and sale of CP if their ridiculous claims that it was actually an international multi-billion dollar a year industry were actually true.

=ADDENDUM=
The following "bonus" essay was composed by my fellow activist Summerdays in response to my above article, where he discusses 'The Paradigm of Innocence,' which contains some good insights about our present society's seeming deification of the notion of "childhood innocence" [in '''bold face''']:

'''Most people regard childhood "innocence" as an inherently positive thing. For many, this may be true. Indeed, not knowing the full nature of the tragedy that is life (understanding death, the fact that good things end, that there is not a benevolent all-protecting God watching over you (because if there is a God, it's empirically verifiable that he doesn't mind if bad things happen to you, regardless of whether or not it's for a good reason [at least in God's mind]) - it's pleasant not to have to deal with these heavy truths, and there seems to be a lightness about childhood, at least when we think back on it, that it seems to be so much better than adulthood (provided we didn't have a rough childhood where our innocence was taken away from us prematurely).'''

'''The truth may be that childhood wasn't so light as we imagine it during fits of nostalgia. But to go even further than that, I have personal experience that casts the concept of "innocence" in a negative light. Innocence terrified me. I am terrified of the things I don't know and don't understand. For me, a child who knew so little about the world, the world was a terrifying place. It's only now, as I am growing up and learning about the world, that its mysteries are being revealed to me and its shadows brought under the light. The more I know, the more I understand, the less I fear, and the stronger I become. As an innocent child, I was weak and vulnerable - and I knew it. Experience, for me, is the path towards levity. Sure, life is hard, but it's so much easier when I know exactly what to expect. And what not to expect - like knowing, as a result of decades of firsthand experience, that there can be no inhuman monsters hiding in my closet waiting to eat me. And having enough of an understanding to justify not constantly worrying about the human monsters that may be hiding there, because I know the likelihood is so slim that it's not worth getting bothered about.'''

'''Now, I don't want to say that everyone experiences innocence in this way - but that's exactly the point. Innocence is not the same thing to everyone, and it is not always a desirable state. To preserve a child's innocence because we presume that innocence is a good thing, could do damage to the child if the truth is different (as it was in my case). So in some cases, preserving a child's innocence could be more abusive than dispelling it, and we ought not to assume that it is something that should universally be protected.'''

'''And who knows, maybe a lot more people feel the way I do about innocence. After all, how often is it the child who asks to have her innocence preserved, and how often does she go out of her way to do the opposite, wanting to experience life? And when she asks us if there's a monster in the closet, do we tell her she's better off not knowing, or do we reassure her by going over and opening the closet to let her know exactly what is (and is not) in there?'''
[[Category:Dissident's essays]]

Essay:Why Child Pornography Should Be Legal

2011-11-28T23:16:24Z

Dissident: /* By Dissident */

==By Dissident==
:"''Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated. But those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their consciences.''" '''- C.S. Lewis'''

:"''I do not believe that it can be too often repeated that the freedoms of speech, press, petition and assembly guaranteed by the First Amendment must be accorded to the ideas we hate or sooner or later they will be denied to the ideas we cherish. The first banning of an association because it advocates hated ideas -- whether that association be called a political party or not -- marks a fateful moment in the history of a free country...''" '''- Justice Black'''

:"''It is always unconscionable for the government to punish people for expressing an idea merely because government officials -- or the majority of citizens -- decide that those ideas are 'dangerous' or 'wrong.' That is a power nobody ought to possess.''" '''- Glenn Greenwald'''

:"''He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself.''" '''- Thomas Paine'''

:"''The history of liberty is a history of resistance. The history of liberty is a history of limitations of governmental power, not the increase of it.''" '''- Woodrow Wilson'''

I would like to thank the crew of GirlChat [GC] for giving me invaluable editorial input on my earlier drafts of this essay, with particular thanks going to my fellow activists Summerdays, Baldur, Little Girl Lover (all three of whom have their contributions referenced below), along with some invaluable corrections from FreeThinkerGL and Misha.

Previously, I composed [http://newgon.com/wiki/Essay:Why_The_Legality_Of_Child_Pornography_Is_Relevant_To_The_Youth_Liberation_Movement an essay] discussing the question of legality about the very emotionally-charged subject of CP [what our culture and penal system commonly calls 'child pornography'] and its relevance to the youth liberation movement. But there are many broader implications regarding why CP should be legal outside of the various points I made in that previous essay. Before I get into them, however, I would like to say a few things about CP to make my stance, as well as that of the broader pro-choice segment of the MAA [Minor Attracted Adult] community, crystal clear to all who read this.

Most of us (including myself) do not support an "absolutely anything goes" attitude regarding the production of CP, especially when it comes to pre-pubescent children rather than adolescents. I fully believe that pre-pubescents should never appear in what we call "hardcore" pornography that would include large amounts of sexual activity--either with peers or adults--that would likely prove physically injurious to them--such as full penetrative intercourse--and which they would not likely seek out in real life. Accordingly, there is a big difference between "child pornography" and what may best be labeled ''child erotica''. I would see no problem with pre-pubescents who possess an exhibitionist streak in them (and our society is well aware that such children do exist, despite our strong attempts to deny it) to appear in mildly erotic films where they engage in what we often call 'sex play' with people of various ages--depending upon what the child in question would agree to as per their individual tastes--which pre-pubescents of a slightly older age (say, six years old and up) at least semi-regularly do with peers and sometimes with adults whom they trust and have bonded with in a certain way.

I also have no problem with pre-pubescents appearing nude in films, including mainstream films, as long as they have no objections, since--as I explained in my aforementioned previous essay--I do not think it's logical or healthy for our culture to promulgate the idea that there is something inherently ugly or "obscene" about the nude youthful form, or even about normal youth sexual activity. Pre-pubescents have appeared nude and even sometimes engaging in lightly erotic scenes (i.e., those involving kissing and notable sensuality) in many foreign films over the past few decades, and people from those cultures do not have the conception that there is something inherently "wrong" with this--though this positive attitude about youth sexuality has been diminishing in these foreign Western nations due to constant aggressive American and British influence over the past two decades. In fact, it's largely American and British culture who has this irrational fear and loathing of anything remotely to do with youthful nudity and sexual activity despite their reality throughout human history, and it's the governments of these two nations who put so much pressure on artists of all stripes in nations both within and outside of the West to stifle all such attempts. As such, foreign films depicting a "coming of age" theme have regularly become noticeably less "bold" (read: realistic) in their portrayal of these normal aspects of the lives of youths over the past decade, the first of the 21st century. I'm sure if the current American mindset had its way, all "coming of age" films would be produced for suitability to air on the Disney Channel.

As for adolescents, since it's physically safe for them to engage in full intercourse with proper precautions, and some of them do have an interest in it (though not all, of course), then they should be allowed to participate in whatever type of on camera erotica that they please. I would never encourage or ask for them to participate in the equivalent of XXX-rated films where sex is the only point, but I believe that what we call "softcore" erotica should be no problem for those adolescents who may want to participate in it. Saying that absolutely no adolescents under the age of 18 would ever have the slightest interest in doing this is quite ridiculous and illogical for reasons I explicated in a [http://newgon.com/wiki/Essay:Why_Most_Teens_Will_Not_Support_The_Age_Of_Consent_Laws_If_Given_The_Choice previous essay] on whether or not teens would support the age of consent [AoC] laws, as well as my previous essay on the relevance of the legalization of CP to the youth liberation movement. To make this point further, there are a few instances of underage actresses who lied about their age and appeared in several adult pornographic films, the best example of this perhaps being Traci Lords. Further, actresses such as Brooke Shields and Jodie Foster appeared in popular mainstream American films with highly erotic themes involving consensual youth prostitution during the 1970s when both were 12 years of age--''Pretty Baby'' and ''Taxi Driver'', respectively--and neither of them were emotionally "damaged" as a result; to the contrary, both went on to prosperous careers in mainstream cinema. Shields subsequently appeared in a few other mainstream films with highly erotic themes to them shortly after her first, including ''The Blue Lagoon'' and ''Endless Love'', both of which included sex scenes (though she used a body double to depict her nude scenes in both of these films, something she curiously didn't do when she was a few years younger in ''Pretty Baby''). And of course, Foster continued to do the same in films such as ''The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane'' at age 14, where she removed her shirt on camera (though viewers only saw her from the back and briefly from the side after she did so) and got into bed with an older teenage boy whom she had fallen in love with. Sadly, the latter film also gave us a typical stereotyped version of an Evil Pedo [or 'Evil Hebe,' to be technical in this case], who was played in this instance by Martin Sheen as the titular character's main antagonist. But as we all know, the bygone era of the 1970s and early '80s is long behind us now, and the sex abuse hysteria has continued to progress into the present, thus making films like those mentioned above much more difficult to produce today.

Nevertheless, some film producers continue to defy these modern conventions, such as then-12-year-old actress Isabelle Fuhurman taking on a racy role--including a sexy seduction scene where she attempted to seduce an adult man--in the 2009 horror/suspense film ''The Orphan''. And prior to that, we had the then-adolescent Drew Barrymore explore sexual themes during the 1990s in films such as ''Far From Home'' (which she did at age 14) and the much sexier ''Poison Ivy'' (which she did at age 17), where she successfully seduced a much older man played by Tom Skerritt in a daringly erotic sex scene. And let's not forget Barrymore's sex-charged role, also at age 17, which she played the same year in the short-lived TV series ''2000 Malibu Road''. It's hardly a wonder that a year later she did a very sexual portrayal of real life "lethal lolita" Amy Fisher in ''The Amy Fisher Story'', a well-received telefilm that hit the airwaves in 1993; Barrymore was barely 18 at the time, but the character she portrayed was a few years younger than that, and this true story made it clear once and for all that young adolescent girls can indeed pursue adult men and be dangerously conniving at the same time. Unfortunately, such relationships only make the headlines when they have an element of tragedy attached to them, or some other type of sensationalism (such as when a girl runs away with an older lover), thus promoting the biased attitude that intergenerational attraction always results in something bad, the same type of attitude promoted by the notorious lesbian novels published during the 1950s in regards to same gender attraction amongst women.

Let us not forget the popular French/American film collaboration ''The Professional'' (the longer version seen by French audiences was titled ''Leon the Professional''), which starred then-12-year-old Natalie Portman in a very big role where she developed a heavy romantic attraction to a hit man named Leon (played by French actor Jean Reno) and wanted to have him be her first sexual experience, an offer the hit man gracefully declined despite obviously reciprocating her romantic love and even sharing a bed with her--the scene where Portman's character Mathilda asked Leon to be her first was excised from the American version to avoid rousing the ire of American audiences any further than it already did, but the scene where Mathilda told Leon that she was in love with him in no uncertain terms was retained. A year later, Portman appeared in another film where she portrayed a young adolescent girl who fell in love with an older adult man (and he with her) in the big screen opus ''Beautiful Girls''. With these two films in her oeuvre, it appeared quite strange when Portman publicly announced shortly after the release of ''Beautiful Girls'' that she and her parents agreed to turn down the offer for her to portray the famed titular character in Adrian Lyne's 1990s film version of ''Lolita'', since they believed it was "inappropriate" for her to star in a film where a young adolescent girl was romantically involved with a much older adult man (I guess they were hoping that the public had forgotten Portman's previous two film roles mentioned above). Needless to say, Lyne's film ended up languishing in production hell for a few years due to the expected controversy of producing it during the height of the sex abuse hysteria until finally being completed and released in 1997 with 17-year-old Dominique Swain in the title role. The latter version certainly had bolder scenes than the 1962 version of the movie (with 15-year-old Sue Lyons in the role of Dolores Haze, a.k.a., Lolita), but as one would expect, body doubles and scene deletions galore ensued in order for the finished product to reach the American silver screen--though it did include the rather bold scene of Swain locking lips with co-star Jeremy Irons in his role of the notorious literary hebephile Humbert Humbert.

As my fellow MAA activist Little Girl Lover reminded me, the 1990s also saw then-tween actress Kirsten Dunst take the role of the vampire Claudia, an ancient adult woman forever trapped in the body of a ten-year-old girl (since she was turned into a vampire when she was ten, and vampires do not age beyond the point when they are first turned), in the film version of Anne Rice’s novel ''The Interview With the Vampire.'' In that movie, the character of Claudia was in love with, and almost locked lips with, adult actor Brad Pitt in his role as Rice's famed vampire, Louis [thank you to fellow GLer db1 for giving me the correct version of this interesting fun fact]. This was a highly ironic role for Dunst to take, considering how outspoken the beautiful actress was in her early adult years about how disgusting and immoral she thinks it is for a younger woman (let alone a young girl) to have a romantic liaison with an older man--and how she likewise believed she was "too young" to do a nude scene in a movie at the tender age of 19.

Finally, let's not forget how actress Claire Danes surprised audiences in 1996 when, at the "mere" age of 16, she won the much coveted role of Juliet in director Buz Luhrmann's updated cinematic version of Shakespeare's classic play of doomed young love ''Romeo and Juliet'', which included a bedroom scene with her equally famous lover Romeo (sans any actual nudity, but Claire was topless at the time, but was only seen from the back when she removed her top). However, actress Olivia Hussey played the much coveted role of Juliet in director Franco Zeffirelli’s 1968 version of the film, which began filming two months after her 16th birthday, and she didn’t shy away from doing a nude scene (in fact, Hussey had played a fairly sultry role at age 12 in the English film version of Rumer Godden’s novel ''The Battle of the Villa Fiorita''). And even more recently, let's not forget a few of the films that the truly amazing actress Dakota Fanning has participated in. These include ''Man On Fire'', which she did at age ten, and which was a remake of a foreign action/adventure film from the late ‘80s that retained some of the latter movie's "lolita" themes, albeit more subtle to spare the sensibilities of American audiences. Nevertheless, it was very clear to all viewers that Fanning's tweenage character and her adult bodyguard/teacher, played to perfection by Denzel Washington, had developed actual deep romantic feelings for each other. Then there was Fanning's critically acclaimed and controversial indie film ''Hounddog'', which she did at the "tender" age of 12, and which featured a rather heavy degree of "coming of age" sexuality--as well as the famed actress frolicking about in her underwear throughout much of this period film--but which also included an awful scene where she was raped by an older boy. Then, at 15 going on 16, Fanning had perhaps her best racy role yet, as she accurately portrayed the real life adolescent singer and unabashed sex symbol Cherie Currie in the 2010 film ''The Runaways'', a biopic of the famous but short-lived girl band from the free-wheeling 1970s decade based on Currie's autobiography ''Neon Angel''. In the latter movie, Fanning famously and somewhat daringly shared a lesbian kiss onscreen with her co-star Kristen Stewart.

Also worth mentioning are two other films with intergenerational romance as their central focus that are still legal to view today. The more or less obscure 1979 film ''A Circle of Two'' was a truly beautiful and open-minded film about a 16-year-old girl--played with stellar and witty alacrity by then underage Tatum O'Neill--who fell deeply in mutually shared love with an intense but kind-hearted 60-year-old artist--also played to perfection by Richard Burton. Interestingly, this movie featured the only nude scene that Tatum ever did. The other is the 1992 movie ''For A Lost Soldier'', which was a true story based on the memoirs of Dutch artist Jeroen Boman, where he recalled a romantic relationship he had during World War II in his early adolescence with an adult Canadian soldier who had previously saved his life.

None of the above films are currently considered CP by the American penal code (save for those which actress Traci Lords appeared in from the age of 15 to 17), but all of them are examples of erotically charged films featuring young adolescents--and in some cases (such as ''Man On Fire''), girls who are "merely" tweens. And since the definition of what legally constitutes CP in America continues to broaden every single year, it cannot be certain that even these films will not someday fall under the rubric of CP as defined by the increasingly draconian American penal code as the government continues to wage a vicious war against youth sexuality, and all possible depictions and expressions of it thereof. After all, the government will poignantly argue, if these films continue to be legal to possess and produce, a "pedophile" may end up seeing them and become aroused by them, and no society that cares about the sacrosanct Victorian image of kids could ever tolerate the possibility of such a horrible thing occurring, correct? Even worse, the government will tell us, such films may convey the "dangerous" idea that youth sexuality is normal, and we can't have that either, right?

The above examples also make it clear that in a youth liberated society, there would not likely be a shortage of youthful models and actresses who would enjoy appearing in erotic films, and at this point in time it's impossible to know beyond a shadow of a doubt that this wouldn't include a smaller but perhaps sizable amount of pre-pubescent girls as well.

Once again, I would like to stress that I am ''not'' in any way suggesting that--even in a youth liberated society--the MAA community, parents, or anyone else should actually blatantly advocate youth sexuality or the production of youth erotica, or in any way imply that all or even most young girls (or boys) ''should'' participate in the production of it, as eroticism is very clearly not a genre of filmography or photography that all youths are suited for, and this should be respected. We simply advocate the matter of ''choice'', and there can be no doubt that there would be some youths of such a sensibility that they would enjoy participating in such films, including those which they produced and marketed themselves; the surfeit of "racy" YouTube videos out there featuring young girls (both tween and teen, and even some pre-pubescent) dancing provocatively and frolicking in bikinis and other revealing clothing that was produced and uploaded by the girls themselves make it very clear that there is a sizable number of young girls (and boys) who enjoy "showing off" in such a way on camera. Moreover, these youths clearly do not particularly care about the age group of people who have access to their videos and pictorials. Thus, youth sexuality and exhibitionism is a reality in our world, and even though I am not saying it should ever be advocated, it should nevertheless not be demonized or suppressed either. '''Toleration or acceptance of a certain phenomenon or genre of film or prose is ''not'' the same thing as advocating it.'''

Now, here is a fast and loose set of reasons why CP (or simple youth eroticism) should be legal in any society that purports to be a democracy:

1) The criminalization of CP is a form of ''censorship'', plain and simple. Censorship in any form should not be tolerated in a democratic society, no matter how offensive or upsetting many people may consider the imagery or information in question. If our legal system places any type of material in a "special" category that is not protected by the First Amendment to view and access by the public, then we start a very nasty precedent that can easily lead to the rationalization of any type of "dangerous" idea or image being denied public access by our esteemed protectors in the future.

2) The argument that CP should be criminalized because people who possess or even simply view the images are viewing a "crime scene" doesn't hold up to scrutiny. There are many types of crime scene images that are perfectly legal for people to view or possess. For example, vids and pics of often innocent people--such as reporters and journalists--being executed by agents of repressive governments worldwide, and the carnage wrought on innocent victims in many books detailing the history of real life serial killers are filled with extremely graphic pics of people who were murdered in very gruesome ways. Why aren't they illegal to view or possess also? Perhaps, because, they do not specifically feature ''children''? Then again, there are numerous examples of horrifying real images of children who have been subject to war atrocities that are perfectly legal to view and possess. These include numerous pics of children with limbs blown off as a result of accidentally stepping on land mines, and a famous pic from the Vietnam War featuring a tween girl running through the streets after napalm was dropped on her--and very obviously in extreme agony as her flesh was set afire (I recounted these things in a bit more detail on my previous essay about CP).

Yet, because these pics do not specifically feature anything to do with sexual activity (the above example of the girl who had napalm dropped on her was actually fully nude as she ran through the streets with her flesh burning, it should perhaps be noted), our culture and penal system mysteriously sees no problem with the public being allowed to view them. Also, despite the fact that many people are highly unsettled or offended by pics showing aborted fetuses, it is still fully legal to possess them and to post them anywhere, which many anti-choice advocates on the abortion issue often do for political purposes. How would such activists feel if access to such pics was illegal even for them to possess or distribute because of the fact that so many people were bothered or offended by them? '''Despite the fact that I am greatly sickened and horrified by pics of aborted fetuses, and despite the fact that I am pro-choice on the abortion argument, I fully support the right of these anti-choice advocates to collect and distribute such pics for whatever reason they may choose.''' Why? Because the tenets of democracy--which I support and take seriously--make me realize that I have to accept the public accessibility of ideas and images that I find personally offensive and abhorrent.

3) A point needs to be made about the tiny amount of CP that features actual footage of minors who were coerced into participating in the production of such films or pics, and even sometimes horribly tortured on camera (the rarity of such vids and pics, and the role of parents and stepparents behind the production of virtually all non-consensual CP, was discussed in detail in my previous essay on CP's relevance to the youth liberation movement). It's been argued that due to the nature of such imagery, it should be illegal to possess or view because some pervert might become aroused by the imagery, and thus, in effect, receive pleasure off of a child's misery. The problem with this justification to censor and criminalize such imagery leads to this question: is it ever justified in a democracy to penalize people for anything that may be going on within the privacy of their own thoughts regardless of how deplorable polite society may consider those thoughts, rightfully or otherwise? What type of precedent does this create for our society when we support the concept of thought control?

There are other things to consider here, too. As I mentioned in my aforementioned previous essay, the total criminalization of this type of imagery prevents their access not only to would-be-perverts who may become aroused by viewing it, but also to serious journalists who may want to view the imagery for the purpose of research and future articles based on that research. The argument that they do not need access to this imagery in order to write about it is entirely bogus, because without being able to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that what the LEOs [law enforcement officers] are saying is in those images are actually true, they cannot compose an article or expose' on the topic with a full degree of accuracy. It's foolish and downright Orwellian for the law--or anyone else--to make assumptions as to why someone may want to access such imagery when mind-reading technology is not yet available, and to therefore conclude that the only possible reason for someone to access and view such imagery is because they want to be aroused by the images of abused children.

A further point that must be made about the argument that such coerced imagery is so horrible that we need to punish anyone who may be aroused by it is illustrated by the following example. A few years ago, a major scandal erupted in Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison when some of the American guards there--at least two of whom were women--forced many of the male Iraqi POWs imprisoned there (many of whom were never actually charged with a crime) to strip fully naked and engage in close physical contact activities with their fellow male prisoners, including standing on top of each other while all were nude so as to form a human pyramid-like structure. This was obviously done very much against these men’s will, and the guards took photographs for their personal amusement and to further debase these men in the future. These pics were subsequently discovered and disseminated across many political websites and blogs all over cyberspace, for the purpose of the columnists to protest this outrage and breach of American principles. As anyone who is familiar with the culture of these Islamic societies in the Middle East are well aware, such an action was far more humiliating and emotionally distressing for men who grew up in these cultures than it would have been for heterosexual men who grew up in a Western culture, where homoeroticism is currently more or less accepted and not considered a form of deviant behavior (save by some of the most conservative elements in Western society). There can be no doubt that all of these men forced to participate in this activity by their captors was humiliating beyond description and likely even emotionally traumatic to experience--yet no civilian reporters, journalists, or bloggers were arrested for posting these pics all over the Net. Can it not be cogently argued that these men and their families would receive a great degree of severe emotional distress, and likely even trauma, as a result of the appearance of these pics all over the Net, even on sites whose columnists were using them to rightfully protest what was done to these men, and even on sites where their faces were blurred out of focus to protect the anonymity of the victims? I would say yes, yet this rationalization was never used to arrest any of these well-intentioned bloggers (nor should it have been, for all of the reasons expressed both above and below).

Moreover, there is something further that must be considered about the Abu Grahib debacle. Are we to assume that everyone who viewed and downloaded these pics did so for the same reason as the above politically-motivated bloggers? It needs to be said that contrary to what appears to be popular belief, it's not simply a small number of adults with an attraction to children and teens who have "extreme" interests, and there are most certainly members of the mainstream homosexual community who can likewise have some rather "extreme" interests, as well as people from all groups with a teleiophilic attraction base [a teleiophile is someone who has a preference for members of the same general age group, regardless of gender or race]. Thus, it can readily be presumed with a high degree of likelihood that some adults viewed and downloaded the pics of those abused POWs in Abu Ghraib for the purpose of becoming aroused by having fantasies of being in place of the guards, and even of committing further forms of abuse with these men than are actually known to have occurred. Not only that, but it's also likely that several adults viewed or downloaded those pics and fantasized about being in the place of those abused men; fantasies of being raped as opposed to perpetrating such acts are far from unheard of, and many women--and some men--have admitted to having them, including many women who belong to the BDSM community (though certainly not all). Yet, this great likelihood was never mentioned anywhere that I am aware of, let alone any suggestion that possession or viewing of such pics should be legally prohibited from anyone outside of authorized court officials due to the corrupt thoughts they may have inspired in people with a certain type of predilection.

The exact ''same'' complaint can be made about pics of actual carnage wrought on victims by serial killers, since it's well known that some teleiophiles have the type of "extreme" tastes where they become aroused by depictions of violence, including those that had a sexual context to them. The realization of this would doubtlessly cause much emotional distress to the families of these victims, as well as anyone who managed to survive such an attack, to know that some people were collecting these pics for that particular reason. Should necrophiliacs be arrested for collecting pics of people who were murdered by serial killers for the purpose of "getting off" on the pics entirely within the privacy of their own mind? Sure, such thoughts may be considered "disgusting" by the great majority of society, and one may argue that some type of injustice is committed against the victims, but this is no reason to criminalize possession or viewing of crime scene pics where people were hurt or killed in horrible ways, and it's entirely unjust for any courts under the ethos of American jurisprudence to ''assume'' any reason why any particular person may wish to obtain such pics.

Yet, the complaints about these adult victims, and what they and/or their families may suffer as a result of these horrid pics being available for public access by people who likely have a wide assortment of reasons for wanting to view them (some well-intentioned, and others entirely puerile and salacious), are almost always non-existent. Nor do we ever hear any of the families of these victims, or of any victims who may have survived the attempt on their lives, of taking anyone who simply viewed or possessed the pics of the carnage for whatever reason to civil court so as to sue them for possibly "getting off" on the misery of these victims. When these points are made to people who want these coercive pics to continue to be criminalized, the response is usually a variation of, "That's different! The victims in those pics and videos weren't children!" This response is very telling and informative, and it cuts to the crux of the problem. It also makes it clear why such people support the criminalization of even on camera depictions of the majority of youth erotica that is known to have been produced with the full consent and enjoyment of the young participants, or where no evidence exists to suggest otherwise since no investigation was ever conducted to collect any evidence to suggest that coercion was involved. These statements are even echoed by people connected to the MAA community who enjoy and support the continued legalization of the youth modeling sites that feature girls in scanty clothing and sometimes arguably "enticing" poses. Once nudity enters the equation, however, such individuals immediately cry "foul" and claim that such pics or vids have "crossed the line." They further attempt to categorize any pics and vids featuring nudity as if they were examples of coercion, without bothering to ask for proof or even the slightest bit of evidence. And they never seem to realize that as long as what constitutes CP continues to be broadened, their beloved non-nude-but-sometimes-racy youth modeling sites will likewise get banned in the future, too. It's not like several members of the U.S. Congress aren't actually trying to do so, and this includes the attempts of uber-hypocrites like the rightfully disgraced Senator Mark Foley (and which proves that MAAs can be hypocrites who work against the interests of youth rights, their own community, and civil rights in general as much as homosexuals in positions of political power—such as J. Edgar Hoover—have done in the past).

So, in other words, if such imagery involves ''children'', or anyone who happens to be "underage," it suddenly becomes a whole different story than any similar imagery involving adults, as far as most people are concerned.

Of course, the pundits of protectionism have a common excuse used to justify the consensual agreement of underagers being denied when it comes to taking nude or provocative pics of themselves, or participating in films of that nature. When the consensual participation of the underager in question is made clear, the latter pundits will say that these youths ''might'' later come to regret these on camera depictions of themselves, so we have to consider them being distressed in an entirely pre-emptive and hypothetical context. And this despite the fact that Brooke Shields and Jodie Foster never seemed to suffer after becoming adults for some of the erotic roles they played back at the "vulnerable" age of 12, as both have enjoyed very good careers and personal lives that were hardly scandalous or full of strife when compared to many of their fellow Hollywood celebrities. Further, Traci Lords herself broke into mainstream films and never suffered for her participation in blatantly pornographic films beginning when she was 15; Lords did later allegedly develop a serious drug problem, but the same thing is the case with many starlets of mainstream cinema, including those who limited their childhood roles to family-friendly fare like the late Anissa Jones of the popular late 1960s TV series ''Family Affair''. A few youth models have likewise achieved their dreams, including Tierra Lee Abbott breaking into mainstream acting (including a recurring role on Nickelodeon's TV series ''Unfabulous'') and the youth model who used the name Marie, who achieved her long-time dream of posing for ''Playboy'' shortly following her 18th birthday. It's quite clear that print versions of ''Playboy'' catering to the celebration and admiration of the beauty of youths would exist in a youth liberated society without people worrying about whether or not a "pedophile" became aroused by the pictorials included therein. Imagine how many opportunities for personal growth and advancement would be curtailed if we allowed the powers-that-be to follow the Nanny State mentality and forcibly prevent us from making certain decisions simply because we ''might'' end up regretting them later, no matter how much these pundits of protectionism may argue the likelihood of this happening, or that youths are "more likely" to later come to regret this or that decision than an adult will (as if this can actually be deduced effectively); one of the things we need to remember is that one of the most important civil rights people of any age can possess is the right to take emotional risks, because without this right we lose too many opportunities to grow and learn, and we end up at the mercy of the possible bad decisions of those who have the power to decide for us, rather than to learn and grow from the possible bad decisions of our own.

We should also keep in mind that our gossip-loving yet moralizing society loves to uncover “scandals” regarding underage celebrities, such as when the American press pilloried actress/singer Miley Cyrus for being caught in the act on more than one occasion of behaving like a normal adolescent girl does, which unfortunately contradicts the crystal pure image of the character Hanna Montana that she popularly but unrealistically portrays for the benefit of her employers at Disney—or for daring to participate in the taking of pictorials for various fashion mags that “inappropriately” show off her youthful beauty—such as exposing the skin on her back; yes, her back, not her breasts! Yet the moralizers in the press and outside of it had a field day with that, and Miley was ultimately being pressured—some might say bullied—into making an apology that the public wasn’t owed. In other words, Disney expects Miley to be Hannah Montana 24/7 in her real life, not only when she is in front of the cameras at their studios, and it doesn't matter to them how far removed Hannah may be from real adolescent girls--Miley appears to have sworn to uphold an idealized and highly sanitized version of a developing young woman when she signed that contract (*ahem*--I mean when ''her parents'' signed the contract, as any youth under the age of 18 are not permitted to sign their own contracts), and she and her parents are called names in the media and pushed into apologizing when she doesn't live up to a standard that no real adolescent girl should be expected to live up to.

Let's also not forget that the highly disturbing autopsy photos of child murder victim Jon-Bonet Ramsey are legally available online, and these include close-up photos of her vagina. But because the purpose of these pics are for the clinical study of a crime victim and not for the purpose of titillation, these pics are fully legal to view and presumably to download and possess. If the parents are indeed innocent of the crime, then aren't we causing them emotional distress by making these horrific crime photos publicly available? I am not arguing that disturbing crime photos should be illegal to view or possess, but I am using this as a point to make it clear that it seems really ludicrous that we can allow pics of this nature to be legal, yet pics and vids of youths posing nude or engaging in willing sexual situations that they may enjoy participating in is totally off-limits legally, and actually worthy of being placed in a "special" class of imagery that is not protected by the First Amendment. Again, this is what happens when emotion trumps logic; it results in one of the most important aspects of democracy being abandoned with too little complaints attached to it, and the government becoming involved in what clearly constitutes full fledged exercises in thought control.

The semi-naysayers often like to justify their above statements by making the famous declaration, "We have to draw the line somewhere!" I agree, which is why I believe the line should be drawn when the important factor of ''consent'' is no longer present. Claims that consent wasn't present when the young people who participated insist that it was need to be ''proven'' via a thorough but ethical investigation of all involved with the production, and not simply assumed for the purpose of "erring on the side of caution" or following the “better to be safe than sorry” ethos to the extreme.

So back to the main point: we only make sometimes irrational, and oftentimes outright draconian, exceptions to the above described rules when the people involved are underage, and this counts even after the girls or boys in question have become adults, as there is a new crop of lawyers who have taken advantage of the present climate of hysteria by encouraging some of these women to sue people who are discovered to have possession of some of the erotic pics taken of them when they were underage. I would say this creates a strong monetary incentive for such women to claim they suddenly woke up one morning to discover that they were “emotionally damaged” by the memory of those pics or vids being made—and hell hath no fury like a woman and her lawyer out to grab public sympathy via playing on people’s emotions in order to make a killing for themselves.

This all strongly suggests that our society has a deep and abiding fear and loathing of youth sexuality that is so pervasive that even some people who admit an attraction to younger people are caught up in the hysteria, and thus tend to view depictions of youth sexuality with great suspicion even when there is no reason to have such suspicions. The latter appears to be partly true because some MAAs appear to project their own personal tastes on underage models, and seem to assume outright that because they wouldn't have wanted to participate in such videos or pictorials when they were underage, they consider it inconceivable that any sizable number of girls (or boys) could possibly have different tastes and sensibilities from themselves, all the evidence that youths are no exception to the rule of diversity amongst the human species notwithstanding. Hence, they justify the criminalization of possessing or viewing any of the tiny amount of coercive films involving underage people while continuing to (usually) support the legal access to similar or worse pics and vids depicting adult victims. Predictably, the government jumps on this, realizing that they can start with the criminalization of possession and viewing of the small amount of non-consensual CP, and from there move on to rationalizing the criminalization of viewing consensual erotic material involving youths, and then moving on from there to criminalizing the possession and viewing of simple artistic nudes, and from there pics and vids of youths wearing revealing clothing, and from there...well, use your imagination, you are not likely to be far off base by doing so. This is because, as I have mentioned numerous times, the passing of a single draconian law of censorship creates a domino effect of sorts, resulting in the easier rationalization of increasingly severe and prohibitive Orwellian measures passed under the pretext of “protecting” children (i.e., anyone who is legally underage and thus bereft of sufficient civil rights to make their own decisions in almost any matter). This is something that the semi-naysayers do not seem willing to accept any more than the total naysayers are.

To complete this point, I want to make one thing ''very'' clear. Nobody in the pro-choice segment of the MAA community supports the legalization of producing any type of youth erotica where the participants were ''forced'' or somehow ''coerced'' into making the films or photo-shoots. To suggest that any of us would literally support the production of such material is silly, insulting, and totally outrageous. Trying to claim that those who support the legality of simply viewing even coerced imagery that they had nothing to do with the production of as being tantamount to supporting actual rape and torture, or the production and sale of films depicting such atrocities, is beneath contempt and a total corruption of the point we are trying to make. And arguing that the simple viewing of films depicting actual rape and torture somehow creates a demand for the production of more material ''even though no money is passing any hands'' is beyond ridiculous, and a classic example of the sordid tactic of grasping at straws to justify a certain form of censorship. This is like saying that those who view pics of actual victims of serial killers, or own a book containing such pics (which are readily available via Amazon.com or the true crime section of your local Barnes and Noble), actually support the ''legalization'' of serial murder, and that a demand exists for serial killers to continue committing acts of murder even though none of them make any money as a result of it. Such arguments would be totally and rightfully laughed at if not for the powerful emotional resonance that they bring with them due to the fact that people under 18 and sexuality are both involved. I and the rest of my community fully support the arrest and prosecution of ''anyone'' of ''any age'' who is involved with the production of any type of film or images of people of any age who are participating on camera in sexual activities that they ''did not'' consent to, or are being genuinely tortured and harmed on camera against their will. Very very few, if any, people in our community would ever remotely support the production of such films any more than the tiniest percentage of the various teleiophile communities would support a market for actual "snuff" films featuring real adult victims. The naysayers need to keep in mind that MAAs are, first and foremost, ''human beings'', and as such we are fully capable of empathizing with human pain and suffering to the same extent that any teleiophile can.

4) As my fellow activist Baldur pointed out to me before, the continued criminalization of such imagery and/or text can be used to blackmail or frame individuals by having such evidence planted on their computer hard drives without the knowledge of the owner. This can be done by any individual with a sufficient degree of hacking skills, including a jealous co-worker or even a LEO who wants to see to the arrest and personal destruction of a certain individual for purely political reasons. And of course, there have been a growing number of claims that certain types of malware may automatically download CP to people's hard drives that they had no intention of even viewing, let alone permanently possessing. These claims are far from outrageous, because it's a well known fact that malware can and often does automatically download adult pornography to people's hard drives against their intentions, so it's quite likely that any type of online material can be unknowingly downloaded onto someone's computer hard drive without their knowledge or intention.

==Addendum==
The following are a few very important anecdotes in response to certain of my points, provided by my fellow pro-choice MAA activist Summerdays, to whom I extend much thanks and appreciation for them. My previously mentioned points are in '''bold face''', and Summerdays' responses are in standard text.

'''Accordingly, there is a big difference between 'child pornography' and what may best be labeled ''child erotica''.'''
:I'm sure there's a term for the argumentative fallacy where the opponent exaggerates your point to the most extreme and indefensible end of the spectrum, in order to more easily refute it. And the black and white thinking ("all CP is the worst kind") certainly doesn't contribute to an atmosphere of reasoned discussion. There is a middle ground that is being trampled, and I find this to be very unfortunate, because that middle ground occupies a place where the erotic beauty of youth and adolescence can be celebrated in a very positive way. But if you dare try to defend the middle ground, the antis write you off as trying to defend the "worst kind" of CP, since to them it's all the same.

'''I would see no problem with pre-pubescents who possess an exhibitionist streak in them (and our society is well aware that such children do exist, despite our strong attempts to deny it) to appear in mildly erotic films...'''
:I have no problem with this either, but I can see a potential problem with it - sociogenic in nature. It kind of parallels the issue of mutually consensual sexual contact between [youths] and adults - if the contact itself is not harmful, there is still the stigma that is imposed from outside forces that can result in harm. In this case, the stigma has to do with the sexual shame that is imposed on exhibitionism of this form. In other words, the idea that if somebody sees a "naughty" picture (or video) of you, your reputation could be ruined.
:This is a general problem I see that needs to be addressed, but becomes something of a thorn in our side when the issue of youth erotica is involved. This is because of the "child protection" argument that considers children [and younger adolescents] unable to comprehend the repercussions of posing for sexy pictures (or videos) at their age - and the fact that they may regret it later (after it's too late, given the "immortality" of digital media in this age). You certainly see this argument when the topic of "sexting" comes up.
:Some people would (and obviously do) argue that the solution is to eliminate any and all material of this nature - and to prevent kids from taking that "risk" to their reputation. I would argue that the freedom to engage in that kind of activity is important enough not to squander it for the sake of this risk, and also that I'm certain there are some (if certainly not all) children [and adolescents] who are capable both of understanding the risk (of potential stigma), and also possess the strength of character not to be significantly affected by it. Indeed, there may be cases where a [youth's] need to express him/herself overcomes the fear of "what people may think/do/say" - and I would argue that that's a healthy attitude to foster, rather than teaching kids to be afraid to express themselves for fear of how others may judge them.

'''Pre-pubescents have appeared nude and even sometimes engaging in lightly erotic scenes (i.e., those involving kissing and notable sensuality) in many foreign films over the past few decades, and people from those cultures do not have the conception that there is something inherently "wrong" with this.'''
:Indeed, I do not believe we should indulge our culture's sickness. The exploration of sexuality is a natural curiosity, and it should be indulged, not repressed. I don't believe we should refrain from certain behaviors only because society frowns upon them. Where there are explicit laws against certain behaviors, that is another matter, but in terms of cultural norms, I think it's our duty to push the boundaries and keep an open discussion, and not be afraid to turn a few heads in our pursuit of a better way, as long as we are doing it with an understanding of the backlash we are likely to receive.
:Ideally, the goal would be a more tolerant society where people are not shamed and stigmatized for being involved in the erotic arts, thus significantly reducing the risks of participation.

'''And since the definition of what legally constitutes CP in America continues to broaden every single year, it cannot be certain that even these films will not someday fall under the rubric of CP as defined by the increasingly draconian American penal code as the government continues to wage a vicious war against youth sexuality, and all possible depictions and expressions of it thereof.'''
:Granted, I think Congress and/or whoever makes those decisions is concerned about laws that are so strict as to render that which is unambiguously "artistic" illegal - particularly works of art that are historically renowned. On the other hand, our tolerance for this type of material - youth sexuality - is gradually eroding, and the limitations on what can and cannot be represented artistically are increasing. I think we ought to be more concerned about what hasn't been created yet than what has. The movies you mentioned may not fall under the legal classification for "child pornography" any time soon (although it's still important for us to make certain they don't), but as time passes, and the laws tighten, and the penalties grow, fewer people are going to want to tackle such a controversial issue, and they'll be able to get away with much less with confidence. And if one such person dares to push the boundaries, he/she is bound to be demonized, and used as an example for even tighter laws, and harsher penalties. (The furor over Bill Henson comes to mind, and his work, from what I've seen, neither involves children, nor can it rightly be classified as "pornographic." If his work pushes people's buttons, then what sort of ban will they call for next?)
:How long will it be before no one has the guts to even bring up the topic of youth sexuality anymore? There are already people saying this topic shouldn't even be addressed. Youths are sexual - not talking about it doesn't help anyone. And if youths were to somehow become completely asexual as a result - a result that the anti mindset would seem to favor - what kind of an impact would that have on us as a society and as a species? Think about how authoritarian a government would have to be to have the power to regulate all sexual expression involving minors (whether as the subject of the expression, or merely the subject of discussion). And worse yet, to actually regulate the way minors feel (by excising their natural sexual impulses through some kind of social conditioning). Do you really want to be controlled by a government with that much power? And surely you can't believe that they would limit their exercising of that power to minors. Anyway, the minors will one day become adults, and the adults will eventually die off, and what we've got then is a completely brainwashed populace. Children are the future of us all. Do we really want them growing up ashamed and with unhealthy attitudes about their sexuality? The minute we place sexuality into the governing hands of our so-called "protectors," we are giving up our own power over the continuation of our very existence.

'''After all, the government will poignantly argue, if these films continue to be legal to possess and produce, a "pedophile" may end up seeing them and become aroused by the imagery, and no society that cares about the sacrosanct Victorian image of kids could ever tolerate the possibility of such a horrible thing occurring, correct?'''
:This is a ridiculous argument, because you simply cannot prevent pedophiles [or hebephiles] from being aroused by pedophilic stimuli. You would need to completely separate children from adults to start - and though that seems to be the direction we're heading, there are any number of reasons why I think that would be a terrible idea - and even then, pedophiles still have their imagination. As much as society hates pedophiles, you can't punish children for them - and that means allowing children to remain visible to the public eye. I won't accept "pedophiles may get turned on" as an argument unless it's backed up by a realistic plan to prevent pedophiles from ever getting turned on - and in that case, I would be vehemently against such an inhumane plan.

