“Offensive” Virtual Images of Children are now Illegal in the UK
November 14th, 2009
After much lobbying by numerous commercialised “charities”, the parliament of the United Kingdom has enacted a law which is likely to lead to the sexual abuse of countless real children but is likely to win support for the spineless and dangerous politicians who supported it.
In their earlier defence of legislation against images of virtual children, Labour ministers claimed that the images were also illegal to publish or distribute under the Obscene Publications Act. That is clearly not a logical defence for the prohibition of possession, but it is also not true. The new law criminalises the possession of any image which “focuses solely or principally on a [virtual] child’s genitals or anal region” or depicts any sexual act which involves virtual children or is witnessed by virtual children, and is “pornographic” and “grossly offensive, disgusting or otherwise of an obscene character.” These standards are obviously not clear, but the standard of obscenity under the Obscene Publications Act – the “tendency to corrupt or deprave” – is not present in the new legislation, even if the Ministry of Justice would like you to think otherwise.
In a piece which I wrote in July, I described how the proposed law against virtual child erotica will not reduce the grossly exaggerated risk of sexual assault against children. In brief, nobody has been able to provide evidence for the allegation that the use of drawn child erotica encourages sexual abuse – a fact which the Ministry of Justice conceded during their “consultation”. Research is increasingly showing an inverse relationship between the availability/use of child erotica and sexual assaults on children, so this law is probably a danger to children and not something which will protect them.
Sadly, the Labour government’s supposed use of evidence-based legislation is simply a myth. To the current government of the United Kingdom, science is as an enemy which threatens their rather unscientific use of fear and panic to control the population and crush legitimate protest. The politics of paedophilia is essentially an extension of the politics of fear, which deliberately frightens people towards accepting a particular ideology (the historical definition of terrorism) which is favourable to the powers that be. The politics of paedophilia is not only useful for power-obsessed politicians who wish to extend the iron tentacles of the state and gain points over their political rivals; it is also major source of income for modern children’s charities. The NSPCC is a good example, as an arguably fraudulent charity which obsessively markets itself to garner donations, then spends an atrocious proportion of those donations on aggressive marketing practices rather than protecting children. Unfortunately, nobody is really thinking of the children.
The legitimacy of the new law against possessing images of virtual children is also questionable within the European legal framework. The European Convention on Human Rights and domestic Human Rights Act dictate that a person has a right to privacy, with certain exceptions. One of those exceptions is that if the relevant aspects of legislation are believed to protect children, any breach of privacy is held to be acceptable. While the prohibition on the possession of indecent images of children is supported by various weak studies which incorrectly claim that children are harmed by possession of naked or erotic photographs, no such evidence exists in relation to drawings of cartoons. A person appealing against a conviction of possessing a prohibited image of a child has a good case if arguing on the grounds that their right to privacy has been breached.
Another dubious clause within the new legislation is the attempt to extend jurisdiction over service providers in the European Economic Area. If a web host or ISP managed from anywhere in the EEA is in possession of “prohibited images of children” in the course of providing a service, the UK may attempt to have the owners or directors extradited to face charges in the UK. According to the UK parliament’s “research paper”, “the significance of these measures could extend beyond the control of child pornography in that they could potentially provide a test bed for the future development of wider internet regulation”. By using a topic which typically circumvents concerns over liberties and excessive state authority, the British state may succeed in their attempt to apply their draconian laws to other European countries.
Update: The Coroners and Justice Act is now available online. Sections 62 to 68 cover the criminalisation of “prohibited images”, Schedule 13 extends criminal liability to “information society services” such as commercial web hosts and ISPs, and Part 3 of Schedule 21 makes minor amendments to three previous Acts.
The Perverse Politics of Virtual Child Porn Law
July 6th, 2009
In 2006, the UK Home Office (which has since devolved many of its powers to the Ministry of Justice) announced plans to criminalise the possession of “non-photographic images of child sexual abuse” (BBC, 2006). The justification for this law was based upon several assumptions, none of which are supported empirically.
The first and most significant claim of ministers, made in the original “consultation on possession of non-photographic visual depictions of child sexual abuse”, was that “fantasy images themselves fuel abuse of real children by reinforcing potential abusers’ inappropriate feelings towards children” (Home Office, 2007). The Home Office noted “an absence of research into the effects of these images”, but proceeded to ask if their proposal was “nevertheless justified”.