'''I would like to stress that I am not in any way suggesting that, even in a youth liberated society, the MAA community, parents, or anyone else should actually blatantly advocate youth sexuality or the production of youth erotica, or in any way imply that all or even most young girls (or boys) should participate in the production of it, as eroticism is very clearly not a genre of filmography or photography that all youths are suited for, and this should be respected'''.
:Arguing that "youth erotica" should be legal in no way presumes that most children ought to be involved with it, and certainly not that any youths should be forced into it. Even were it true that most kids wouldn't have the slightest interest (and I'm not so sure that's the case), the fact that a few of them would is reason enough to allow them that opportunity. That's what choice is about.

'''Despite the fact that I am greatly sickened and horrified by pics of aborted fetuses, and despite the fact that I am pro-choice on the abortion argument, I fully support the right of these anti-choice advocates to collect and distribute such pics for whatever reason they may choose.'''
:What is it about a naked [youth] posing in a suggestive manner that is considerably worse than an image of an aborted fetus, that we have to censor the former yet not the latter?
[[Category:Dissident's essays]]

Essay:Why The Legality Of Child Pornography Is Relevant To The Youth Liberation Movement

2011-11-10T09:47:12Z

Dissident: /* By Dissident */

==By Dissident==
:"''Whenever any government, or any church, or anyone else for that matter, undertakes to say to its subjects: "This book you may not read, this film you may not watch, this image you may not see, this knowledge you may not have," then the end result is tyranny and oppression, no matter how holy the motives.''" '''- Robert A. Heinlein, "If This Goes On..."'''

I extend many thanks to the crew of GirlChat [GC] for their invaluable editorial assist on the earliest draft of this essay, and I have incorporated several suggestions and anecdotes from them. Particular thanks goes to my fellow GC posters Baldur, qtns2di4, Summerdays, CatcherintheRye, Sancho Panza, Little Girl Lover, and FreeThinkerGL.

Recently I composed an essay designed to answer a question I often hear from individuals as to why the age of consent [AoC] laws are of any importance to the youth liberation movement, and if perhaps the pro-choice faction of the MAA [Minor Attracted Adult] community is simply being "selfish" for arguing that it is. Today, I move on to what may be considered the second part of that essay, which brings the same question to the fore regarding the many types of imagery and writing that may be classified as CP [child pornography] by the government of any given country. In other words, in this essay I will give a response to the many variations of the following question and an accompanying comment that I often hear in concert with it: "What does CP have to do with youth liberation? I don't think any youth under the age of 18 would ever have the slightest interest in appearing in erotic photography or videos, so I think it's foolish, selfish, and counter-productive for the pro-choice faction of the MAA community to support its legalization even in a future youth liberated society." That is quite a bold question and follow-up statement, but does it actually hold up to close scrutiny and logical analysis?

To begin with, one who has the above contention would have to answer the question as to why so many young people over the age of 18 so obviously have a desire to appear in films and photoshoots of an erotic nature, yet be simultaneously certain that absolutely no young person under the age of 18--even just a few years younger--would have a similar desire to do so. Does it make logical sense for youth liberationists to argue that those we today designate 'underagers'--particularly those in adolescence--have many of the same capabilities or desires as older people with the ''sole exception'' of the desire to publicly express their sexuality?

First of all, what does the heavy proliferation of the ''sexting'' phenomenon amongst underagers who own cell phones say about this? Please note the following online news reports--[http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/01/15/national/main4723161.shtml here], [http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34422197/ns/technology_and_science-tech_and_gadgets here], and [http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/WorldNews/sexting-teens/story?id=6456834 here].

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The above linked articles provide just a few examples that one can find with a simple Google search. Although one can and will argue that sexted pics are designed entirely for the eyes of significant others and not for public consumption, one has to consider a few things: 1) it's illegal for underagers to post nude or overly provocative pics of themselves on public venues, and 2) many do so anyway on their socnet pages on MySpace and Facebook, and not all who do this keep those pages--and therefore access to their photo sections--private.

One then has to consider the proliferation over the past two decades of the online youth modeling sites, many of which remain legal despite strong attempts by the American government to criminalize the entire industry. These modeling sites often feature girls (and sometimes boys) in highly revealing clothing and sometimes even arguably provocative poses. When one of the biggest and most well known companies producing material for youth models, Webe Web, was eradicated from existence after its three owners were brought up on CP charges (some say spuriously), the hope of the government that the entire industry based in the U.S. would be destroyed along with Webe Web was ultimately quashed. This is because several of the young models previously hosted by Webe Web subsequently went off on their own following Webe's demise and continued working in the industry, many of them under new websites run by their parents. When the legal European youth modeling company known as the Gegg Agency fell for similar reasons, several of the girl models who were hosted by that site have likewise reappeared on other sites, also often under the auspices of their parents, who have interestingly refused to cooperate with LEAs [law enforcement agencies] in many cases; very few of these parents actually made a fuzz in the media about alleged "abuse" going on at the Gegg Agency, thus suggesting that the closing of the agency was more the result of pressure coming from the U.S. and Britain than anything more substantial. Pressure from the U.S. with likely help from Britain was known to have a large effect on the closure and indictment of youth modeling agencies situated in the Ukraine, who produced images--sometimes including nudity--that were not legal in the U.S. and certain other jurisdictions, but as my fellow activist qtns2di4 said, "it's not clear that they broke local laws." As he also noted, "As with Webe and C&G, girls and parents reappeared [on other youth modeling sites] and did not collaborate with police." Clearly, the government and parents are often at odds when it comes to the subject of youth modeling, and what does or does not constitute "appropriate" images, including the matter of simple nudity.

There are some in the MAA community who totally enjoy these still legal modeling sites but seem to be totally against young models and actresses appearing in more obviously erotic films regardless of what the youths themselves may feel about appearing in such videos. These dissenting voices strongly deny that any of the youths who appear in today's legal but controversial modeling sites would ever have the slightest desire to appear in actual erotica even in a youth liberated society. Because of this belief, they argue, the CP question is entirely irrelevant to the general youth liberation platform, and pro-choice MAAs--along with youth liberationists in general, of course--need to leave this topic alone for the "good" of the movement. Apparently, some people seem to believe that adolescent youth activists themselves do not want people in their age group to have certain choices that they have no problem with people over the age of 18 to possess. And the reason for this appears to be that they personally consider some of these possible choices to be so "icky" that the right to choose should be forfeit in these cases. In other words, if certain choices would offend society's sensibilities enough, and if it's strongly believed that very few, if any, people in a certain group would even want to make these choices in the first place, then it's okay to legally deny freedom of choice for such people in these particular cases.

As my fellow activist Summerdays noted, "Freedom [includes] the freedom to let others do things we don't like (as long as it doesn't hurt us or anyone else non-consensually, and in a real way)." He further notes, "If youths are to be free, they must be allowed the freedom to pursue avenues that are morally offensive to some, if they so choose.

"It's the same argument made against adult performers in the field of erotic entertainment - but again, with adults, we allow them the freedom to pursue their own vision of happiness, even if that vision disgusts and offends us. Minors, however, are not given such freedom. They may only pursue their vision of happiness if it falls within accepted boundaries as defined by certain adults."

The problem is that the above examples of sexting, uploading nude and provocative pics of themselves to socnet sites, and the proliferation of the youth modeling industry would seem to indicate, quite logically, that in a youth liberated society there may be some youths--perhaps a sizable amount—who would not only be happily willing to make films where they do nude scenes and even appear in outright erotic scenarios, but some may even be willing to appear in films or photoshoots that specialize in erotic content. Why is one to assume that exhibitionist tendencies would be entirely unique to people 18 years of age and older? Does the empirical evidence really suggest this to be the case?

While some assert that arguing for the legalization of much of what we today call "CP" in a youth liberated society--or even in today's society--is counter-productive and is not in the best interests of the young people we are fighting on behalf of, there are actually much better reasons to argue that the exact opposite may be the case.

For one thing, what type of message does the condemnation of all forms of youth erotica give to society when uttered by youth libbers? Such a message would appear to be that youths engaged in erotic activity on film, or in any way publicly expressing their sexual desires, is somehow inherently "disgusting" and "improper" despite the fact that youths are well known to have such desires. Yet, at the same time, it's believed by most of these same people that such activities are perfectly okay and proper for someone who is of the arbitrary age of 18 or over to do to any degree that they please, as if young people under this arbitrary age doing the same thing has some type of innate "ickiness" factor attached to it.

What, exactly, is inherently ugly about the nude body of youths under a certain arbitrary age? Or, perhaps more specifically, what is particularly ugly for young girls under 18 displaying their breasts and genital region on camera that is not similarly inherently ugly, demeaning, or exploitive for young women 18 and over who choose to do the same thing? What is it about youths willingly engaging in the mutual exchange of a pleasurable display like sexual activity on camera somehow disgusting or "wrong" in an inherent sense? Conversely, why is it perfectly okay and non-exploitive for young people of the arbitrary age of 18 and over to do the exact same thing? Why is the right to sexual expression liberating for people over one specific arbitrary age demarcation, yet somehow demeaning and exploitive for any person with the same desires who may fall anywhere beneath that same arbitrary chronological demarcation? What is it about sexual expression in particular that is so inherently anti-youth that no one under a certain arbitrary age would ever want to do it? What is so inherently anti-youth about sexual expression that even some purported youth libbers appear to insist that we must continue to legally prohibit anyone under the age of 18 from having the opportunity to make this choice? What is so inherently pivotal about the specific chronological age of 18 that suddenly allows everything of this nature to become “ok” in the eyes of our culture? Why does this specific age carry so much divine weight in our society’s collective mind, as if its great legal importance was somehow akin to a law of cosmic significance? And again, perhaps most importantly, what type of message does this send to the public when it comes from a political platform that is supposed to be based upon liberation rather than some type of moralizing form of protectionism? In what way would the continued criminalization of such erotica benefit the general principle of liberation amongst any group of people? When, exactly, has censorship of any sort and the concept of liberation ever walked hand-in-hand with each other and comfortably shared a proverbial bed?

Some of these individuals will argue that the legalization of CP would hurt young people under 18 even in a youth liberated society, and is therefore against their best interests. Let us take a look at this claim by using a few excerpts from one of the above linked online articles (specifically, the third) about what the current CP and "obscenity" laws have done to some underagers who were caught sexting [excerpt in '''bold face''']:

:'''News reports are increasingly documenting legal repercussions after indecent photos appear online. And attorneys say there are many unanswered questions about whether young people who send their own photos could face prosecution for obscenity or child pornography.

:'''This year in Wisconsin, a 17-year-old was charged with possessing child pornography after he posted naked pictures of his 16-year-old ex-girlfriend online.'''

:'''In Alabama, authorities arrested four middle-school students for exchanging nude photos of themselves. In Rochester, N.Y., a 16-year-old boy is now facing up to seven years in prison for forwarding a nude photo of a 15-year-old girlfriend to his friends.'''

:'''"I don't think that's what was contemplated when the laws were written," says the Rochester teen's attorney, Tom Splain, who has worked on several similar cases this year. "I think it was more for the older pedophile [sic] collecting pictures of young children; we're now running into high school students getting swept up in these charges."'''

So it would appear that these pundits of protectionism now claim that laws originally intended to prevent "older pedophiles" (actually, hebephiles) from obtaining pics of underage teens that they may end up (god forbid!) fantasizing about in the privacy of their own mind had unforeseen negative consequences on another segment of the greater population: the very segment of the population that such laws were intended to "protect" in the first place. Many activists, however, believe that it's entirely hypocritical for these pundits to act as if they are shocked that underagers themselves ended up being prosecuted under these laws instead of just the older "perverts" that these laws were allegedly created to "protect" them from. These pundits are clearly playing dumb here, since it's well known amongst any politician with an I.Q. over 40 that any type of draconian law will inevitably have such "unforeseen" consequences on every segment of society, including those whom these laws were supposedly intended to "protect" from the horrible crime of having an older person fantasize to their image in the privacy of his or her own thoughts.

One now feels obliged to ask some very important questions whose answers may be disturbing to contemplate. What will happen in the future once these laws continue to expand so that underage teen girls get into legal trouble for sending pics of themselves in their strapless or otherwise “sexy” homecoming or prom dresses to a friend? Moreover, what will happen to parents in the future if they should send such a pic to one of their adult friends simply to show off how beautiful their daughter looked on that special evening? What would happen, for example, if the law suspected that one of the adults these parents sent the pic to may be likely to get aroused by viewing it? If you think I am being comically facetious here, then please consider how nebulous and broad all of the various things that fit under the general umbrella of CP are becoming. Consider, for instance, the many occurrences since the beginning of the sex abuse hysteria at the close of the 1970s and its resulting draconian laws of parents being arrested for taking nude pics of their babies and young children while the latter were in the bathtub or happily frolicking on the beach. This has been a common thing done by families since the invention of the camera that was intended to be entirely innocent, yet the very laws that most parents initially applauded have--predictably--come back to bite even them on the proverbial ass in many cases. No segment of society--not even the very architects of these laws themselves in some instances (*waves to former Senator Mark Foley*)--are spared the consequences of these draconian legislative measures.

If you look back to my previous essay where I dealt with the AoC laws and their relevance to youth liberation in general, you will remember that I noted how even the passage and toleration of a single draconian law in a purportedly democratic society will almost certainly have a cumulative effect on future legislation in this area. The result will invariably be further and further rationalizations for greater and increasingly insidious and far-reaching draconian laws. Predictably, as the years roll on large segments of the population are being convicted for things that they never would have realized were covered under the aegis of these laws when they were first instituted under totally noble pretenses. The ultimate result is an inexorable dive towards a borderline police and surveillance state where privacy is an alien concept, and anxiety over inadvertently breaking some pernicious law is a common fact of life. How is this supposed to benefit or protect younger people from harm? What about the serious implications upon the general adult population and the civil rights that they, unlike people under 18, currently enjoy? And how could it be argued that most teen activists who support youth liberation would actually agree with continued restrictions on their choices in just this one particular area? (The only other area in the realm of youth liberation that even approaches sexual rights in terms of the level of emotional contention is respect for youths' Second Amendment rights, but that is a whole other topic.)

Of course, one will then argue that the act of sexting can have many unforeseen consequences of its own [see endnote 1 for example]. Such concerns are certainly valid, but is the outright criminalization of something that people over the age of majority are allowed to do despite the same attendant risk factors constitute the correct solution to this problem?

The above question needs to be asked, because freedom of choice is extremely important to any platform dedicated to liberation, and this prominently includes the right to take risks. There are any number of ways in which girls (and boys) can be cautioned about indiscriminately sending nude pics of themselves to significant others or friends over their cell phones that belie the need for protectionist prohibitions on freedom of choice [see endnote 2 for some examples of these fully democratic alternatives].

The question of how many youths under a certain arbitrary age would or would not want to appear in erotic films or photoshoots is totally irrelevant to the importance of freedom of choice [see endnote 3]. Freedom of choice is perhaps the most important aspect to any program or platform that purports to be based upon liberation, and this includes choices that the activists involved may not be totally comfortable with, or which they personally deem "inappropriate" for someone to make for whatever reason [see endnote 4].

Another question the naysayers have to consider is how the full range of these CP laws as we know them today hurt the very foundation of a democratic society in a general sense. This includes the well-being of everyone in society, regardless of what their personal tastes in erotica--or the lack of same--may happen to be. How could such a thing be the case, you may ask? The answer is very simple and very logical, and would be much more clear to everyone if they simply compelled themselves to put logic and reason before emotion when confronting any given subject.

As I have said numerous times before, any society that purports to be based on democratic principles suffers immensely with the introduction of even a single draconian law into the penal framework, no matter how genuinely noble or good the intentions of those who pass or support such a law may be. History has shown, over and over again, that draconian laws passed within the context of a democratic society are clearly cumulative in nature and ultimately destructive to such a society's most cherished principles. In other words, the passage and toleration of even one such law within a democratic system tends to gradually lead to further and further justifications of more draconian laws of increasing severity and scope as time marches on. This is because the rationalization of the "need" for one such law can easily lead to further rationalizations for other such laws as time progresses, especially when a certain type of hysteria rears its hideous metaphorical head.

This is why placing laws pertaining to the possession and viewing of CP in a "special" class of image (and sometimes text) that is immune to First Amendment protections has gradually escalated into further and increasingly irrational prohibitions that have begun encroaching upon imagery where no actual minors are involved and erotic material that consists entirely of actors who are legal adults [see endnote 5 for specific examples]. This makes it clear that such legislation inevitably ends up targeting ''ideas'' rather than imagery of material beings or objects, a very dangerous prospect for a democratic system to engage in.

The above factors make it abundantly clear why it's so highly detrimental for a purportedly democratic society to allow any type of draconian law, or any type of censorship regarding what type of imagery or text that people can or cannot view or possess--or any type of idea that they may advocate, either in a subtle or overt fashion, or access information about (be it written or visual). This is regardless of whatever good intentions one may offer to justify banning such imagery or text--and the "dangerous" ideas one feels to be implicit in each--and regardless of how much you may be offended or upset by the imagery or text in question. And this, of course, goes equally for the politically motivated rationales for censoring footage or reports of war atrocities, but that is a whole other topic despite its equal level of importance to the realm of censorship law and its implications on a supposedly free society [again, see endnote 5 for more examples of imagery and footage that are banned by various Western governments under similar justifications].

Now, just so I am clear on this and no misinterpretation can be made, I ''do not'', of course, support the production of CP that features children or teens literally being forced into sexual activity against their will and/or actually tortured in brutal ways on camera, or allowing these heinous producers to sell such imagery on the open market for profit, any more than I would support the existence of adult "snuff" porn if a burgeoning international market for such a product was actually true as per the claims once made by our esteemed bastions of the truth, i.e., the law enforcement agencies [LEAs] and their frequent enablers in deception, the corporate-controlled media. Unfortunately, when one thinks of the term "CP," such imagery is precisely the first thing to come to mind thanks to the constant popular image promulgated endlessly by the mass media, much as (with equal relevance to youth liberation) people automatically thinking of horrid sweatshop conditions whenever the term "child labor" is mentioned, as if it was totally impossible for younger people to desire employment, or to find such employment under perfectly humane and reasonable conditions in an advanced society like our own (though again, this is a whole other subject for another essay).

The fact of the matter remains, the various LEAs have never bothered to provide the public with proof of the frequent and often totally outrageous claims of what the CP they have in their vaulted collection consists of. Further, their utter refusal to allow even a few objective and well-respected journalists to view such material for the purpose of confirming the veracity of these often incredible claims is very telling [see endnote 6 for more examples of such chicanery perpetrated by the LEAs with a lot of help from the media in the not too distant past]. Hence, it's utterly absurd for even those who hate the very thought of CP to claim that it's in no way fishy or suspicious that the LEAs in question will not allow the viewing of these pics and vids even to a few well-respected journalists so they can confirm the veracity of the former statements about what the imagery in those pics and vids largely consist of. This is especially pertinent given the long record of dishonesty amongst the world of law enforcement and the frequently bizarre nature of the claims being made by them about different things they target. It's been said that extraordinary claims demand extraordinary proof (or at least some evidence), but people seem all too willing to make exceptions in the case of anything that they want to believe for purely emotional reasons, no matter how much these comforting beliefs may defy common sense (note the popular but highly incorrect belief in the "stranger danger" epidemic, but more on that below).

But what reason would the LEAs have for so massively deceiving the public about this subject, as they have with other subjects in the past? [Again, see endnote 6 for three major examples] This is actually a silly question for anyone with even a modicum of knowledge about law enforcement and politics--and how each of them works--to ask, but I will explicate the three major reasons for such deception here anyway:

1. The hefty paychecks enjoyed by the officers who comprise the various task forces of the LEAs that are dedicated to combating what the system refers to as crimes of "vice" depend upon the continuation of public hysteria and exaggerated moral "concern" about certain activities going on in our society. Hence, the LEAs have to convince the public and the media that the "problem" they are paid so handsomely to combat is one of such extremely high magnitude to the safety of our children and society in general that the common rules of democracy must be dispensed with to deal with them effectively. In other words, the highly lucrative career opportunities for LEOs [law enforcement officers] that can potentially arise via the generous flow of government funds are seen as extremely important by LEAs to maintain. These heavily valued career opportunities include the creation of future task forces and promotions within them, and they require a steady stream of arrests to build the reputations of the officers involved, and to justify the steep government (read: taxpayer) expenditures required to keep the cash flowing from Congress. This is why the officers who comprise these particular LEAs try to assure a constant supply of arrests by going after the easiest targets, such as those who download, possess, or simply view the banned imagery online rather than conducting the more sensible and less draconian action of tracking down and arresting the alleged plethora of people producing this new CP, and rescuing the supposed legion of kidnapped and horribly abused kids whom these officers claim are forced into making this product by the producers for profit.

2. In order for the public and the media to continue supporting the vast amount of government funding--read: taxpayer support--of such expensive and ultimately futile programs for combating the appearance and expression of every instance of youth sexuality on camera they can find necessitates the claims of the various LEAs that the perceived problem is one of extreme magnitude. Therefore, the LEAs frequently claim that as many as several million children worldwide are being victimized by this allegedly underground but powerful industry, and that the purveyors of these atrocities are so powerful, well-connected, and crafty--and that the demand for such product is so incredibly high across the globe--that they always remain one step ahead of the best and most well-funded of these LEAs' efforts. This enables the LEAs to demand a continuously larger amount of taxpayer-acquired funds every several months to a year, along with further encroachments on our democratic liberties every year, in order to combat this "menace." Of course, any demand for proof of the validity of these claims that are used to justify the perceived need for the Orwellian legislation and the excessive pilfering of taxpayer monies to fund the task forces to carry out its directives are never provided. Instead, we are expected to simply trust our government-funded "protectors" and take absolutely everything they say at face value, despite the fact that their record for honesty when it comes to matters of this nature is alarmingly poor [once again, see endnote 6 for a little sojourn down memory lane in regards to the honesty of law enforcement officers]. Worse, those of us who are disgusted with the very idea of CP on an emotional level truly want to believe the claims of these LEAs. This results in such citizens forming strong attempts to rationalize away the LEAs' refusal to grant freedom of the press to journalists who want to confirm the validity of their claims despite the fact that such people may be well aware of their duplicity in other aspects of the ongoing sex abuse hysteria over the past three decades [ibid]. Note the similar lamentations given to the notorious War On Drugs, though again that is a whole other if equally important topic.

3. Not only does the ongoing panic and disgust with any possible depiction of youth sexuality on camera throughout our culture enable the aforementioned lucrative careers for those officers who work in this particular area of law enforcement, they also serve to increase the rationale of these organizations to continuously demand increased police powers over society in a general sense [see endnote 7]. This is another reason why the successful passage of even one draconian law within a democratic framework can result in the latter framework being gradually eradicated as more and more draconian legislation is rationalized as different aspects of the hysteria or differing simultaneous hysterias (more than one often occur at once) combine to constantly create new aspects of the panic from which the government and its enablers in the media claim we need to be "protected" from.

In other words, those who work within law enforcement and other areas of government have a lot to gain from these hysterias, even as we, the common citizens, and anyone who may--now or in the future--dissent in any way from the imposition of any established norm, will end up paying a huge penalty in the long run. But terrified and intolerant people all too often do not think with their reasoning faculties, and instead let their emotions take over during such manufactured crises.

This is why I believe that it's entirely justified to accuse the various LEAs of yet another horrendous act of duplicity due to their adamant refusal to allow their highly outrageous claims to be validated by a few objective and well-respected journalists in the name of freedom of the press and freedom of information. There is no reason whatsoever to believe that the bulk of CP consists of children or teens being forced into sexual acts against their will and brutally tortured on camera, let alone the existence of a multi-billion dollar international industry that deals in the widespread production and sale of such horrific material. Such pics of genuine abuse do exist, of course, but there is no evidence to suggest that they make up a sizable proportion of the overall rubric of what is broadly defined as CP. Further, there are no known outlets for such product to be distributed profitably just as there was never a large-scale profitable business for adult "snuff" films as the LEAs once claimed. There are many truly depraved human beings in the world, granted, but there is no evidence that there are organized bastions of depravity of such a huge scale who possess such a vast amount of capital and exceptional technical skill amongst their number that an international demand of such a degree for this type of product is being successfully produced and sold for such a huge amount of profit. Arguing otherwise is to argue that MAAs with "extreme" tastes are so disproportionately vile and nasty compared to teleiophiles [people who have a preference for members of the same general age group] with similar "extreme" tastes that simulations of such activity featuring actors who aren't being tortured in actuality will not suffice in place of the real thing for these particular MAAs or child and teen fetishists.

Yet there is no evidence that an adult with a preferential attraction to minors, or even one who has a mere sexual fetish for minors, is in any way more likely than a teleiophile to be of such an aberrant or violent nature that they will absolutely demand the real thing over acted simulations on a large scale. To say otherwise is, whether intentionally or not, admitting that you buy into the worst form of stereotype towards MAAs imaginable sans a single shred of evidence that this stereotype is in any way a part of reality. We need to let common sense and simple logic prevail before we adopt such extremist beliefs about any single group of people. Let's not forget what happened to the Jews and other ethnic and sexual minorities living in Germany during the Holocaust when similar hysterical claims became widespread beliefs amongst the general populace of a particular nation, with government policies reacting accordingly.

As fellow activist Summerdays noted: "...I think this idea is fueled by the (erroneous) belief that the sexual attraction to minors is itself a vile and nasty perversion of normal adult attraction. Thus, anyone who could be so twisted as to be attracted to children [or adolescents] must undoubtedly harbor such disturbing tastes that would lead them to desire things - and to pursue those things - that not even the most perverted teleiophile would consider. But this is quite ridiculous. It's a bogeyman. It's not reality."

Also, such naysayers appear to buy into the common belief that the bulk of what is legally considered CP involves pre-pubescents as young as five years of age. The few individuals who have reported seeing such material--both within and outside of the law enforcement vocation--have stated that the majority of such images consists of adolescents, not pre-pubescents; that the vast majority of these images are old and were produced prior to the criminalization of CP beginning in the early 1980s; and those that feature explicit sexual acts are far fewer than those that feature 'simple' nudity which may or may not highlight the breasts (of teen girls) or genitalia. The type of pics that seem to be actual depictions of real acts of violence and torture appear to encompass by far the smallest amounts of this material in existence. Further, it's very difficult to tell which of the small amount of pics depicting torture and bondage themes are simulated and which are actual footage of real non-consensual abuse.

One must also consider the following logical questions: if such a vast amount of underagers across the globe were literally being kidnapped and forced into sexual activity against their will before a camera, and this material is being distributed to a huge corrupt clientele with deep pockets, then why has there been virtually no instance of such girls appearing in public after they had reached adulthood to make a plea before the world media to end such a horrific global industry? Where are the supposed multitude of adults who one would expect to have a body full of cigarette burns, savage wounds made by blades, or lacerations made by a whip appearing before the media to show these horrific wounds to the public in attempts to get this alleged powerful and heavily profitable industry eradicated once and for all? Moreover, where are the parents of all of these allegedly millions of kidnapped kids who one would expect to appear in the media daily making similar pleas on behalf of their missing children, especially since such parental public pleas and media noise is well known to be very common whenever one of the very small cases of stranger abduction occurs every year? Are we to believe that almost every single one of these multitudes of children supposedly being kidnapped and enslaved for the CP industry are killed and effectively disposed of after the films are made? And even if such was actually the case, what about the multitude of parents and other family members that we should expect to hear the impassioned pleas from on the public airwaves?

In other words, how do the LEAs--along with those who believe these claims--rationalize what may be called '''The Great Silence''' regarding an issue such as this? The only voices we ever usually hear are those of the LEAs and a certain number of CAs ["child advocates," who should never be confused with youth liberationists] and a smidgeon of miscellaneous Web surfers (including a few within the MAA community, it must be noted) who claim to have come across whole websites that are allegedly full of pics depicting such horrendous material. No proof or even any good evidence is ever offered that such a thing is occurring on anywhere near the scale that the LEAs and CAs often claim, yet the belief continues to proliferate via the sheer force of emotion that such propaganda stirs up amongst the masses. Hitler and Stalin would truly be proud of the contemporary American media if they were still alive to see the current sex abuse hysteria and its attendant "pedophile panic," along with the widespread irrational beliefs and draconian laws spawned by them.

Of course, I have no doubt that such abusive films have been made, and continue to be made, from time to time, but in such cases, it often turns out that the perpetrators of these non-consensual films and even on camera torture are usually not some stranger who abducted the kids in question for the purpose of selling videos of the abuse and torture on some nefarious underground market, but rather ''the parents or stepparents'' of these abused kids. This is very likely to be true because it would certainly explain why the great parental silence on this subject is so ubiquitous across the media, and why the media would be highly reluctant to report these facts due to what they may say about what happens to the supposedly sacrosanct institution of parenthood due to the reality of the present hierarchal nature of the much-beloved nuclear family unit in our modern non-youth-liberated society that the current status quo loves to promote so devotedly--and attempt to preserve at all costs--as inherently good. The latter statement is ''not'' intended by this author to disparage the institution of parenthood and the close bond shared between members of the family; rather, it's to make clear that the very concerns this essay was written to address most often occurs--when it actually does occur--as the result of the same laws that legally and civilly disempower younger people, and leave them as little more than the property of their parents. This situation leaves children and teens all the more vulnerable to the very thing that the platform of youth liberation in general is hoping to rectify. Hence, the eventual success of this movement will decrease the likelihood of the more unscrupulous parents out there from successfully forcing their kids into sexual servitude, or genuine abuse of any sort for that matter.

As Summerdays noted on this topic:
:"''I could imagine a completely alternate reality where pedophiles [and hebephiles] worked in tandem with peace officers to prevent the abuse (actual abuse) of children. By allowing the [MAAs] their trade - most of whom, as human beings, would be concerned about the treatment of the children in the pictures - they could bring to the attention of peace officers any pictures that looked suspect, which could then be followed by an investigation. If abuse is proved, then score one for the good guys. Otherwise, if the material has not been produced through abuse (and of course, the child's opinion will be paramount in this determination), then let it flow.''"

As such, I--and the entire pro-choice segment of the MAA community that I am aware of who supports the general legality of youth erotica--only support the production of such erotica that was made with the willing consent of the young people in question. This is particularly true concerning such material that is created by young people themselves; the idea that it's mostly or entirely adults who produce youth erotica is yet another falsehood that the twin phenomena of sexting and uploading of nude pics to socnet sites clearly debunk in no uncertain terms.

Moreover, I do not support any type of "hardcore" production of erotica for pre-pubescents, or anything that would be developmentally injurious to their age group (such as full onscreen sexual penetration of either their vaginas or anuses), so my support of the legalization of youth erotica is entirely geared towards mutually consensually produced products that are ''within reason'', and I do not by any means take an "absolutely anything goes" type of attitude towards youth erotica, especially not when applied to pre-pubescents. Of course, I would never have a problem with any depiction of simple nudity, especially not within the context of a mainstream film that is designed to explore the intimate lives of youths in every detail to a realistic extent [see endnote 8].

One thing we should all keep in mind is that since what is often considered CP has such a great and ever-increasing broadness to it, one must first define what they consider to be CP rather than attacking "CP" in a general sense, since anything that is today legal can be declared CP by a single legislative decision tomorrow. Thus, many personally believe that the legal youth modeling sites of today should be considered CP, and are actively petitioning the Western governments to officially declare them illegal on those grounds. Hence, what does or does not constitute CP can be a personal as well as a legal definition, and the two are often incorrectly and irresponsibly conflated with each other by anyone discussing the subject.

Now, onto the final very important question as to why any type of imagery should be legal to possess or at least to view, even if not to produce or distribute for financial gain.

The idea that even the most deplorable images of CP should be criminalized to view or download because they depict a crime scene and will cause great emotional distress to the victims and family of such crimes must consider the following questions to prove that imagery specifically depicting the sexual exploitation of younger people must be considered part of a very special category of 'crime scene.' For starters, why isn't it illegal to download or view images or vids of actual war carnage, including that involving children getting or having had their limbs blown off as a result of accidentally getting caught in the crossfire of two opposing military forces (i.e., what our government and media loves to call "collateral damage")?

Why aren't pics and vids of actual murders and the horrible torture and execution of reporters and other non-military personnel by terrorists and foreign armies illegal to possess or view? What about the many actual pics of the horrifying carnage wreaked by real serial killers upon their victims that are fully legal to print in any number of serious books about the nature of serial killers? Perhaps very importantly, why isn't it illegal for anyone to possess or view pics of the extreme and very non-consensual sexual humiliation inflicted upon many Middle Eastern male prisoners by American security guards (some of them women) that occurred at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq a few years ago, which resulted in one of several major scandals to erupt from this duplicitous war? The latter case is especially true when you consider the deep level of humiliation that a man raised under a conservative Islamic culture will experience as a result of being forced to engage in simulated homoerotic contact with several other males while being photographed in the act for the amusement of their captors. And please note that many of these men were never even accused, let alone convicted, of a crime--in case some of you attempt to say that these men deserved this atrocious humiliation for allegedly being terrorists, or for being nationalist insurgents who dared to oppose the invasion and lengthy occupation of their nation by a foreign military that too many Americans wrongly identify with their own interests simply due to their citizenship. I am sure it can be cogently argued that these men and their families will be heavily emotionally distressed to realize that people across the world have possession of, and unencumbered access to, these pics.

Further, I am sure that there are many homosexual male and probably even some female bondage fetishists out there--that are otherwise very good and decent people in their dealings with anyone they know in real life--who are actually sexually aroused by viewing such pics and fantasizing about either being in the place of those guards, or of the men who were sexually victimized by them (since many people harbor fantasies of actually being raped). The Islamic male victims in question would certainly be highly emotionally distressed to receive confirmation of those pics being used for such a purpose. Yet I have seen all of the aforedescribed type of pics legally distributed all over the Web and in print, and all ostensibly for informative and/or political purposes. Why isn't anyone arrested for the possession or even simple viewing of such pics, especially when we do not have the slightest idea what happens to be going through the minds of anyone who may be viewing them? Can we possibly take the chance that some of these viewers may have such filthy and depraved thoughts while viewing these pics of what to many constitutes actual footage of a war crime? Is this, perhaps, because we do not favor any type of thought control, no matter how deplorable or vile we may consider such thoughts to be? Should any type of fantasy be criminalized, no matter how awful it may be to our collective sensibilities, as long as it stays entirely within the realm of fantasy? Is there any proof that anyone who has truly awful fantasies are likely to eventually "act out" these fantasies on a real victim? Have we seen even a single Abu Ghraib "copycat" crime perpetrated in the few years these pics have been legally available all over the Web?

As my fellow MAA activist who posts under the nick Little Girl Lover noted in regards to the Abu Ghraib debacle:
:"The thing you hear the anti-CP crowd holler is that children cannot consent, so this is another reason why CP should be illegal. But what of the men who had their pictures taken in Abu Ghraib? These men did not consent to these videos and pictures. They were humiliated. It's even legal to possess these pictures and upload them, but it's illegal to have LS model type pictures even though the girls were paid for posing. They are about the same as ''Playboy'' or ''Penthouse''."

Little Girl Lover further laments:
:"''And what of the victims of the Holocaust? You can buy books in many bookstores with pictures of women and children stripped naked [and] heading off to be slaughtered. This was humiliating and terrifying for all these people involved. They did not consent, yet these pictures are [publicly accessible and legal to view and possess]. I'm sure that the survivors feel traumatized by such an experience, yet this crime is viewed by millions of people over time.''"

:"''All these pictures, including CP and child erotica, should be legal to possess and view. There's a lot of pictures and videos I do not care to look at or own but I will fight for the right to be able to look, read, view, own, and distribute any source of media available.''"

Let us also keep in mind the famous pic of a Vietnam War atrocity where an 11-year-old girl was photographed running through her village streets in extraordinary agony after napalm was dropped on her by American military forces (it should perhaps be noted that the girl is entirely nude in the pic, and her secondary sexual characteristics are clearly visible). The girl is known to have survived this horrific incident despite incurring a great amount of permanent scars, both physical and emotional, as a result. Yet this pic is widely and legally available to view and possess in many print and online resources that cover war atrocities. Can it not be argued that the now adult woman and her surviving family may be extremely emotionally distressed as a result of coming across this pic in so many sources? Do we know beyond a shadow of a doubt what purpose absolutely everyone who takes possession of this pic may use it for, or what thoughts everyone who views this pic may possibly have while viewing it? Do we ever make such assumptions in regards to this pic? Or is the simple fact that it doesn't have a sexual context to it automatically cause us to accept the fact that it has the possibility of being viewed or possessed for non-puerile or non-insidious reasons?

What exactly justifies the legality of this pic to view or possess, but not anything considered CP by the various governments? Does anyone accuse people who possess the above-mentioned pic for whatever conceivable reason, and for supporting the continued legality of possessing it, to be supportive of war atrocities? What if some bigot or American with a twisted sense of patriotism (and there are many of those, unfortunately) uploaded that pic to a website with a horrible statement saying something like, "Burn the Gooks!"? Isn't there a possibility of that happening if this pic remains legal to view, possess, download, and upload wherever and for whatever purposes one pleases? If someone insists that this matter is "different" than CP, and that these questions should not apply to pics of atrocities inflicted upon a minor that does not have an obvious sexual context to it no matter how much emotional distress the public distribution of such pics may have on the victim and her family, then can they explain exactly why the presence or absence of an overt or suggested sexual context should make or break the legality of any type of imagery? What is it about sexuality that Western society is so hysterical about? Why does that subject elicit such a disproportionate degree of irrationality in our culture?

In regards to the oft-made assertion that the simple distribution of such pics or vids without the expectation of monetary gain will automatically create a huge swelling of demand that will result in a huge surfeit of such material being produced in the future is totally without proof, especially if the demand in question is of material that is illegal. Without the hope of a vast amount of financial remuneration being present to make the production of such dangerously illegal material on a large scale worth the effort for any number of insidious individuals who would comprise such an industry--which would include the high degree of logistical difficulties in doing so [see endnote 9]--then why would they do it? This is why such incidents are extremely low, why there is no logical way possible that such material could constitute a sizable degree of what is considered CP by the law, and it explains exactly why The Great Silence described above exists [see endnote 10 for a logical but highly disturbing reason as to why both the LEAs and the media may be highly reluctant to explain the truth behind the tiny amount of genuinely abusive CP, though this matter was already strongly hinted at above].

These are all of the reasons why CP should be entirely legal to possess and view in a democratic society, why all forms of censorship and draconian laws should never be tolerated or resorted to in a democratic system (or one that purports to be) in order to combat any perceived problem or threat, and why the issue of CP most certainly does pertain to the platform of youth liberation.

==Endnotes==
1. One such example is the possibility of a girl who sends nude pics of herself to her boyfriend being double-crossed as he shares the pic with several of his friends without her permission, or which he may even post online.

A cogent statement made by my friend and fellow activist CatcherintheRye on this point is the following:
:"''One thing that frustrates me about cases of sexting is how people hardly ever confront the people that bully young girls who have sexted and tell them how wrong their behavior is. Instead, they seem to instill guilt in the girls themselves. Sure, it is risky to sext with the laws the way they are, so I guess there's nothing wrong with informing young people about that, but I just find that they are really placing a sense of guilt and shame onto the wrong people.''"

Several months later, in regards to a case of the U.S. practice of bullying people under 18 who sext each other that was being discussed on GC, another friend and fellow activist of mine, Summerdays, made this valuable anecdote:
:"''The moral of this story is: if you sext, we will make your life hell. So don't sext.''"
:"''Notice how the bullies protect themselves by emphasizing the dangers of sexting, placing the blame on kids who make the 'poor decision' to sext, and not those who make sexting dangerous (i.e., the bullies themselves, be they peers, or school administrators, or prosecutors, or what have you).''"
:"''You know, because bullying kids to the point of suicide is a whole lot better than telling them it's ''okay'' to take sexy pictures and share them with friends.''"

2. Democratic solutions to the risk factors involved with sexting includes such eminently common sense options as parents offering cautionary advice to their kids the first time the youths in question purchase a cell phone and start an account. In a youth liberated society, parents will accept the fact that their kids may utilize the technology for this purpose, and will not have to feel hesitant to offer this advice to them.

Further, sex education courses can offer similar advice during the teaching of the section that includes risks that young people should be aware of in regards to any type of sexual-oriented activity. This cautionary, value neutral advice doesn't have to be limited to discussions of the possible physical consequences of sexual intercourse amongst adolescents, such as STDs and unwanted pregnancies. The advice given in these courses can also include risk factors amongst the various social choices that young people may make in the course of a relationship, including those related to the use of technology such as cell phone cameras and that pertaining to the online world. '''Every problem a democratic society will ever face, either perceived or totally legitimate, can always be dealt with effectively via a democratic solution, and a draconian response that denies freedom of choice should never be the preferred solution in such a society, no matter how "serious" the problem is considered to be, or how good or noble the intentions behind it are believed to be''' (as noted above in the main text).

As my fellow activist Summerdays opined in regards to including objective and value neutral discussions about the risk factors associated with sexting in sex education courses:
:"''It's the same problem I see often with sex education in general. Assuming kids will practice abstinence (in this case, from taking sexy pictures and sharing them), and gearing the education toward that assumption, results in kids being kept from some very important safety information they should know. And the ones who don't abstain - and they will always exist - suffer because of it. Whether we want kids to sext or not, we ought to recognize that it's going to happen anyway, and we ought to have the responsibility to inform them about what the risks are, and the best ways to do it safely if that's what they end up choosing to do. No moral judgments, no behavioral prescriptions (or proscriptions) - just honest, accurate information.''"

3. Such possible sources of youth erotica that may exist in a future youth liberated society may include print and/or online publications similar to ''Playboy'', but which are instead dedicated exclusively to displaying and celebrating the great beauty of youth.

4. Any alleged platform of liberation that denies or prohibits freedom of choice in its itinerary of goals, or which defines freedom in the context of "freedom from..." rather than "freedom to..." (as explicated in the classic book ''The Handmaiden's Tale''), is in actuality a protectionist racket masquerading as "liberation." Do not be fooled by tyrants dressed in a liberator's clothing, or enticed by the proposition of safety in the arms of a "benevolent" dictator. Any platform of solutions to any perceived problems in society must offer much more than simply good intentions; their proposed solutions must be in harmony with the principles of a free society regardless of the genuine nature of their intentions.

5. Specifically, the aforementioned escalation that has arisen following the passing of the initial CP laws has exponentially increased from the simple viewing or possession of pics featuring minors engaged in explicitly sexual acts to the...
#criminalization of pics or vids featuring simple nudity of minors without any blatant signs of sexuality;
#criminalization of pics or vids featuring legal adults pretending to be minors engaged in sexual activity or appearing nude;
#criminalization of cartoon representations and drawings or CGI [computer generated imagery] of sexually active or nude minors;
#criminalization of any serious attempt at artwork which may depict nude or "provocative" imagery of minors;
#criminalization of minors wearing scanty clothing (since such imagery might arouse a "pedophile");
#criminalization of fully clothed minors who may be posing in a "provocative" manner or having an "enticing" expression on their faces, for the same reason as above;
#utterly absurd and mind-blowing serious proposal amongst the Australian parliament to criminalize adult pornography featuring adult women of legal age with small breasts. In case anyone thinks I'm actually making this last one up, check out the following excerpt that can be found by scrolling down a bit on [http://exileonmoanstreet.blogspot.com/2010/01/wtf-australian-censor-board-demands.html this blog].

The blog states (quotes in '''bold face'''):
:'''Australian Classification Board (ACB) is now banning depictions of small-breasted women in adult publications and films. They banned mainstream pornography from showing women with A-cup breasts, apparently on the grounds that they encourage paedophilia, and in spite of the fact this is a normal breast size for many adult women. Presumably small breasted women taking photographs of themselves will now be guilty of creating simulated child pornography, to say nothing of the message this sends to women with modestly sized chests or those who favour them. Australia has also banned pornographic depictions of female ejaculation, a normal orgasmic sexual response in many women, with censors branding it as "abhorrent."'''

:'''The Board has also started to ban depictions of small-breasted women in adult publications and films. This is in response to a campaign led by Kids Free 2 B Kids and promoted by Barnaby Joyce and Guy Barnett in Senate Estimates late last year. Mainstream companies such as Larry Flint's Hustler produce some of the publications that have been banned. These companies are regulated by the FBI to ensure that only adult performers are featured in their publications. "We are starting to see depictions of women in their late 20s being banned because they have an A cup size", she said. "It may be an unintended consequence of the Senator's actions but they are largely responsible for the sharp increase in breast size in Australian adult magazines of late.”'''

For further clarification of what the toleration of any type of draconian law or justification for censorship of any sort eventually leads--and so you do not think the above excerpt was posted on that blog by yours truly and thus has no actual validity--check out [http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/weird-politics-of-small-boobs-and-bodily-fluids-20100129-n278.html?comments=27 this link] (as columnist Bella Counihan said of this topic: "You can't make this stuff up").

And be sure to check out the coverage of this topic on the following [http://encyclopediadramatica.com/Operation_Titstorm parody site] -- parody often does a very good job of pointing out the sheer idiocy of very serious political matters, something seen regularly in the pages of ''MAD'' magazine, TV shows like ''Saturday Night Live'', and the work of many excellent stand-up comedians such as Bill Maher and the late, great George Carlin.

Is it a coincidence that the move by Australian parliament to ban the appearance of small-breasted women in erotic films and mags occurred in the same legislation that is also trying to ban filmed or photographed depictions of female ejaculation? Is it so important that our society goes out of its way to such an extent to ban anything that may be remotely believed to "encourage 'pedophilia'" (or hebephilia, as the case may be) that certain rights of how legal adults may be depicted on camera should now be curtailed? Is it just a coincidence that encroachments on what legal adults can and cannot do on camera appear to be the result of legislators with a moralizing agenda starting out with censoring "easy" targets like CP before moving on to more "difficult" targets like adult porn? The answer to all three of these interrelated questions would appear to be a resounding '''no'''.

Since it's becoming increasingly evident, as noted in the main text of this essay, that these laws are intended to target a specific idea rather than to actually "protect" minors from appearing on camera while engaged in sexual activities, the common argument in defense of the continuation of this Orwellian legislation is that the proliferation of such imagery may encourage MAAs to "act out" on their urges with real minors. The problem comes when these individuals are asked to provide actual scientific evidence that this is actually the case, and not simply to make assumptions in the absence of such evidence. A far bigger problem arises, with far-reaching negative implications for the survival of what is left of our democracy, when those individuals who actually bother to respond to the above concern do so with a variation of, "We shouldn't have to ask for evidence! If there is even the slightest chance something like that may happen, and even one child per year may be 'abused' as a result, then that possibility makes these laws more than justified! And I don't care how draconian these laws may be when the 'safety' of children is at stake!"

My fellow MAA activist and youth liberationist, qtns2di4, made the following very important statement regarding the above argument being used to justify the criminalization of the viewing and possession of any type of image or text, by making a comparison to the only other two types of imagery or text that are routinely legally banned by governments in the Western world (both outside of America):

"Regarding bans on imagery that are rationalized as helping prevent copycats, there are two non-CP, non-blasphemy-laws, categories that have been made illegal or of controlled access in many countries. One is animal cruelty, and pics or vids featuring it have been banned in some countries. While the argument is [to prevent] an inspiration for others to do the same, a) as you argue, devoting resources to the banning of the images distracts them from prosecuting the culprits of the acts, and b) the [public accessibility of the] images themselves act as prevention and as awareness-building. The second category I am thinking of is Nazi and Nazi camp imagery. Apart from the above objections, which still apply, it is hard to see how [the public accessibility of] Nazi camp imagery helps create another Holocaust. That needs thousands, maybe millions, of collaborators, and they have to be in the broad daylight. A random Neo-Nazi, on the other hand, will not need a camp image to get inspired to commit any atrocity themselves, but will still be limited to what a single person can do. Though these cases are not identical, they are both cases of censorship allegedly as prevention of the commission of the action, akin to that of CP laws."

6. The concern with the validity of the often sensational claims made about the content of much of the CP collected by law enforcement task forces since the first laws were instituted is especially crucial in light of the fact that the LEAs and their hangers-on in the media once thoroughly promoted the reality of the "snuff" film market, the prevalence of rampant satanic ritual abuse of children occurring within day care centers across the entire breadth of North America, and their promotion and widespread acceptance of the "repressed memory" phenomenon that had (and still has, in some cases) a major effect on the mental health industry in the Western world--all of which has since been proven to be total bunk [the satanic ritual abuse and "repressed memory syndrome" phenomena were tackled in detail in my previous essay, [http://newgon.com/wiki/Essay:The_Importance_of_Truth The Importance of Truth], which includes a large amount of links and citations to relevant sources; info on the once widely circulated and non-existent "snuff" film industry can be obtained via a simple Google search.

7. All of the justified admonitions by civil rights advocates against the government's increasing rationalizations for increased police powers over society, which includes: 1) greater surveillance on the general public; 2) increased intrusions in our privacy, such as monitoring our phone calls and e-mail transmissions; 3) increasing the creation of the number of "special" categories of crimes and groups of people that are exempt from common constitutional protections (note what is occurring in the simultaneously ongoing "War On Terror"); 4) and the increased justifications for various forms of censorship that such hysterias and "moral panics" cause, are thrown by the wayside by a terrified public and cowardly politicians who are too afraid to argue against these continued Orwellian encroachments on our basic civil liberties due to the perceived magnitude of the "threat."

8. These include the many examples of cinema that were produced in foreign countries like France and Denmark for the "coming of age" genre that featured pre-pubescent nudity, any type of artistic production designed to celebrate the beauty of the youthful form of children or adolescents, or any type of film that is intended to be of an educational nature. This would include the re-legalization of once renowned and heavily lauded educational books such as ''Show Me'', as well as all artistic photojournals produced by artists like Sally Mann, Tierney Gearon, Violeta Gómez, and Bill Henson, which feature the celebration of the nude youthful form that has been a major subject of art throughout human history.

9. The logistical nightmares would include the obtainment of a continued supply of victims and what to do with those victims once the films are made and sent to the hypothetical buyers without gaining the attention of the young person's family, friends, or the local police in the process, totally belies common sense and credulity. This is why it's far more likely that in the instances in which genuinely abusive CP is actually produced, it is most often done by parents or stepparents who have continual closeted access to the child victims in question, rather than an organized network of strangers who are motivated entirely by profit on a large scale. This is also why such highly rare products are most often not intended for public consumption but rather for the small number of utterly corrupt fetishists who may share such a horrid interest.

Note the following excerpt of a quote taken from German defense attorney Udo Vetter from [http://archiv.sueddeutsche.de/25F38V/2996588/Simple-Loesungen-fuer-ein-komplexes-Problem.html this article] that appeared on the ''Süddeutsche Zeitung'' news site (translated into English courtesy of GirlChat's webmaster NFiH, who is fluent in German, and which can be confirmed via a translation from Google's software):

'''You cannot physically abuse children on the Internet. But you can look at pictures or movies of child abuse and trade them. "Of course paedophiles use the Internet to trade child porn," says lawyer Udo Vetter, who has acted as a defense lawyer in hundreds of child porn cases. "But there is no such thing as a commercial market."'''

'''...There is no effective system of money transfer for the distribution of illegal pictures and movies. According to Vetter, "you simply can't receive millions of dollars online anonymously." Money flow is monitored by the authorities of many states, including the USA.'''

'''...According to Vetter, none of his clients ever paid for pictures or movies[;] 80 to 90 percent of the files found by the police are identical. "Some of these pictures are 30 to 40 years old." In contrast to the claims made to justify Net censorship[,] the amount of child porn available on the Internet is rising extremely slowly. ''None of these pictures and movies have been produced professionally'' (the only exceptions being movies with teenage victims which may have been legal when they were produced) [emphasis mine].'''

If you remove the value judgment terms "abuse" and "victim" from the above excerpt--which were likely made to appease the readers of this article by using the type of language that they are used to seeing in the media when it comes to this subject--the entire article pretty much says it all about the silliness of the widespread claims by LEAs and their status quo-defending allies in the press that CP production is a huge multi-billion dollar international business.

See also [http://lapsiporno.info/landslide.html this article] about the infamous Texas case involving Landslide Productions, where its webmaster Paul Reeve was arrested for what amounted to a witch hunt. This article also shows the length that LEAs will go to get someone indicted even when the evidence collected doesn't warrant it.

My thanks to NFiH and qtns2di4 for the above tidbits of info.

10. An examination of the two most prominent of the very few victims of what they described as truly non-consensual CP while in their childhood to come forward via the media would appear to reveal the reality behind the tiny amount of genuinely coercive examples of underagers participating in CP production. This reality clearly doesn't lead towards the common, conspiratorial conception of CP being largely the product of an organized, well-funded group of criminal strangers kidnapping kids across the globe and forcing them to participate in sexual activity with adults on camera for the purpose of selling the footage for a sizable profit.

Two of the very few girls to loudly come out in the media for such a reason after reaching adulthood are Masha Allen, who participated in a relatively lengthy series of sexually explicit videos in her childhood--she was given the nickname "Disney Girl" in the media due to the fact that some of the pics of her were taken next to Disney World--and Kylie Freeman, who participated in a similar series of videos during her childhood under the nickname of "Vicky." These two girls, now adults, are perhaps the only two prominent victims of what were said to be coerced participants in the production of new CP that occurred during the age of the Internet, and Masha in particular has become something of a poster girl for LEAs as they engage in their never-ending battle to combat the dissemination of CP. There is a good degree of info on Masha [http://www.inquisition21.com/index.php?module=pagemaster&PAGE_user_op=view_page&PAGE_id=150 here] on the Inquisition 21 website, and I thank my fellow activist Baldur for bringing this to my attention, and FreeThinkerGL for finding me the specific link.

However, as noted above, neither of these girls were the victims of an organized group of criminal strangers who kidnapped them and forced them to appear in such films for intended sale to a corrupt, international clientele of buyers who demanded such product. According to Masha, she was coerced into participation in such films by her adopted father, and Kylie was forced into doing the same thing by her biological father. Neither series of CP videos were produced with the intention of selling them for profit to some corrupt underground market, but were the result of fetishistic parents who made them for free distribution on P2P [peer to peer] video sharing networks that were available to a small circle of private acquaintances during the earlier days of public access to the Internet. There have been subsequent claims by those in the know that the very small amount of truly coercive CP produced for free consumption in the P2P online file sharing networks have all been the product of parents who have this sort of fetishistic "hobby," and not by organized criminal cartels controlled by strangers who kidnap kids for the purpose of producing CP for sale to a large international group of clients (see below for a highly important shared anecdote about the prevalence of CP distribution on P2P networks, now and in the past).

The above evidence and claims are actually entirely logical, because it's well known to both the FBI and youth liberationist orgs alike that the greatest amount of genuine abuse of all kinds perpetrated on minors by adults--including physical and emotional abuse in addition to that of a sexual nature, and even including murder--occurs at the hands of parents and stepparents, but not strangers. This unsettling fact is obviously very uncomfortable for the present day status quo to accept, and since the political overseers of modern society are dedicated to preserving the currently hierarchal version of the nuclear family unit at any cost, it's fully understandable as to why it's far preferable for the media to promote the concept of "stranger danger" and to portray the home as the safest place for children and young teens to be despite all the readily available evidence to the contrary.

Again, this reality is ''not'' mentioned here as an attempt to disparage the institution of parenthood or the sanctity of the family, but simply to make it clear that the current state of affairs with young people lacking most of their civil rights and the parents having such a near-total control over every aspect of their children's lives, as well as a near-monopoly on adult interaction with their kids--save for a few "authorized" non-familial adults, such as teachers and coaches, who are currently discouraged from actually befriending the kids under their charge for obvious reasons related to the ongoing sex abuse hysteria--is the very crux of the greatest and usually the most severe cases of genuine child abuse that occurs in society today. Love shared by family members is a very good thing, but the introduction of such a high degree of power into the equation predictably corrupts this love in too many cases and results in abuse, with some of the less scrupulous parents all too often taking this abuse into some truly horrific directions. The solution that youth libbers promote is not to break up the family unit or destroy the bond between parents and children, but simply to legally empower kids so that they can much more easily resist or escape being subject to any type of abuse or harm by others in their lives, whether it originates from the hands of strangers, teachers, co-workers, peers, or parents.

This is also why, despite the impassioned declarations of Masha and Kylie themselves, arresting people who simply download and view their pics--including the many who likely have no idea that they were supposedly taken under coerced circumstances, and also considering the only place these pics remain readily accessible to the public is on entrapment sites set up by the FBI in sting operations of highly questionable ethical and constitutional acceptability--is not conducive to democratic principles. The only solution that works within a democratic framework is to empower children and teens in a legal and civil manner so as to greatly increase their ability to willingly escape from truly abusive situations of any sort, and to prosecute the producers of any non-consensual material of this nature. Ironically, it should be noted that Masha Allen is now suing the state as a result of their 'post-rescue' operations, including the use of imagery she says were made under coerced circumstances for use in federal entrapment schemes, such as phony sting websites.

Doesn't the fact that upon 'rescuing' Masha from the reportedly abusive clutches of her adoptive father, she was placed under the foster care of a woman who claims to be a victim of sexual abuse who not only lost a case in court where she apparently frivolously accused her pastor of sexually abusing her, but also accused her parents of being part of a satanic cult who forced her to take part in human sacrifice (remember my discussions of the now thoroughly debunked satanic ritual abuse hysteria in my previous essay, “The Importance of Truth"?), mean that such foster care parents were bound to have a distorting effect on Masha's ideology, fueling her with feelings of revenge rather than healing, and into becoming an advocate of vengeful draconian rather than productive empowering solutions for other kids who may find their way into situations similar to hers as the result of abusive parents? Can this be the reason why Masha is so stringent upon penalizing people for looking at pics of her alleged abuse rather than focusing upon the notion of parental power that prevented her from leaving the abusive situation she found herself in? It should also be noted that the U.S. attorney who handled Masha's case following her 'rescue,' Mary Beth Buchanan, was fully aware of the past of Masha's foster mothers whose custody she was placed in. This forces us to wonder if Buchanan did so purposely, so as to increase the chance that victims like Masha would be subject to the type of irrational, vengeance-driven rhetoric from her foster parent so as to better ensure that the girl would develop a mindset conducive to furthering any political agenda that Buchanan and other LEOs like her may have. For the source of this info, go [http://www.inquisition21.com/index.php?module=pagemaster&PAGE_user_op=view_page&PAGE_id=150 here].

Nevertheless, despite the very few lone voices in the wilderness like Masha and Kylie, the Great Silence continues, and these few voices of protest that do arise are from girls who were forced into abusive sexual situations on camera by parents, not by an organized, multi-national cabal of strangers, and their resulting pics and vids were produced for consumption by a small group of like-minded fetishists via a P2P online network with no money passing any hands, and not for profit to a huge underground international market of vile MAAs. The cases of these two girls should speak volumes about the reality of CP, a reality that bears no resemblance to the urban legends created by the LEAs and their allies in the mass media.

Also courtesy of my fellow activist FreeThinkerGL is this link to another essay on Inquisition21 that explains exactly how the American police often create crimes: [http://www.inquisition21.com/index.php?module=pagemaster&PAGE_user_op=view_page&PAGE_id=146 Two Little Girls in a Doorway]. As FreeThinkerGL mentioned to me about the latter article, "This was written before the Masha story above, but Masha's story gives it new significance." Many thanks and appreciation to FreeThinkerGL for the link to this article.

On the subject of P2P file sharing networks and their relation to CP distribution and all the myths that have sprung out of that, my fellow activist qtns2di4 makes the following important observations [in '''bold face''']:

'''A few words about P2P.'''

'''P2P requires every user to identify themselves, therefore IP addresses are always visible to others, either by default or with little technical expertise needed to uncover them. This makes it an extremely vulnerable platform for sharing, and esp. for sharing illegal content. Any step taken to protect IP address information also makes the use of P2P less efficient to the user, so users will normally try to avoid doing it. That is not even to mention the dangers of malware transmitting through P2P, which are independent from the risks of giving IP address information publicly.'''

'''P2P reached its peak of use during the music sharing days. It was very adaptive to the technology of the time. It declined [in popular usage] as copyright lobbies and LEAs infiltrated it in order to combat music piracy. Obviously, while this use is also illegal, it doesn't have the emotional load, the harsh legal penalties, and the niche market characteristics that CP has, so it is not surprising that traffic involving music piracy, at any time, accounted for far more P2P traffic than CP ever could. I don't know if there is any analysis about the use of P2P that relates it directly to the sharing of CP. However, simple intuition would dictate that as P2P declined in use with the combat of music piracy and greater infiltration by LEAs, so did sharing of CP through it. Notice that, because of its structure, it is impossible to establish a payment system that works in assigning you rights of downloading in P2P sharing. That is why music pirates can use it but recording companies cannot. It also means that any CP that arrived into a P2P network became pirate, and therefore impossible to earn money from.'''

'''Traditional P2P networks today still exist, but, because of (otherwise legal) music and video piracy, they are completely full of LEOs [law enforcement officers], thereby making it ever less safe for sharing of any content, and CP will always be much less safe than any pirated music album. Their obvious successors are torrent networks, which work under some of the same basic assumptions of P2P, but which are more stable in themselves, less vulnerable (though not 100% safe) to malware, better adapted to larger file sizes, where it is possible to establish some form of payments system, and it is easier to hide IP addresses without obvious efficiency losses. However, the structure of sharing in torrents would also make it harder to share CP openly.'''

'''In short:'''

'''- P2P overall use coincided with the curve of (pirated) music sharing.'''

'''- There are no reasons to suspect CP was ever a large part of P2P traffic.'''

'''- P2P sharing has declined the more that LEOs and copyright lobbies have infiltrated it in their anti-piracy operations, but there is no reason to suppose that this doesn't spill over to CP, as it is also illegal content.'''

'''- Since the P2P structure doesn't allow for payments to be used, any CP diffused through this means was diffused for free (whether or not it was originally produced for profit)'''

'''- same as music [in the form of mp3 files] always was.'''

'''- Because of the changes undergone since then, it currently should be far more difficult to diffuse CP, new or not, via publicly accessible channels than it was during the golden age of P2P.'''

My thanks and appreciation to qtns2di4 for sharing this important info with me and thereby enhancing the informational basis of this essay.

A few important anecdotes have also been offered by my fellow Girl Lover in the MAA community who hails from the Netherlands and posts under the name Sancho Panza [in '''bold face''']:

'''The view on what CP really is has changed dramatically over the years; I remember our Lolita magazine in the '70s of the last century. Freely available back then, but probably good for a couple of months on water and bread these days.'''

'''The Ukrainian child pornography raids are also interesting; the LS material I saw didn't look like CP by any standard to me, yet American influences managed to shut down the whole thing.'''

'''[P2P networks] like [LimeWire] will be history soon, not because of the availability of CP, but because of copyright infringements (as confirmed by the following excerpt from the [http://www.limewire.com/nl LimeWire home page]):'''

'''''LimeWire is under a court order dated October 26, 2010 to stop distributing the LimeWire software. A copy of the injunction can be found here. LimeWire LLC, its directors and officers, are taking all steps to comply with the injunction. We have very recently become aware of unauthorized applications on the internet purporting to use the LimeWire name. We demand that all persons using the LimeWire software, name, or trademark in order to upload or download copyrighted works in any manner cease and desist from doing so. We further remind you that the unauthorized uploading and downloading of copyrighted works is illegal.'''''

'''It's all about money; few people are really concerned with the well being of children, I'm afraid.'''

Sancho's latter statement is quite interesting when you think about it. Despite the fact that P2P networks have allegedly been a bastion of CP trading over the past decade, the biggest creators of such software were never shut down by any of the LEAs for that reason as long as they cooperated with the police. But now they are rapidly getting shut down by LEAs for entirely financial reasons related to the money allegedly being lost by the big record companies due to the well known proliferation of mp3 file sharing through these networks. The fact that money trumps proclaimed morality shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone in our capitalistic society, since that's pretty much business as usual. It also makes you wonder if the U.S. government and the many large corporations that control it wouldn't be covertly financing the production and sale of CP if their ridiculous claims that it was actually an international multi-billion dollar a year industry were actually true.

=ADDENDUM=
The following "bonus" essay was composed by my fellow activist Summerdays in response to my above article, where he discusses 'The Paradigm of Innocence,' which contains some good insights about our present society's seeming deification of the notion of "childhood innocence" [in '''bold face''']:

'''Most people regard childhood "innocence" as an inherently positive thing. For many, this may be true. Indeed, not knowing the full nature of the tragedy that is life (understanding death, the fact that good things end, that there is not a benevolent all-protecting God watching over you (because if there is a God, it's empirically verifiable that he doesn't mind if bad things happen to you, regardless of whether or not it's for a good reason [at least in God's mind]) - it's pleasant not to have to deal with these heavy truths, and there seems to be a lightness about childhood, at least when we think back on it, that it seems to be so much better than adulthood (provided we didn't have a rough childhood where our innocence was taken away from us prematurely).'''

'''The truth may be that childhood wasn't so light as we imagine it during fits of nostalgia. But to go even further than that, I have personal experience that casts the concept of "innocence" in a negative light. Innocence terrified me. I am terrified of the things I don't know and don't understand. For me, a child who knew so little about the world, the world was a terrifying place. It's only now, as I am growing up and learning about the world, that its mysteries are being revealed to me and its shadows brought under the light. The more I know, the more I understand, the less I fear, and the stronger I become. As an innocent child, I was weak and vulnerable - and I knew it. Experience, for me, is the path towards levity. Sure, life is hard, but it's so much easier when I know exactly what to expect. And what not to expect - like knowing, as a result of decades of firsthand experience, that there can be no inhuman monsters hiding in my closet waiting to eat me. And having enough of an understanding to justify not constantly worrying about the human monsters that may be hiding there, because I know the likelihood is so slim that it's not worth getting bothered about.'''

'''Now, I don't want to say that everyone experiences innocence in this way - but that's exactly the point. Innocence is not the same thing to everyone, and it is not always a desirable state. To preserve a child's innocence because we presume that innocence is a good thing, could do damage to the child if the truth is different (as it was in my case). So in some cases, preserving a child's innocence could be more abusive than dispelling it, and we ought not to assume that it is something that should universally be protected.'''

'''And who knows, maybe a lot more people feel the way I do about innocence. After all, how often is it the child who asks to have her innocence preserved, and how often does she go out of her way to do the opposite, wanting to experience life? And when she asks us if there's a monster in the closet, do we tell her she's better off not knowing, or do we reassure her by going over and opening the closet to let her know exactly what is (and is not) in there?'''
[[Category:Dissident's essays]]

Essay:Why Child Pornography Should Be Legal

2011-11-10T09:36:47Z

Dissident: /* By Dissident */

==By Dissident==
:"''Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated. But those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their consciences.''" '''- C.S. Lewis'''

:"''I do not believe that it can be too often repeated that the freedoms of speech, press, petition and assembly guaranteed by the First Amendment must be accorded to the ideas we hate or sooner or later they will be denied to the ideas we cherish. The first banning of an association because it advocates hated ideas -- whether that association be called a political party or not -- marks a fateful moment in the history of a free country...''" '''- Justice Black'''

:"''It is always unconscionable for the government to punish people for expressing an idea merely because government officials -- or the majority of citizens -- decide that those ideas are “dangerous” or “wrong.” That is a power nobody ought to possess.''" '''- Glenn Greenwald'''

:"''He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself.''" '''- Thomas Paine'''

:"''The history of liberty is a history of resistance. The history of liberty is a history of limitations of governmental power, not the increase of it.''" '''- Woodrow Wilson'''

I would like to thank the crew of GirlChat [GC] for giving me invaluable editorial input on my earlier drafts of this essay, with particular thanks going to my fellow activists Summerdays, Baldur, Little Girl Lover (all three of whom have their contributions referenced below), along with some invaluable corrections from FreeThinkerGL and Misha.

Previously, I composed [http://newgon.com/wiki/Essay:Why_The_Legality_Of_Child_Pornography_Is_Relevant_To_The_Youth_Liberation_Movement an essay] discussing the question of legality about the very emotionally-charged subject of CP [what our culture and penal system commonly calls 'child pornography'] and its relevance to the youth liberation movement. But there are many broader implications regarding why CP should be legal outside of the various points I made in that previous essay. Before I get into them, however, I would like to say a few things about CP to make my stance, as well as that of the broader pro-choice segment of the MAA [Minor Attracted Adult] community, crystal clear to all who read this.

Most of us (including myself) do not support an "absolutely anything goes" attitude regarding the production of CP, especially when it comes to pre-pubescent children rather than adolescents. I fully believe that pre-pubescents should never appear in what we call "hardcore" pornography that would include large amounts of sexual activity--either with peers or adults--that would likely prove physically injurious to them--such as full penetrative intercourse--and which they would not likely seek out in real life. Accordingly, there is a big difference between "child pornography" and what may best be labeled ''child erotica''. I would see no problem with pre-pubescents who possess an exhibitionist streak in them (and our society is well aware that such children do exist, despite our strong attempts to deny it) to appear in mildly erotic films where they engage in what we often call 'sex play' with people of various ages--depending upon what the child in question would agree to as per their individual tastes--which pre-pubescents of a slightly older age (say, six years old and up) at least semi-regularly do with peers and sometimes with adults whom they trust and have bonded with in a certain way.

I also have no problem with pre-pubescents appearing nude in films, including mainstream films, as long as they have no objections, since--as I explained in my aforementioned previous essay--I do not think it's logical or healthy for our culture to promulgate the idea that there is something inherently ugly or "obscene" about the nude youthful form, or even about normal youth sexual activity. Pre-pubescents have appeared nude and even sometimes engaging in lightly erotic scenes (i.e., those involving kissing and notable sensuality) in many foreign films over the past few decades, and people from those cultures do not have the conception that there is something inherently "wrong" with this--though this positive attitude about youth sexuality has been diminishing in these foreign Western nations due to constant aggressive American and British influence over the past two decades. In fact, it's largely American and British culture who has this irrational fear and loathing of anything remotely to do with youthful nudity and sexual activity despite their reality throughout human history, and it's the governments of these two nations who put so much pressure on artists of all stripes in nations both within and outside of the West to stifle all such attempts. As such, foreign films depicting a "coming of age" theme have regularly become noticeably less "bold" (read: realistic) in their portrayal of these normal aspects of the lives of youths over the past decade, the first of the 21st century. I'm sure if the current American mindset had its way, all "coming of age" films would be produced for suitability to air on the Disney Channel.

As for adolescents, since it's physically safe for them to engage in full intercourse with proper precautions, and some of them do have an interest in it (though not all, of course), then they should be allowed to participate in whatever type of on camera erotica that they please. I would never encourage or ask for them to participate in the equivalent of XXX-rated films where sex is the only point, but I believe that what we call "softcore" erotica should be no problem for those adolescents who may want to participate in it. Saying that absolutely no adolescents under the age of 18 would ever have the slightest interest in doing this is quite ridiculous and illogical for reasons I explicated in a [http://newgon.com/wiki/Essay:Why_Most_Teens_Will_Not_Support_The_Age_Of_Consent_Laws_If_Given_The_Choice previous essay] on whether or not teens would support the age of consent [AoC] laws, as well as my previous essay on the relevance of the legalization of CP to the youth liberation movement. To make this point further, there are a few instances of underage actresses who lied about their age and appeared in several adult pornographic films, the best example of this perhaps being Traci Lords. Further, actresses such as Brooke Shields and Jodie Foster appeared in popular mainstream American films with highly erotic themes involving consensual youth prostitution during the 1970s when both were 12 years of age--''Pretty Baby'' and ''Taxi Driver'', respectively--and neither of them were emotionally "damaged" as a result; to the contrary, both went on to prosperous careers in mainstream cinema. Shields subsequently appeared in a few other mainstream films with highly erotic themes to them shortly after her first, including ''The Blue Lagoon'' and ''Endless Love'', both of which included sex scenes (though she used a body double to depict her nude scenes in both of these films, something she curiously didn't do when she was a few years younger in ''Pretty Baby''). And of course, Foster continued to do the same in films such as ''The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane'' at age 14, where she removed her shirt on camera (though viewers only saw her from the back and briefly from the side after she did so) and got into bed with an older teenage boy whom she had fallen in love with. Sadly, the latter film also gave us a typical stereotyped version of an Evil Pedo [or 'Evil Hebe,' to be technical in this case], who was played in this instance by Martin Sheen as the titular character's main antagonist. But as we all know, the bygone era of the 1970s and early '80s is long behind us now, and the sex abuse hysteria has continued to progress into the present, thus making films like those mentioned above much more difficult to produce today.

Nevertheless, some film producers continue to defy these modern conventions, such as then-12-year-old actress Isabelle Fuhurman taking on a racy role--including a sexy seduction scene where she attempted to seduce an adult man--in the 2009 horror/suspense film ''The Orphan''. And prior to that, we had the then-adolescent Drew Barrymore explore sexual themes during the 1990s in films such as ''Far From Home'' (which she did at age 14) and the much sexier ''Poison Ivy'' (which she did at age 17), where she successfully seduced a much older man played by Tom Skerritt in a daringly erotic sex scene. And let's not forget Barrymore's sex-charged role, also at age 17, which she played the same year in the short-lived TV series ''2000 Malibu Road''. It's hardly a wonder that a year later she did a very sexual portrayal of real life "lethal lolita" Amy Fisher in ''The Amy Fisher Story'', a well-received telefilm that hit the airwaves in 1993; Barrymore was barely 18 at the time, but the character she portrayed was a few years younger than that, and this true story made it clear once and for all that young adolescent girls can indeed pursue adult men and be dangerously conniving at the same time. Unfortunately, such relationships only make the headlines when they have an element of tragedy attached to them, or some other type of sensationalism (such as when a girl runs away with an older lover), thus promoting the biased attitude that intergenerational attraction always results in something bad, the same type of attitude promoted by the notorious lesbian novels published during the 1950s in regards to same gender attraction amongst women.

Let us not forget the popular French/American film collaboration ''The Professional'' (the longer version seen by French audiences was titled ''Leon the Professional''), which starred then-12-year-old Natalie Portman in a very big role where she developed a heavy romantic attraction to a hit man named Leon (played by French actor Jean Reno) and wanted to have him be her first sexual experience, an offer the hit man gracefully declined despite obviously reciprocating her romantic love and even sharing a bed with her--the scene where Portman's character Mathilda asked Leon to be her first was excised from the American version to avoid rousing the ire of American audiences any further than it already did, but the scene where Mathilda told Leon that she was in love with him in no uncertain terms was retained. A year later, Portman appeared in another film where she portrayed a young adolescent girl who fell in love with an older adult man (and he with her) in the big screen opus ''Beautiful Girls''. With these two films in her oeuvre, it appeared quite strange when Portman publicly announced shortly after the release of ''Beautiful Girls'' that she and her parents agreed to turn down the offer for her to portray the famed titular character in Adrian Lyne's 1990s film version of ''Lolita'', since they believed it was "inappropriate" for her to star in a film where a young adolescent girl was romantically involved with a much older adult man (I guess they were hoping that the public had forgotten Portman's previous two film roles mentioned above). Needless to say, Lyne's film ended up languishing in production hell for a few years due to the expected controversy of producing it during the height of the sex abuse hysteria until finally being completed and released in 1997 with 17-year-old Dominique Swain in the title role. The latter version certainly had bolder scenes than the 1962 version of the movie (with 15-year-old Sue Lyons in the role of Dolores Haze, a.k.a., Lolita), but as one would expect, body doubles and scene deletions galore ensued in order for the finished product to reach the American silver screen--though it did include the rather bold scene of Swain locking lips with co-star Jeremy Irons in his role of the notorious literary hebephile Humbert Humbert.

As my fellow MAA activist Little Girl Lover reminded me, the 1990s also saw then-tween actress Kirsten Dunst take the role of the vampire Claudia, an ancient adult woman forever trapped in the body of a ten-year-old girl (since she was turned into a vampire when she was ten, and vampires do not age beyond the point when they are first turned), in the film version of Anne Rice’s novel ''The Interview With the Vampire.'' In that movie, the character of Claudia was in love with, and almost locked lips with, adult actor Brad Pitt in his role as Rice's famed vampire, Louis [thank you to fellow GLer db1 for giving me the correct version of this interesting fun fact]. This was a highly ironic role for Dunst to take, considering how outspoken the beautiful actress was in her early adult years about how disgusting and immoral she thinks it is for a younger woman (let alone a young girl) to have a romantic liaison with an older man--and how she likewise believed she was "too young" to do a nude scene in a movie at the tender age of 19.

Finally, let's not forget how actress Claire Danes surprised audiences in 1996 when, at the "mere" age of 16, she won the much coveted role of Juliet in director Buz Luhrmann's updated cinematic version of Shakespeare's classic play of doomed young love ''Romeo and Juliet'', which included a bedroom scene with her equally famous lover Romeo (sans any actual nudity, but Claire was topless at the time, but was only seen from the back when she removed her top). However, actress Olivia Hussey played the much coveted role of Juliet in director Franco Zeffirelli’s 1968 version of the film, which began filming two months after her 16th birthday, and she didn’t shy away from doing a nude scene (in fact, Hussey had played a fairly sultry role at age 12 in the English film version of Rumer Godden’s novel ''The Battle of the Villa Fiorita''). And even more recently, let's not forget a few of the films that the truly amazing actress Dakota Fanning has participated in. These include ''Man On Fire'', which she did at age ten, and which was a remake of a foreign action/adventure film from the late ‘80s that retained some of the latter movie's "lolita" themes, albeit more subtle to spare the sensibilities of American audiences. Nevertheless, it was very clear to all viewers that Fanning's tweenage character and her adult bodyguard/teacher, played to perfection by Denzel Washington, had developed actual deep romantic feelings for each other. Then there was Fanning's critically acclaimed and controversial indie film ''Hounddog'', which she did at the "tender" age of 12, and which featured a rather heavy degree of "coming of age" sexuality--as well as the famed actress frolicking about in her underwear throughout much of this period film--but which also included an awful scene where she was raped by an older boy. Then, at 15 going on 16, Fanning had perhaps her best racy role yet, as she accurately portrayed the real life adolescent singer and unabashed sex symbol Cherie Currie in the 2010 film ''The Runaways'', a biopic of the famous but short-lived girl band from the free-wheeling 1970s decade based on Currie's autobiography ''Neon Angel''. In the latter movie, Fanning famously and somewhat daringly shared a lesbian kiss onscreen with her co-star Kristen Stewart.

Also worth mentioning are two other films with intergenerational romance as their central focus that are still legal to view today. The more or less obscure 1979 film ''A Circle of Two'' was a truly beautiful and open-minded film about a 16-year-old girl--played with stellar and witty alacrity by then underage Tatum O'Neill--who fell deeply in mutually shared love with an intense but kind-hearted 60-year-old artist--also played to perfection by Richard Burton. Interestingly, this movie featured the only nude scene that Tatum ever did. The other is the 1992 movie ''For A Lost Soldier'', which was a true story based on the memoirs of Dutch artist Jeroen Boman, where he recalled a romantic relationship he had during World War II in his early adolescence with an adult Canadian soldier who had previously saved his life.

None of the above films are currently considered CP by the American penal code (save for those which actress Traci Lords appeared in from the age of 15 to 17), but all of them are examples of erotically charged films featuring young adolescents--and in some cases (such as ''Man On Fire''), girls who are "merely" tweens. And since the definition of what legally constitutes CP in America continues to broaden every single year, it cannot be certain that even these films will not someday fall under the rubric of CP as defined by the increasingly draconian American penal code as the government continues to wage a vicious war against youth sexuality, and all possible depictions and expressions of it thereof. After all, the government will poignantly argue, if these films continue to be legal to possess and produce, a "pedophile" may end up seeing them and become aroused by them, and no society that cares about the sacrosanct Victorian image of kids could ever tolerate the possibility of such a horrible thing occurring, correct? Even worse, the government will tell us, such films may convey the "dangerous" idea that youth sexuality is normal, and we can't have that either, right?

The above examples also make it clear that in a youth liberated society, there would not likely be a shortage of youthful models and actresses who would enjoy appearing in erotic films, and at this point in time it's impossible to know beyond a shadow of a doubt that this wouldn't include a smaller but perhaps sizable amount of pre-pubescent girls as well.

Once again, I would like to stress that I am ''not'' in any way suggesting that--even in a youth liberated society--the MAA community, parents, or anyone else should actually blatantly advocate youth sexuality or the production of youth erotica, or in any way imply that all or even most young girls (or boys) ''should'' participate in the production of it, as eroticism is very clearly not a genre of filmography or photography that all youths are suited for, and this should be respected. We simply advocate the matter of ''choice'', and there can be no doubt that there would be some youths of such a sensibility that they would enjoy participating in such films, including those which they produced and marketed themselves; the surfeit of "racy" YouTube videos out there featuring young girls (both tween and teen, and even some pre-pubescent) dancing provocatively and frolicking in bikinis and other revealing clothing that was produced and uploaded by the girls themselves make it very clear that there is a sizable number of young girls (and boys) who enjoy "showing off" in such a way on camera. Moreover, these youths clearly do not particularly care about the age group of people who have access to their videos and pictorials. Thus, youth sexuality and exhibitionism is a reality in our world, and even though I am not saying it should ever be advocated, it should nevertheless not be demonized or suppressed either. '''Toleration or acceptance of a certain phenomenon or genre of film or prose is ''not'' the same thing as advocating it.'''

Now, here is a fast and loose set of reasons why CP (or simple youth eroticism) should be legal in any society that purports to be a democracy:

1) The criminalization of CP is a form of ''censorship'', plain and simple. Censorship in any form should not be tolerated in a democratic society, no matter how offensive or upsetting many people may consider the imagery or information in question. If our legal system places any type of material in a "special" category that is not protected by the First Amendment to view and access by the public, then we start a very nasty precedent that can easily lead to the rationalization of any type of "dangerous" idea or image being denied public access by our esteemed protectors in the future.

2) The argument that CP should be criminalized because people who possess or even simply view the images are viewing a "crime scene" doesn't hold up to scrutiny. There are many types of crime scene images that are perfectly legal for people to view or possess. For example, vids and pics of often innocent people--such as reporters and journalists--being executed by agents of repressive governments worldwide, and the carnage wrought on innocent victims in many books detailing the history of real life serial killers are filled with extremely graphic pics of people who were murdered in very gruesome ways. Why aren't they illegal to view or possess also? Perhaps, because, they do not specifically feature ''children''? Then again, there are numerous examples of horrifying real images of children who have been subject to war atrocities that are perfectly legal to view and possess. These include numerous pics of children with limbs blown off as a result of accidentally stepping on land mines, and a famous pic from the Vietnam War featuring a tween girl running through the streets after napalm was dropped on her--and very obviously in extreme agony as her flesh was set afire (I recounted these things in a bit more detail on my previous essay about CP).

Yet, because these pics do not specifically feature anything to do with sexual activity (the above example of the girl who had napalm dropped on her was actually fully nude as she ran through the streets with her flesh burning, it should perhaps be noted), our culture and penal system mysteriously sees no problem with the public being allowed to view them. Also, despite the fact that many people are highly unsettled or offended by pics showing aborted fetuses, it is still fully legal to possess them and to post them anywhere, which many anti-choice advocates on the abortion issue often do for political purposes. How would such activists feel if access to such pics was illegal even for them to possess or distribute because of the fact that so many people were bothered or offended by them? '''Despite the fact that I am greatly sickened and horrified by pics of aborted fetuses, and despite the fact that I am pro-choice on the abortion argument, I fully support the right of these anti-choice advocates to collect and distribute such pics for whatever reason they may choose.''' Why? Because the tenets of democracy--which I support and take seriously--make me realize that I have to accept the public accessibility of ideas and images that I find personally offensive and abhorrent.

3) A point needs to be made about the tiny amount of CP that features actual footage of minors who were coerced into participating in the production of such films or pics, and even sometimes horribly tortured on camera (the rarity of such vids and pics, and the role of parents and stepparents behind the production of virtually all non-consensual CP, was discussed in detail in my previous essay on CP's relevance to the youth liberation movement). It's been argued that due to the nature of such imagery, it should be illegal to possess or view because some pervert might become aroused by the imagery, and thus, in effect, receive pleasure off of a child's misery. The problem with this justification to censor and criminalize such imagery leads to this question: is it ever justified in a democracy to penalize people for anything that may be going on within the privacy of their own thoughts regardless of how deplorable polite society may consider those thoughts, rightfully or otherwise? What type of precedent does this create for our society when we support the concept of thought control?

There are other things to consider here, too. As I mentioned in my aforementioned previous essay, the total criminalization of this type of imagery prevents their access not only to would-be-perverts who may become aroused by viewing it, but also to serious journalists who may want to view the imagery for the purpose of research and future articles based on that research. The argument that they do not need access to this imagery in order to write about it is entirely bogus, because without being able to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that what the LEOs [law enforcement officers] are saying is in those images are actually true, they cannot compose an article or expose' on the topic with a full degree of accuracy. It's foolish and downright Orwellian for the law--or anyone else--to make assumptions as to why someone may want to access such imagery when mind-reading technology is not yet available, and to therefore conclude that the only possible reason for someone to access and view such imagery is because they want to be aroused by the images of abused children.

A further point that must be made about the argument that such coerced imagery is so horrible that we need to punish anyone who may be aroused by it is illustrated by the following example. A few years ago, a major scandal erupted in Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison when some of the American guards there--at least two of whom were women--forced many of the male Iraqi POWs imprisoned there (many of whom were never actually charged with a crime) to strip fully naked and engage in close physical contact activities with their fellow male prisoners, including standing on top of each other while all were nude so as to form a human pyramid-like structure. This was obviously done very much against these men’s will, and the guards took photographs for their personal amusement and to further debase these men in the future. These pics were subsequently discovered and disseminated across many political websites and blogs all over cyberspace, for the purpose of the columnists to protest this outrage and breach of American principles. As anyone who is familiar with the culture of these Islamic societies in the Middle East are well aware, such an action was far more humiliating and emotionally distressing for men who grew up in these cultures than it would have been for heterosexual men who grew up in a Western culture, where homoeroticism is currently more or less accepted and not considered a form of deviant behavior (save by some of the most conservative elements in Western society). There can be no doubt that all of these men forced to participate in this activity by their captors was humiliating beyond description and likely even emotionally traumatic to experience--yet no civilian reporters, journalists, or bloggers were arrested for posting these pics all over the Net. Can it not be cogently argued that these men and their families would receive a great degree of severe emotional distress, and likely even trauma, as a result of the appearance of these pics all over the Net, even on sites whose columnists were using them to rightfully protest what was done to these men, and even on sites where their faces were blurred out of focus to protect the anonymity of the victims? I would say yes, yet this rationalization was never used to arrest any of these well-intentioned bloggers (nor should it have been, for all of the reasons expressed both above and below).

Moreover, there is something further that must be considered about the Abu Grahib debacle. Are we to assume that everyone who viewed and downloaded these pics did so for the same reason as the above politically-motivated bloggers? It needs to be said that contrary to what appears to be popular belief, it's not simply a small number of adults with an attraction to children and teens who have "extreme" interests, and there are most certainly members of the mainstream homosexual community who can likewise have some rather "extreme" interests, as well as people from all groups with a teleiophilic attraction base [a teleiophile is someone who has a preference for members of the same general age group, regardless of gender or race]. Thus, it can readily be presumed with a high degree of likelihood that some adults viewed and downloaded the pics of those abused POWs in Abu Ghraib for the purpose of becoming aroused by having fantasies of being in place of the guards, and even of committing further forms of abuse with these men than are actually known to have occurred. Not only that, but it's also likely that several adults viewed or downloaded those pics and fantasized about being in the place of those abused men; fantasies of being raped as opposed to perpetrating such acts are far from unheard of, and many women--and some men--have admitted to having them, including many women who belong to the BDSM community (though certainly not all). Yet, this great likelihood was never mentioned anywhere that I am aware of, let alone any suggestion that possession or viewing of such pics should be legally prohibited from anyone outside of authorized court officials due to the corrupt thoughts they may have inspired in people with a certain type of predilection.

The exact ''same'' complaint can be made about pics of actual carnage wrought on victims by serial killers, since it's well known that some teleiophiles have the type of "extreme" tastes where they become aroused by depictions of violence, including those that had a sexual context to them. The realization of this would doubtlessly cause much emotional distress to the families of these victims, as well as anyone who managed to survive such an attack, to know that some people were collecting these pics for that particular reason. Should necrophiliacs be arrested for collecting pics of people who were murdered by serial killers for the purpose of "getting off" on the pics entirely within the privacy of their own mind? Sure, such thoughts may be considered "disgusting" by the great majority of society, and one may argue that some type of injustice is committed against the victims, but this is no reason to criminalize possession or viewing of crime scene pics where people were hurt or killed in horrible ways, and it's entirely unjust for any courts under the ethos of American jurisprudence to ''assume'' any reason why any particular person may wish to obtain such pics.

Yet, the complaints about these adult victims, and what they and/or their families may suffer as a result of these horrid pics being available for public access by people who likely have a wide assortment of reasons for wanting to view them (some well-intentioned, and others entirely puerile and salacious), are almost always non-existent. Nor do we ever hear any of the families of these victims, or of any victims who may have survived the attempt on their lives, of taking anyone who simply viewed or possessed the pics of the carnage for whatever reason to civil court so as to sue them for possibly "getting off" on the misery of these victims. When these points are made to people who want these coercive pics to continue to be criminalized, the response is usually a variation of, "That's different! The victims in those pics and videos weren't children!" This response is very telling and informative, and it cuts to the crux of the problem. It also makes it clear why such people support the criminalization of even on camera depictions of the majority of youth erotica that is known to have been produced with the full consent and enjoyment of the young participants, or where no evidence exists to suggest otherwise since no investigation was ever conducted to collect any evidence to suggest that coercion was involved. These statements are even echoed by people connected to the MAA community who enjoy and support the continued legalization of the youth modeling sites that feature girls in scanty clothing and sometimes arguably "enticing" poses. Once nudity enters the equation, however, such individuals immediately cry "foul" and claim that such pics or vids have "crossed the line." They further attempt to categorize any pics and vids featuring nudity as if they were examples of coercion, without bothering to ask for proof or even the slightest bit of evidence. And they never seem to realize that as long as what constitutes CP continues to be broadened, their beloved non-nude-but-sometimes-racy youth modeling sites will likewise get banned in the future, too. It's not like several members of the U.S. Congress aren't actually trying to do so, and this includes the attempts of uber-hypocrites like the rightfully disgraced Senator Mark Foley (and which proves that MAAs can be hypocrites who work against the interests of youth rights, their own community, and civil rights in general as much as homosexuals in positions of political power—such as J. Edgar Hoover—have done in the past).

So, in other words, if such imagery involves ''children'', or anyone who happens to be "underage," it suddenly becomes a whole different story than any similar imagery involving adults, as far as most people are concerned.

Of course, the pundits of protectionism have a common excuse used to justify the consensual agreement of underagers being denied when it comes to taking nude or provocative pics of themselves, or participating in films of that nature. When the consensual participation of the underager in question is made clear, the latter pundits will say that these youths ''might'' later come to regret these on camera depictions of themselves, so we have to consider them being distressed in an entirely pre-emptive and hypothetical context. And this despite the fact that Brooke Shields and Jodie Foster never seemed to suffer after becoming adults for some of the erotic roles they played back at the "vulnerable" age of 12, as both have enjoyed very good careers and personal lives that were hardly scandalous or full of strife when compared to many of their fellow Hollywood celebrities. Further, Traci Lords herself broke into mainstream films and never suffered for her participation in blatantly pornographic films beginning when she was 15; Lords did later allegedly develop a serious drug problem, but the same thing is the case with many starlets of mainstream cinema, including those who limited their childhood roles to family-friendly fare like the late Anissa Jones of the popular late 1960s TV series ''Family Affair''. A few youth models have likewise achieved their dreams, including Tierra Lee Abbott breaking into mainstream acting (including a recurring role on Nickelodeon's TV series ''Unfabulous'') and the youth model who used the name Marie, who achieved her long-time dream of posing for ''Playboy'' shortly following her 18th birthday. It's quite clear that print versions of ''Playboy'' catering to the celebration and admiration of the beauty of youths would exist in a youth liberated society without people worrying about whether or not a "pedophile" became aroused by the pictorials included therein. Imagine how many opportunities for personal growth and advancement would be curtailed if we allowed the powers-that-be to follow the Nanny State mentality and forcibly prevent us from making certain decisions simply because we ''might'' end up regretting them later, no matter how much these pundits of protectionism may argue the likelihood of this happening, or that youths are "more likely" to later come to regret this or that decision than an adult will (as if this can actually be deduced effectively); one of the things we need to remember is that one of the most important civil rights people of any age can possess is the right to take emotional risks, because without this right we lose too many opportunities to grow and learn, and we end up at the mercy of the possible bad decisions of those who have the power to decide for us, rather than to learn and grow from the possible bad decisions of our own.

We should also keep in mind that our gossip-loving yet moralizing society loves to uncover “scandals” regarding underage celebrities, such as when the American press pilloried actress/singer Miley Cyrus for being caught in the act on more than one occasion of behaving like a normal adolescent girl does, which unfortunately contradicts the crystal pure image of the character Hanna Montana that she popularly but unrealistically portrays for the benefit of her employers at Disney—or for daring to participate in the taking of pictorials for various fashion mags that “inappropriately” show off her youthful beauty—such as exposing the skin on her back; yes, her back, not her breasts! Yet the moralizers in the press and outside of it had a field day with that, and Miley was ultimately being pressured—some might say bullied—into making an apology that the public wasn’t owed. In other words, Disney expects Miley to be Hannah Montana 24/7 in her real life, not only when she is in front of the cameras at their studios, and it doesn't matter to them how far removed Hannah may be from real adolescent girls--Miley appears to have sworn to uphold an idealized and highly sanitized version of a developing young woman when she signed that contract (*ahem*--I mean when ''her parents'' signed the contract, as any youth under the age of 18 are not permitted to sign their own contracts), and she and her parents are called names in the media and pushed into apologizing when she doesn't live up to a standard that no real adolescent girl should be expected to live up to.

Let's also not forget that the highly disturbing autopsy photos of child murder victim Jon-Bonet Ramsey are legally available online, and these include close-up photos of her vagina. But because the purpose of these pics are for the clinical study of a crime victim and not for the purpose of titillation, these pics are fully legal to view and presumably to download and possess. If the parents are indeed innocent of the crime, then aren't we causing them emotional distress by making these horrific crime photos publicly available? I am not arguing that disturbing crime photos should be illegal to view or possess, but I am using this as a point to make it clear that it seems really ludicrous that we can allow pics of this nature to be legal, yet pics and vids of youths posing nude or engaging in willing sexual situations that they may enjoy participating in is totally off-limits legally, and actually worthy of being placed in a "special" class of imagery that is not protected by the First Amendment. Again, this is what happens when emotion trumps logic; it results in one of the most important aspects of democracy being abandoned with too little complaints attached to it, and the government becoming involved in what clearly constitutes full fledged exercises in thought control.

The semi-naysayers often like to justify their above statements by making the famous declaration, "We have to draw the line somewhere!" I agree, which is why I believe the line should be drawn when the important factor of ''consent'' is no longer present. Claims that consent wasn't present when the young people who participated insist that it was need to be ''proven'' via a thorough but ethical investigation of all involved with the production, and not simply assumed for the purpose of "erring on the side of caution" or following the “better to be safe than sorry” ethos to the extreme.

So back to the main point: we only make sometimes irrational, and oftentimes outright draconian, exceptions to the above described rules when the people involved are underage, and this counts even after the girls or boys in question have become adults, as there is a new crop of lawyers who have taken advantage of the present climate of hysteria by encouraging some of these women to sue people who are discovered to have possession of some of the erotic pics taken of them when they were underage. I would say this creates a strong monetary incentive for such women to claim they suddenly woke up one morning to discover that they were “emotionally damaged” by the memory of those pics or vids being made—and hell hath no fury like a woman and her lawyer out to grab public sympathy via playing on people’s emotions in order to make a killing for themselves.

This all strongly suggests that our society has a deep and abiding fear and loathing of youth sexuality that is so pervasive that even some people who admit an attraction to younger people are caught up in the hysteria, and thus tend to view depictions of youth sexuality with great suspicion even when there is no reason to have such suspicions. The latter appears to be partly true because some MAAs appear to project their own personal tastes on underage models, and seem to assume outright that because they wouldn't have wanted to participate in such videos or pictorials when they were underage, they consider it inconceivable that any sizable number of girls (or boys) could possibly have different tastes and sensibilities from themselves, all the evidence that youths are no exception to the rule of diversity amongst the human species notwithstanding. Hence, they justify the criminalization of possessing or viewing any of the tiny amount of coercive films involving underage people while continuing to (usually) support the legal access to similar or worse pics and vids depicting adult victims. Predictably, the government jumps on this, realizing that they can start with the criminalization of possession and viewing of the small amount of non-consensual CP, and from there move on to rationalizing the criminalization of viewing consensual erotic material involving youths, and then moving on from there to criminalizing the possession and viewing of simple artistic nudes, and from there pics and vids of youths wearing revealing clothing, and from there...well, use your imagination, you are not likely to be far off base by doing so. This is because, as I have mentioned numerous times, the passing of a single draconian law of censorship creates a domino effect of sorts, resulting in the easier rationalization of increasingly severe and prohibitive Orwellian measures passed under the pretext of “protecting” children (i.e., anyone who is legally underage and thus bereft of sufficient civil rights to make their own decisions in almost any matter). This is something that the semi-naysayers do not seem willing to accept any more than the total naysayers are.

To complete this point, I want to make one thing ''very'' clear. Nobody in the pro-choice segment of the MAA community supports the legalization of producing any type of youth erotica where the participants were ''forced'' or somehow ''coerced'' into making the films or photo-shoots. To suggest that any of us would literally support the production of such material is silly, insulting, and totally outrageous. Trying to claim that those who support the legality of simply viewing even coerced imagery that they had nothing to do with the production of as being tantamount to supporting actual rape and torture, or the production and sale of films depicting such atrocities, is beneath contempt and a total corruption of the point we are trying to make. And arguing that the simple viewing of films depicting actual rape and torture somehow creates a demand for the production of more material ''even though no money is passing any hands'' is beyond ridiculous, and a classic example of the sordid tactic of grasping at straws to justify a certain form of censorship. This is like saying that those who view pics of actual victims of serial killers, or own a book containing such pics (which are readily available via Amazon.com or the true crime section of your local Barnes and Noble), actually support the ''legalization'' of serial murder, and that a demand exists for serial killers to continue committing acts of murder even though none of them make any money as a result of it. Such arguments would be totally and rightfully laughed at if not for the powerful emotional resonance that they bring with them due to the fact that people under 18 and sexuality are both involved. I and the rest of my community fully support the arrest and prosecution of ''anyone'' of ''any age'' who is involved with the production of any type of film or images of people of any age who are participating on camera in sexual activities that they ''did not'' consent to, or are being genuinely tortured and harmed on camera against their will. Very very few, if any, people in our community would ever remotely support the production of such films any more than the tiniest percentage of the various teleiophile communities would support a market for actual "snuff" films featuring real adult victims. The naysayers need to keep in mind that MAAs are, first and foremost, ''human beings'', and as such we are fully capable of empathizing with human pain and suffering to the same extent that any teleiophile can.

4) As my fellow activist Baldur pointed out to me before, the continued criminalization of such imagery and/or text can be used to blackmail or frame individuals by having such evidence planted on their computer hard drives without the knowledge of the owner. This can be done by any individual with a sufficient degree of hacking skills, including a jealous co-worker or even a LEO who wants to see to the arrest and personal destruction of a certain individual for purely political reasons. And of course, there have been a growing number of claims that certain types of malware may automatically download CP to people's hard drives that they had no intention of even viewing, let alone permanently possessing. These claims are far from outrageous, because it's a well known fact that malware can and often does automatically download adult pornography to people's hard drives against their intentions, so it's quite likely that any type of online material can be unknowingly downloaded onto someone's computer hard drive without their knowledge or intention.

==Addendum==
The following are a few very important anecdotes in response to certain of my points, provided by my fellow pro-choice MAA activist Summerdays, to whom I extend much thanks and appreciation for them. My previously mentioned points are in '''bold face''', and Summerdays' responses are in standard text.

'''Accordingly, there is a big difference between 'child pornography' and what may best be labeled ''child erotica''.'''
:I'm sure there's a term for the argumentative fallacy where the opponent exaggerates your point to the most extreme and indefensible end of the spectrum, in order to more easily refute it. And the black and white thinking ("all CP is the worst kind") certainly doesn't contribute to an atmosphere of reasoned discussion. There is a middle ground that is being trampled, and I find this to be very unfortunate, because that middle ground occupies a place where the erotic beauty of youth and adolescence can be celebrated in a very positive way. But if you dare try to defend the middle ground, the antis write you off as trying to defend the "worst kind" of CP, since to them it's all the same.

'''I would see no problem with pre-pubescents who possess an exhibitionist streak in them (and our society is well aware that such children do exist, despite our strong attempts to deny it) to appear in mildly erotic films...'''
:I have no problem with this either, but I can see a potential problem with it - sociogenic in nature. It kind of parallels the issue of mutually consensual sexual contact between [youths] and adults - if the contact itself is not harmful, there is still the stigma that is imposed from outside forces that can result in harm. In this case, the stigma has to do with the sexual shame that is imposed on exhibitionism of this form. In other words, the idea that if somebody sees a "naughty" picture (or video) of you, your reputation could be ruined.
:This is a general problem I see that needs to be addressed, but becomes something of a thorn in our side when the issue of youth erotica is involved. This is because of the "child protection" argument that considers children [and younger adolescents] unable to comprehend the repercussions of posing for sexy pictures (or videos) at their age - and the fact that they may regret it later (after it's too late, given the "immortality" of digital media in this age). You certainly see this argument when the topic of "sexting" comes up.
:Some people would (and obviously do) argue that the solution is to eliminate any and all material of this nature - and to prevent kids from taking that "risk" to their reputation. I would argue that the freedom to engage in that kind of activity is important enough not to squander it for the sake of this risk, and also that I'm certain there are some (if certainly not all) children [and adolescents] who are capable both of understanding the risk (of potential stigma), and also possess the strength of character not to be significantly affected by it. Indeed, there may be cases where a [youth's] need to express him/herself overcomes the fear of "what people may think/do/say" - and I would argue that that's a healthy attitude to foster, rather than teaching kids to be afraid to express themselves for fear of how others may judge them.

'''Pre-pubescents have appeared nude and even sometimes engaging in lightly erotic scenes (i.e., those involving kissing and notable sensuality) in many foreign films over the past few decades, and people from those cultures do not have the conception that there is something inherently "wrong" with this.'''
:Indeed, I do not believe we should indulge our culture's sickness. The exploration of sexuality is a natural curiosity, and it should be indulged, not repressed. I don't believe we should refrain from certain behaviors only because society frowns upon them. Where there are explicit laws against certain behaviors, that is another matter, but in terms of cultural norms, I think it's our duty to push the boundaries and keep an open discussion, and not be afraid to turn a few heads in our pursuit of a better way, as long as we are doing it with an understanding of the backlash we are likely to receive.
:Ideally, the goal would be a more tolerant society where people are not shamed and stigmatized for being involved in the erotic arts, thus significantly reducing the risks of participation.

'''And since the definition of what legally constitutes CP in America continues to broaden every single year, it cannot be certain that even these films will not someday fall under the rubric of CP as defined by the increasingly draconian American penal code as the government continues to wage a vicious war against youth sexuality, and all possible depictions and expressions of it thereof.'''
:Granted, I think Congress and/or whoever makes those decisions is concerned about laws that are so strict as to render that which is unambiguously "artistic" illegal - particularly works of art that are historically renowned. On the other hand, our tolerance for this type of material - youth sexuality - is gradually eroding, and the limitations on what can and cannot be represented artistically are increasing. I think we ought to be more concerned about what hasn't been created yet than what has. The movies you mentioned may not fall under the legal classification for "child pornography" any time soon (although it's still important for us to make certain they don't), but as time passes, and the laws tighten, and the penalties grow, fewer people are going to want to tackle such a controversial issue, and they'll be able to get away with much less with confidence. And if one such person dares to push the boundaries, he/she is bound to be demonized, and used as an example for even tighter laws, and harsher penalties. (The furor over Bill Henson comes to mind, and his work, from what I've seen, neither involves children, nor can it rightly be classified as "pornographic." If his work pushes people's buttons, then what sort of ban will they call for next?)
:How long will it be before no one has the guts to even bring up the topic of youth sexuality anymore? There are already people saying this topic shouldn't even be addressed. Youths are sexual - not talking about it doesn't help anyone. And if youths were to somehow become completely asexual as a result - a result that the anti mindset would seem to favor - what kind of an impact would that have on us as a society and as a species? Think about how authoritarian a government would have to be to have the power to regulate all sexual expression involving minors (whether as the subject of the expression, or merely the subject of discussion). And worse yet, to actually regulate the way minors feel (by excising their natural sexual impulses through some kind of social conditioning). Do you really want to be controlled by a government with that much power? And surely you can't believe that they would limit their exercising of that power to minors. Anyway, the minors will one day become adults, and the adults will eventually die off, and what we've got then is a completely brainwashed populace. Children are the future of us all. Do we really want them growing up ashamed and with unhealthy attitudes about their sexuality? The minute we place sexuality into the governing hands of our so-called "protectors," we are giving up our own power over the continuation of our very existence.

'''After all, the government will poignantly argue, if these films continue to be legal to possess and produce, a "pedophile" may end up seeing them and become aroused by the imagery, and no society that cares about the sacrosanct Victorian image of kids could ever tolerate the possibility of such a horrible thing occurring, correct?'''
:This is a ridiculous argument, because you simply cannot prevent pedophiles [or hebephiles] from being aroused by pedophilic stimuli. You would need to completely separate children from adults to start - and though that seems to be the direction we're heading, there are any number of reasons why I think that would be a terrible idea - and even then, pedophiles still have their imagination. As much as society hates pedophiles, you can't punish children for them - and that means allowing children to remain visible to the public eye. I won't accept "pedophiles may get turned on" as an argument unless it's backed up by a realistic plan to prevent pedophiles from ever getting turned on - and in that case, I would be vehemently against such an inhumane plan.

'''I would like to stress that I am not in any way suggesting that, even in a youth liberated society, the MAA community, parents, or anyone else should actually blatantly advocate youth sexuality or the production of youth erotica, or in any way imply that all or even most young girls (or boys) should participate in the production of it, as eroticism is very clearly not a genre of filmography or photography that all youths are suited for, and this should be respected'''.
:Arguing that "youth erotica" should be legal in no way presumes that most children ought to be involved with it, and certainly not that any youths should be forced into it. Even were it true that most kids wouldn't have the slightest interest (and I'm not so sure that's the case), the fact that a few of them would is reason enough to allow them that opportunity. That's what choice is about.

'''Despite the fact that I am greatly sickened and horrified by pics of aborted fetuses, and despite the fact that I am pro-choice on the abortion argument, I fully support the right of these anti-choice advocates to collect and distribute such pics for whatever reason they may choose.'''
:What is it about a naked [youth] posing in a suggestive manner that is considerably worse than an image of an aborted fetus, that we have to censor the former yet not the latter?
[[Category:Dissident's essays]]

Essay:Movie Review/Analysis of SUNDAYS AND CYBELE

2011-09-09T20:24:31Z

Dissident: /* by Summerdays */

== '''by Summerdays''' ==

'''Note: this review/analysis contains major spoilers!'''

'''A Cinematic View of Intergenerational Romance: ''Sundays and Cybele'''''

''Sundays and Cybele'' (French title: ''Les Dimanches de Ville d'Avray'') is a beautiful film about a romantic relationship between a man named Pierre (about 30) and a young girl christened Francoise (almost 12) - with deference to the plot, I shall intentionally refrain from using her true name. The best thing about this film is that it is unburdened by the weight of the last half century of propaganda. And though the couple's love is still misunderstood, and ultimately destroyed by insensitive external forces, the film sympathizes with the intergenerational lovers, and seems to condone their relationship. Albeit, with a couple of caveats.

Pierre is a troubled war veteran suffering from amnesia following a tragic plane crash that killed a young Vietnamese girl. There is no evidence that he has a regular attraction to young girls - in fact, he is intimately involved with an adult nurse named Madeleine. Francoise seems to be a special exception. She is a charming but lonely girl, sent to a convent near Pierre's apartment. Pierre encounters her by chance on the train platform one evening, and, perhaps seeking absolution for the girl he accidentally killed in the war, he is instantly drawn to her. After the girl's father abandons her, Pierre steps in and a bond quickly grows between them.

The two spend their Sundays together happily in the park. The nuns at the convent mistake him for the girl's father, and strangers assume she is his daughter - until their friendship deepens, and several observers begin to suspect that something unusual is going on between them. Madeleine is initially pleased at the improvement in Pierre's mood, but conflict erupts when she discovers that her companion has been lying to her about sneaking off on Sundays - not to spend time with another woman, but with a girl who is "only" a child!

There is a poignant scene where Madeleine discusses the situation with Pierre's friend, Carlos, who is sympathetic to the troubled man's needs. Even Carlos' wife thinks it is inappropriate for a grown man to "romance" a child, but Carlos confidently defends their relationship - citing Pierre's own child-like mental state (the result of his amnesia, and the trauma of his wartime experiences), and how much happier it has undeniably made him.

But within this conditional acceptance of their love lies the presumption that a positive relationship between an adult and a child can only be possible under special circumstances - specifically, where the adult is mentally deficient in some capacity, so as to be on a level with the child, and where the child is lacking affection from a more appropriate source (usually the parents). While this may represent a complementary pairing, the implication is that there must be something wrong with an adult who desires, and can appreciate, the company of a child, and that the child must be neglected (or perhaps abused) in order to welcome the adult's affections.

This view stands as an insult to many a child's oft overlooked and underrated abilities, and it ignores the great diversity of individual children, some of whom are more and less developed than the majority of their peers. Furthermore, it precludes the possibility that a perfectly capable, fully functioning adult could have (and want!) a positive relationship with a healthy, well-adapted child, without being motivated by any desire to harm or take advantage of the child in any way, and that the child could reciprocate feelings of mutual affection. Suggesting this is an insult to the concept of romantic love, which can develop between persons of all ages.

Nevertheless, Pierre and Francoise are well suited to each other. They are compatible, and they clearly have genuine feelings for one another. Even Madeleine recognizes the wholesomeness of their relationship after spying on them in the park one Sunday. Yet, I suspect this would not be the case if their relationship were not sexually pure. It is undoubtable that the feelings between the two lovers are more than platonic, but the relationship is devoid of any obvious sexual passion (or lust, if you will).

What they have is beautiful, and it would be inappropriate to pressure a young girl into sexual activity before she's ready. But though Francoise appears to be unready, the case may be different with other girls of a similar age. Basing the virtue of a relationship on its lack of sexual activity marginalizes those relationships where some form of physical intimacy plays a part (whether integral or incidental), and trivializes (to a dangerous extent) the difference between mutually consensual, pleasurable sexual activity and abusive sexual coercion.

Putting aside the risk of "premature" sexual debut - which, apart from the crime of sexual abuse, is viewed as a grave dishonor in cultures that value female virginity and childhood purity - we are left with the risk of violent harm. All too often it is the case, where relationships between adults and children are concerned, that the symptoms of love are interpreted to be motivated by hate (or vice versa). Even a cursory examination of Pierre and Francoise's relationship - as performed by those who truly care - would reveal the absence of any serious threat to Francoise's well-being (quite the contrary, in fact). It is true that Pierre engages in some compulsive behaviors, but these acts are committed not with a violent will, but rather an absent-minded naivety, which reflects his immaturity.

On the other hand, upon hearing about the relationship, one of Pierre's acquaintances brazenly assumes that Pierre's goal is to murder Francoise. Why? Because he wasn't punished for (accidentally) killing a child during the war, and that killing another one is the only way to bring upon himself the punishment he deserves. Never mind the fact that if Pierre feels guilty about killing the child, it stands to reason that the last thing he'd want to do is kill another one. Moreover, why would he spend so much time befriending the girl only to kill her in an elaborate plot on Christmas? But those who are quick to judge are not driven by rational thought.

Ultimately, Pierre's pure love is defensible largely on account of his developmental deficiency and nonsexual interest in Francoise. An actual pedophile, with a recurring attraction to children, that has a clear sexual component, would fare no better than he (and probably considerably worse). However, Pierre still meets a tragic end at the hands of those who would shoot first and ask questions later, fearing the smallest possibility that a child may be in danger (willing to murder innocents to prevent the "murder" of innocence).

But the most sinister thing of all is not the insensitivity shown toward an adult's love of a child, but the insensitivity shown toward the child's feelings. Some say a child doesn't have the cognitive capacity to deal with the emotional intensity of a romantic relationship. But what of the emotional intensity a child must bear with having her only and beloved adult companion murdered in cold blood in front of her? I doubt the cops and child "protectors" in this film have any sincere remorse for the suffering they've caused this girl in their misguided attempt to protect her. We'll allow a child to endure just about any form of suffering in life as long as it does not possess the threat of a sexual component, and yet, we are deathly afraid of allowing her to love, and be loved (at least not "in that way"). I wonder what sentence awaits the girl's father who abandoned her - probably none. Yet I am sure the man who loved her would have lost his liberty, had he not had the misfortune to first lose his life, at the hands of the "justice" system.

A Startling Revelation About the Celebrity Known as Jewel

2011-09-09T20:17:09Z

Dissident: A Startling Revelation About the Celebrity Known as Jewel moved to Essay:Movie Review/Analysis of SUNDAYS AND CYBELE: New essay added.

#REDIRECT [[Essay:Movie Review/Analysis of SUNDAYS AND CYBELE]]

Essay:Movie Review/Analysis of SUNDAYS AND CYBELE

2011-09-09T20:17:09Z

Dissident: A Startling Revelation About the Celebrity Known as Jewel moved to Essay:Movie Review/Analysis of SUNDAYS AND CYBELE: New essay added.

== '''by Summerdays''' ==

'''Note, this review/analysis contains major spoilers.'''

'''A Cinematic View of Intergenerational Romance: Sundays and Cybele'''

''Sundays and Cybele'' (French title: ''Les Dimanches de Ville d'Avray'') is a beautiful film about a romantic relationship between a man named Pierre (about 30) and a young girl christened Francoise (almost 12) - with deference to the plot, I shall intentionally refrain from using her true name. The best thing about this film is that it is unburdened by the weight of the last half century of propaganda. And though the couple's love is still misunderstood, and ultimately destroyed by insensitive external forces, the film sympathizes with the intergenerational lovers, and seems to condone their relationship. Albeit, with a couple of caveats.

Pierre is a troubled war veteran suffering from amnesia following a tragic plane crash that killed a young Vietnamese girl. There is no evidence that he has a regular attraction to young girls - in fact, he is intimately involved with an adult nurse named Madeleine. Francoise seems to be a special exception. She is a charming but lonely girl, sent to a convent near Pierre's apartment. Pierre encounters her by chance on the train platform one evening, and, perhaps seeking absolution for the girl he accidentally killed in the war, he is instantly drawn to her. After the girl's father abandons her, Pierre steps in and a bond quickly grows between them.

The two spend their Sundays together happily in the park. The nuns at the convent mistake him for the girl's father, and strangers assume she is his daughter - until their friendship deepens, and several observers begin to suspect that something unusual is going on between them. Madeleine is initially pleased at the improvement in Pierre's mood, but conflict erupts when she discovers that her companion has been lying to her about sneaking off on Sundays - not to spend time with another woman, but with a girl who is "only" a child!

There is a poignant scene where Madeleine discusses the situation with Pierre's friend, Carlos, who is sympathetic to the troubled man's needs. Even Carlos' wife thinks it is inappropriate for a grown man to "romance" a child, but Carlos confidently defends their relationship - citing Pierre's own child-like mental state (the result of his amnesia, and the trauma of his wartime experiences), and how much happier it has undeniably made him.

But within this conditional acceptance of their love lies the presumption that a positive relationship between an adult and a child can only be possible under special circumstances - specifically, where the adult is mentally deficient in some capacity, so as to be on a level with the child, and where the child is lacking affection from a more appropriate source (usually the parents). While this may represent a complementary pairing, the implication is that there must be something wrong with an adult who desires, and can appreciate, the company of a child, and that the child must be neglected (or perhaps abused) in order to welcome the adult's affections.

This view stands as an insult to many a child's oft overlooked and underrated abilities, and it ignores the great diversity of individual children, some of whom are more and less developed than the majority of their peers. Furthermore, it precludes the possibility that a perfectly capable, fully functioning adult could have (and want!) a positive relationship with a healthy, well-adapted child, without being motivated by any desire to harm or take advantage of the child in any way, and that the child could reciprocate feelings of mutual affection. Suggesting this is an insult to the concept of romantic love, which can develop between persons of all ages.

Nevertheless, Pierre and Francoise are well suited to each other. They are compatible, and they clearly have genuine feelings for one another. Even Madeleine recognizes the wholesomeness of their relationship after spying on them in the park one Sunday. Yet, I suspect this would not be the case if their relationship were not sexually pure. It is undoubtable that the feelings between the two lovers are more than platonic, but the relationship is devoid of any obvious sexual passion (or lust, if you will).

What they have is beautiful, and it would be inappropriate to pressure a young girl into sexual activity before she's ready. But though Francoise appears to be unready, the case may be different with other girls of a similar age. Basing the virtue of a relationship on its lack of sexual activity marginalizes those relationships where some form of physical intimacy plays a part (whether integral or incidental), and trivializes (to a dangerous extent) the difference between mutually consensual, pleasurable sexual activity and abusive sexual coercion.

Putting aside the risk of "premature" sexual debut - which, apart from the crime of sexual abuse, is viewed as a grave dishonor in cultures that value female virginity and childhood purity - we are left with the risk of violent harm. All too often it is the case, where relationships between adults and children are concerned, that the symptoms of love are interpreted to be motivated by hate (or vice versa). Even a cursory examination of Pierre and Francoise's relationship - as performed by those who truly care - would reveal the absence of any serious threat to Francoise's well-being (quite the contrary, in fact). It is true that Pierre engages in some compulsive behaviors, but these acts are committed not with a violent will, but rather an absent-minded naivety, which reflects his immaturity.

On the other hand, upon hearing about the relationship, one of Pierre's acquaintances brazenly assumes that Pierre's goal is to murder Francoise. Why? Because he wasn't punished for (accidentally) killing a child during the war, and that killing another one is the only way to bring upon himself the punishment he deserves. Never mind the fact that if Pierre feels guilty about killing the child, it stands to reason that the last thing he'd want to do is kill another one. Moreover, why would he spend so much time befriending the girl only to kill her in an elaborate plot on Christmas? But those who are quick to judge are not driven by rational thought.

Ultimately, Pierre's pure love is defensible largely on account of his developmental deficiency and nonsexual interest in Francoise. An actual pedophile, with a recurring attraction to children, that has a clear sexual component, would fare no better than he (and probably considerably worse). However, Pierre still meets a tragic end at the hands of those who would shoot first and ask questions later, fearing the smallest possibility that a child may be in danger (willing to murder innocents to prevent the "murder" of innocence).

But the most sinister thing of all is not the insensitivity shown toward an adult's love of a child, but the insensitivity shown toward the child's feelings. Some say a child doesn't have the cognitive capacity to deal with the emotional intensity of a romantic relationship. But what of the emotional intensity a child must bear with having her only and beloved adult companion murdered in cold blood in front of her? I doubt the cops and child "protectors" in this film have any sincere remorse for the suffering they've caused this girl in their misguided attempt to protect her. We'll allow a child to endure just about any form of suffering in life as long as it does not possess the threat of a sexual component, and yet, we are deathly afraid of allowing her to love, and be loved (at least not "in that way"). I wonder what sentence awaits the girl's father who abandoned her - probably none. Yet I am sure the man who loved her would have lost his liberty, had he not had the misfortune to first lose his life, at the hands of the "justice" system.

Essay:Movie Review/Analysis of SUNDAYS AND CYBELE

2011-09-09T20:15:18Z

Dissident:

A Critical Look At the Age of Consent Laws

2011-09-09T19:30:58Z

Dissident: A Critical Look At the Age of Consent Laws moved to Essay:A Critical Look At the Age of Consent Laws: Had to mark this page as an essay.

#REDIRECT [[Essay:A Critical Look At the Age of Consent Laws]]

Essay:A Critical Look At the Age of Consent Laws

2011-09-09T19:30:58Z

Dissident: A Critical Look At the Age of Consent Laws moved to Essay:A Critical Look At the Age of Consent Laws: Had to mark this page as an essay.

== '''by Strider@ThePub''' ==

Since the days of the Roman Empire, there has been one question asked by every detective, reporter, or investigator:
"Qui bono?" English translation: "Who benefits?"

So, who benefits from age of consent laws?

To answer that, we need to take a look at their history.

One of the most fascinating aspects of the situation was described by Judith Walkowitz in ''The City of Dreadful Delight'', her examination of the Victorian era, and specifically its cultural mores. In those days, the sex act was considered a wifely "duty," necessary to the continuation of the human species. Wives were urged to begin "weaning" their husbands away from sex once the family had all of the children it desired. The husband's sex drive needed to be considered, so the natural course of action was for him to seek gratification from prostitutes.

According to Walkowitz, it was these prostitutes, whispering in the customer's ears, who instigated reform of age of consent laws for monetary reasons: they were finding it difficult to compete against the younger girls on the street, whose youth and freshness attracted a steady clientele. The rationale employed was "protection" of the young girls, for who could not acquiesce to such a high-sounding motive? The truth was otherwise.

Historically, wives and children were considered the property of the father. A man who "deflowered" a girl was actually violating the property rights of the father, since the father owned her, and she was now "damaged" merchandise (the rationale behind this was straightforward enough; if a girl was a virgin then she would not be pregnant with someone else's child).

In order to protect these paternal rights, age of consent laws were instituted, making it a punishable offense to enjoy sexual relations with a girl under the set age.

The promulgation of such laws were aimed at protecting the property rights of those fathers, who could not expect as large a dowry for "used" goods as he could get for untouched "merchandise." Marriage was, all too frequently, a strictly economic transaction, and taking a girl's virginity was an economic affront to the father. Strangely enough, once a girl's virginity was gone, and the economic rationale no longer applied, the girl was ''still'' subject to age of consent laws.

An age of consent statute first appeared under secular law in England circa 1275 as part of the rape law. The statute, Westminster 1, made it a misdemeanor to "ravish" a "maiden within age," whether with or without her consent. The phrase "within age" was interpreted by jurist Sir Edward Coke as meaning the age of marriage, which at the time was 12 years of age.

A 1576 law making it a felony to "unlawfully and carnally know and abuse any woman child under the age of 10 years" was generally interpreted as creating more severe punishments when girls were under 10 years old, while retaining the lesser punishment for acts with 10- and 11-year-old girls. Jurist Sir Matthew Hale argued that the age of consent applied to 10- and 11-year-old girls, but most of England's North American colonies adopted the younger age.

By 1880, the age of consent in Delaware was seven, and it was ten in 37 of the other 47
American states([http://chnm.gmu.edu/cyh/primary-sources/24 Source]).

These age of consent laws were not "Malum in se" (actions that were wrong in and of themselves, such as murder) but "Malum Prohibitum" (actions that were unlawful simply because the legislature chose to make them so, such as drinking a beer if you are under 21 in America; the latter is something that is a crime nowhere else, btw).

Now this brings up the question: Who is being protected now that dowry's are no longer the norm?

For starters, whatever happened to the separation of church and state, since ''all'' laws pertaining to regulate consensual sexual activity have a religious basis?

In the 19th century, when England's age of consent was a de facto ten years of age, the average age of menarche, or onset of menses, was 15.4. Yet, by the mid-20th century, as the average age of menarche is under 12 and rapidly approaching a single-digit figure, the age of consent averages 16. As the age at which girls mature physically goes down, the age of consent goes up, when logically it should be the other way around. The argument that physically immature girls are being protected holds no water.

So, if it is not about protection, what is the real reason? Could it be (dare I say it?) about control?

Something must be interjected here which is not really a digression, but preparatory:

The most basic instinct is survival. Once immediate physical survival is ensured, the next step is future survival, which goes beyond laying in a supply of firewood or foodstuffs, into the realm of progeny: ensuring that your genes are passed on to a new generation, thereby guaranteeing survival of whatever it is that makes you "you," even when you have passed beyond the confines of the physical body that you currently inhabit.

Now, it is counter-productive for a ruling class to mitigate against corporeal preservation; who would they rule (and who would do the labor) if the lower classes were all dead? Not so with reproduction: allow the slaves to reproduce only under conditions set by the rulers and you have effectively insulated yourself against revolution; by controlling the people at this most basic level, you control them at the molecular level, below the level of conscious thought. They will not revolt, and they don't even know why! The people reflexively feel that they need permission from some authority figure, or approval from society in general, for even the most fundamental aspects of their existence. This reflex has been conditioned into them from childhood by the indoctrination centers known as public schools [with a lot of help from the mass media--D].

It is not about protecting children; it is about conditioning them to grow into docile, obedient, flag-waving, mindless adults whose intransigence is limited to the occasional grumble over a beer with some friends.
Brainwash them into becoming avid consumers and there will always be enough toys on the market to distract them.

Parents' fears of strangers are encouraged by the media, the victim industry, the educational system, the corporate state, and anyone else who has a vested interest in maintaining the status quo.
Age segregation may be the single best way to keep people docile, obedient, and dependent upon a select few for developing their worldview.

The laws are not protecting the girls, nor were they ever intended to. They were designed for control, and continue for that reason.

The generations must be kept apart, and it is not only the age of consent [AoC] laws that do this. For instance, all of the kids are segregated by age in the school system. The children have no contact with anyone except other kids their age, and the indoctrinators (i.e., parents, teachers, and preachers). The children therefore have no other worldview except their age peers, whose carefully controlled life experiences tend to mirror their own, and the controllers who indoctrinate them into maintaining the status quo.

Remember, one of the prime unstated functions of the school system is to prevent another revolution. By keeping the young people incarcerated in schools and the old people incarcerated in nursing homes, the work force is also kept separated from them, and the continuity of the generations is lost.
One of the chief differences between us and the other animals is that we can pass on our culture from generation to generation, unlike the cats and dogs who basically start over again each time. However, this generation separation is causing us to revert to the animal level culturally speaking: intergenerational feedback is being stifled.

It is not only MAAs [Minor Attracted Adults] who are hurt by this artificial age segregation, as all of our society is paying the price.

Before anyone argues that the states are therefore empowered to restrict your sex life and your choice of intoxicants, I refer you to that portion of the Bill of Rights which says the same thing (that is, anything not specifically restricted is allowed), and that portion of the Declaration of Independence which delineates the reason for the establishment of the united States of America (original spelling): "Among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness."
As for sex, the Constitution specifically forbids the Congress and the several states from establishing a religion, ''or'' requiring the American citizens to adhere to the tenets of any religion. AoC laws are nothing but religious morality enshrined in statute.

The Playboy Forum posted part of a conversation with one of the world's leading privacy consultants, Andre Bacard, who told them in reply to the question, "How would you turn America into a surveillance society?"

"It would not be difficult. Begin compiling dossiers on children as soon as they entered school, so that no generation from now on will remember what it is like not to be watched. Then have the media spread stories of child molesting, to convince people that repressive new laws must be passed to protect the family. Finally, convince the adults that they themselves are being threatened by terrorists,, drug dealers, and pedophiles, thereby laying the groundwork for more repression.
In fact, it has already begun."

"You've had sexual feelings since you were a child, but your society did not condone them. Now, as an adult, you naturally seek to project these prohibitions onto the next generation, so that the life-denying cycle will perpetuate itself."

It is the so-called "child advocates" are actually the ones harming children the most, in the long run.

Ignorance is neither a defense against evil,
nor protection against the world.

The majority of these reports have since been "discredited" for a number of reasons, but chief among them is the fact that so many of these "researchers" set out to justify an existing opinion, not to form an opinion or reach an unbiased conclusion. Objective, they are not.
Nor should we overlook the fact that in cases of consensual sexual activity, it is not the sex that causes the trauma, but society's reaction to it that freaks the kids out.

It needs to be remembered that researchers are frequently professional students who act as "hired guns" for certain organizations, doing the group's research for a grant, or sometimes a set fee. Did you ever wonder how ''USA Today'', as one example, always manages to come up with an "opinion poll" to buttress whatever axe the paper is grinding that day? They pre-screen the respondents.
Give me enough money to loll around a college campus for a year, and I would be pleased to do some quickie research for you, also. What point would you like me to prove for you?

Even if you could overlook all of the above, how do you account for the fact that in cultures where children are taught a positive view of sex, and child sexual activity is the accepted norm, there is no trauma?

Don't blame sex; blame the Abrahamic morality that uses sexual repression as a means of control.
All of the religions descended from Abraham, including Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, have a life-denying view of sex. The ancient Pagan practice of communing directly with the Divine through intercourse is a direct threat to any religion which claims to be the only path to God.

Blame the religions and the life-denying, corporate-state-enhancing message that they force-feed the populace; it is bullshit, plain and simple.
Then blame the politicians who whore for votes by pandering to the prejudice-of-the-month.
Blame the educational system for conditioning people to accept the blather.

Just don't blame sex.

Essay:A Critical Look At the Age of Consent Laws

2011-09-09T19:23:41Z

Dissident: /* by Strider@ThePub */

Essay:Movie Review/Analysis of SUNDAYS AND CYBELE

2011-09-09T19:21:35Z

Dissident: A Startling Revelation About the Celebrity Known as Jewel moved to A Critical Look At the Age of Consent Laws: New essay added.

#REDIRECT [[A Critical Look At the Age of Consent Laws]]

Essay:A Critical Look At the Age of Consent Laws

2011-09-09T19:21:35Z

Dissident: A Startling Revelation About the Celebrity Known as Jewel moved to A Critical Look At the Age of Consent Laws: New essay added.

Essay:A Critical Look At the Age of Consent Laws

2011-09-09T19:16:14Z

Dissident:

User talk:Dissident

2011-09-09T19:11:23Z

Dissident: New essay added.

Essay:Minors Can Be Victimizers--A Brief Analysis Of An Incident Showing Us Who Truly Has The Power In An Intergenerational Relationship

2011-08-29T05:26:00Z

Dissident: /* by Dissident */

== '''by Dissident''' ==

As our enlightened society loves to inform us, the young people we today label "minors" are always without exception a victim in even mutually consensual relationships with adults, and the reverse can never be the case, right?

'''Wrong'''. Take a look at [http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-11000718 this disturbing article] detailing an extortion racket run by an enterprising teenaged boy named Klez Sutherland (and possibly some unknown accomplices) in Britain. The article doesn't explicitly state Sutherland's exact age, simply referring to him as a "teenager," which means if he wasn't a minor, then he was likely not any more than a year or two over the Magic Age as it's defined in America, so what can be said about a minor's capabilities--both good and bad--can apply to him as well. It's a short article, so please read it and then check out my thoughts on this below.

It would appear that this article provides still more evidence to toss aside one of Western society's most cherished myths regarding intergenerational relationships: that those we today label "teens" can never be anything other than victims in such liaisons, adults always "know better," and the youths in question are always easily manipulated by these adults due to the latter's "superior worldly experience," with the reverse being thoroughly impossible. The article linked above should serve as a wake-up call to everyone who believes that mythical nonsense, as well as those who doubt the competence of youths, which can be quite devastating when directed in a negative manner.

This situation makes a few other things clear that are of relevance to the Minor Attracted Adult [MAA] community:

1) MAAs are likely to be prime targets for extortion schemes of all kinds. The police need to be mindful of this, as many people, both older and young, may end up jumping on the bandwagon in regards to such schemes, and they can easily rationalize what they are doing by saying, "These guys are 'pedophiles,' so who the hell cares what happens to them? They should be arrested, not me!"

2) This incident makes it clear how terrified MAAs are of disclosure for the smallest degree of contact with minors, sometimes even just for admitting to the wrong person that they have the attraction base, and are willing to pay extortionists large sums of money not to out them or report them to the police. This makes it clear how easy it is for ''anyone'' to manipulate members of this community for just about any conceivable purpose as a result of the constant fear of disclosure they have to live under in today's world, including getting them to stay silent about attempts to harm them, and probably even to lie.

3) Who really has the power in situations when minors and adults engage in mutually consensual relationships with each other as a result of the current laws? Minors may not have their civil rights at the present time, true, and society considers them in a disadvantaged position with adults in intergenerational relationships as a result. But is it really and truly the adults who have the power under the current state of affairs? Look how easy it is for unscrupulous minors to blackmail and extort money from adults who engage in mutually consensual sexual relations with them, or who even talk “dirty” with them via the phone or cyberspace. Yet most people in our society honestly believe that adults hold all the power in these situations, and that the adults are always the unscrupulous manipulators in such relationships. A little bit of common sense--as well as incidents like this--make it crystal clear how the reverse can very often and very easily be the case, as well as the fact that “minors” are not as stupid or incompetent as we think.

4) The age of consent [AoC] laws are making possible a potentially lucrative business for entrepreneurial-minded underagers with a lack of scruples, who, as I said above, can easily rationalize what they do as being "okay" because those "disgusting 'pedophiles'" deserve no less. Hence, it is becoming easy in today's climate for many people to rationalize or justify any type of illegal or unethical act or scheme, as long as your targets happen to be MAAs.

5) Considering the number of men who were victims of Sutherland's scheme, it would appear that sexual interest in underagers by adults is a lot more common than our "polite" society would like to think. And this includes gay and bisexual men as much as straight men, the former of whom often go to great lengths to distance themselves from having anything whatsoever in common with the MAA community. Why doesn't the revelation that many gay adults find underage people attractive surprise me? And keep in mind that this was a sex line designed for gay (and presumably bisexual) men, and not the "breeders." Obviously, the adolescent Sutherland, and whoever his accomplices may have been, knew something that the mainstream gay community would like to deny. And no, I am not saying that gay people typically have a preference for underage boys (or girls, as the case may be), but I am simply mentioning that an appeal for the natural attractiveness of youths is not as uncommon or alien to the mainstream gay community as its members and advocates would like the general public to believe when they routinely deride the MAA community and deny any kinship with us from a social and political standpoint--or display nothing but close-minded and vicious scorn towards our movement for emancipation: "We aren't the deviants, it's those scumbag 'pedophiles' that you should be concerned about! We are nothing like them at all!"

6) None of the men who were bilked by Sutherland and his cohorts visibly went off the deep end or issued counter-threats of violence to him. They simply handed him the money and slunk back into the shadows. The one who refused to be a victim handled the situation in a sane and sensible way by calling the police. So much for the common belief that underagers who have dealings with MAAs are likely to be murdered or subjected to some form of violence or threats even in situations like this. And again, it would seem as if younger people can do a bit of coercion of their own. Who would have thought?

7) As indicated above, “underage” people are not as stupid, naive, pure of heart, or incapable of pulling a fast one on much older adults as our society likes to think when defending the AoC laws. Though the majority of underagers are decent people, many of them are capable of being quite devious, unscrupulous, and, yes, ''predatory''. And the current AoC laws certainly do encourage such behavior in the less scrupulous youngsters out there. But that's just too damn bad for us MAAs, because society needs to keep young people "safe" from us, right? It would appear that the government, the media fear-mongers, and the social workers who make up the profitable sex abuse industry aren't the only individuals who are exploiting the current hysteria and bigotry at the expense of this community.

8) Sutherland's statement of defense in the courtroom was an interesting one, and provided a very, very telling commentary about the present degree of bigotry against MAAs. The men he and his possible accomplices targeted were "pedophiles" (actually, men displaying hebephiliac, not pedophiliac, tendencies), so Sutherland failed to understand why he was arrested and not the men he blackmailed. Hence, since it's commonly believed that MAAs do not deserve any consideration or decent treatment by anyone at all, and that everyone who chooses to victimize members of this community should be forgiven because we deserve to be victimized by others due to our "evil" ways, Sutherland doesn't understand why he is being punished for committing a crime against the indefensible. Is he--and the rest of society--to assume that MAAs do not deserve any protection or consideration under the law that is freely enjoyed by other people? And of course, not all of those men who were victimized were likely MAAs; sexual contact between adults and youths under the age of 18 is not as rare as society would like to believe, and teleiophiles [people with a “normal” preference for individuals in the same general age group] with either gender preference (or both) can likewise become attracted to underagers, particularly adolescents, who are--whether our "polite" society likes it or not--''young adults'' and therefore can be naturally attractive even to adults who do not have a preference for their age group. Further, the more forbidden our society makes adolescents to “legal adults,” the more enticing the prospect of being with one can be to many adults who may not otherwise have a preference for them. There is a reason why there is a surfeit of stories throughout our literary history which make it clear that many seek to taste what is considered “forbidden fruit,” and this undoubtedly entices some underagers who do not otherwise have a preferential attraction to adults to do the same out of curiosity as to what all the “fuss” is about. Is this not the lesson that the Biblical story of Adam and Eve taught us?

This was a very illuminating case on many levels, to say the least. I can already hear Oprah Winfrey lamenting about what a victim poor young Kelz Sutherland was in his interactions with those vile "pedophiles." Then again, if she could profit so handsomely from the ongoing hysteria and misinformation campaign about us, why shouldn't Kelz? They are birds of a feather, and Oprah is clearly an inspiration for young aspiring businessmen like Sutherland.

Essay:The Greatest Horror Of Them All--Being Labeled A Sexual Predator

2011-08-29T04:35:55Z

Dissident: /* by User:Dissident */

==by [[User:Dissident]]==
Special thanks and appreciation goes to the people at GirlChat [GC] for helping me edit my initial draft of this essay, and this 'thank you' particularly flows to the following fellow GirlChatters of mine who contributed to this essay: Joey Bishop, Scotty, Crimson Moon, and Dante.

Is there no place or hobby left untouched by the ongoing sex abuse hysteria? Is there nowhere, and no hobby, where we entities known as “legal adults” can interact with those who are legally considered "children" (even if very much adult in appearance and attitude) sans extreme fear of being labeled "child predators"? It would appear that no place and no hobby is safe from the hysteria, case in point...

This may come as a surprise to both the antis and the mass media (there is a difference, right?), but most of us in the MAA [Minor Attracted Adult] community are very multi-faceted individuals with a variety of interests and hobbies completely outside of our admiration for underagers in our respective age of attraction [AoA], or even with any political movement connected to advancing the rights of MAAs and/or youths. In other words, we are human beings, not the single-minded monsters of Western cultural mythology and the Walshian aspects of the media. And I am greatly sympathetic of the many non-MAAs in this society who sometimes have to live with almost as much fear as we do because of the people in this world who profit off of the current sex abuse hysteria, and therefore cause most adults to back off from associating in even the most indirect way with underagers, as if the latter carry a highly contagious form of leprosy that can be contracted even across the breadth of cyberspace.

Which brings me to the specific point of this essay. One of my many hobbies entirely outside of the MAA community—and mostly outside of politics and activism altogether--is my enjoyment of the sci-fi and horror genres in books, cinema, TV shows, video games, RPGs [role playing games], etc. I find much value in these genres since they are both inherently subversive, and they can therefore deal with subjects and themes that are difficult to express in non-genre fiction due to the sometimes taboo or sensitive nature of certain topics. As such, I believe the sci-fi and horror genres are extremely important to popular fiction, and this is especially the case when we are in the midst of a particular threat to our democratic principles (or more than one), and the ongoing sex abuse hysteria and accompanying "pedophile panic" certainly constitutes such a threat, as this essay will make abundantly clear.

This brings me to the most recent issue of ''Scary Monsters Magazine'' (issue #75) at the time this essay was written (circa September, 2010). ''Scary Monsters Magazine'', edited by Dennis Drukentis, is one of the best print mags on the shelves today that covers horror and sci-fi fiction, and among its many popular features is a terrific column that appears in most issues of the mag, Scare-News by writer and fantasy fiction fan extraordinaire Johnny Scareshock. In fact, Scare-News is probably one of the best columns in any modern mag dedicated to horror and sci-fi fiction. On page 109 of ''Scary Monsters Magazine'' #75, Johnny was talking about the usual stuff for his column, when suddenly he segued into an unsettling experience he recently had on Facebook. Here is what had shaken Johnny so much in his own words (copied verbatim in '''bold face'''):
:'''Facebook is a dangerous place. When people ask to be a friend the normal tendency is to allow it to happen. Well, when one of these friends asked me to join his fan club I had a sobering moment. I did not know who this "friend" was so I wondered why he would have a fan club in his name. I checked the fan club to find him using it to talk about his sexual fantasies. I saw that a number of his "fans" were young girls. I then checked this "friend's" profile to learn that he was only sixteen years old. Do you see what I am getting at here?'''
:'''I'm an adult, and if I were to join this child's fan club to read about his sexual fantasies that makes me a sexual predator. I quickly removed him as a friend. I then checked all of my other "friends" to make sure they were all over 18 and removed those who weren't. That incident was one example of how you can get into trouble simply by doing nothing.'''

The first thing I thought to myself after reading this while relaxing was, "Geez, can't I ever get away from this bullshit? Even we activists like a break from the nonsense we battle sometimes!" Let's think about this for a moment, people. Johnny Scareshock, who has nothing to do with anything remotely controversial that I am aware of, and certainly not the slightest involvement with the MAA community, is likewise feeling the fear that one would think should be limited to MAAs alone. He believes he will automatically be considered a "sexual predator" (his words!) simply for reading certain words on a certain socnet page/fan club. ''Just for reading words''!

Obviously, he fears that if any legal adult dared to get *gasp choke scream!* ''aroused'' by reading about the sexual fantasies of a 16-year-old boy, then he is a most heinous criminal, far worse than the mad scientists who plot world domination by infecting people with zombie viruses or creating artificial monsters out of cadaver parts to kill on command in the movies and books he makes a hobby out of watching or reading! Not that Johnny himself would get aroused by this (I am not certain where his proclivities lie, as I don't know the man personally, though he is married to a woman in his age group and I have no reason to believe that they lie anywhere outside of the "norm"), but he seems to fear that even if he didn't get aroused from reading such fantasies that people would nevertheless assume he did if he was seen listed as a friend on this boy's Facebook fan club. And that would be so indescribably horrible, right? Worse than anything Johnny saw Michael Myers or Hannibal Lecter do in any of their movies, correct? Johnny seems to feel that the rest of society would think so.

Here is where the problem truly gets bad. The fact that legal adults are so quick to avoid interacting socially with underagers and avoiding them like a human-devouring zombie plague is only adding to the heavily enforced age segregation in this society. If you're not a parent, you need to treat all underagers as if they carry the zombie plague that Scareshock reads about in the course of his hobby. Even if you’re a teacher or a coach and regularly work with underagers, you are strongly encouraged to keep your distance from them and to treat them as nothing more than students, and never as friends.

In fact, the definition of "sexual predator" is becoming increasingly broad, to the point that people like Johnny believe they will be considered one simply for reading words on an online page--or being associated in any way with a "child" (read: anyone below the Magic Age of 18) who is not one of your own kids. And if the "child" in question is doing something as horribly inappropriate as describing their sexual fantasies--something that young people under 18 are either not supposed to be thinking about (after all, they should be concentrating solely on their academic studies, right?), or at least not supposed to be talking about, especially not in a venue like cyberspace, where anyone--including "old perverts" or other "impressionable children"--can see these horrific words, any self-respecting and "normal" legal adult had better clear the area as if it was being sprayed by napalm! Mother of God, what if such fan clubs cause other "children" to start thinking about sex too? They probably never would have known or even thought about that awful aspect of nature in the first place if not for this overly precocious little pervert! Talk about something that is ''truly'' scary!

Also note that Johnny was freaked out to learn that several of this boy's fans were young (presumably underage) girls. Hmmmm...could this possibly mean that--and brace yourself for this one, people, because it may come as a major shock to our culture's sensibilities--underage girls ''actually have sexual desires'' and are therefore interested in hearing about the sexual fantasies of others? I shudder to think that any of these impressionable and innocent "little" girls may have been aroused by this boy's fantasies, so I am not about to go there! I don't want to risk spoiling these girls' socio-politically enforced chaste and virginal images. It was kind of Johnny not to participate in this travesty, not only for his own safety but also so that he wasn't contributing to the delinquency of these "children" in a by-proxy manner.

Let's also keep in mind that after this shocking incident, Johnny immediately removed any friend he had on Facebook who was under 18. He seemed to be encouraging all of his adult friends and readers to do so as well, and his concern and fear were totally understandable. After all, is there anything worse in this society than being labeled a "sexual predator," i.e., a horrible despoiler of beautiful childhood innocence? We can live with being labeled serial killers, because even they can be considered cool by many despite the gruesome murders they routinely commit [note the great popularity of Showtime’s series ''Dexter''], but sexual predators? *Sigh* They are the lowest of the low! There is simply nothing lower on the scumbag ladder than an adult who may read about underage sexual fantasies and possibly becoming aroused by them! I don't even think Anakin Skywalker went as far down into the abyss of the dark side as some vile adult who becomes aroused by the natural beauty of an underager! In fact, Anakin’s mass slaughter of children (young Jedi knights in training) after being re-christened Darth Vader by his new Sith lord in ''Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith'' was far less abominable in our culture’s eyes than if Anakin had been attracted to any of them in a sexual manner, or had become aroused after viewing nude holograms of them. If that had happened instead of the murders that we saw onscreen in the above film, fans of the franchise never would have found Vader redeemable—as he proved to be at the end of ''Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi''—and he would have been viewed as being even more vile by far than the Sith lord who initiated the downfall of an entire interstellar democracy, and who cajoled Anakin into embracing the dark side of the Force in the first place!

So now we reach a point where the fear has become so pervasive that adults en mass are avoiding virtually any type of association with underagers who are not their own flesh and blood, thus denying these youths potentially important networking opportunities and allies on the political field. Countless mutually beneficial friendships and relationships will now never come to be. Even adults who have no particular romantic/sexual preference for people under the Magic Age feel this fear and unremitting pressure to give underagers a wide berth, and to therefore deepen the already huge amount of age segregation in our gerontocentric society.

And what of adults who may want to read these youthful sexual fantasies simply out of ordinary curiosity? Or perhaps as the subject of serious scientific research? Isn't the subject of adolescent sexuality a fascinating topic that our society really does need to know more about? Wouldn't knowledge of this taboo subject shed much needed light on a topic that our society all too often avoids and wants to hear nothing about, due to both fear of labeling and of facing something that we do not want to acknowledge the existence of because of the cherished cultural paradigms it may shatter to pieces in the process? After all, if we accept the fact that underage sexuality is real, not to mention pervasive, and even--dare I say it--normal, do we not then risk opening up multiple cans of socio-political worms, including the possibility that it's relatively common for adults to find much younger people attractive? I guess society would prefer to allow fear of reality to rule than the scarier prospect of facing that reality. Is the fear of facing an uncomfortable reality not the worst type of fear imaginable when you consider all of the societal consequences of putting the myth before the reality? The ongoing sex abuse hysteria and the maniacal obsession by the government and parents alike to suppress virtually all instances of sexual expression by youths under 18, along with stifling and preventing virtually all social contacts between underagers and adults whom they are not related to or authorized to interact with (e.g., teachers, coaches, pediatricians), would certainly seem to qualify as highly unfortunate consequences, along with the worsening of an already widespread negative and generational-divisive social phenomenon.

While many people who share Johnny Scareshock's hobby huddle beneath the covers at night out of the fear that monsters may lurk under their bed, a far more realistic fear--sadly speaking--is what may lurk outside your front door as a result of becoming friends with an underager, or in any way providing evidence that you might be reading about their sexual fantasies. With the current sex abuse hysteria and fear of youthful sexuality--and the systematic age segregation, draconian laws, incessant labeling, public shaming, and the potential loss of employment and community respect that are the natural byproducts of it--one shouldn't be surprised that horror hobbyists like Johnny Scareshock would rather encounter Michael Myers or Jason Vorhees in a dark alley than an underage person on their Facebook page.

When is society going to come to its senses while we still have a semblance of a democracy? How long do people have to keep living in fear? How far is the age segregation going to have to go before adults feel even moderately safe from being saddled with the Ultimate Scarlet Label of the modern age? How restrictive do the laws have to become before people en mass come to their senses and collectively cry, "Enough is enough!"? How many more rights do young people have to lose and how far does censorship have to go before our society becomes Orwellian enough to satisfy the government? When can older people cease having a fear of establishing social connections with younger people? How irrational is this fear going to get before common sense finally proves triumphant? This topic can spawn a truly terrifying horror movie all on its own. I can see the title and ad campaign of the movie now:

''The Underage Friend: Horror From the Depths of Cyberspace''--"Can Johnny overcome the most horrifying situation of them all? Can he possibly survive the unremitting terror of being labeled a 'sexual predator?' If you thought Michael Myers, Jason Vorhees, and Hannibal Lecter were something to fear, then you’ve had it easy! Beware, all ye legal adults, for the ultimate horror is now upon mankind!" Cue to a trailer where a legal adult is seen using their laptop and innocently clicking to a page on Facebook to check out the fan club of a person who added him as a friend in the past, only to come across--prepare yourself--the page of an underage girl with a pic of herself wearing a bikini! This is followed by a scene showing the unfortunate man screaming in terror ("Aaaaaahhhh! Underage sexuality! Please stop this nightmare! I swear I didn't know who she was or what her fan club was all about before I accepted her friend request! I swear I didn't get aroused by that pic of her! Please don't label me a child predator! Please don’t drag me away to the clink or put me on one of those online registries! Please don’t take away every bit of community respect I spent the last 20 years building! Please don’t make me lose my job! Pleee--aaa--ssse! Give me a month alone in Camp Crystal Lake first, or even a year being tortured by the Cenobites in Hell, but for the love of God, please don't put me on a sex offender registry!"

Such a screenplay can practically write itself these days. What does it say for horror icons like Michael Myers, Jason Vorhees, and Hannibal Lecter when a young teen girl in a bikini is considered a scarier, more nightmarish, and more repulsive image than the likes of them? Do they have their work cut out for them when it comes to the hordes of underagers expressing their natural sexuality? Perhaps a pic of an attractive underage girl or boy in a provocative pose should make the cover of the next issue of ''Fangoria''. Then again, as horrible as such an image is in the eyes of our our society, every regular adult reader of the mag would be afraid to pick up a copy of that particular issue lest the cashier at the store report them to the police for "abusing" children by looking at their underage images on the cover.

==Addendum==
Following the original draft of this essay of mine when it appeared on GC, one of my fellow activists, Scotty, mentioned [http://www.annabelleigh.net/messages/510936.htm this]: "You are probably aware that a man in Ohio [Brian Dalton] was sentenced to seven years for writing erotic stories in his diary about young girls! Who was harmed?"

Another GC poster, Crimson Moon, noted [http://www.annabelleigh.net/messages/510937.htm this] in response:
:"I just looked up [http://blog.lib.umn.edu/cla/discoveries/2009/11/ohio-man-jailed-for-diary-cont.html a blog] about that guy who wrote the erotic stories [Brian Dalton] and a line from that blog really stood out.
:"'In earlier cases, the Supreme Court has consistently ruled that protecting children from pedophiles is more important than First Amendment rights.'"

That was followed by this response from yours truly:
:When the time comes that mere words and ideas are considered "dangerous," and the State feels the need to "protect" any segment of the population from these "dangerous" words and ideas, then we are truly headed towards a police state. Invoking the "protect the children" line of thought is usually a foolproof, challenge free method for any corrupt, anti-democratic politician for getting draconian legislation of any sort passed. Who in public office would dare challenge any type of legislation that was backed up by an alleged "protect the children" purpose--even if the legislation in question clearly had nothing to do with protecting children and everything to do with censorship of unpopular speech and ideas, dropping a further encroachment on the civil rights of society in general, or to harrass MAAs in particular? Certainly not any politician who had a hope for re-election in these paranoid times, or who would hope to avoid being labeled "soft on child abuse" by their opponents, that's for sure. Just who is it that the children--and society in general--truly need to be protected from? Pedophiles and hebephiles, or the State Gestapo that flourishes when a “witch hunt” mentality is thriving?

Lastly, my fellow GC activist Dante had [http://www.annabelleigh.net/messages/527429.htm this] to add about the above situation:
:"I'm not terribly surprised at a lover of 'taboo' and 'horror' having swallowed the moral panic without questioning it. Those who push the envelope validate the envelope. The truly transgressive go where they please nonchalantly. They aren't drawn towards taking a stand on an invisible line because they know that the line is a fiction. You can't be the Anti-Christ without having a relationship with Christ (even in the negative).
:"And much of Western Horror is actually moral reinforcement.
:"''Friday the 13th'' teaches us that teenagers who don't abstain will be hacked to death.
:"''Poltegeist'' teaches us that ignorance of the law is no excuse when it comes to violating zoning codes.
:"The apparent chaos of occult evil almost always resolves into, 'the wicked are punished, the moral survive.'
:"Contrast that with Japanese Horror or with tales from Celtic folklore.
:"'They hate you because you're good,' and 'Once you come to the attention of the fair folk [read: Authorities], you're f**ked no matter what you do,' are lessons more conducive to a challenge of moral panics than to their validation."
[[Category:Essays]]

Essay:The Beckii Cruel Situation

2011-08-29T04:15:18Z

Dissident: /* by Dissident */

== '''by Dissident''' ==

A recent documentary has come to light which has some major relevance to the Minor Attracted Adult [MAA] community, and the global cultural factors which affect public attitudes towards the pedophiliac and hebephiliac attraction bases (in this particular case, the latter), and I believe this warranted an essay.

The situation discussed in the documentary was adeptly summarized by my fellow MAA activist Joey Bishop in [http://www.annabelleigh.net/messages/509001.htm this post] of his on GirlChat:

“I just saw this BBC documentary titled ''Beckii: Schoolgirl Superstar at 14'', and it's probably one of the best documentaries I've seen in a while. It's an interesting chronicle of culture clash and instant Internet fame. It all starts when a cute British girl named Beckii, who's a fan of Japanese anime, and oddly enough sort of resembles an anime character herself, posts a video online of herself dancing along to an anime inspired J-Pop hip hop song called ''Danjo, Danjo''.

“Almost overnight, she becomes a sensation in Japan with her cute looks that resemble an anime character, which satisfies Japan's cultural fascination with both incredibly cute things, known as kawaii culture, and anime characters. Eventually, she ends up landing in the top 20 on the Japanese pop charts and having entire magazines filled up with photos of her. There are even aspirations to stardom back in her native Britain, as well as worldwide, and whether that possibility will prevail is left open ended, but looks at least somewhat promising. Things seem to be on the up and up for this pretty young girl.

“And yet, there is a culture clash and a moral dilemma in place. As Beckii herself admits, despite her appreciation of some aspects of the Japanese culture, she still thinks with a British mentality, and the sexual undertones of her appeal, and the age and gender of much of her fan base, troubles her and her family, which includes her policeman father. She's happy to receive expensive gifts from her biggest fan, an ostensibly wealthy middle-aged Japanese man, yet is a bit ambivalent about her relationship with him and whether it should continue despite the gifts he sends which please her.”

You can watch the video of the documentary online at the BBC three home page, which can be found [http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00tf20x here].

With the above said, courtesy of Joey Bishop (which I thank him for bringing to my attention), I now move onto my essay, where I have some words to say about this matter.

One of the major things about the Internet to keep in mind is that it's a global phenomenon. As a result, people from Country A that become overnight sensations as a result of uploading videos of themselves to sites like YouTube are sometimes going to achieve a lot of appeal not just in their native land, but also in Country B. If the latter occurs, then they are quickly going to realize that the values and attitudes of their indigenous culture are not the equivalent of laws of nature. The moral conceits that are so popular in the U.S. and Britain which demonize adult men who openly acknowledge the sexual attractiveness of adolescent girls under a certain arbitrary age are obviously not nearly as extant in certain Eastern nations like Japan, which has a long and solid tradition of Girl Love [GL], much as Greece and Rome had long-standing traditions of Boy Love [BL].

In Japan, it's considered completely normal for middle-aged heterosexual or bisexual men to acknowledge the attractiveness of young adolescent girls. Rebecca Flint, a.k.a., Beckii Cruel, and her family may not like this aspect of Japanese culture, but if she chooses to immerse herself in the intricacies of a culture that made her a superstar, she needs to understand that the GL aspects of Japanese culture are a package deal and have been a central part of anime since the inception of the medium (more on that in a minute). Hopefully, upon studying the Japanese culture in greater detail and accepting friendships from the middle-aged fan boys there who adore her on all levels, she will become more open-minded and come to question what she has always incorrectly believed to be the universal nature or moral absolutism of her own Western-based culture's disdain for adult men (and women) acknowledging the attractiveness of young adolescent girls. It will eventually become clear to Beckii that girls of her age group are seen as young adults in Japan rather than how they are most often viewed by the wider culture in Western nations, i.e., as older children. Also, it should be mentioned that true pedophilia, while still stigmatized to a degree in Japan, is nevertheless much more easily discussed there than in the Western nations.

Another thing regarding the situation discussed in this essay that Beckii should be aware of is this: in Japan, anime is enjoyed by people of multiple age groups, not simply children, tweens, and younger teens. The attitudes towards animated fare in Western and Eastern nations are often quite different. American and British audiences automatically relegate anything that is animated to the "kiddie ghetto," and such shows need to be made ‘kid friendly” in order to thrive on U.S. or British television, or on the big screen (unless, curiously, those shows are sitcoms like ''The Simpsons'' or ''Family Guy'', or odd comedic satire like ''South Park''). There are exceptions, of course (note the Cartoon Network's "Adult Swim" segment), but they are rare, they are usually not nearly as popular or widely viewed as the animated fare designed for younger audiences, and they are often attacked by parents groups who expect all such animated fare to conform to "family oriented" standards. In other words, in many Western nations (including the U.S. and Britain) the realm of animation isn't viewed as a particular medium where any subject or genre can be depicted, but instead seems to be perceived as nothing more than a genre that is automatically geared towards a specific age group.

This is not the case in Japan, where animated fare is geared towards and appreciated by a multiplicity of age groups. Anime is probably as popular among adults in Japan as it is to younger audiences. Hence, anime in its original form is often shown detailing themes that are not socially acceptable for "kiddie" fare in the U.S. and Britain, some of which would likely offend Western adult audiences even if explicitly geared towards that age group. As a result, when these anime shows are imported to American and British shores, they are heavily edited and censored, with any themes that may make them "inappropriate" for younger audiences according to Western cultural standards--including anything to do with intergenerational attraction--being excised. There have been several anime series featuring young girls where one of the girls' teachers or some other adult friend had a crush on her, and the adult in question was not automatically depicted as a bad guy, because what is called the hebephiliac attraction base in the Western world is not considered deviant in Japanese culture. But these themes (along with other things, such as scenes of young people smoking or drinking alcohol) are thoroughly extirpated from the American and British versions of the anime, which is why Beckii and other anime fans in the West wouldn't have the slightest clue that expressions of GL are relatively common, and something close to mainstream in the Land of the Rising Sun. Girls who grew up in a Japanese culture wouldn't consider such themes to constitute a "moral dilemma" (at least not in a knee-jerk manner), and regardless to how they may personally feel about adult attraction to girls in their age group, and whether or not they themselves may have a notable attraction to or even a preference for significantly older people or not, they nevertheless accept it as normal and common much as Western culture now largely considers mainstream homosexuality.

But Beckii grew up in a Western culture, during a time period when the "pedophile panic" and the resultant infantalization of young adolescent girls is still going ahead full steam, so it's no wonder that her reaction to the adult male attention she has received from her Japanese fan base would come off as morally dubious or "strange" to her. This also explains why she is attempting to put forth an "innocent" or entirely non-sexual image since discovering this adult interest in her despite the fact that the sexual aspects of girls in anime have never been hidden in their original Japanese versions, and also despite the fact that there is ample evidence that this level of "innocence" isn't natural to adolescent girls but is actually an artificial socio-cultural imposition. Beckii, being a standard product of her culture and time period, feels that she must acquiesce to these societal expectations for sake of adhering to an image that is socially acceptable to her particular culture. At one point in the documentary, she acknowledged the cultural differences between Japan and her native Britain in regards to this issue, but she said she still believes that it's morally wrong for adult men to have this type of admiration for young adolescent girls, or for girls her age to exude any sexual appeal. What she doesn't seem to realize is that her belief that this is morally wrong is no different than people of various cultures strongly believing that the homosexual attraction base is morally wrong, yet this doesn't change the fact that homosexuality is natural and pervasive despite some people's moral reservations against it, which is the same situation regarding pedophilia and hebephilia. As such, it's quite clear that moralism is both subjective and culturally relative.

Further, the fact that Beckii was supposedly so taken aback that a large proportion of her Japanese fan base are older adult males is not because adult attraction to girls in her age group is any less common in Britain than it is in Japan, but the illusion that this is the case occurs due to the fact that the vast majority of adult men in Britain do not acknowledge their attraction to young adolescent girls openly for fear of severe societal backlash. As a result, the many hebephiles in Britain (i.e., those adult men and women with a specific preference for young adolescents) are usually very much in the closet, a state of affairs which is demonstrably not the case in Japan. I think what Beckii needs to do in the future is to get her hands on some of the unedited, Japanese versions of the anime she enjoys so much, so that she can see some of these themes played out and come to the realization that the versions she sees in her native Britain are extremely whitewashed to make them more “acceptable” to the kid audiences in the West. This editing process is also done to make these animated series palatable to parents groups and polite society in general, who do not want intergenerational attraction depicted in a morally neutral fashion, do not want to see depictions of men with such an attraction base as anything other than predatory monsters in human skin, and do not want to see young girls giving out the implication that it's okay for them to express their natural human sexuality, let alone appear to embrace it proudly as a natural aspect of their being rather than attempting to deny its existence as Beckii is evidently attempting to do so as to appease the moralizing standards of her indigenous culture.

Many examples of anime featuring young girl characters display a degree of sexual appreciation for them (note the revealing outfits worn by many girl protagonists in certain anime), and it's a shame that the sanitized versions of these shows that reach American and British shores leave out these important aspects to such an extent that Western girl fans like Beckii are totally unaware of the existence of such a multi-faceted level of admiration for these young girl protagonists that she admires and identifies with.

Another thing to wonder about is whether or not Beckii was unduly influenced in her moral dilemma by her police officer father. The police are rivaled only by mainstream media moguls (such as Oprah Winfrey and just about any talk show host you can think of who is more interested in sensationalism-generated ratings than factual and open-minded discussions) as being the absolute worst source of information about MAAs and the phenomenon of adult attraction to minors in general. The police of Western nations do not routinely have mutually amiable discussions with the large number of MAAs who are perfectly law-abiding and decent people, and as such they do not have anything remotely resembling an accurate knowledge of the typical members of this community, nor do they see us as anything other than criminals or potential criminals who "prey" upon the young and vulnerable. To these police officers, arresting adults who engage in mutually consensual romantic/sexual relationships with young girls (and boys), or who view "sexy" pics of them online, is their job, and this will inevitably color their attitude towards even the large number of people in this community who do not break the law. This is precisely the same reason why police often develop a strong antipathy towards other marginalized minorities, including black people who live in the inner city ghettos and members of the homosexual community in the past (where they were often arrested for public displays of romantic affection towards each other).

Thus, it's to be expected that Beckii's father would have such a negative reaction to the attention his daughter is receiving from middle-aged men in Japan as a result of her stardom there, because he views all such men as nothing more than dangerous psychotic deviants who would try to harm his daughter if given the slightest chance. This, of course, is utterly ridiculous, as the vast majority of men who are attracted to minors are decent people who would never harm a youth in any real or demonstrable manner, and the fact that violent crimes against children and adolescents are extremely rare outside of the home even in nations where the majority of adults acknowledge an attraction to minors (such as Japan), should speak volumes about the validity of this hysteria, and the accompanying moral objections and attitudes to the attraction base. The admiration towards Beckii by these men derive from a culture that is not ashamed of acknowledging the great attractiveness and appeal of young girls on all levels, but considering the political and cultural climate of the nation that Beckii was raised in (specifically, the Isle of Man), it shouldn't come as any major surprise that she doesn't perceive such attention as flattering and affirming to her self-esteem, but instead something to be concerned about. Since the hebephiliac attraction base is readily acknowledged by the great majority of men in Japan, obviously most, if not all, of these men are not psychopaths but normal and well-adjusted individuals who appreciate what Beckii offers to the world on every conceivable level, as opposed to viewing her through the lens of Western cultural conceits, which would insist that she be perceived as "just a cute kid" and have all of her amazing qualities dismissed or downplayed as a result. Instead, her adult male Japanese admirers see her in a far more multi-faceted manner: as a talented and beautiful young woman who exudes a high degree of intelligence, energy, creativity, and sex appeal, and who does the great medium of anime proud by her enthusiasm for it.

At one point in the documentary Beckii's mother makes a sincere attempt to be open-minded about her daughter's great popularity amongst middle-aged men in Japan despite the political and cultural milieu in which she was raised by saying that she doesn't believe the common hype that all men who view her daughter's videos are "pedophiles" or other "seedy" individuals, and that many of these men are fully capable of enjoying these videos "innocently," i.e., appreciating every aspect of her daughter <i>except</i> for the sex appeal. Has it ever occurred to Beckii's mom that adult men are perfectly capable of admiring her obvious sexual attractiveness without that being the only reason that they admire her, that they can fully appreciate this in harmony with her other great qualities on display (e.g., talent, energy, a sparkling personality, creativity, a great appreciation for a much beloved medium, etc.), and that such men are not automatically "seedy" or in any way dishonorable simply because they find her physically attractive in addition to their admiration for all her other traits? Clearly, stereotypes about men who hold this natural and common attraction base for adolescent girls continues to abound in the Western mindset despite growing evidence that it's anything but unusual and that having this attraction base in no way denigrates the moral character of any adult who possesses it.

One other thing that should be mentioned here is that Beckii and her family seem totally unaware of the cam girl phenomenon of the past decade, a phenomenon that is hardly unknown and which has been the subject of many articles and at least a few television news shows (such as ''60 Minutes''). It's been well known for a long time now that since the inception of public access to the Internet and the invention of web cams that young adolescent girls (and sometimes boys) from any number of nations, including Western nations like the U.S. and Britain, receive an enormous amount of attention from adult men by putting cam photos of themselves up on personal websites, and sometimes even do real time cam shows for their adoring fan base (usually kept legal, of course). These girls routinely put up wish lists on their sites where they highlight all of the often expensive items that they want, as they know that their many adult male fans will gladly purchase these items for them as gifts. Further, many of these cam girls accept generous monetary donations from their adult male admirers to support both themselves and the operating expenses of their site. Some cam girls and boys have made quite a decent living off of donations and gifts courtesy of their legion of admiring adult fans, and this in a society where younger people are mostly denied any good opportunities to earn their own money and achieve any degree of economic independence from their parents. Do these girls actually believe that it's mostly adolescent boys in their age group who purchase these gifts for them, especially when these wish lists are often created on Amazon.com and most teen boys do not have credit or debit cards that would enable them to make the purchases in the first place, let alone have enough money to do so? It's often made quite clear by these girls that they are well aware that a large proportion of their admirers, both male and female, are significantly older adults. Though a few of these cam girls complain about the "old pervs" who dare to admire them, none of these girls evidently have any problem with milking their obvious sexual appeal for all its worth and receiving literally thousands of dollars worth of gifts from these smitten adult admirers every year, not to mention enough donations in some cases to enable them to make a better living than most of their parents do. There has never been the slightest evidence that the vast majority of these adult admirers are mentally unbalanced or dangerous in any way, and I have yet to hear of any instance where any of these cam girls were stalked and/or murdered by one of their adult admirers (even if they do sometimes receive erotic personal communications from them).

So while most men in contemporary Western culture are not willing to openly admit their attraction to young adolescent girls due to all of the severe societal stigma against it, they do indeed display their appreciation for these girls' great beauty and attractiveness in ways such as those mentioned above (where they can do so anonymously), so the phenomenon shouldn't have come to any great surprise to Beckii or her family. Is their professed naivety in this area of knowledge accurate, or are they simply "playing dumb" in an attempt to cater to the expectations of their culture? Adult attraction to young adolescent girls (as well as to children, even if in lesser numbers than hebephilia) is relatively common, pervasive, and quite obvious despite whatever level of moralizing condemnation may or may not exist against it on any level in any given culture. Furthermore, many adolescent girls are well aware of their sexual attraction to people of all age groups, and are readily able to profit from it if they so choose, so Beckii's claims to being innocently unaware of this aspect of herself is questionable. One must also wonder if she has honestly never seen the multitude of uploaded videos (particularly dance videos) to YouTube from tween and teen girls who are obviously making an effort to exude sex appeal, and are well aware that many of their channel's admirers are adult men. One cannot tell beyond a shadow of a doubt if Beckii is sincerely unaware of both this fairly ubiquitous aspect of YouTube as well as her own sex appeal, of course, but considering all of the obvious facts I mentioned above, I do not think it's out of line to at least question its veracity and wonder if she is just attempting to construct an image of herself that is acceptable to both her parents and her culture at large.

I think the friendship that Beckii has established with her biggest Japanese fan, a wealthy middle-aged man who sends her many gifts, will ultimately come to open her mind and expand her cultural horizons if she chooses to continue it. She will come to see that he is most likely not a monster, that his admiration of her is sincere, and that the sexual components of that admiration in no way lesson or taint the emotional and social aspects of that admiration. He likely appreciates her on all levels, and therefore affords her a level of respect that the great majority of people over the age of 18 in her native Britain (and elsewhere in the Western world) would not give her, at least not openly.

Though I would never expect Beckii or her Cruel Angels cohort Gemma (who also appears in the documentary and expresses many of the same misgivings about the adult attention she receives) to show an interest in adult men that they do not naturally possess--after all, I do not believe that the majority of adolescent girls are gerontophiles, i.e., possessing a pronounced romantic interest in or outright preference for significantly older adults--though I do believe the latter may very well comprise a significant minority of their number--I think they can nevertheless still receive a degree of flattery rather than concern or open disdain for a type of natural admiration that, while it may not be their personal cup of tea, was nevertheless responsible for a large proportion of the fan base that rocketed them towards stardom. It would appear that adult men (and likely women too) have a large influence on the level of popularity that adolescent (and possibly child) stars achieve, whether these youths and their families like it or not, and as such it may not be good form for these girls to publicly disparage this possibly important faction of their fan base, especially when there is no evidence whatsoever that these large numbers of adult fans are in any way dangerous even if their feelings are “inappropriate” due to Western culture’s contemporary biases.

Gemma said that she thought it was "sad" that adult men enjoy watching young girls dance in videos, without considering that if they didn't, her popularity margin may have been considerably less than it has become, and it's arguably possible that her rise to fame would not have received nearly as much support as it did without this faction of her fan base. This doesn't mean that girl stars like Beckii and Gemma should be expected to develop an attraction to these men if they do not naturally possess it to any sizable degree, but at the same time it doesn't mean that they shouldn't show this important part of their fan base the respect it deserves, and to realize that adult men who have this degree of admiration for young girls are neither rare nor deviant. It also means that the sexual component of these girls' appeal to fans of all ages need not be denied or suppressed to appeal to their native cultural biases, but can be embraced or at least accepted as a natural aspect of their being that cannot be fully stifled or ignored even if they sincerely want this to be the case.

In a brief '''addendum''' to the above essay, my fellow GirlChat activist Dante had this to say about the above:

"Now Japan does not embrace Girl Love just because it doesn't mind the girl-as-sex-object. But we are talking about a culture which refuses to buy the 'monkey see, monkey do' argument in regard to the morality of public entertainment. So their ability to compartmentalize fantasy from real actions is a great test-case for the harmlessness of fantasies.

"Though one should remember there are no bisexuals in Japan; let alone homosexuals.

"Emperor Taisho may've been queer as a three yen note; but officially he wasn't.

"Many homosexuals suffered needlessly during the early years of the AIDS crisis, but they weren't really there.

"Just sayin'."

[[Category:Essays]]

User talk:Dissident

2011-08-17T21:29:30Z

Dissident: /* Essays */

Essay: [[A Startling Revelation About the Celebrity Known as Jewel]]

==Hi there==
I hope you don't mind but rather than a redirect, I just posted the link up there since talk pages are for communication and all that. Anywho, I happened across an interesting comic but I am not really sure what to do with it. Any idea what section would be good on this wiki for it? I [http://rule34.paheal.net/post/view/667069 uploaded it here] (english translation). Seems like provoking commentary on modern censorship. [[User:Tyciol|Ty]] 10:17, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

==Essays==
Noticed you did a lot of essays, if you don't mind could you grab the ones I missed and tag them with [[:Category:Essays]] so all essays are linked from that category? [[User:Tyciol|Ty]] 10:34, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Hi, Tyciol,

Since when are you on the administration? What has been going on there
without my knowledge lately?

Anyhoo, the reason I placed those essays on the "talk" pages is because
nobody on the administration took the time, despite my requests, to
e-mail me and teach me how to use the tools of the Wiki properly,
including how to start new pages, to tag the pages with the appropriate
category, etc. Hence, I had to improvise and learn the entire thing
almost completely on my own. If you know how to work the tools,
including doing the above two things, and have the time to give me the
run-through on them, I would appreciate it.

In the meantime, since I do not currently know how to tag essays into
categories, I will list the other essays I put up that are not currently
on the list for the Category:Essays page, so that maybe you can tag them
and get a link to each of them up there yourself until I learn how to do
it:

http://newgon.com/wiki/Essay:Why_Most_Teens_Will_Not_Support_The_Age_Of_Consent_Laws_If_Given_The_Choice

http://newgon.com/wiki/Essay:A_Response_To_A_Person_Who_Expressed_Concern_Over_Intergenerational_Attraction

http://newgon.com/wiki/Essay:Depicting_the_Minor_Attracted_Adult_in_Cinema_-_A_Review_and_Analysis_of_GUTER_JUNGE

http://newgon.com/wiki/Essay:Child_Pornography_In_Art_Galleries

http://newgon.com/wiki/Essay:History_Of_Intergenerational_Relationships

http://newgon.com/wiki/Essay:The_Greatest_Horror_Of_Them_All--Being_Labeled_A_Sexual_Predator

http://newgon.com/wiki/Essay:The_Vagaries_and_Changes_of_Perception

http://newgon.com/wiki/Essay:The_Ultimate_Scapegoat

That's all I could find for now. Thank you for making this intervention,
it's both welcome and appreciated. I will get back to you with my
opinion on the comic strip you sent me a link to ASAP, so I have a bit
of time to look it over.

--Dissident

A Startling Revelation About the Singer Known as Jewel

2011-08-14T01:19:44Z

Dissident: A Startling Revelation About the Singer Known as Jewel moved to A Startling Revelation About the Celebrity Known as Jewel: New additions made

#REDIRECT [[A Startling Revelation About the Celebrity Known as Jewel]]

Essay:A Startling Revelation About the Celebrity Known as Jewel

2011-08-14T01:19:44Z

Dissident: A Startling Revelation About the Singer Known as Jewel moved to A Startling Revelation About the Celebrity Known as Jewel: New additions made

== '''by Dissident''' ==

How many people are familiar with the beautiful singer Jewel? If you are, then you will likely also be aware of the typically faux Horatio Algiers-style "rags to riches" claims fabricated by her PR managers to make it seem like she became famous and successful despite growing up in abject poverty and engaging in many types of very self-destructive and unethical behavior.

Her online bios give us the skinny on some of the bad things she supposedly did: "...fell in with street gangs, dated older men and even shoplifted." Isn't that interesting? Dating older men--whose personalities and intentions are in no way mentioned or even alluded to in the above statement (but are probably readily assumed by the typical reader, so no need to waste time asking those questions anyway)--is considered right up there on the Bad-O-Meter scale as getting involved with violent gangbangers and stealing. I mean, how could our darling little Jewel possibly sink so low? After all, hanging out with violent gangbangers and being a party to Goddess knows what type of activities they were engaged in--where typically many innocent people are hurt--is one thing, and so is taking things that do not belong to you; but going out with older men?! C'mon now, why couldn't Jewel have simply stuck to all of those lesser evils! Gods in heaven, where were this girl's parents?

Of course, since we know effectively nothing about the nature of those older men she dated, is it possible those older men may have cared for her? Or may have respected her as a person even if a mutual sexual attraction was the major factor keeping them together? Or may have treated her as an equal despite her being "just a kid?" Or may have bought her dinner and paid some of her bills for her, since her bios always claim that she was earth-shatteringly poor at the time? And they may have driven her from place to place, wherever she wanted to go, so that she didn’t have to use her own wheels and spend money she supposedly didn't have on gas and vehicle maintenance?

But who the hell cares if any of the above was the case, right? Girls dating older men is icky, for Christ's sake! I mean, c'mon now, how many hateful vigilantes do you see expending effort to entrap or hunt down gangbangers who routinely murder people and report their identities and personal information to the police, or how many vigilantes who hunt down those people who are inclined towards stealing from the local Wal-Mart, in comparison to all of those determined folks you see expending exhausting efforts to hunt men in chat rooms who commit the ultimate evil of having cyber-sex with underage girls or boys? Screw logic and common sense, and let our emotional impulses rule, that's our society's motto! And it's such a deeply ingrained motto for a good reason, right? After all, violent criminals who routinely take people’s lives for often petty reasons, and those who regularly steal property that does not belong to them, are small potatoes compared to those who commit the ultimate crime of stealing the “innocence” of adolescents in chat rooms, let alone in person during mutually desired interactions.

We should be thankful that all the vigilantes out there have their priorities straight. As concerned parents who want to protect our children, we need to be far more concerned about the age of the person our kids are dating regardless of whether or not he/she may be a decent person, rather than whether or not they may be hanging around with truly dangerous street gangs who may get them involved in activities like drug dealing, or may beat them up or even murder them for various infractions; or whether or not our kids are hanging around with same-aged peers who encourage them to risk a quick trip to juvie and a legal record as a result of stealing property from a store. Granted, their older boyfriend (or girlfriend) may be a basically decent person who truly cares about your child, and he might have no interest in getting them involved in anything related to violence or stealing; but he (or she) still might be engaging in mutually consensual sexual relations with your precious, innocent child, and we can’t stand for that! The gangbangers may be a far greater threat to your child’s life and safety--and let’s not forget that many gangs require girls to have sex with the male members in order to join--but at least those gangbangers are most likely to be in the same general age group of your child. Thus, that represents the lesser of the two evils since there is no chance a 15-year-old gang member could manipulate a girl of the same age into thinking she wants to have sex when she actually doesn’t compared to a “slick” and “worldly” man 20 years her senior. And of course, hanging around with unscrupulous same-aged peers who encourage her to shoplift aren’t stealing anything as valuable as her innocence; they are simply stealing material items intended for sale that do not belong to them from someone else. It’s better to lose an iPod or mp3 player on your display shelf than your innocence, since the value of the two cannot possibly be compared, right? As I said, we need to have our priorities straight, and these vigilantes show us the right way.

And what the hell is it with these older men who would be so depraved as to find a beautiful young girl with a perfect figure that a supermodel would kill to have, and a perky and energetic personality who is very uplifting to be around, attractive "in that way?" What the hell could those men possibly see in those girls that they couldn't see in these girls’ grandmothers instead? What the hell ever happened to their sense of decorum? What does it say about their character that they were willing to offend the sensibilities of their society by dating "inappropriate" partners? I just don't "get" these guys and their totally inexplicable attractions to young teen girls, let alone why an obviously sophisticated adult would want to waste his time hanging around with a "mere kid" instead of her obviously intellectually and culturally superior grandmother, who should also be far easier on the eyes to every single guy over 21 on the planet than any girl under 18, correct?

Come to think of it, what the hell was I thinking for actually believing that young girls could be amazing individuals who are attractive on so many levels that I would be honored to date several of them? I need to climb up out of the gutter along with those other older men who offended our kind society with their ghastly dating choices. I should go and join a violent street gang or a burglary ring instead; at least in those cases, society would find my destructive actions forgivable, and I wouldn’t have to worry about being hunted and stalked--or entrapped--by determined vigilantes in addition to the police.

As for Jewel, I will be forever disappointed in her after finding out this unforgivable info about her. I could live with her being a lover of violent gangbangers and a thief, as I'm certainly an open-minded guy who is not quick to judge. But that thing with being a lover of older men is just too much for even an enlightened and open-minded liberal like me to deal with, I'm sorry to say. I mean, as tolerant as I am, we gotta draw the line somewhere, right?

Essay:A Startling Revelation About the Celebrity Known as Jewel

2011-08-14T01:16:01Z

Dissident: Minor edit made

Talk:Essay:The Ultimate Scapegoat

2011-08-14T01:08:08Z

Dissident: Talk:Essay:The Ultimate Scapegoat moved to A Startling Revelation About the Singer Known as Jewel: New essay

#REDIRECT [[A Startling Revelation About the Singer Known as Jewel]]

Essay:A Startling Revelation About the Celebrity Known as Jewel

2011-08-14T01:08:08Z

Dissident: Talk:Essay:The Ultimate Scapegoat moved to A Startling Revelation About the Singer Known as Jewel: New essay

How many people are familiar with the beautiful singer Jewel? If you are, then you will likely also be aware of the typically faux Horatio Algiers-style "rags to riches" claims fabricated by her PR managers to make it seem like she became famous and successful despite growing up in abject poverty and engaging in many types of very self-destructive and unethical behavior.

Her online bios give us the skinny on some of the bad things she supposedly did: "...fell in with street gangs, dated older men and even shoplifted." Isn't that interesting? Dating older men--whose personalities and intentions are in no way mentioned or even alluded to in the above statement (but are probably readily assumed by the typical reader, so no need to waste time asking those questions anyway)--is considered right up there on the Bad-O-Meter scale as getting involved with violent gangbangers and stealing. I mean, how could our darling little Jewel possibly sink so low? After all, hanging out with violent gangbangers and being a party to Goddess knows what type of activities they were engaged in--where typically many innocent people are hurt--is one thing, and so is taking things that do not belong to you; but going out with older men?! C'mon now, why couldn't Jewel have simply stuck to all of those lesser evils! Gods in heaven, where were this girl's parents?

Of course, since we know effectively nothing about the nature of those older men she dated, is it possible those older men may have cared for her? Or may have respected her as a person even if a mutual sexual attraction was the major factor keeping them together? Or may have treated her as an equal despite her being "just a kid?" Or may have bought her dinner and paid some of her bills for her, since her bios always claim that she was earth-shatteringly poor at the time? And they may have driven her from place to place, wherever she wanted to go, so that she didn’t have to use her own wheels and spend money she supposedly didn't have on gas and vehicle maintenance?

But who the hell cares if any of the above was the case, right? Girls dating older men is icky, for Christ's sake! I mean, c'mon now, how many hateful vigilantes do you see expending effort to entrap or hunt down gangbangers who routinely murder people and report their identities and personal information to the police, or how many vigilantes who hunt down those people who are inclined towards stealing from the local Wal-Mart, in comparison to all of those determined folks you see expending exhausting efforts to hunt men in chat rooms who commit the ultimate evil of having cyber-sex with underage girls or boys? Screw logic and common sense, and let our emotional impulses rule, that's our society's motto! And it's such a deeply ingrained motto for a good reason, right? After all, violent criminals who routinely take people’s lives for often petty reasons, and those who regularly steal property that does not belong to them, are small potatoes compared to those who commit the ultimate crime of stealing the “innocence” of adolescents in chat rooms, let alone in person during mutually desired interactions.

We should be thankful that all the vigilantes out there have their priorities straight. As concerned parents who want to protect our children, we need to be far more concerned about the age of the person our kids are dating regardless of whether or not he/she may be a decent person, rather than whether or not they may be hanging around with truly dangerous street gangs who may get them involved in activities like drug dealing, or may beat them up or even murder them for various infractions; or whether or not our kids are hanging around with same-aged peers who encourage them to risk a quick trip to juvie and a legal record as a result of stealing property from a store. Granted, their older boyfriend (or girlfriend) may be a basically decent person who truly cares about your child, and he might have no interest in getting them involved in anything related to violence or stealing; but he (or she) still might be engaging in mutually consensual sexual relations with your precious, innocent child, and we can’t stand for that! The gangbangers may be a far greater threat to your child’s life and safety--and let’s not forget that many gangs require girls to have sex with the male members in order to join--but at least those gangbangers are most likely to be in the same general age group of your child. Thus, that represents the lesser of the two evils since there is no chance a 15-year-old gang member could manipulate a girl of the same age into thinking she wants to have sex when she actually doesn’t compared to a “slick” and “worldly” man 20 years her senior. And of course, hanging around with unscrupulous same-aged peers who encourage her to shoplift aren’t stealing anything as valuable as her innocence; they are simply stealing material items intended for sale that do not belong to them from someone else. It’s better to lose an iPod or mp3 player on your display shelf than your innocence, since the value of the two cannot possibly be compared, right? As I said, we need to have our priorities straight, and these vigilantes show us the right way.

And what the hell is it with these older men who would be so depraved as to find a beautiful young girl with a perfect figure that a supermodel would kill to have, and a perky and energetic personality who is very uplifting to be around, attractive "in that way?" What the hell could those men possibly see in those girls that they couldn't see in these girls’ grandmothers instead? What the hell ever happened to their sense of decorum? What does it say about their character that they were willing to offend the sensibilities of their society by dating "inappropriate" partners? I just don't "get" these guys and their totally inexplicable attractions to young teen girls, let alone why an obviously sophisticated adult would want to waste his time hanging around with a "mere kid" instead of her obviously intellectually and culturally superior grandmother, who should also be far easier on the eyes to every single guy over 21 on the planet than any girl under 18, correct?

Come to think of it, what the hell was I thinking for actually believing that young girls could be amazing individuals who are attractive on so many levels that I would be honored to date several of them? I need to climb up out of the gutter along with those other older men who offended our kind society with their ghastly dating choices. I should go and join a violent street gang or a burglary ring instead; at least in those cases, society would find my destructive actions forgivable, and I wouldn’t have to worry about being hunted and stalked--or entrapped--by determined vigilantes in addition to the police.

As for Jewel, I will be forever disappointed in her after finding out this unforgivable info about her. I could live with her being a lover of violent gangbangers and a thief, as I'm certainly an open-minded guy who is not quick to judge. But that thing with being a lover of older men is just too much for even an enlightened and open-minded liberal like me to deal with, I'm sorry to say. I mean, as tolerant as I am, we gotta draw the line somewhere, right?

Essay:A Startling Revelation About the Celebrity Known as Jewel

2011-08-14T01:07:12Z

Dissident: New essay added

User talk:Dissident

2011-08-14T00:54:36Z

Dissident: User talk:Dissident moved to Talk:Essay:The Ultimate Scapegoat: New essay.

#REDIRECT [[Talk:Essay:The Ultimate Scapegoat]]

Essay:A Startling Revelation About the Celebrity Known as Jewel

2011-08-14T00:54:36Z

Dissident: User talk:Dissident moved to Talk:Essay:The Ultimate Scapegoat: New essay.

#REDIRECT [[Essay:Depicting the Minor Attracted Adult in Cinema - A Review and Analysis of GUTER JUNGE]]

User:Dissident

2011-08-14T00:54:36Z

Dissident: User:Dissident moved to Essay:The Ultimate Scapegoat: New essay.

#REDIRECT [[Essay:The Ultimate Scapegoat]]

Essay:The Ultimate Scapegoat

2011-08-14T00:54:36Z

Dissident: User:Dissident moved to Essay:The Ultimate Scapegoat: New essay.

== '''by Kabouter''' ==

The ultimate scapegoat is the one who is invisible. The weapon that Malignant Power (i.e., government and big business) uses both to punish scapegoats and simultaneously intimidate the rest of the populace is ''fear''.

The problem with all previous scapegoats (except perhaps for witches) is that they were immediately visible. They could be identified as - and persecuted as - groups. They had a definable and discernible identity. However, because of their visibility, their value as fear-inducing elements was more limited. Look at the blacks, the Jews, the Arabs, the disabled, the mentally ill, those with a different religion or language, etc: easy to spot and easy to persecute, but also easy for Joe Normal to distinguish himself from. They were an easily identifiable enemy; an essentially external enemy. We can feel comfortable when we are so obviously not black, a Jew, disabled, etc.

Minor Attracted Adults [MAAs], on the other hand, are a unique group because no one knows exactly who they are. They could be anyone, and usually when they are outed society rails in anguish and frustration; the priest, the teacher, the youth worker, etc. Like the witches of Salem, MAAs are impossible to distinguish visually, or by using the other senses.

Further, most paedophilic and hebephiliac sexual activity occurs within the close family. Most of the time, little girls and boys [or their adolescent counterparts] are subjected to such activity by daddy or one of his avatars. Much of that sex is not consensual, and the double whammy is that the protector is also the defiler and abuser. Also, he or she is impossible to detect if little Jane or Johnny keeps sch-tum. Society cannot handle that. These are your regular guys: businessmen, hard workers, patriots, et al. So let's instead pretend that someone else is the dangerous one. Let's pretend this to such a degree that we criminalize his fantasies – that he wanks to pictures that are 50 years old, or that erotic stories are somehow abusive, etc. And trust me, the child-abusing father will be the most strident enemy of the media monster "paedophile."

There is plenty there for fear to thrive, and fertile ground for fear to take deep root and flourish. And fear is the weapon of choice for Malignant Power. Without mastery of fear, the Nazis could never have taken root and controlled a whole society for 12 years.

And in the end, that is the way Rupert Murdoch makes his money. He promotes fear, instigates it, incubates it, and gives birth to it. He creates the media "paedophile," and then uses it to terrify the society he wants to fleece with
his propaganda. I have met many hundreds of MAAs in my life, and I cannot think of one who conforms to the media stereotype (although a very few come close). About 97% of MAAs are pretty regular guys, decent people who are mostly gentle, kind, and honourable. There are probably as many psychos amongst them, relatively speaking, as in the rest of the population. And after Murdoch has created his monsters, Malignant Authority applauds his success, as he has invented someone else to use as a smokescreen to hide behind. Well done and thanks, Mr. Murdoch.

Fear leads to control, and control is what Murdoch and his pretty son showed us that they value the most when being interviewed by the British parliament.

As fellow BoyChat [BC] writer/activist Sick Rose noted in [http://www.boychat.org/messages/1261266.htm this essay] of his, the concept of demasculinization serves the interests of those who require a docile workforce and election fodder. Those who have genius and insight are cowed into silence if they cannot first be exploited.

So we are the invisible enemy - which seems to be what former BC webmaster Dylan Thomas was often saying. And the draconian laws against adult attraction to minors, even at the personal fantasy level, means that few - like fellow MAA activists Jim Finn 111 or Dave Reigel - will dare to be visible. Thus, the media monster can survive to feed the fear and facilitate the control of the masses.

I always argued that the only way for us to confront our oppression was for us to become visible Stonewall-style. I still believe that if we all outed ourselves on a particular day, and on a worldwide scale, society would shake to its very roots, and be forced to change so as to include us as open paedophiles and hebephiles. It might happen one day, an Arab spring of pedos and hebes, but I don't think this will be in my lifetime. But ''Tiocfaidh ár lá'' - our day will come. Of this, I am entirely certain.

'''Important Note:''' There is another group of "invisible" scapegoats in history who were subject to the same level of persecution and media/political hysteria as present day MAAs - and that is the communists, particularly in the U.S.A. during the 1950s.

Essay:The Ultimate Scapegoat

2011-08-14T00:53:58Z

Dissident: New essay added.

Essay:A Startling Revelation About the Celebrity Known as Jewel

2011-08-14T00:30:58Z

Dissident: User talk:Dissident moved to Essay:Depicting the Minor Attracted Adult in Cinema - A Review and Analysis of GUTER JUNGE: New essay.

#REDIRECT [[Essay:Depicting the Minor Attracted Adult in Cinema - A Review and Analysis of GUTER JUNGE]]

Essay:Depicting the Minor Attracted Adult in Cinema - A Review and Analysis of GUTER JUNGE

2011-08-14T00:30:58Z

Dissident: User talk:Dissident moved to Essay:Depicting the Minor Attracted Adult in Cinema - A Review and Analysis of GUTER JUNGE: New essay.

== '''by Summerdays''' ==

'''Depicting the Pedophile in Cinema: ''Guter Junge'''''

''Guter Junge'' ("A Good Boy") is a German film about a teen who is attracted to younger boys. The teen, Sven, goes to live with his divorced father, Achim, after his mother is killed in an auto accident. But soon his father finds out about his attractions. Sven attempts suicide, but his father intercedes. Though he cannot understand and refuses to condone the attraction, Achim's love for his son leads him to try - rather clumsily - to help him "get over" his feelings and adapt to a "normal" life, rather than turn him over to authorities. Inevitably, though, this attempt to suppress Sven's natural orientation fails, and he ends up in jail anyway.

It's rare to find a film that offers a sympathetic portrayal of a pedophile character. Of those that I have seen, ''Guter Junge'' is one of the better ones. Granted, there are practical limitations to how sympathetically you can portray a pedophile without being run out of town, and this film is not immune to that. Though Sven is portrayed very sympathetically, and his father tries hard to help him, the narrative still employs some measure of stereotyping, and ultimately suffers from an incomplete exploration of the themes involved. Put simply, it doesn't offer any kind of hope for a solution, which is really not surprising, because the public is not ready to be told that pedophiles can (or deserve to) enjoy a happy ending. However, I'd like to provide some notes, for the edification of those who shall follow in this film's footsteps, detailing what this story lacks, and how it might be improved for a more positive and hopeful portrayal of pedophilia (even in spite of all the difficulties and complications that being a pedophile [or hebephile] in this society entails).

First, let's consider the way Sven "recruits" his "victims." It is admirable that this film makes some attempt to indicate that the young boy whom Sven has feelings for, Patrick, is not traumatized by his friendship with Sven, and even suggests that the affection shared between them is mutual. However, it is still troubling the way that Sven is accustomed to lying to boys to get them into his bedroom, telling them that he is a talent scout, and then filming them as if they were auditioning for a role.

This seems to be a stereotypical portrayal of how a child molester might stalk and groom his victims. I will grant that it may not be an unrealistic depiction of how a pedophile in particular might attempt to become closer to boys. But I think it deserves to be said that the pedophile in this instance might well be acting out of desperation. Society does not provide an environment where it is acceptable for a teen or older man (or woman) to befriend little boys (or girls), certainly not to offer them romantic gestures. And it also must be said that a pedophile may be perfectly capable of avoiding interacting in such a manner with children, in spite of their desires (I'll have more to say on that in a moment). But even for those pedophiles who do, you have to consider that there's no real alternative. No, I don't think it justifies lying to kids, and leading them into unexpected romantic encounters that they may not desire. However, I do believe it deserves to be considered as a mitigating factor, especially when generalizing on the intentions of pedophiles. I genuinely don't think that most pedophiles want to victimize children - and the fact that some of them do should be weighed against the fact that the only way to avoid it is to restrain oneself completely. Again, this is absolutely no excuse for abuse, but it should be considered when interpreting a pedophile's behaviors.

Furthermore, I would like to add that just because certain unscrupulous individuals may use the guise of being a "talent scout" (or similar foils) to gain (and later take advantage of) the trust of children, this should not be used as an excuse to punish (e.g., by imposing unnecessary restrictions on) genuine talent scouts who really can deliver on the promises they make, and who admire the talents of children independent of the desire to "abuse" them.

Now let's talk about the (apparent) inevitability of offending. I did not like that this film, through the words of Sven's father, likened pedophilia to a drug addiction. According to his father, Sven was like a junkie; his next "hit" was inevitable, no matter how hard he tried to avoid it, and no matter how hard he wanted to avoid it. Sven really wanted to change, and I believe he would if he could. But pedophilia is not a choice, and it's not a phase that people grow out of. There was a really good opportunity in this film to emphasize the fact that this attraction is something a pedophile has to live with their entire life; that they have to learn how to come to terms with it, and not try futilely to fight against it. And this point does come out in the end, when it's apparent that Sven cannot "kick" his attraction. But what's not helpful is this assumption that feelings inevitably lead to behaviors, i.e., that if a pedophile has desires, then it's only a matter of time before he will offend.

This is a really dangerous belief, not just because it marginalizes the many pedophiles who do live relatively successful and content lives while staying within the law. It's also dangerous because it robs the pedophile of any hope of living well, and living without offending. Speaking as a pedophile, this is incredibly depressing. But even from the perspective of the rest of the world, if it were possible for pedophiles to live without offending, isn't this the sort of thing we should be encouraging, and striving to understand, so we can promote it? Wouldn't it be better than resigning ourselves to the point of view that the only good pedophile is a dead pedophile? What if we could eliminate the pedophile's "danger" to children, without having to resort to the equivalent of genocide? Is that not a goal worth considering, even to the point of exploring in the media as we sometimes do in cinema? What good do you think it serves to insist that pedophiles will inevitably molest children? How do you expect the pedophiles to act when they have to hear that repeatedly? And who aren't even allowed to consider that being a pedophile could mean something different than becoming a child molester? Why are we encouraging these damaging thoughts?

Think about the moral of this film: if you're a pedophile, you can struggle all you like, but you're eventually going to offend, and then you'll end up in jail. Even if you find loved ones who try to help you, there is nothing to be done about it. If you don't want to live a tortured life of hiding, or end up behind bars, you may as well kill yourself. I think it was really sympathetic the way that Sven unsuccessfully attempted suicide, and then afterward his father tried to convince him that he was better off alive. And for awhile, it seemed like that might have been true. But considering how things ended, are we supposed to look back and say, "Oh well, he should have just killed himself and gotten it over with back then after all?" Is that the moral? Or is it that there's no point in trying to help a pedophile, no matter how much you may love them as a person, because they're going to end up in jail one way or another, so you might as well turn him in, before he (or she) hurts any (more) children?

There was a single gleam of hope, and that is when Achim's girlfriend was insisting that he take Sven to a therapist. But as any pedophile will recognize, it's a perilous lifeline. Sven's father refused, because he suspected the same thing that most pedophiles suspect, which effectively eliminates any possibility for therapeutic treatment: he didn't want to give Sven up to a therapist, because he feared they would take Sven away from him if they knew about his attractions. When you're trying to keep pedophilia a secret, because you believe the treatment that the state or the public offers (demands!) is not conducive to the pedophile's health (which in turn affects the children that pedophile will interact with), you have no choice but to view therapists as part of that machine, i.e., an arm of the enemy, not an ally. This is a very effective block to treatment. I am sure there are some honorable therapists in practice, but whether or not a therapist will really betray a pedophile's confidence is irrelevant when the common belief is that they are untrustworthy. If a pedophile doesn't have enough trust to risk therapy, he will never find out, and the result is the same - no treatment, no guidance, he's left to fend for himself. And we've seen where that often leads (though it's not inevitable, as the many well-adjusted pedophiles in the world would attest to - that is, if they weren't afraid to speak up, which could seriously undermine their safety).

''Guter Junge'' was a very good film. However, we still have a long way to go to create a film about pedophilia that is truly good for society. The thing that concerns me the most is that we seem content to wallow in our despair over the topic of intergenerational attraction. We don't seem committed to truly addressing the issue critically, with a mind to finding practical solutions to the various problems pedophilia and hebephilia causes (not limited just to children or adolescents, respectively), or even further, considering the possibility that pedophilia is not so much the cause of these problems, but more an indicator of what's wrong with our constructions of childhood and sexuality overall, or of our eagerness to single out a scapegoat to unload our frustrations upon. The important thing is to have an open discussion about these topics, so that when we reach conclusions, we can be confident that we've considered the alternatives, and have chosen the conclusion that makes sense, not the one that "feels right," before we've critically examined the evidence. And right now, we don't have an open discussion. The discussion is very much closed and one-sided. Pedophilia will not cease being a problem until we've allowed ourselves to open up the discourse and at least consider what the other side of the issue has to offer. You can deny this, and fight it all you want, but as the years pass by, and our one-track attitude towards pedophilia persists, I ask you to examine whether or not the problem is going away. Has it yet?

Essay:Depicting the Minor Attracted Adult in Cinema - A Review and Analysis of GUTER JUNGE

2011-08-14T00:29:15Z

Dissident: New essay added.

Essay:The Greatest Horror Of Them All--Being Labeled A Sexual Predator

2011-07-24T04:33:24Z

Dissident:

== '''by Dissident''' ==

Special thanks and appreciation goes to the people at GirlChat [GC] for helping me edit my initial draft of this essay, and this 'thank you' particularly flows to the following fellow GirlChatters of mine who contributed to this essay: Joey Bishop, Scotty, Crimson Moon, and Dante.

Is there no place or hobby left untouched by the ongoing sex abuse hysteria? Is there nowhere, and no hobby, where we entities known as “legal adults” can interact with those who are legally considered "children" (even if very much adult in appearance and attitude) sans extreme fear of being labeled "child predators"? It would appear that no place and no hobby is safe from the hysteria, case in point...

This may come as a surprise to both the antis and the mass media (there is a difference, right?), but most of us in the MAA [Minor Attracted Adult] community are very multi-faceted individuals with a variety of interests and hobbies completely outside of our admiration for underagers in our respective age of attraction [AoA], or even with any political movement connected to advancing the rights of MAAs and/or youths. In other words, we are human beings, not the single-minded monsters of Western cultural mythology and the Walshian aspects of the media. And I am greatly sympathetic of the many non-MAAs in this society who sometimes have to live with almost as much fear as we do because of the people in this world who profit off of the current sex abuse hysteria, and therefore cause most adults to back off from associating in even the most indirect way with underagers, as if the latter carry a highly contagious form of leprosy that can be contracted even across the breadth of cyberspace.

Which brings me to the specific point of this essay. One of my many hobbies entirely outside of the MAA community—and mostly outside of politics and activism altogether--is my enjoyment of the sci-fi and horror genres in books, cinema, TV shows, video games, RPGs [role playing games], etc. I find much value in these genres since they are both inherently subversive, and they can therefore deal with subjects and themes that are difficult to express in non-genre fiction due to the sometimes taboo or sensitive nature of certain topics. As such, I believe the sci-fi and horror genres are extremely important to popular fiction, and this is especially the case when we are in the midst of a particular threat to our democratic principles (or more than one), and the ongoing sex abuse hysteria and accompanying "pedophile panic" certainly constitutes such a threat, as this essay will make abundantly clear.

This brings me to the most recent issue of ''Scary Monsters Magazine'' (issue #75) at the time this essay was written (circa September, 2010). ''Scary Monsters Magazine'', edited by Dennis Drukentis, is one of the best print mags on the shelves today that covers horror and sci-fi fiction, and among its many popular features is a terrific column that appears in most issues of the mag, Scare-News by writer and fantasy fiction fan extraordinaire Johnny Scareshock. In fact, Scare-News is probably one of the best columns in any modern mag dedicated to horror and sci-fi fiction. On page 109 of ''Scary Monsters Magazine'' #75, Johnny was talking about the usual stuff for his column, when suddenly he segued into an unsettling experience he recently had on Facebook. Here is what had shaken Johnny so much in his own words (copied verbatim in '''bold face'''):

'''Facebook is a dangerous place. When people ask to be a friend the normal tendency is to allow it to happen. Well, when one of these friends asked me to join his fan club I had a sobering moment. I did not know who this "friend" was so I wondered why he would have a fan club in his name. I checked the fan club to find him using it to talk about his sexual fantasies. I saw that a number of his "fans" were young girls. I then checked this "friend's" profile to learn that he was only sixteen years old. Do you see what I am getting at here?'''

'''I'm an adult, and if I were to join this child's fan club to read about his sexual fantasies that makes me a sexual predator. I quickly removed him as a friend. I then checked all of my other "friends" to make sure they were all over 18 and removed those who weren't. That incident was one example of how you can get into trouble simply by doing nothing.'''

The first thing I thought to myself after reading this while relaxing was, "Geez, can't I ever get away from this bullshit? Even we activists like a break from the nonsense we battle sometimes!" Let's think about this for a moment, people. Johnny Scareshock, who has nothing to do with anything remotely controversial that I am aware of, and certainly not the slightest involvement with the MAA community, is likewise feeling the fear that one would think should be limited to MAAs alone. He believes he will automatically be considered a "sexual predator" (his words!) simply for reading certain words on a certain socnet page/fan club. ''Just for reading words''!

Obviously, he fears that if any legal adult dared to get *gasp choke scream!* ''aroused'' by reading about the sexual fantasies of a 16-year-old boy, then he is a most heinous criminal, far worse than the mad scientists who plot world domination by infecting people with zombie viruses or creating artificial monsters out of cadaver parts to kill on command in the movies and books he makes a hobby out of watching or reading! Not that Johnny himself would get aroused by this (I am not certain where his proclivities lie, as I don't know the man personally, though he is married to a woman in his age group and I have no reason to believe that they lie anywhere outside of the "norm"), but he seems to fear that even if he didn't get aroused from reading such fantasies that people would nevertheless assume he did if he was seen listed as a friend on this boy's Facebook fan club. And that would be so indescribably horrible, right? Worse than anything Johnny saw Michael Myers or Hannibal Lecter do in any of their movies, correct? Johnny seems to feel that the rest of society would think so.

Here is where the problem truly gets bad. The fact that legal adults are so quick to avoid interacting socially with underagers and avoiding them like a human-devouring zombie plague is only adding to the heavily enforced age segregation in this society. If you're not a parent, you need to treat all underagers as if they carry the zombie plague that Scareshock reads about in the course of his hobby. Even if you’re a teacher or a coach and regularly work with underagers, you are strongly encouraged to keep your distance from them and to treat them as nothing more than students, and never as friends.

In fact, the definition of "sexual predator" is becoming increasingly broad, to the point that people like Johnny believe they will be considered one simply for reading words on an online page--or being associated in any way with a "child" (read: anyone below the Magic Age of 18) who is not one of your own kids. And if the "child" in question is doing something as horribly inappropriate as describing their sexual fantasies--something that young people under 18 are either not supposed to be thinking about (after all, they should be concentrating solely on their academic studies, right?), or at least not supposed to be talking about, especially not in a venue like cyberspace, where anyone--including "old perverts" or other "impressionable children"--can see these horrific words, any self-respecting and "normal" legal adult had better clear the area as if it was being sprayed by napalm! Mother of God, what if such fan clubs cause other "children" to start thinking about sex too? They probably never would have known or even thought about that awful aspect of nature in the first place if not for this overly precocious little pervert! Talk about something that is ''truly'' scary!

Also note that Johnny was freaked out to learn that several of this boy's fans were young (presumably underage) girls. Hmmmm...could this possibly mean that--and brace yourself for this one, people, because it may come as a major shock to our culture's sensibilities--underage girls ''actually have sexual desires'' and are therefore interested in hearing about the sexual fantasies of others? I shudder to think that any of these impressionable and innocent "little" girls may have been aroused by this boy's fantasies, so I am not about to go there! I don't want to risk spoiling these girls' socio-politically enforced chaste and virginal images. It was kind of Johnny not to participate in this travesty, not only for his own safety but also so that he wasn't contributing to the delinquency of these "children" in a by-proxy manner.

Let's also keep in mind that after this shocking incident, Johnny immediately removed any friend he had on Facebook who was under 18. He seemed to be encouraging all of his adult friends and readers to do so as well, and his concern and fear were totally understandable. After all, is there anything worse in this society than being labeled a "sexual predator," i.e., a horrible despoiler of beautiful childhood innocence? We can live with being labeled serial killers, because even they can be considered cool by many despite the gruesome murders they routinely commit [note the great popularity of Showtime’s series ''Dexter''], but sexual predators? *Sigh* They are the lowest of the low! There is simply nothing lower on the scumbag ladder than an adult who may read about underage sexual fantasies and possibly becoming aroused by them! I don't even think Anakin Skywalker went as far down into the abyss of the dark side as some vile adult who becomes aroused by the natural beauty of an underager! In fact, Anakin’s mass slaughter of children (young Jedi knights in training) after being re-christened Darth Vader by his new Sith lord in ''Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith'' was far less abominable in our culture’s eyes than if Anakin had been attracted to any of them in a sexual manner, or had become aroused after viewing nude holograms of them. If that had happened instead of the murders that we saw onscreen in the above film, fans of the franchise never would have found Vader redeemable—as he proved to be at the end of ''Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi''—and he would have been viewed as being even more vile by far than the Sith lord who initiated the downfall of an entire interstellar democracy, and who cajoled Anakin into embracing the dark side of the Force in the first place!

So now we reach a point where the fear has become so pervasive that adults en masse are avoiding virtually any type of association with underagers who are not their own flesh and blood, thus denying these youths potentially important networking opportunities and allies on the political field. Countless mutually beneficial friendships and relationships will now never come to be. Even adults who have no particular romantic/sexual preference for people under the Magic Age feel this fear and unremitting pressure to give underagers a wide berth, and to therefore deepen the already huge amount of age segregation in our gerontocentric society.

And what of adults who may want to read these youthful sexual fantasies simply out of ordinary curiosity? Or perhaps as the subject of serious scientific research? Isn't the subject of adolescent sexuality a fascinating topic that our society really does need to know more about? Wouldn't knowledge of this taboo subject shed much needed light on a topic that our society all too often avoids and wants to hear nothing about, due to both fear of labeling and of facing something that we do not want to acknowledge the existence of because of the cherished cultural paradigms it may shatter to pieces in the process? After all, if we accept the fact that underage sexuality is real, not to mention pervasive, and even--dare I say it--normal, do we not then risk opening up multiple cans of socio-political worms, including the possibility that it's relatively common for adults to find much younger people attractive? I guess society would prefer to allow fear of reality to rule than the scarier prospect of facing that reality. Is the fear of facing an uncomfortable reality not the worst type of fear imaginable when you consider all of the societal consequences of putting the myth before the reality? The ongoing sex abuse hysteria and the maniacal obsession by the government and parents alike to suppress virtually all instances of sexual expression by youths under 18, along with stifling and preventing virtually all social contacts between underagers and adults whom they are not related to or authorized to interact with (e.g., teachers, coaches, pediatricians), would certainly seem to qualify as highly unfortunate consequences, along with the worsening of an already widespread negative and generational-divisive social phenomenon.

While many people who share Johnny Scareshock's hobby huddle under the covers at night out of the fear that monsters may lurk under their bed, a far more realistic fear--sadly speaking--is what may lurk outside your front door as a result of becoming friends with an underager, or in any way providing evidence that you might be reading about their sexual fantasies. With the current sex abuse hysteria and fear of youthful sexuality--and the systematic age segregation, draconian laws, incessant labeling, public shaming, and the potential loss of employment and community respect that are the natural byproducts of it--one shouldn't be surprised that horror hobbyists like Johnny Scareshock would rather encounter Michael Myers or Jason Vorhees in a dark alley than an underage person on their Facebook page.

When is society going to come to its senses while we still have a semblance of a democracy? How long do people have to keep living in fear? How far is the age segregation going to have to go before adults feel even moderately safe from being saddled with the Ultimate Scarlet Label of the modern age? How restrictive do the laws have to become before people en masse come to their senses and collectively cry, "Enough is enough!"? How many more rights do young people have to lose and how far does censorship have to go before our society becomes Orwellian enough to satisfy the government? When can older people cease having a fear of establishing social connections with younger people? How irrational is this fear going to get before common sense finally proves triumphant? This topic can spawn a truly terrifying horror movie all on its own. I can see the title and ad campaign of the movie now:

''The Underage Friend: Horror From the Depths of Cyberspace''--"Can Johnny overcome the most horrifying situation of them all? Can he possibly survive the unremitting terror of being labeled a 'sexual predator'? If you thought Michael Myers, Jason Vorhees, and Hannibal Lecter were something to fear, then you’ve had it easy! Beware, all ye legal adults, for the ultimate horror is now upon mankind!" Cue to a trailer where a legal adult is seen using their laptop and innocently clicking to a page on Facebook to check out the fan club of a person who added him as a friend in the past, only to come across--prepare yourself--the page of an underage girl with a pic of herself wearing a bikini! This is followed by a scene showing the unfortunate man screaming in terror ("Aaaaaahhhh! Underage sexuality! Please stop this nightmare! I swear I didn't know who she was or what her fan club was all about before I accepted her friend request! I swear I didn't get aroused by that pic of her! Please don't label me a child predator! Please don’t drag me away to the clink or put me on one of those online registries! Please don’t take away every bit of community respect I spent the last 20 years building! Please don’t make me lose my job! Pleee--aaa--ssse! Give me a month alone in Camp Crystal Lake first, or even a year being tortured by the Cenobites in Hell, but for the love of God, please don't put me on a sex offender registry!"

Such a screenplay can practically write itself these days. What does it say for horror icons like Michael Myers, Jason Vorhees, and Hannibal Lecter when a young teen girl in a bikini is considered a scarier, more nightmarish, and more repulsive image than the likes of them? Do they have their work cut out for them when it comes to the hordes of underagers expressing their natural sexuality? Perhaps a pic of an attractive underage girl or boy in a provocative pose should make the cover of the next issue of ''Fangoria''. Then again, as horrible as such an image is in the eyes of our our society, every regular adult reader of the mag would be afraid to pick up a copy of that particular issue lest the cashier at the store report them to the police for "abusing" children by looking at their underage images on the cover.

== '''Addendum''' ==

Following the original draft of this essay of mine when it appeared on GC, one of my fellow activists, Scotty, mentioned [http://www.annabelleigh.net/messages/510936.htm this]: "You are probably aware that a man in Ohio [Brian Dalton] was sentenced to seven years for writing erotic stories in his diary about young girls! Who was harmed?"

Another GC poster, Crimson Moon, noted [http://www.annabelleigh.net/messages/510937.htm this] in response: "I just looked up [http://blog.lib.umn.edu/cla/discoveries/2009/11/ohio-man-jailed-for-diary-cont.html a blog] about that guy who wrote the erotic stories [Brian Dalton] and a line from that blog really stood out.

"'In earlier cases, the Supreme Court has consistently ruled that protecting children from pedophiles is more important than First Amendment rights.'"

That was followed by this response from yours truly:

When the time comes that mere words and ideas are considered "dangerous," and the State feels the need to "protect" any segment of the population from these "dangerous" words and ideas, then we are truly headed towards a police state. Invoking the "protect the children" line of thought is usually a foolproof, challenge free method for any corrupt, anti-democratic politician for getting draconian legislation of any sort passed. Who in public office would dare challenge any type of legislation that was backed up by an alleged "protect the children" purpose--even if the legislation in question clearly had nothing to do with protecting children and everything to do with censorship of unpopular speech and ideas, dropping a further encroachment on the civil rights of society in general, or to harrass MAAs in particular? Certainly not any politician who had a hope for re-election in these paranoid times, or who would hope to avoid being labeled "soft on child abuse" by their opponents, that's for sure. Just who is it that the children--and society in general--truly need to be protected from? Pedophiles and hebephiles, or the State Gestapo that flourishes when a “witch hunt” mentality is thriving?

Lastly, my fellow GC activist Dante had [http://www.annabelleigh.net/messages/527429.htm this] to add about the above situation:

"I'm not terribly surprised at a lover of 'taboo' and 'horror' having swallowed the moral panic without questioning it. Those who push the envelope validate the envelope. The truly transgressive go where they please nonchalantly. They aren't drawn towards taking a stand on an invisible line because they know that the line is a fiction. You can't be the Anti-Christ without having a relationship with Christ (even in the negative).

"And much of Western Horror is actually moral reinforcement.

"''Friday the 13th'' teaches us that teenagers who don't abstain will be hacked to death.

"''Poltegeist'' teaches us that ignorance of the law is no excuse when it comes to violating zoning codes.

"The apparent chaos of occult evil almost always resolves into, 'the wicked are punished, the moral survive.'

"Contrast that with Japanese Horror or with tales from Celtic folklore.

"'They hate you because you're good,' and 'Once you come to the attention of the fair folk [read: Authorities], you're f**ked no matter what you do,' are lessons more conducive to a challenge of moral panics than to their validation."

Essay:The Greatest Horror Of Them All--Being Labeled A Sexual Predator

2011-07-24T04:27:36Z

Dissident: /* by Dissident */

== '''by Dissident''' ==

Special thanks and appreciation goes to the people at GirlChat [GC] for helping me edit my initial draft of this essay, and this 'thank you' particularly flows to the following fellow GirlChatters of mine who contributed to this essay: Joey Bishop, Scotty, Crimson Moon, and Dante.

Is there no place or hobby left untouched by the ongoing sex abuse hysteria? Is there nowhere, and no hobby, where we entities known as “legal adults” can interact with those who are legally considered "children" (even if very much adult in appearance and attitude) sans extreme fear of being labeled "child predators"? It would appear that no place and no hobby is safe from the hysteria, case in point...

This may come as a surprise to both the antis and the mass media (there is a difference, right?), but most of us in the MAA [Minor Attracted Adult] community are very multi-faceted individuals with a variety of interests and hobbies completely outside of our admiration for underagers in our respective age of attraction [AoA], or even with any political movement connected to advancing the rights of MAAs and/or youths. In other words, we are human beings, not the single-minded monsters of Western cultural mythology and the Walshian aspects of the media. And I am greatly sympathetic of the many non-MAAs in this society who sometimes have to live with almost as much fear as we do because of the people in this world who profit off of the current sex abuse hysteria, and therefore cause most adults to back off from associating in even the most indirect way with underagers, as if the latter carry a highly contagious form of leprosy that can be contracted even across the breadth of cyberspace.

Which brings me to the specific point of this essay. One of my many hobbies entirely outside of the MAA community—and mostly outside of politics and activism altogether--is my enjoyment of the sci-fi and horror genres in books, cinema, TV shows, video games, RPGs [role playing games], etc. I find much value in these genres since they are both inherently subversive, and they can therefore deal with subjects and themes that are difficult to express in non-genre fiction due to the sometimes taboo or sensitive nature of certain topics. As such, I believe the sci-fi and horror genres are extremely important to popular fiction, and this is especially the case when we are in the midst of a particular threat to our democratic principles (or more than one), and the ongoing sex abuse hysteria and accompanying "pedophile panic" certainly constitutes such a threat, as this essay will make abundantly clear.

This brings me to the most recent issue of ''Scary Monsters Magazine'' (issue #75) at the time this essay was written (circa September, 2010). ''Scary Monsters Magazine'', edited by Dennis Drukentis, is one of the best print mags on the shelves today that covers horror and sci-fi fiction, and among its many popular features is a terrific column that appears in most issues of the mag, Scare-News by writer and fantasy fiction fan extraordinaire Johnny Scareshock. In fact, Scare-News is probably one of the best columns in any modern mag dedicated to horror and sci-fi fiction. On page 109 of ''Scary Monsters Magazine'' #75, Johnny was talking about the usual stuff for his column, when suddenly he segued into an unsettling experience he recently had on Facebook. Here is what had shaken Johnny so much in his own words (copied verbatim in '''bold face'''):

'''Facebook is a dangerous place. When people ask to be a friend the normal tendency is to allow it to happen. Well, when one of these friends asked me to join his fan club I had a sobering moment. I did not know who this "friend" was so I wondered why he would have a fan club in his name. I checked the fan club to find him using it to talk about his sexual fantasies. I saw that a number of his "fans" were young girls. I then checked this "friend's" profile to learn that he was only sixteen years old. Do you see what I am getting at here?'''

'''I'm an adult, and if I were to join this child's fan club to read about his sexual fantasies that makes me a sexual predator. I quickly removed him as a friend. I then checked all of my other "friends" to make sure they were all over 18 and removed those who weren't. That incident was one example of how you can get into trouble simply by doing nothing.'''

The first thing I thought to myself after reading this while relaxing was, "Geez, can't I ever get away from this bullshit? Even we activists like a break from the nonsense we battle sometimes!" Let's think about this for a moment, people. Johnny Scareshock, who has nothing to do with anything remotely controversial that I am aware of, and certainly not the slightest involvement with the MAA community, is likewise feeling the fear that one would think should be limited to MAAs alone. He believes he will automatically be considered a "sexual predator" (his words!) simply for reading certain words on a certain socnet page/fan club. Just for reading words!

Obviously, he fears that if any legal adult dared to get *gasp choke scream!* ''aroused'' by reading about the sexual fantasies of a 16-year-old boy, then he is a most heinous criminal, far worse than the mad scientists who plot world domination by infecting people with zombie viruses or creating artificial monsters out of cadaver parts to kill on command in the movies and books he makes a hobby out of watching or reading! Not that Johnny himself would get aroused by this (I am not certain where his proclivities lie, as I don't know the man personally, though he is married to a woman in his age group and I have no reason to believe that they lie anywhere outside of the "norm"), but he seems to fear that even if he didn't get aroused from reading such fantasies that people would nevertheless assume he did if he was seen listed as a friend on this boy's Facebook fan club. And that would be so indescribably horrible, right? Worse than anything Johnny saw Michael Myers or Hannibal Lecter do in any of their movies, correct? Johnny seems to feel that the rest of society would think so.

Here is where the problem truly gets bad. The fact that legal adults are so quick to avoid interacting socially with underagers and avoiding them like a human-devouring zombie plague is only adding to the heavily enforced age segregation in this society. If you're not a parent, you need to treat all underagers as if they carry the zombie plague that Scareshock reads about in the course of his hobby. Even if you’re a teacher or a coach and regularly work with underagers, you are strongly encouraged to keep your distance from them and to treat them as nothing more than students, and never as friends.

In fact, the definition of "sexual predator" is becoming increasingly broad, to the point that people like Johnny believe they will be considered one simply for reading words on an online page--or being associated in any way with a "child" (read: anyone below the Magic Age of 18) who is not one of your own kids. And if the "child" in question is doing something as horribly inappropriate as describing their sexual fantasies--something that young people under 18 are either not supposed to be thinking about (after all, they should be concentrating solely on their academic studies, right?), or at least not supposed to be talking about, especially not in a venue like cyberspace, where anyone--including "old perverts" or other "impressionable children"--can see these horrific words, any self-respecting and "normal" legal adult had better clear the area as if it was being sprayed by napalm! Mother of God, what if such fan clubs cause other "children" to start thinking about sex too? They probably never would have known or even thought about that awful aspect of nature in the first place if not for this overly precocious little pervert! Talk about something that is ''truly'' scary!

Also note that Johnny was freaked out to learn that several of this boy's fans were young (presumably underage) girls. Hmmmm...could this possibly mean that--and brace yourself for this one, people, because it may come as a major shock to our culture's sensibilities--underage girls ''actually have sexual desires'' and are therefore interested in hearing about the sexual fantasies of others? I shudder to think that any of these impressionable and innocent "little" girls may have been aroused by this boy's fantasies, so I am not about to go there! I don't want to risk spoiling these girls' socio-politically enforced chaste and virginal images. It was kind of Johnny not to participate in this travesty, not only for his own safety but also so that he wasn't contributing to the delinquency of these "children" in a by-proxy manner.

Let's also keep in mind that after this shocking incident, Johnny immediately removed any friend he had on Facebook who was under 18. He seemed to be encouraging all of his adult friends and readers to do so as well, and his concern and fear were totally understandable. After all, is there anything worse in this society than being labeled a "sexual predator," i.e., a horrible despoiler of beautiful childhood innocence? We can live with being labeled serial killers, because even they can be considered cool by many despite the gruesome murders they routinely commit [note the great popularity of Showtime’s series ''Dexter''], but sexual predators? *Sigh* They are the lowest of the low! There is simply nothing lower on the scumbag ladder than an adult who may read about underage sexual fantasies and possibly becoming aroused by them! I don't even think Anakin Skywalker went as far down into the abyss of the dark side as some vile adult who becomes aroused by the natural beauty of an underager! In fact, Anakin’s mass slaughter of children (young Jedi knights in training) after being re-christened Darth Vader by his new Sith lord in ''Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith'' was far less abominable in our culture’s eyes than if Anakin had been attracted to any of them in a sexual manner, or had become aroused after viewing nude holograms of them. If that had happened instead of the murders that we saw onscreen in the above film, fans of the franchise never would have found Vader redeemable—as he proved to be at the end of ''Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi''—and he would have been viewed as being even more vile by far than the Sith lord who initiated the downfall of an entire interstellar democracy, and who cajoled Anakin into embracing the dark side of the Force in the first place!

So now we reach a point where the fear has become so pervasive that adults en masse are avoiding virtually any type of association with underagers who are not their own flesh and blood, thus denying these youths potentially important networking opportunities and allies on the political field. Countless mutually beneficial friendships and relationships will now never come to be. Even adults who have no particular romantic/sexual preference for people under the Magic Age feel this fear and unremitting pressure to give underagers a wide berth, and to therefore deepen the already huge amount of age segregation in our gerontocentric society.

And what of adults who may want to read these youthful sexual fantasies simply out of ordinary curiosity? Or perhaps as the subject of serious scientific research? Isn't the subject of adolescent sexuality a fascinating topic that our society really does need to know more about? Wouldn't knowledge of this taboo subject shed much needed light on a topic that our society all too often avoids and wants to hear nothing about, due to both fear of labeling and of facing something that we do not want to acknowledge the existence of because of the cherished cultural paradigms it may shatter to pieces in the process? After all, if we accept the fact that underage sexuality is real, not to mention pervasive, and even--dare I say it--normal, do we not then risk opening up multiple cans of socio-political worms, including the possibility that it's relatively common for adults to find much younger people attractive? I guess society would prefer to allow fear of reality to rule than the scarier prospect of facing that reality. Is the fear of facing an uncomfortable reality not the worst type of fear imaginable when you consider all of the societal consequences of putting the myth before the reality? The ongoing sex abuse hysteria and the maniacal obsession by the government and parents alike to suppress virtually all instances of sexual expression by youths under 18, along with stifling and preventing virtually all social contacts between underagers and adults whom they are not related to or authorized to interact with (e.g., teachers, coaches, pediatricians), would certainly seem to qualify as highly unfortunate consequences, along with the worsening of an already widespread negative and generational-divisive social phenomenon.

While many people who share Johnny Scareshock's hobby huddle under the covers at night out of the fear that monsters may lurk under their bed, a far more realistic fear--sadly speaking--is what may lurk outside your front door as a result of becoming friends with an underager, or in any way providing evidence that you might be reading about their sexual fantasies. With the current sex abuse hysteria and fear of youthful sexuality--and the systematic age segregation, draconian laws, incessant labeling, public shaming, and the potential loss of employment and community respect that are the natural byproducts of it--one shouldn't be surprised that horror hobbyists like Johnny Scareshock would rather encounter Michael Myers or Jason Vorhees in a dark alley than an underage person on their Facebook page.

When is society going to come to its senses while we still have a semblance of a democracy? How long do people have to keep living in fear? How far is the age segregation going to have to go before adults feel even moderately safe from being saddled with the Ultimate Scarlet Label of the modern age? How restrictive do the laws have to become before people en masse come to their senses and collectively cry, "Enough is enough!"? How many more rights do young people have to lose and how far does censorship have to go before our society becomes Orwellian enough to satisfy the government? When can older people cease having a fear of establishing social connections with younger people? How irrational is this fear going to get before common sense finally proves triumphant? This topic can spawn a truly terrifying horror movie all on its own. I can see the title and ad campaign of the movie now:

''The Underage Friend: Horror From the Depths of Cyberspace''--"Can Johnny overcome the most horrifying situation of them all? Can he possibly survive the unremitting terror of being labeled a 'sexual predator'? If you thought Michael Myers, Jason Vorhees, and Hannibal Lecter were something to fear, then you’ve had it easy! Beware, all ye legal adults, for the ultimate horror is now upon mankind!" Cue to a trailer where a legal adult is seen using their laptop and innocently clicking to a page on Facebook to check out the fan club of a person who added him as a friend in the past, only to come across--prepare yourself--the page of an underage girl with a pic of herself wearing a bikini! This is followed by a scene showing the unfortunate man screaming in terror ("Aaaaaahhhh! Underage sexuality! Please stop this nightmare! I swear I didn't know who she was or what her fan club was all about before I accepted her friend request! I swear I didn't get aroused by that pic of her! Please don't label me a child predator! Please don’t drag me away to the clink or put me on one of those online registries! Please don’t take away every bit of community respect I spent the last 20 years building! Please don’t make me lose my job! Pleee--aaa--ssse! Give me a month alone in Camp Crystal Lake first, or even a year being tortured by the Cenobites in Hell, but for the love of God, please don't put me on a sex offender registry!"

Such a screenplay can practically write itself these days. What does it say for horror icons like Michael Myers, Jason Vorhees, and Hannibal Lecter when a young teen girl in a bikini is considered a scarier, more nightmarish, and more repulsive image than the likes of them? Do they have their work cut out for them when it comes to the hordes of underagers expressing their natural sexuality? Perhaps a pic of an attractive underage girl or boy in a provocative pose should make the cover of the next issue of ''Fangoria''. Then again, as horrible as such an image is in the eyes of our our society, every regular adult reader of the mag would be afraid to pick up a copy of that particular issue lest the cashier at the store report them to the police for "abusing" children by looking at their underage images on the cover.

== '''Addendum''' ==

Following the original draft of this essay of mine when it appeared on GC, one of my fellow activists, Scotty, mentioned [http://www.annabelleigh.net/messages/510936.htm this]: "You are probably aware that a man in Ohio [Brian Dalton] was sentenced to seven years for writing erotic stories in his diary about young girls! Who was harmed?"

Another GC poster, Crimson Moon, noted [http://www.annabelleigh.net/messages/510937.htm this] in response: "I just looked up [http://blog.lib.umn.edu/cla/discoveries/2009/11/ohio-man-jailed-for-diary-cont.html a blog] about that guy who wrote the erotic stories [Brian Dalton] and a line from that blog really stood out.

"'In earlier cases, the Supreme Court has consistently ruled that protecting children from pedophiles is more important than First Amendment rights.'"

That was followed by this response from yours truly:

When the time comes that mere words and ideas are considered "dangerous," and the State feels the need to "protect" any segment of the population from these "dangerous" words and ideas, then we are truly headed towards a police state. Invoking the "protect the children" line of thought is usually a foolproof, challenge free method for any corrupt, anti-democratic politician for getting draconian legislation of any sort passed. Who in public office would dare challenge any type of legislation that was backed up by an alleged "protect the children" purpose--even if the legislation in question clearly had nothing to do with protecting children and everything to do with censorship of unpopular speech and ideas, dropping a further encroachment on the civil rights of society in general, or to harrass MAAs in particular? Certainly not any politician who had a hope for re-election in these paranoid times, or who would hope to avoid being labeled "soft on child abuse" by their opponents, that's for sure. Just who is it that the children--and society in general--truly need to be protected from? Pedophiles and hebephiles, or the State Gestapo that flourishes when a “witch hunt” mentality is thriving?

Lastly, my fellow GC activist Dante had [http://www.annabelleigh.net/messages/527429.htm this] to add about the above situation:

"I'm not terribly surprised at a lover of 'taboo' and 'horror' having swallowed the moral panic without questioning it. Those who push the envelope validate the envelope. The truly transgressive go where they please nonchalantly. They aren't drawn towards taking a stand on an invisible line because they know that the line is a fiction. You can't be the Anti-Christ without having a relationship with Christ (even in the negative).

"And much of Western Horror is actually moral reinforcement.

"''Friday the 13th'' teaches us that teenagers who don't abstain will be hacked to death.

"''Poltegeist'' teaches us that ignorance of the law is no excuse when it comes to violating zoning codes.

"The apparent chaos of occult evil almost always resolves into, 'the wicked are punished, the moral survive.'

"Contrast that with Japanese Horror or with tales from Celtic folklore.

"'They hate you because you're good,' and 'Once you come to the attention of the fair folk [read: Authorities], you're f**ked no matter what you do,' are lessons more conducive to a challenge of moral panics than to their validation."

Essay:The Greatest Horror Of Them All--Being Labeled A Sexual Predator

2011-07-24T04:22:33Z

Dissident: Some corrections made.

== '''by Dissident''' ==

Special thanks and appreciation goes to the people at GirlChat [GC] for helping me edit my initial draft of this essay, and this 'thank you' particularly flows to the following fellow GirlChatters of mine who contributed to this essay: Joey Bishop, Scotty, Crimson Moon, and Dante.

Is there no place or hobby left untouched by the ongoing sex abuse hysteria? Is there nowhere, and no hobby, where we entities known as “legal adults” can interact with those who are legally considered "children" (even if very much adult in appearance and attitude) sans extreme fear of being labeled "child predators"? It would appear that no place and no hobby is safe from the hysteria, case in point...

This may come as a surprise to both the antis and the mass media (there is a difference, right?), but most of us in the MAA [Minor Attracted Adult] community are very multi-faceted individuals with a variety of interests and hobbies completely outside of our admiration for underagers in our respective age of attraction [AoA], or even with any political movement connected to advancing the rights of MAAs and/or youths. In other words, we are human beings, not the single-minded monsters of Western cultural mythology and the Walshian aspects of the media. And I am greatly sympathetic of the many non-MAAs in this society who sometimes have to live with almost as much fear as we do because of the people in this world who profit off of the current sex abuse hysteria, and therefore cause most adults to back off from associating in even the most indirect way with underagers, as if the latter carry a highly contagious form of leprosy that can be contracted even across the breadth of cyberspace.

Which brings me to the specific point of this essay. One of my many hobbies entirely outside of the MAA community—and mostly outside of politics and activism altogether--is my enjoyment of the sci-fi and horror genres in books, cinema, TV shows, video games, RPGs [role playing games], etc. I find much value in these genres since they are both inherently subversive, and they can therefore deal with subjects and themes that are difficult to express in non-genre fiction due to the sometimes taboo or sensitive nature of certain topics. As such, I believe the sci-fi and horror genres are extremely important to popular fiction, and this is especially the case when we are in the midst of a particular threat to our democratic principles (or more than one), and the ongoing sex abuse hysteria and accompanying "pedophile panic" certainly constitutes such a threat, as this essay will make abundantly clear.

This brings me to the most recent issue of ''Scary Monsters Magazine'' (issue #75) at the time this essay was written (circa September, 2010). ''Scary Monsters Magazine'', edited by Dennis Drukentis, is one of the best print mags on the shelves today that covers horror and sci-fi fiction, and among its many popular features is a terrific column that appears in most issues of the mag, Scare-News by writer and fantasy fiction fan extraordinaire Johnny Scareshock. In fact, Scare-News is probably one of the best columns in any modern mag dedicated to horror and sci-fi fiction. On page 109 of ''Scary Monsters Magazine'' #75, Johnny was talking about the usual stuff for his column, when suddenly he segued into an unsettling experience he recently had on Facebook. Here is what had shaken Johnny so much in his own words (copied verbatim in '''bold face'''):

'''Facebook is a dangerous place. When people ask to be a friend the normal tendency is to allow it to happen. Well, when one of these friends asked me to join his fan club I had a sobering moment. I did not know who this "friend" was so I wondered why he would have a fan club in his name. I checked the fan club to find him using it to talk about his sexual fantasies. I saw that a number of his "fans" were young girls. I then checked this "friend's" profile to learn that he was only sixteen years old. Do you see what I am getting at here?'''

'''I'm an adult, and if I were to join this child's fan club to read about his sexual fantasies that makes me a sexual predator. I quickly removed him as a friend. I then checked all of my other "friends" to make sure they were all over 18 and removed those who weren't. That incident was one example of how you can get into trouble simply by doing nothing.'''

The first thing I thought to myself after reading this while relaxing was, "Geez, can't I ever get away from this bullshit? Even we activists like a break from the nonsense we battle sometimes!" Let's think about this for a moment, people. Johnny Scareshock, who has nothing to do with anything remotely controversial that I am aware of, and certainly not the slightest involvement with the MAA community, is likewise feeling the fear that one would think should be limited to MAAs alone. He believes he will automatically be considered a "sexual predator" (his words!) simply for reading certain words on a certain socnet page/fan club. Just for reading words!

Obviously, he fears that if any legal adult dared to get *gasp choke scream!* ''aroused'' by reading about the sexual fantasies of a 16-year-old boy, then he is a most heinous criminal, far worse than the mad scientists who plot world domination by infecting people with zombie viruses or creating artificial monsters out of cadaver parts to kill on command in the movies and books he makes a hobby out of watching or reading! Not that Johnny himself would get aroused by this (I am not certain where his proclivities lie, as I don't know the man personally, though he is married to a woman in his age group and I have no reason to believe that they lie anywhere outside of the "norm"), but he seems to fear that even if he didn't get aroused from reading such fantasies that people would nevertheless assume he did if he was seen listed as a friend on this boy's Facebook fan club. And that would be so indescribably horrible, right? Worse than anything Johnny saw Michael Myers or Hannibal Lecter do in any of their movies, correct? Johnny seems to feel that the rest of society would think so.

Here is where the problem truly gets bad. The fact that legal adults are so quick to avoid interacting socially with underagers and avoiding them like a human-devouring zombie plague is only adding to the heavily enforced age segregation in this society. If you're not a parent, you need to treat all underagers as if they carry the zombie plague that Scareshock reads about in the course of his hobby. Even if you’re a teacher or a coach and regularly work with underagers, you are strongly encouraged to keep your distance from them and to treat them as nothing more than students, and never as friends.

In fact, the definition of "sexual predator" is becoming increasingly broad, to the point that people like Johnny believe they will be considered one simply for reading words on an online page--or being associated in any way with a "child" (read: anyone below the Magic Age of 18) who is not one of your own kids. And if the "child" in question is doing something as horribly inappropriate as describing their sexual fantasies--something that young people under 18 are either not supposed to be thinking about (after all, they should be concentrating solely on their academic studies, right?), or at least not supposed to be talking about, especially not in a venue like cyberspace, where anyone--including "old perverts" or other "impressionable children"--can see these horrific words, any self-respecting and "normal" legal adult had better clear the area as if it was being sprayed by napalm! Mother of God, what if such fan clubs cause other "children" to start thinking about sex too? They probably never would have known or even thought about that awful aspect of nature in the first place if not for this overly precocious little pervert! Talk about something that is ''truly'' scary!

Also note that Johnny was freaked out to learn that several of this boy's fans were young (presumably underage) girls. Hmmmm...could this possibly mean that--and brace yourself for this one, people, because it may come as a major shock to our culture's sensibilities--underage girls ''actually have sexual desires'' and are therefore interested in hearing about the sexual fantasies of others? I shudder to think that any of these impressionable and innocent "little" girls may have been aroused by this boy's fantasies, so I am not about to go there! I don't want to risk spoiling these girls' socio-politically enforced chaste and virginal images. It was kind of Johnny not to participate in this travesty, not only for his own safety but also so that he wasn't contributing to the delinquency of these "children" in a by-proxy manner.

Let's also keep in mind that after this shocking incident, Johnny immediately removed any friend he had on Facebook who was under 18. He seemed to be encouraging all of his adult friends and readers to do so as well, and his concern and fear were totally understandable. After all, is there anything worse in this society than being labeled a "sexual predator," i.e., a horrible despoiler of beautiful childhood innocence? We can live with being labeled serial killers, because even they can be considered cool by many despite the gruesome murders they routinely commit [note the great popularity of Showtime’s series ''Dexter''], but sexual predators? *Sigh* They are the lowest of the low! There is simply nothing lower on the scumbag ladder than an adult who may read about underage sexual fantasies and possibly becoming aroused by them! I don't even think Anakin Skywalker went as far down into the abyss of the dark side as some vile adult who becomes aroused by the natural beauty of an underager! In fact, Anakin’s mass slaughter of children (young Jedi knights in training) after being re-christened Darth Vader by his new Sith lord in ''Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith'' was far less abominable in our culture’s eyes than if Anakin had been attracted to any of them in a sexual manner, or had become aroused after viewing nude holograms of them. If that had happened instead of the murders that we saw onscreen in the above film, fans of the franchise never would have found Vader redeemable—as he proved to be at the end of ''Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi''—and he would have been viewed as being even more vile by far than the Sith lord who initiated the downfall of an entire interstellar democracy, and who cajoled Anakin into embracing the dark side of the Force in the first place!

So now we reach a point where the fear has become so pervasive that adults en masse are avoiding virtually any type of association with underagers who are not their own flesh and blood, thus denying these youths potentially important networking opportunities and allies on the political field. Countless mutually beneficial friendships and relationships will now never come to be. Even adults who have no particular romantic/sexual preference for people under the Magic Age feel this fear and unremitting pressure to give underagers a wide berth, and to therefore deepen the already huge amount of age segregation in our gerontocentric society.

And what of adults who may want to read these youthful sexual fantasies simply out of ordinary curiosity? Or perhaps as the subject of serious scientific research? Isn't the subject of adolescent sexuality a fascinating topic that our society really does need to know more about? Wouldn't knowledge of this taboo subject shed much needed light on a topic that our society all too often avoids and wants to hear nothing about, due to both fear of labeling and of facing something that we do not want to acknowledge the existence of because of the cherished cultural paradigms it may shatter to pieces in the process? After all, if we accept the fact that underage sexuality is real, not to mention pervasive, and even--dare I say it--normal, do we not then risk opening up multiple cans of socio-political worms, including the possibility that it's relatively common for adults to find much younger people attractive? I guess society would prefer to allow fear of reality to rule than the scarier prospect of facing that reality. Is the fear of facing an uncomfortable reality not the worst type of fear imaginable when you consider all of the societal consequences of putting the myth before the reality? The ongoing sex abuse hysteria and the maniacal obsession by the government and parents alike to suppress virtually all instances of sexual expression by youths under 18, along with stifling and preventing virtually all social contacts between underagers and adults whom they are not related to or authorized to interact with (e.g., teachers, coaches, pediatricians), would certainly seem to qualify as highly unfortunate consequences, along with the worsening of an already widespread negative and generational-divisive social phenomenon.

While many people who share Johnny Scareshock's hobby huddle under the covers at night out of the fear that monsters may lurk under their bed, a far more realistic fear--sadly speaking--is what may lurk outside your front door as a result of becoming friends with an underager, or in any way providing evidence that you might be reading about their sexual fantasies. With the current sex abuse hysteria and fear of youthful sexuality--and the systematic age segregation, draconian laws, incessant labeling, public shaming, and the potential loss of employment and community respect that are the natural byproducts of it--one shouldn't be surprised that horror hobbyists like Johnny Scareshock would rather encounter Michael Myers or Jason Vorhees in a dark alley than an underage person on their Facebook page.

When is society going to come to its senses while we still have a semblance of a democracy? How long do people have to keep living in fear? How far is the age segregation going to have to go before adults feel even moderately safe from being saddled with the Ultimate Scarlet Label of the modern age? How restrictive do the laws have to become before people en masse come to their senses and collectively cry, "Enough is enough!" How many more rights do young people have to lose and how far does censorship have to go before our society becomes Orwellian enough to satisfy the government? When can older people cease having a fear of establishing social connections with younger people? How irrational is this fear going to get before common sense finally proves triumphant? This topic can spawn a truly terrifying horror movie all on its own. I can see the title and ad campaign of the movie now:

''The Underage Friend: Horror From the Depths of Cyberspace''--"Can Johnny overcome the most horrifying situation of them all? Can he possibly survive the unremitting terror of being labeled a 'sexual predator'? If you thought Michael Myers, Jason Vorhees, and Hannibal Lecter were something to fear, then you’ve had it easy! Beware, all ye legal adults, for the ultimate horror is now upon mankind!" Cue to a trailer where a legal adult is seen using their laptop and innocently clicking to a page on Facebook to check out the fan club of a person who added him as a friend in the past, only to come across--prepare yourself--the page of an underage girl with a pic of herself wearing a bikini! This is followed by a scene showing the unfortunate man screaming in terror ("Aaaaaahhhh! Underage sexuality! Please stop this nightmare! I swear I didn't know who she was or what her fan club was all about before I accepted her friend request! I swear I didn't get aroused by that pic of her! Please don't label me a child predator! Please don’t drag me away to the clink or put me on one of those online registries! Please don’t take away every bit of community respect I spent the last 20 years building! Please don’t make me lose my job! Pleee--aaa--ssse! Give me a month alone in Camp Crystal Lake first, or even a year being tortured by the Cenobites in Hell, but for the love of God, please don't put me on a sex offender registry!"

Such a screenplay can practically write itself these days. What does it say for horror icons like Michael Myers, Jason Vorhees, and Hannibal Lecter when a young teen girl in a bikini is considered a scarier, more nightmarish, and more repulsive image than the likes of them? Do they have their work cut out for them when it comes to the hordes of underagers expressing their natural sexuality? Perhaps a pic of an attractive underage girl or boy in a provocative pose should make the cover of the next issue of ''Fangoria''. Then again, as horrible as such an image is in the eyes of our our society, every regular adult reader of the mag would be afraid to pick up a copy of that particular issue lest the cashier at the store report them to the police for "abusing" children by looking at their underage images on the cover.

== '''Addendum''' ==

Following the original draft of this essay of mine when it appeared on GC, one of my fellow activists, Scotty, mentioned [http://www.annabelleigh.net/messages/510936.htm this]: "You are probably aware that a man in Ohio [Brian Dalton] was sentenced to seven years for writing erotic stories in his diary about young girls! Who was harmed?"

Another GC poster, Crimson Moon, noted [http://www.annabelleigh.net/messages/510937.htm this] in response: "I just looked up [http://blog.lib.umn.edu/cla/discoveries/2009/11/ohio-man-jailed-for-diary-cont.html a blog] about that guy who wrote the erotic stories [Brian Dalton] and a line from that blog really stood out.

"'In earlier cases, the Supreme Court has consistently ruled that protecting children from pedophiles is more important than First Amendment rights.'"

That was followed by this response from yours truly:

When the time comes that mere words and ideas are considered "dangerous," and the State feels the need to "protect" any segment of the population from these "dangerous" words and ideas, then we are truly headed towards a police state. Invoking the "protect the children" line of thought is usually a foolproof, challenge free method for any corrupt, anti-democratic politician for getting draconian legislation of any sort passed. Who in public office would dare challenge any type of legislation that was backed up by an alleged "protect the children" purpose--even if the legislation in question clearly had nothing to do with protecting children and everything to do with censorship of unpopular speech and ideas, dropping a further encroachment on the civil rights of society in general, or to harrass MAAs in particular? Certainly not any politician who had a hope for re-election in these paranoid times, or who would hope to avoid being labeled "soft on child abuse" by their opponents, that's for sure. Just who is it that the children--and society in general--truly need to be protected from? Pedophiles and hebephiles, or the State Gestapo that flourishes when a “witch hunt” mentality is thriving?

Lastly, my fellow GC activist Dante had [http://www.annabelleigh.net/messages/527429.htm this] to add about the above situation:

"I'm not terribly surprised at a lover of 'taboo' and 'horror' having swallowed the moral panic without questioning it. Those who push the envelope validate the envelope. The truly transgressive go where they please nonchalantly. They aren't drawn towards taking a stand on an invisible line because they know that the line is a fiction. You can't be the Anti-Christ without having a relationship with Christ (even in the negative).

"And much of Western Horror is actually moral reinforcement.

"''Friday the 13th'' teaches us that teenagers who don't abstain will be hacked to death.

"''Poltegeist'' teaches us that ignorance of the law is no excuse when it comes to violating zoning codes.

"The apparent chaos of occult evil almost always resolves into, 'the wicked are punished, the moral survive.'

"Contrast that with Japanese Horror or with tales from Celtic folklore.

"'They hate you because you're good,' and 'Once you come to the attention of the fair folk [read: Authorities], you're f**ked no matter what you do,' are lessons more conducive to a challenge of moral panics than to their validation."

Essay:Why Child Pornography Should Be Legal

2011-07-24T00:51:50Z

Dissident: Some modifications of the text were made.

== '''By Dissident''' ==

'''Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated. But those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their consciences.'''

'''- C.S. Lewis'''

'''I do not believe that it can be too often repeated that the freedoms of speech, press, petition and assembly guaranteed by the First Amendment must be accorded to the ideas we hate or sooner or later they will be denied to the ideas we cherish. The first banning of an association because it advocates hated ideas -- whether that association be called a political party or not -- marks a fateful moment in the history of a free country...'''

'''- Justice Black'''

'''It is always unconscionable for the government to punish people for expressing an idea merely because government officials -- or the majority of citizens -- decide that those ideas are “dangerous” or “wrong.” That is a power nobody ought to possess.'''

'''- Glenn Greenwald'''

'''He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself.'''

'''- Thomas Paine'''

'''The history of liberty is a history of resistance. The history of liberty is a history of limitations of governmental power, not the increase of it.'''

'''- Woodrow Wilson'''

I would like to thank the crew of GirlChat [GC] for giving me invaluable editorial input on my earlier drafts of this essay, with particular thanks going to my fellow activists Summerdays, Baldur, Little Girl Lover (all three of whom have their contributions referenced below), along with some invaluable corrections from FreeThinkerGL and Misha.

Previously, I composed [http://newgon.com/wiki/Essay:Why_The_Legality_Of_Child_Pornography_Is_Relevant_To_The_Youth_Liberation_Movement an essay] discussing the question of legality about the very emotionally-charged subject of CP [what our culture and penal system commonly calls 'child pornography'] and its relevance to the youth liberation movement. But there are many broader implications regarding why CP should be legal outside of the various points I made in that previous essay. Before I get into them, however, I would like to say a few things about CP to make my stance, as well as that of the broader pro-choice segment of the MAA [Minor Attracted Adult] community, crystal clear to all who read this.

Most of us (including myself) do not support an "absolutely anything goes" attitude regarding the production of CP, especially when it comes to pre-pubescent children rather than adolescents. I fully believe that pre-pubescents should never appear in what we call "hardcore" pornography that would include large amounts of sexual activity--either with peers or adults--that would likely prove physically injurious to them--such as full penetrative intercourse--and which they would not likely seek out in real life. Accordingly, there is a big difference between "child pornography" and what may best be labeled ''child erotica''. I would see no problem with pre-pubescents who possess an exhibitionist streak in them (and our society is well aware that such children do exist, despite our strong attempts to deny it) to appear in mildly erotic films where they engage in what we often call 'sex play' with people of various ages--depending upon what the child in question would agree to as per their individual tastes--which pre-pubescents of a slightly older age (say, six years old and up) at least semi-regularly do with peers and sometimes with adults whom they trust and have bonded with in a certain way.

I also have no problem with pre-pubescents appearing nude in films, including mainstream films, as long as they have no objections, since--as I explained in my aforementioned previous essay--I do not think it's logical or healthy for our culture to promulgate the idea that there is something inherently ugly or "obscene" about the nude youthful form, or even about normal youth sexual activity. Pre-pubescents have appeared nude and even sometimes engaging in lightly erotic scenes (i.e., those involving kissing and notable sensuality) in many foreign films over the past few decades, and people from those cultures do not have the conception that there is something inherently "wrong" with this--though this positive attitude about youth sexuality has been diminishing in these foreign Western nations due to constant aggressive American and British influence over the past two decades. In fact, it's largely American and British culture who has this irrational fear and loathing of anything remotely to do with youthful nudity and sexual activity despite their reality throughout human history, and it's the governments of these two nations who put so much pressure on artists of all stripes in nations both within and outside of the West to stifle all such attempts. As such, foreign films depicting a "coming of age" theme have regularly become noticeably less "bold" (read: realistic) in their portrayal of these normal aspects of the lives of youths over the past decade, the first of the 21st century. I'm sure if the current American mindset had its way, all "coming of age" films would be produced for suitability to air on the Disney Channel.

As for adolescents, since it's physically safe for them to engage in full intercourse with proper precautions, and some of them do have an interest in it (though not all, of course), then they should be allowed to participate in whatever type of on camera erotica that they please. I would never encourage or ask for them to participate in the equivalent of XXX-rated films where sex is the only point, but I believe that what we call "softcore" erotica should be no problem for those adolescents who may want to participate in it. Saying that absolutely no adolescents under the age of 18 would ever have the slightest interest in doing this is quite ridiculous and illogical for reasons I explicated in a [http://newgon.com/wiki/Essay:Why_Most_Teens_Will_Not_Support_The_Age_Of_Consent_Laws_If_Given_The_Choice previous essay] on whether or not teens would support the age of consent [AoC] laws, as well as my previous essay on the relevance of the legalization of CP to the youth liberation movement. To make this point further, there are a few instances of underage actresses who lied about their age and appeared in several adult pornographic films, the best example of this perhaps being Traci Lords. Further, actresses such as Brooke Shields and Jodie Foster appeared in popular mainstream American films with highly erotic themes involving consensual youth prostitution during the 1970s when both were 12 years of age--''Pretty Baby'' and ''Taxi Driver'', respectively--and neither of them were emotionally "damaged" as a result; to the contrary, both went on to prosperous careers in mainstream cinema. Shields subsequently appeared in a few other mainstream films with highly erotic themes to them shortly after her first, including ''The Blue Lagoon'' and ''Endless Love'', both of which included sex scenes (though she used a body double to depict her nude scenes in both of these films, something she curiously didn't do when she was a few years younger in ''Pretty Baby''). And of course, Foster continued to do the same in films such as ''The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane'' at age 14, where she removed her shirt on camera (though viewers only saw her from the back and briefly from the side after she did so) and got into bed with an older teenage boy whom she had fallen in love with. Sadly, the latter film also gave us a typical stereotyped version of an Evil Pedo [or 'Evil Hebe,' to be technical in this case], who was played in this instance by Martin Sheen as the titular character's main antagonist. But as we all know, the bygone era of the 1970s and early '80s is long behind us now, and the sex abuse hysteria has continued to progress into the present, thus making films like those mentioned above much more difficult to produce today.

Nevertheless, some film producers continue to defy these modern conventions, such as then-12-year-old actress Isabelle Fuhurman taking on a racy role--including a sexy seduction scene where she attempted to seduce an adult man--in the 2009 horror/suspense film ''The Orphan''. And prior to that, we had the then-adolescent Drew Barrymore explore sexual themes during the 1990s in films such as ''Far From Home'' (which she did at age 14) and the much sexier ''Poison Ivy'' (which she did at age 17), where she successfully seduced a much older man played by Tom Skerritt in a daringly erotic sex scene. And let's not forget Barrymore's sex-charged role, also at age 17, which she played the same year in the short-lived TV series ''2000 Malibu Road''. It's hardly a wonder that a year later she did a very sexual portrayal of real life "lethal lolita" Amy Fisher in ''The Amy Fisher Story'', a well-received telefilm that hit the airwaves in 1993; Barrymore was barely 18 at the time, but the character she portrayed was a few years younger than that, and this true story made it clear once and for all that young adolescent girls can indeed pursue adult men and be dangerously conniving at the same time. Unfortunately, such relationships only make the headlines when they have an element of tragedy attached to them, or some other type of sensationalism (such as when a girl runs away with an older lover), thus promoting the biased attitude that intergenerational attraction always results in something bad, the same type of attitude promoted by the notorious lesbian novels published during the 1950s in regards to same gender attraction amongst women.

Let us not forget the popular French/American film collaboration ''The Professional'' (the longer version seen by French audiences was titled ''Leon the Professional''), which starred then-12-year-old Natalie Portman in a very big role where she developed a heavy romantic attraction to a hit man named Leon (played by French actor Jean Reno) and wanted to have him be her first sexual experience, an offer the hit man gracefully declined despite obviously reciprocating her romantic love and even sharing a bed with her--the scene where Portman's character Mathilda asked Leon to be her first was excised from the American version to avoid rousing the ire of American audiences any further than it already did, but the scene where Mathilda told Leon that she was in love with him in no uncertain terms was retained. A year later, Portman appeared in another film where she portrayed a young adolescent girl who fell in love with an older adult man (and he with her) in the big screen opus ''Beautiful Girls''. With these two films in her oeuvre, it appeared quite strange when Portman publicly announced shortly after the release of ''Beautiful Girls'' that she and her parents agreed to turn down the offer for her to portray the famed titular character in Adrian Lyne's 1990s film version of ''Lolita'', since they believed it was "inappropriate" for her to star in a film where a young adolescent girl was romantically involved with a much older adult man (I guess they were hoping that the public had forgotten Portman's previous two film roles mentioned above). Needless to say, Lyne's film ended up languishing in production hell for a few years due to the expected controversy of producing it during the height of the sex abuse hysteria until finally being completed and released in 1997 with 17-year-old Dominique Swain in the title role. The latter version certainly had bolder scenes than the 1962 version of the movie (with 15-year-old Sue Lyons in the role of Dolores Haze, a.k.a., Lolita), but as one would expect, body doubles and scene deletions galore ensued in order for the finished product to reach the American silver screen--though it did include the rather bold scene of Swain locking lips with co-star Jeremy Irons in his role of the notorious literary hebephile Humbert Humbert.

As my fellow MAA activist Little Girl Lover reminded me, the 1990s also saw then-tween actress Kirsten Dunst take the role of the vampire Claudia, an ancient adult woman forever trapped in the body of a ten-year-old girl (since she was turned into a vampire when she was ten, and vampires do not age beyond the point when they are first turned), in the film version of Anne Rice’s novel ''The Interview With the Vampire.'' In that movie, the character of Claudia was in love with, and almost locked lips with, adult actor Brad Pitt in his role as Rice's famed vampire, Louis [thank you to fellow GLer db1 for giving me the correct version of this interesting fun fact]. This was a highly ironic role for Dunst to take, considering how outspoken the beautiful actress was in her early adult years about how disgusting and immoral she thinks it is for a younger woman (let alone a young girl) to have a romantic liaison with an older man--and how she likewise believed she was "too young" to do a nude scene in a movie at the tender age of 19.

Finally, let's not forget how actress Claire Danes surprised audiences in 1996 when, at the "mere" age of 16, she won the much coveted role of Juliet in director Buz Luhrmann's updated cinematic version of Shakespeare's classic play of doomed young love ''Romeo and Juliet'', which included a bedroom scene with her equally famous lover Romeo (sans any actual nudity, but Claire was topless at the time, but was only seen from the back when she removed her top). However, actress Olivia Hussey played the much coveted role of Juliet in director Franco Zeffirelli’s 1968 version of the film, which began filming two months after her 16th birthday, and she didn’t shy away from doing a nude scene (in fact, Hussey had played a fairly sultry role at age 12 in the English film version of Rumer Godden’s novel ''The Battle of the Villa Fiorita''). And even more recently, let's not forget a few of the films that the truly amazing actress Dakota Fanning has participated in. These include ''Man On Fire'', which she did at age ten, and which was a remake of a foreign action/adventure film from the late ‘80s that retained some of the latter movie's "lolita" themes, albeit more subtle to spare the sensibilities of American audiences. Nevertheless, it was very clear to all viewers that Fanning's tweenage character and her adult bodyguard/teacher, played to perfection by Denzel Washington, had developed actual deep romantic feelings for each other. Then there was Fanning's critically acclaimed and controversial indie film ''Hounddog'', which she did at the "tender" age of 12, and which featured a rather heavy degree of "coming of age" sexuality--as well as the famed actress frolicking about in her underwear throughout much of this period film--but which also included an awful scene where she was raped by an older boy. Then, at 15 going on 16, Fanning had perhaps her best racy role yet, as she accurately portrayed the real life adolescent singer and unabashed sex symbol Cherie Currie in the 2010 film ''The Runaways'', a biopic of the famous but short-lived girl band from the free-wheeling 1970s decade based on Currie's autobiography ''Neon Angel''. In the latter movie, Fanning famously and somewhat daringly shared a lesbian kiss onscreen with her co-star Kristen Stewart.

Also worth mentioning are two other films with intergenerational romance as their central focus that are still legal to view today. The more or less obscure 1979 film ''A Circle of Two'' was a truly beautiful and open-minded film about a 16-year-old girl--played with stellar and witty alacrity by then underage Tatum O'Neill--who fell deeply in mutually shared love with an intense but kind-hearted 60-year-old artist--also played to perfection by Richard Burton. Interestingly, this movie featured the only nude scene that Tatum ever did. The other is the 1992 movie ''For A Lost Soldier'', which was a true story based on the memoirs of Dutch artist Jeroen Boman, where he recalled a romantic relationship he had during World War II in his early adolescence with an adult Canadian soldier who had previously saved his life.

None of the above films are currently considered CP by the American penal code (save for those which actress Traci Lords appeared in from the age of 15 to 17), but all of them are examples of erotically charged films featuring young adolescents--and in some cases (such as ''Man On Fire''), girls who are "merely" tweens. And since the definition of what legally constitutes CP in America continues to broaden every single year, it cannot be certain that even these films will not someday fall under the rubric of CP as defined by the increasingly draconian American penal code as the government continues to wage a vicious war against youth sexuality, and all possible depictions and expressions of it thereof. After all, the government will poignantly argue, if these films continue to be legal to possess and produce, a "pedophile" may end up seeing them and become aroused by them, and no society that cares about the sacrosanct Victorian image of kids could ever tolerate the possibility of such a horrible thing occurring, correct? Even worse, the government will tell us, such films may convey the "dangerous" idea that youth sexuality is normal, and we can't have that either, right?

The above examples also make it clear that in a youth liberated society, there would not likely be a shortage of youthful models and actresses who would enjoy appearing in erotic films, and at this point in time it's impossible to know beyond a shadow of a doubt that this wouldn't include a smaller but perhaps sizable amount of pre-pubescent girls as well.

Once again, I would like to stress that I am ''not'' in any way suggesting that--even in a youth liberated society--the MAA community, parents, or anyone else should actually blatantly advocate youth sexuality or the production of youth erotica, or in any way imply that all or even most young girls (or boys) ''should'' participate in the production of it, as eroticism is very clearly not a genre of filmography or photography that all youths are suited for, and this should be respected. We simply advocate the matter of ''choice'', and there can be no doubt that there would be some youths of such a sensibility that they would enjoy participating in such films, including those which they produced and marketed themselves; the surfeit of "racy" YouTube videos out there featuring young girls (both tween and teen, and even some pre-pubescent) dancing provocatively and frolicking in bikinis and other revealing clothing that was produced and uploaded by the girls themselves make it very clear that there is a sizable number of young girls (and boys) who enjoy "showing off" in such a way on camera. Moreover, these youths clearly do not particularly care about the age group of people who have access to their videos and pictorials. Thus, youth sexuality and exhibitionism is a reality in our world, and even though I am not saying it should ever be advocated, it should nevertheless not be demonized or suppressed either. '''Toleration or acceptance of a certain phenomenon or genre of film or prose is ''not'' the same thing as advocating it.'''

Now, here is a fast and loose set of reasons why CP (or simple youth eroticism) should be legal in any society that purports to be a democracy:

1) The criminalization of CP is a form of ''censorship'', plain and simple. Censorship in any form should not be tolerated in a democratic society, no matter how offensive or upsetting many people may consider the imagery or information in question. If our legal system places any type of material in a "special" category that is not protected by the First Amendment to view and access by the public, then we start a very nasty precedent that can easily lead to the rationalization of any type of "dangerous" idea or image being denied public access by our esteemed protectors in the future.

2) The argument that CP should be criminalized because people who possess or even simply view the images are viewing a "crime scene" doesn't hold up to scrutiny. There are many types of crime scene images that are perfectly legal for people to view or possess. For example, vids and pics of often innocent people--such as reporters and journalists--being executed by agents of repressive governments worldwide, and the carnage wrought on innocent victims in many books detailing the history of real life serial killers are filled with extremely graphic pics of people who were murdered in very gruesome ways. Why aren't they illegal to view or possess also? Perhaps, because, they do not specifically feature ''children''? Then again, there are numerous examples of horrifying real images of children who have been subject to war atrocities that are perfectly legal to view and possess. These include numerous pics of children with limbs blown off as a result of accidentally stepping on land mines, and a famous pic from the Vietnam War featuring a tween girl running through the streets after napalm was dropped on her--and very obviously in extreme agony as her flesh was set afire (I recounted these things in a bit more detail on my previous essay about CP).

Yet, because these pics do not specifically feature anything to do with sexual activity (the above example of the girl who had napalm dropped on her was actually fully nude as she ran through the streets with her flesh burning, it should perhaps be noted), our culture and penal system mysteriously sees no problem with the public being allowed to view them. Also, despite the fact that many people are highly unsettled or offended by pics showing aborted fetuses, it is still fully legal to possess them and to post them anywhere, which many anti-choice advocates on the abortion issue often do for political purposes. How would such activists feel if access to such pics was illegal even for them to possess or distribute because of the fact that so many people were bothered or offended by them? '''Despite the fact that I am greatly sickened and horrified by pics of aborted fetuses, and despite the fact that I am pro-choice on the abortion argument, I fully support the right of these anti-choice advocates to collect and distribute such pics for whatever reason they may choose.''' Why? Because the tenets of democracy--which I support and take seriously--make me realize that I have to accept the public accessibility of ideas and images that I find personally offensive and abhorrent.

3) A point needs to be made about the tiny amount of CP that features actual footage of minors who were coerced into participating in the production of such films or pics, and even sometimes horribly tortured on camera (the rarity of such vids and pics, and the role of parents and stepparents behind the production of virtually all non-consensual CP, was discussed in detail in my previous essay on CP's relevance to the youth liberation movement). It's been argued that due to the nature of such imagery, it should be illegal to possess or view because some pervert might become aroused by the imagery, and thus, in effect, receive pleasure off of a child's misery. The problem with this justification to censor and criminalize such imagery leads to this question: is it ever justified in a democracy to penalize people for anything that may be going on within the privacy of their own thoughts regardless of how deplorable polite society may consider those thoughts, rightfully or otherwise? What type of precedent does this create for our society when we support the concept of thought control?

There are other things to consider here, too. As I mentioned in my aforementioned previous essay, the total criminalization of this type of imagery prevents their access not only to would-be-perverts who may become aroused by viewing it, but also to serious journalists who may want to view the imagery for the purpose of research and future articles based on that research. The argument that they do not need access to this imagery in order to write about it is entirely bogus, because without being able to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that what the LEOs [law enforcement officers] are saying is in those images are actually true, they cannot compose an article or expose' on the topic with a full degree of accuracy. It's foolish and downright Orwellian for the law--or anyone else--to make assumptions as to why someone may want to access such imagery when mind-reading technology is not yet available, and to therefore conclude that the only possible reason for someone to access and view such imagery is because they want to be aroused by the images of abused children.

A further point that must be made about the argument that such coerced imagery is so horrible that we need to punish anyone who may be aroused by it is illustrated by the following example. A few years ago, a major scandal erupted in Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison when some of the American guards there--at least two of whom were women--forced many of the male Iraqi POWs imprisoned there (many of whom were never actually charged with a crime) to strip fully naked and engage in close physical contact activities with their fellow male prisoners, including standing on top of each other while all were nude so as to form a human pyramid-like structure. This was obviously done very much against these men’s will, and the guards took photographs for their personal amusement and to further debase these men in the future. These pics were subsequently discovered and disseminated across many political websites and blogs all over cyberspace, for the purpose of the columnists to protest this outrage and breach of American principles. As anyone who is familiar with the culture of these Islamic societies in the Middle East are well aware, such an action was far more humiliating and emotionally distressing for men who grew up in these cultures than it would have been for heterosexual men who grew up in a Western culture, where homoeroticism is currently more or less accepted and not considered a form of deviant behavior (save by some of the most conservative elements in Western society). There can be no doubt that all of these men forced to participate in this activity by their captors was humiliating beyond description and likely even emotionally traumatic to experience--yet no civilian reporters, journalists, or bloggers were arrested for posting these pics all over the Net. Can it not be cogently argued that these men and their families would receive a great degree of severe emotional distress, and likely even trauma, as a result of the appearance of these pics all over the Net, even on sites whose columnists were using them to rightfully protest what was done to these men, and even on sites where their faces were blurred out of focus to protect the anonymity of the victims? I would say yes, yet this rationalization was never used to arrest any of these well-intentioned bloggers (nor should it have been, for all of the reasons expressed both above and below).

Moreover, there is something further that must be considered about the Abu Grahib debacle. Are we to assume that everyone who viewed and downloaded these pics did so for the same reason as the above politically-motivated bloggers? It needs to be said that contrary to what appears to be popular belief, it's not simply a small number of adults with an attraction to children and teens who have "extreme" interests, and there are most certainly members of the mainstream homosexual community who can likewise have some rather "extreme" interests, as well as people from all groups with a teleiophilic attraction base [a teleiophile is someone who has a preference for members of the same general age group, regardless of gender or race]. Thus, it can readily be presumed with a high degree of likelihood that some adults viewed and downloaded the pics of those abused POWs in Abu Ghraib for the purpose of becoming aroused by having fantasies of being in place of the guards, and even of committing further forms of abuse with these men than are actually known to have occurred. Not only that, but it's also likely that several adults viewed or downloaded those pics and fantasized about being in the place of those abused men; fantasies of being raped as opposed to perpetrating such acts are far from unheard of, and many women--and some men--have admitted to having them, including many women who belong to the BDSM community (though certainly not all). Yet, this great likelihood was never mentioned anywhere that I am aware of, let alone any suggestion that possession or viewing of such pics should be legally prohibited from anyone outside of authorized court officials due to the corrupt thoughts they may have inspired in people with a certain type of predilection.

The exact ''same'' complaint can be made about pics of actual carnage wrought on victims by serial killers, since it's well known that some teleiophiles have the type of "extreme" tastes where they become aroused by depictions of violence, including those that had a sexual context to them. The realization of this would doubtlessly cause much emotional distress to the families of these victims, as well as anyone who managed to survive such an attack, to know that some people were collecting these pics for that particular reason. Should necrophiliacs be arrested for collecting pics of people who were murdered by serial killers for the purpose of "getting off" on the pics entirely within the privacy of their own mind? Sure, such thoughts may be considered "disgusting" by the great majority of society, and one may argue that some type of injustice is committed against the victims, but this is no reason to criminalize possession or viewing of crime scene pics where people were hurt or killed in horrible ways, and it's entirely unjust for any courts under the ethos of American jurisprudence to ''assume'' any reason why any particular person may wish to obtain such pics.

Yet, the complaints about these adult victims, and what they and/or their families may suffer as a result of these horrid pics being available for public access by people who likely have a wide assortment of reasons for wanting to view them (some well-intentioned, and others entirely puerile and salacious), are almost always non-existent. Nor do we ever hear any of the families of these victims, or of any victims who may have survived the attempt on their lives, of taking anyone who simply viewed or possessed the pics of the carnage for whatever reason to civil court so as to sue them for possibly "getting off" on the misery of these victims. When these points are made to people who want these coercive pics to continue to be criminalized, the response is usually a variation of, "That's different! The victims in those pics and videos weren't children!" This response is very telling and informative, and it cuts to the crux of the problem. It also makes it clear why such people support the criminalization of even on camera depictions of the majority of youth erotica that is known to have been produced with the full consent and enjoyment of the young participants, or where no evidence exists to suggest otherwise since no investigation was ever conducted to collect any evidence to suggest that coercion was involved. These statements are even echoed by people connected to the MAA community who enjoy and support the continued legalization of the youth modeling sites that feature girls in scanty clothing and sometimes arguably "enticing" poses. Once nudity enters the equation, however, such individuals immediately cry "foul" and claim that such pics or vids have "crossed the line." They further attempt to categorize any pics and vids featuring nudity as if they were examples of coercion, without bothering to ask for proof or even the slightest bit of evidence. And they never seem to realize that as long as what constitutes CP continues to be broadened, their beloved non-nude-but-sometimes-racy youth modeling sites will likewise get banned in the future, too. It's not like several members of the U.S. Congress aren't actually trying to do so, and this includes the attempts of uber-hypocrites like the rightfully disgraced Senator Mark Foley (and which proves that MAAs can be hypocrites who work against the interests of youth rights, their own community, and civil rights in general as much as homosexuals in positions of political power—such as J. Edgar Hoover—have done in the past).

So, in other words, if such imagery involves ''children'', or anyone who happens to be "underage," it suddenly becomes a whole different story than any similar imagery involving adults, as far as most people are concerned.

Of course, the pundits of protectionism have a common excuse used to justify the consensual agreement of underagers being denied when it comes to taking nude or provocative pics of themselves, or participating in films of that nature. When the consensual participation of the underager in question is made clear, the latter pundits will say that these youths ''might'' later come to regret these on camera depictions of themselves, so we have to consider them being distressed in an entirely pre-emptive and hypothetical context. And this despite the fact that Brooke Shields and Jodie Foster never seemed to suffer after becoming adults for some of the erotic roles they played back at the "vulnerable" age of 12, as both have enjoyed very good careers and personal lives that were hardly scandalous or full of strife when compared to many of their fellow Hollywood celebrities. Further, Traci Lords herself broke into mainstream films and never suffered for her participation in blatantly pornographic films beginning when she was 15; Lords did later allegedly develop a serious drug problem, but the same thing is the case with many starlets of mainstream cinema, including those who limited their childhood roles to family-friendly fare like the late Anissa Jones of the popular late 1960s TV series ''Family Affair''. A few youth models have likewise achieved their dreams, including Tierra Lee Abbott breaking into mainstream acting (including a recurring role on Nickelodeon's TV series ''Unfabulous'') and the youth model who used the name Marie, who achieved her long-time dream of posing for ''Playboy'' shortly following her 18th birthday. It's quite clear that print versions of ''Playboy'' catering to the celebration and admiration of the beauty of youths would exist in a youth liberated society without people worrying about whether or not a "pedophile" became aroused by the pictorials included therein. Imagine how many opportunities for personal growth and advancement would be curtailed if we allowed the powers-that-be to follow the Nanny State mentality and forcibly prevent us from making certain decisions simply because we ''might'' end up regretting them later, no matter how much these pundits of protectionism may argue the likelihood of this happening, or that youths are "more likely" to later come to regret this or that decision than an adult will (as if this can actually be deduced effectively); one of the things we need to remember is that one of the most important civil rights people of any age can possess is the right to take emotional risks, because without this right we lose too many opportunities to grow and learn, and we end up at the mercy of the possible bad decisions of those who have the power to decide for us, rather than to learn and grow from the possible bad decisions of our own.

We should also keep in mind that our gossip-loving yet moralizing society loves to uncover “scandals” regarding underage celebrities, such as when the American press pilloried actress/singer Miley Cyrus for being caught in the act on more than one occasion of behaving like a normal adolescent girl does, which unfortunately contradicts the crystal pure image of the character Hanna Montana that she popularly but unrealistically portrays for the benefit of her employers at Disney—or for daring to participate in the taking of pictorials for various fashion mags that “inappropriately” show off her youthful beauty—such as exposing the skin on her back; yes, her back, not her breasts! Yet the moralizers in the press and outside of it had a field day with that, and Miley was ultimately being pressured—some might say bullied—into making an apology that the public wasn’t owed. In other words, Disney expects Miley to be Hannah Montana 24/7 in her real life, not only when she is in front of the cameras at their studios, and it doesn't matter to them how far removed Hannah may be from real adolescent girls--Miley appears to have sworn to uphold an idealized and highly sanitized version of a developing young woman when she signed that contract (*ahem*--I mean when ''her parents'' signed the contract, as any youth under the age of 18 are not permitted to sign their own contracts), and she and her parents are called names in the media and pushed into apologizing when she doesn't live up to a standard that no real adolescent girl should be expected to live up to.

Let's also not forget that the highly disturbing autopsy photos of child murder victim Jon-Bonet Ramsey are legally available online, and these include close-up photos of her vagina. But because the purpose of these pics are for the clinical study of a crime victim and not for the purpose of titillation, these pics are fully legal to view and presumably to download and possess. If the parents are indeed innocent of the crime, then aren't we causing them emotional distress by making these horrific crime photos publicly available? I am not arguing that disturbing crime photos should be illegal to view or possess, but I am using this as a point to make it clear that it seems really ludicrous that we can allow pics of this nature to be legal, yet pics and vids of youths posing nude or engaging in willing sexual situations that they may enjoy participating in is totally off-limits legally, and actually worthy of being placed in a "special" class of imagery that is not protected by the First Amendment. Again, this is what happens when emotion trumps logic; it results in one of the most important aspects of democracy being abandoned with too little complaints attached to it, and the government becoming involved in what clearly constitutes full fledged exercises in thought control.

The semi-naysayers often like to justify their above statements by making the famous declaration, "We have to draw the line somewhere!" I agree, which is why I believe the line should be drawn when the important factor of ''consent'' is no longer present. Claims that consent wasn't present when the young people who participated insist that it was need to be ''proven'' via a thorough but ethical investigation of all involved with the production, and not simply assumed for the purpose of "erring on the side of caution" or following the “better to be safe than sorry” ethos to the extreme.

So back to the main point: we only make sometimes irrational, and oftentimes outright draconian, exceptions to the above described rules when the people involved are underage, and this counts even after the girls or boys in question have become adults, as there is a new crop of lawyers who have taken advantage of the present climate of hysteria by encouraging some of these women to sue people who are discovered to have possession of some of the erotic pics taken of them when they were underage. I would say this creates a strong monetary incentive for such women to claim they suddenly woke up one morning to discover that they were “emotionally damaged” by the memory of those pics or vids being made—and hell hath no fury like a woman and her lawyer out to grab public sympathy via playing on people’s emotions in order to make a killing for themselves.

This all strongly suggests that our society has a deep and abiding fear and loathing of youth sexuality that is so pervasive that even some people who admit an attraction to younger people are caught up in the hysteria, and thus tend to view depictions of youth sexuality with great suspicion even when there is no reason to have such suspicions. The latter appears to be partly true because some MAAs appear to project their own personal tastes on underage models, and seem to assume outright that because they wouldn't have wanted to participate in such videos or pictorials when they were underage, they consider it inconceivable that any sizable number of girls (or boys) could possibly have different tastes and sensibilities from themselves, all the evidence that youths are no exception to the rule of diversity amongst the human species notwithstanding. Hence, they justify the criminalization of possessing or viewing any of the tiny amount of coercive films involving underage people while continuing to (usually) support the legal access to similar or worse pics and vids depicting adult victims. Predictably, the government jumps on this, realizing that they can start with the criminalization of possession and viewing of the small amount of non-consensual CP, and from there move on to rationalizing the criminalization of viewing consensual erotic material involving youths, and then moving on from there to criminalizing the possession and viewing of simple artistic nudes, and from there pics and vids of youths wearing revealing clothing, and from there...well, use your imagination, you are not likely to be far off base by doing so. This is because, as I have mentioned numerous times, the passing of a single draconian law of censorship creates a domino effect of sorts, resulting in the easier rationalization of increasingly severe and prohibitive Orwellian measures passed under the pretext of “protecting” children (i.e., anyone who is legally underage and thus bereft of sufficient civil rights to make their own decisions in almost any matter). This is something that the semi-naysayers do not seem willing to accept any more than the total naysayers are.

To complete this point, I want to make one thing ''very'' clear. Nobody in the pro-choice segment of the MAA community supports the legalization of producing any type of youth erotica where the participants were ''forced'' or somehow ''coerced'' into making the films or photo-shoots. To suggest that any of us would literally support the production of such material is silly, insulting, and totally outrageous. Trying to claim that those who support the legality of simply viewing even coerced imagery that they had nothing to do with the production of as being tantamount to supporting actual rape and torture, or the production and sale of films depicting such atrocities, is beneath contempt and a total corruption of the point we are trying to make. And arguing that the simple viewing of films depicting actual rape and torture somehow creates a demand for the production of more material ''even though no money is passing any hands'' is beyond ridiculous, and a classic example of the sordid tactic of grasping at straws to justify a certain form of censorship. This is like saying that those who view pics of actual victims of serial killers, or own a book containing such pics (which are readily available via Amazon.com or the true crime section of your local Barnes and Noble), actually support the ''legalization'' of serial murder, and that a demand exists for serial killers to continue committing acts of murder even though none of them make any money as a result of it. Such arguments would be totally and rightfully laughed at if not for the powerful emotional resonance that they bring with them due to the fact that people under 18 and sexuality are both involved. I and the rest of my community fully support the arrest and prosecution of ''anyone'' of ''any age'' who is involved with the production of any type of film or images of people of any age who are participating on camera in sexual activities that they ''did not'' consent to, or are being genuinely tortured and harmed on camera against their will. Very very few, if any, people in our community would ever remotely support the production of such films any more than the tiniest percentage of the various teleiophile communities would support a market for actual "snuff" films featuring real adult victims. The naysayers need to keep in mind that MAAs are, first and foremost, ''human beings'', and as such we are fully capable of empathizing with human pain and suffering to the same extent that any teleiophile can.

4) As my fellow activist Baldur pointed out to me before, the continued criminalization of such imagery and/or text can be used to blackmail or frame individuals by having such evidence planted on their computer hard drives without the knowledge of the owner. This can be done by any individual with a sufficient degree of hacking skills, including a jealous co-worker or even a LEO who wants to see to the arrest and personal destruction of a certain individual for purely political reasons. And of course, there have been a growing number of claims that certain types of malware may automatically download CP to people's hard drives that they had no intention of even viewing, let alone permanently possessing. These claims are far from outrageous, because it's a well known fact that malware can and often does automatically download adult pornography to people's hard drives against their intentions, so it's quite likely that any type of online material can be unknowingly downloaded onto someone's computer hard drive without their knowledge or intention.

== '''Addendum''' ==

The following are a few very important anecdotes in response to certain of my points, provided by my fellow pro-choice MAA activist Summerdays, to whom I extend much thanks and appreciation for them. My previously mentioned points are in '''bold face''', and Summerdays' responses are in standard text.

'''Accordingly, there is a big difference between 'child pornography' and what may best be labeled ''child erotica''.'''

I'm sure there's a term for the argumentative fallacy where the opponent exaggerates your point to the most extreme and indefensible end of the spectrum, in order to more easily refute it. And the black and white thinking ("all CP is the worst kind") certainly doesn't contribute to an atmosphere of reasoned discussion. There is a middle ground that is being trampled, and I find this to be very unfortunate, because that middle ground occupies a place where the erotic beauty of youth and adolescence can be celebrated in a very positive way. But if you dare try to defend the middle ground, the antis write you off as trying to defend the "worst kind" of CP, since to them it's all the same.

'''I would see no problem with pre-pubescents who possess an exhibitionist streak in them (and our society is well aware that such children do exist, despite our strong attempts to deny it) to appear in mildly erotic films...'''

I have no problem with this either, but I can see a potential problem with it - sociogenic in nature. It kind of parallels the issue of mutually consensual sexual contact between [youths] and adults - if the contact itself is not harmful, there is still the stigma that is imposed from outside forces that can result in harm. In this case, the stigma has to do with the sexual shame that is imposed on exhibitionism of this form. In other words, the idea that if somebody sees a "naughty" picture (or video) of you, your reputation could be ruined.

This is a general problem I see that needs to be addressed, but becomes something of a thorn in our side when the issue of youth erotica is involved. This is because of the "child protection" argument that considers children [and younger adolescents] unable to comprehend the repercussions of posing for sexy pictures (or videos) at their age - and the fact that they may regret it later (after it's too late, given the "immortality" of digital media in this age). You certainly see this argument when the topic of "sexting" comes up.

Some people would (and obviously do) argue that the solution is to eliminate any and all material of this nature - and to prevent kids from taking that "risk" to their reputation. I would argue that the freedom to engage in that kind of activity is important enough not to squander it for the sake of this risk, and also that I'm certain there are some (if certainly not all) children [and adolescents] who are capable both of understanding the risk (of potential stigma), and also possess the strength of character not to be significantly affected by it. Indeed, there may be cases where a [youth's] need to express him/herself overcomes the fear of "what people may think/do/say" - and I would argue that that's a healthy attitude to foster, rather than teaching kids to be afraid to express themselves for fear of how others may judge them.

'''Pre-pubescents have appeared nude and even sometimes engaging in lightly erotic scenes (i.e., those involving kissing and notable sensuality) in many foreign films over the past few decades, and people from those cultures do not have the conception that there is something inherently "wrong" with this.'''

Indeed, I do not believe we should indulge our culture's sickness. The exploration of sexuality is a natural curiosity, and it should be indulged, not repressed. I don't believe we should refrain from certain behaviors only because society frowns upon them. Where there are explicit laws against certain behaviors, that is another matter, but in terms of cultural norms, I think it's our duty to push the boundaries and keep an open discussion, and not be afraid to turn a few heads in our pursuit of a better way, as long as we are doing it with an understanding of the backlash we are likely to receive.

Ideally, the goal would be a more tolerant society where people are not shamed and stigmatized for being involved in the erotic arts, thus significantly reducing the risks of participation.

'''And since the definition of what legally constitutes CP in America continues to broaden every single year, it cannot be certain that even these films will not someday fall under the rubric of CP as defined by the increasingly draconian American penal code as the government continues to wage a vicious war against youth sexuality, and all possible depictions and expressions of it thereof.'''

Granted, I think Congress and/or whoever makes those decisions is concerned about laws that are so strict as to render that which is unambiguously "artistic" illegal - particularly works of art that are historically renowned. On the other hand, our tolerance for this type of material - youth sexuality - is gradually eroding, and the limitations on what can and cannot be represented artistically are increasing. I think we ought to be more concerned about what hasn't been created yet than what has. The movies you mentioned may not fall under the legal classification for "child pornography" any time soon (although it's still important for us to make certain they don't), but as time passes, and the laws tighten, and the penalties grow, fewer people are going to want to tackle such a controversial issue, and they'll be able to get away with much less with confidence. And if one such person dares to push the boundaries, he/she is bound to be demonized, and used as an example for even tighter laws, and harsher penalties. (The furor over Bill Henson comes to mind, and his work, from what I've seen, neither involves children, nor can it rightly be classified as "pornographic." If his work pushes people's buttons, then what sort of ban will they call for next?)

How long will it be before no one has the guts to even bring up the topic of youth sexuality anymore? There are already people saying this topic shouldn't even be addressed. Youths are sexual - not talking about it doesn't help anyone. And if youths were to somehow become completely asexual as a result - a result that the anti mindset would seem to favor - what kind of an impact would that have on us as a society and as a species? Think about how authoritarian a government would have to be to have the power to regulate all sexual expression involving minors (whether as the subject of the expression, or merely the subject of discussion). And worse yet, to actually regulate the way minors feel (by excising their natural sexual impulses through some kind of social conditioning). Do you really want to be controlled by a government with that much power? And surely you can't believe that they would limit their exercising of that power to minors. Anyway, the minors will one day become adults, and the adults will eventually die off, and what we've got then is a completely brainwashed populace. Children are the future of us all. Do we really want them growing up ashamed and with unhealthy attitudes about their sexuality? The minute we place sexuality into the governing hands of our so-called "protectors," we are giving up our own power over the continuation of our very existence.

'''After all, the government will poignantly argue, if these films continue to be legal to possess and produce, a "pedophile" may end up seeing them and become aroused by the imagery, and no society that cares about the sacrosanct Victorian image of kids could ever tolerate the possibility of such a horrible thing occurring, correct?'''

This is a ridiculous argument, because you simply cannot prevent pedophiles [or hebephiles] from being aroused by pedophilic stimuli. You would need to completely separate children from adults to start - and though that seems to be the direction we're heading, there are any number of reasons why I think that would be a terrible idea - and even then, pedophiles still have their imagination. As much as society hates pedophiles, you can't punish children for them - and that means allowing children to remain visible to the public eye. I won't accept "pedophiles may get turned on" as an argument unless it's backed up by a realistic plan to prevent pedophiles from ever getting turned on - and in that case, I would be vehemently against such an inhumane plan.

'''I would like to stress that I am not in any way suggesting that, even in a youth liberated society, the MAA community, parents, or anyone else should actually blatantly advocate youth sexuality or the production of youth erotica, or in any way imply that all or even most young girls (or boys) should participate in the production of it, as eroticism is very clearly not a genre of filmography or photography that all youths are suited for, and this should be respected'''.

Arguing that "youth erotica" should be legal in no way presumes that most children ought to be involved with it, and certainly not that any youths should be forced into it. Even were it true that most kids wouldn't have the slightest interest (and I'm not so sure that's the case), the fact that a few of them would is reason enough to allow them that opportunity. That's what choice is about.

'''Despite the fact that I am greatly sickened and horrified by pics of aborted fetuses, and despite the fact that I am pro-choice on the abortion argument, I fully support the right of these anti-choice advocates to collect and distribute such pics for whatever reason they may choose.'''

What is it about a naked [youth] posing in a suggestive manner that is considerably worse than an image of an aborted fetus, that we have to censor the former yet not the latter?

Essay:The Vagaries and Changes of Perception

2011-07-23T05:30:36Z

Dissident: /* by Baldur */

== '''by Baldur''' ==

A recent post on the GirlChat [GC] forum brought to my attention, by a round about way, the history of an album cover for a group called ''Blind Faith''. I can't link to the picture here, but it shows a topless 11-year-old girl holding a model that is supposed to be a spaceship.

What is curious is that I found three or four accounts of the origin of the photo: two almost identical accounts by the photographer, one by the model at age 36, and another by the model at age 50, just 3 years ago. Add to this the biases of the reporters in the last two instances, and we get three accounts of what happened with some very important differences.

I find this rather instructional in how people think, and how they change their views over time to match prevailing social attitudes; and also to see how a third party can give new meaning to old facts.

First, a few points that are in agreement: The photographer, Bob Seidemann, encountered 12-year-old Sula Goschen on a train, told her he would like her to pose for a photograph, gave her a phone number, and asked her to call him. She later called, Seidemann went to visit her parents, and Sula's 11-year-old sister Mariora ended up posing instead. There was some talk about Mariora receiving a horse as payment, but different recollections as to whether that payment was made.

That said, compare and contrast:

Seidemann's account:

He went to visit the family, and Sula "would not be the one, she was shy, she had just passed the point of complete innocence and could not pose. Her younger sister had been saying the whole time, 'Oh Mummy, Mummy, I want to do it, I want to do it.'

"We asked her what her fee should be for modeling, she said a young horse. Stigwood bought one for her."

Then, a reporter's synthesis of events in ''The Independent UK'' of 29 May, 1994, when Mariora was 36 years old, with an 11-year-old daughter of her own.

"He visited [Sula's] parents. [...] They gave their consent. In the end, it was Sula's 11-year-old sister, Mariora, who posed. She asked for 'a young horse' as payment but instead received £40 from Stigwood, Clapton's management organization."

Thirty-six-year-old Mariora said: "I have only just started to find the thing amusing. At the time it was a nuisance, being recognized in the street."

"The nudity didn't bother me. [...] Now, when people tell me they can remember what they were doing when they first saw the cover, and the effect it had on them, I'm thrilled to bits."

Finally, Mariora's view at age 50, from ''The Sunday Times'', 11 November 2007:

"Mariora Goschen [...] recalls that she was coerced into posing for the picture. 'My sister said, 'We'll give you a young horse. Do it!' We already had loads of horses; we lived in the country, in Suffolk. [...] The photographer had persuaded us that I should do it because it was art.' The fee for appearing on this No. 1 album was £40, and Mariora didn't get the young filly or stud she had been promised."

Note the differences:

According to Seidemann, he was there when 11-year-old Mariora insisted she wanted to pose for the photo; 36-year-old Mariora does not comment on this point but says that posing nude never bothered her; and 50-year-old Mariora says her sister told her she should do it. Finally, either 50-year-old Mariora or the reporter introduces the word "coercion" to describe the event.

There is, of course, a huge difference in perception between Seidemann's account of Mariora's eagerness to pose and ''The Sunday Times'' reporter account of "coercion" - which itself is a bit confusing, because this reporter appears to confuse the offer of payment with coercion, which are two very different things.

There is also the question of whether Mariora got the horse she was promised, with Seidemann saying she did and Mariora saying she did not - however, given inflation and exchange rates £40 might have been enough to buy a young horse at the time, and if Stigwood paid the money for a horse and her parents spent it on something else, Seidemann would have (wrongly) presumed the horse was purchased. This does not implicate Seidemann's perception, as he received his information secondhand.

Seidemann reports having visited the family at their home in Mayfair (in London), but Mariora says they lived out in the country (in Suffolk). There are several possible resolutions to this: Mariora's wealthy family may have had two homes, or she might not recall the date of a move. Still, the account of Seidemann meeting her sister on a train, and his location in London rather than Suffolk, suggest that Mariora's memory here is wearing a bit thin. It is notable, however, that this difference in memory is used to support a new narrative of blame, in which Mariora implies that since she already had access to many horses such an offer was inadequate, and she posed because "the photographer had persuaded us that I should do it because it was art." By the time of this interview in 2007 it appears that word had reached Mariora that she, as a child, could never have consented to being photographed nude, so she implies that she was fooled by the photographer into believing that "it was art," and that was the reason she posed. It should, however, be noted that in this last interview it may have been the reporter who put this spin on the narrative. Selective quotation can work wonders.

Thirty-six-year-old Mariora says that one thing was a nuisance: being recognized on the streets - but she also says that 25 years later she was very pleased to have posed. Fifty-year-old Mariora, or the reporter, don't go quite so far as condemning her having posed, but they certainly put the events in a bad light, i.e., "coercion," told to "do it," she didn't receive what had been promised.

Human memory is a very frail thing, and can be influenced by the culture around us. We know how "repressed" memories that seem very real can be manufactured, but they are far more common than we generally recognize. In real life, I have several acquaintances that claim to remember things that I am equally sure did not happen. Generally their false memories about me are quite flattering, but I know them to be untrue. Their high regard for me has caused them to remember our shared past in an insanely positive light - and I also know several women whom I know for a fact had a reasonably happy childhood, but who have been persuaded by the ''victimistas'' that their childhood was horrible, which causes them present day distress.

How many others have been wounded by this poisonous culture of blame?

Essay:Movie Review of Guter Junge

2011-07-22T15:08:26Z

Dissident: Essay:Movie Review of Guter Junge moved to Essay:Movie Review of GUTER JUNGE: Title modification.

#REDIRECT [[Essay:Movie Review of GUTER JUNGE]]

Essay:Movie Review of GUTER JUNGE

2011-07-22T15:08:26Z

Dissident: Essay:Movie Review of Guter Junge moved to Essay:Movie Review of GUTER JUNGE: Title modification.

== '''by Gatekeeper''' ==

'''''Guter Junge'': Review'''

Sven is a good boy. While still in his teens, he looses his mother in an auto accident and moves in with his father, a man he hardly knows. An excellent student, Sven has a promising future.

But he has a secret: Sven likes young boys.

Sebastian Urzendowsky plays Sven. The movie has a release date of 2008, and it is a made-for-TV movie. So, I am guessing Sebastian was about 22 when he made the movie, though he passes for a boy in his late teens. Sandro Lohmann was probably about 17 when he played the 12-year-old Patrick. He passes quite nicely for a younger boy, and he is gorgeous.

Sven loves Patrick, and it is clear that the feeling is mutual. Sadly, parents, the law, and society mess up their lives. Patrick’s mother learns something of the relationship and gets hysterical. Sven’s father, Achim, is angry and bitter. He verbally and physically abuses his son, at one point punching Sven in the face. The boys’ lives are torn apart.

A review of the film, found on IMDB, says, “Sven himself is shattered and regrets his actions.” I agree that Sven is shattered; he has lost the one boy he truly loves and who loves him in return. Sven does not, in my opinion, feel regret. Throughout the film, Sven tries desperately to get his father to understand his Love, to accept that he does love Patrick.

In desperation, he tries to do what his father wants, but it is an overpowering grief that leads Sven to attempt suicide, then later to beg his father to lock him in his room. He does not regret his Love. He is only trying to find a way to live in an insane world.

Achim, in contrast, is a man who, though legally able to have sexual relations with people in the age group he is naturally attracted to, and who can find adult sexual partners, is also a man who does not love. He destroyed his marriage to Sven’s mother. He cannot make a commitment to the woman he is currently with, though he has sex with her regularly. He abuses his son. With his son in great pain, Achim goes out and receives fellatio from an adult female prostitute. He is the antithesis of Sven, an empty man who cannot love, while his son loves deeply and passionately in a way that is condemned by a world full of hate.

The world, it seems, is not ready for this great Love. And so, naturally it seems, the movie does not end well. We cannot expect more than this…now. But I hope we see better in the future. I know there are people out here in this bitter and cruel world who are trying to make a positive difference for intergenerational love. Maybe someday--before I leave this mortal sphere, I trust--we may see a more positive, enlightened film portraying our great Love.

I so very much look forward to that day.

Essay:Movie Review of "Guter Junge"

2011-07-22T15:07:16Z

Dissident: Essay:Movie Review of "Guter Junge" moved to Essay:Movie Review of Guter Junge: Title change.

#REDIRECT [[Essay:Movie Review of Guter Junge]]

Essay:Movie Review of GUTER JUNGE

2011-07-22T15:07:16Z

Dissident: Essay:Movie Review of "Guter Junge" moved to Essay:Movie Review of Guter Junge: Title change.