Upon publishing the “summary of responses and next steps”, the Ministry of Justice (2008) was unable to provide any evidence for the claims made in its paper, explaining that it had taken the decision to legislate against computer-generated images on the basis of a public consultation (in which the opinions expressed were far from unanimous) and closed meetings with “interested parties”. Those “interested parties” were comprised mostly of charities which have a financial stake in the matter, as well as the Child Exploitation & Online Protection Centre, which receives funding to investigate potential sexual offences committed online and is currently seeking public support for a doubling of its funding.
Evidence-based legislation?
In 2009, the Coroners and Justice Bill – which intends to criminalise the possession of virtual child erotica - was introduced by Jack Straw and Lord Bach. The accompanying research paper (Almandras et al, 2009) cites a report by the Longford Committee (1972) and Ray Wyre’s appendix in Tim Tate’s (1990) book on child pornography as evidence, however both works discuss photographic pornography rather than computer-generated or drawn imagery.
The Longford Committee’s findings were published several years before the “discovery” of child pornography, which was not the subject of public or scientific debate prior to 1975 (Stanley, 1987; O’Donnell & Milner, 2007) and was not subject to legislation until 1977 in the USA or 1978 in the UK. The committee’s findings therefore cannot be taken as conclusive evidence with regard to child pornography, nor can they be assumed to be applicable to computer-generated pornography (which was not available at the time). The findings of the committee - as cited in the research paper – are also rather vague. According to the Ministry of Justice, the committee’s report stated that “pornography clearly must have some effect” but admitted that “only in very rare cases can a causal connection between pornography and anti-social behaviour be conclusively proved” (Longford Committee, cited by Almandras et al, 2009). The evidence provided by the Longford Committee clearly does not support the beliefs expressed by legislators in proposing the prohibition of virtual child erotica.
Child pornography had been acknowledged and formed part of the criminological discourse when Tate’s book was published, however there is no empirical (or even anecdotal) evidence of the existence of computer-generated child pornography prior to the publication of Tate’s book. Wyre’s argument was based solely upon his experiences in working with sex offenders at the time, and was therefore based upon his observations of how offenders allegedly used photographic child pornography. Even if one discounts the fact that virtual pornography is yet another step away from reality in relation to photographic pornography, the reliability of Wyre’s argument remains debatable. One must remember that a correlation may not involve a direct causal link; while many of the contact child sex offenders which Wyre studied may also have used pornography – and may have used it as an excuse for their behaviour – it is quite possible that the contact offenders would have committed a contact offence regardless of their use of pornography. If, as Wyre suggested, a contact child sex offender “will use anything – including child pornography or child erotica” to “make his behaviour seem as normal as possible” (Wyre, cited by Almandras et al, 2009), child erotica is not necessary for the facilitation of contact offending, as the offender would find other ways to justify their behaviour. The government’s use of Wyre’s work in supporting the proposed legislation is actually a serious misinterpretation (or misuse) of the text and does not justify the ban which is proposed by legislators.
Contrary to the largely irrelevant research cited in the research paper for the proposed legislation, there is a significant body of evidence which suggests that child erotica has a positive effect on the behaviour of people with a sexual interest in children, providing a sexual relief which reduces the likelihood of contact offending. Sheldon & Howitt (2008) found that despite the popular belief that fantasy leads to action, “fantasy deficit may be involved in contact offending against children” as contact offenders are unable to generate mastubatory fantasies without engaging in contact offences. The correlation between liberalisation of pornography laws and a decrease in cases of contact offences is also worthy of note here. A major correlation was observed in Denmark and West Germany (O’Carroll, 2000), while a correlation between an increase in the availability of virtual pornography (including child and rape pornography) and a decrease in contact offending has been observed in Japan (Diamond & Uchiyama, 1999). While the O’Carroll and Diamond & Uchiyama studies only prove a correlation, it is unlikely that the increased availability of child pornography and a decrease in contact offences against children could have a common causal factor, indicating that the legal availability of pornography (both child and adult) reduces the risk of sexually harmful behaviour.
A charitable concern?
Two of the primary campaigners in favour of the prohibition of cartoon child erotica are the NSPCC (a children’s charity with statutory powers) and CHIS (a coalition of charities in which the NSPCC is an influential member). In a response to the Scottish consultation on the proposed prohibition of virtual child erotica, CHIS argued that “advances in technology have made it possible to create materials which are entirely artificial but which, in turn, are indistinguishable from photographs or videos of real events” (CHIS, 2008). Such an argument is clearly misleading as a reason for legislating against virtual child erotica, as erotic photo-realistic images of children are already illegal under UK law and possession of such images carries the same maximum sentence as actual photographs (Sentencing Advisory Panel, 2006). It is evident that CHIS was already aware of the illegality of photo-realistic indecent images of children when they responded to the consultation, as they quoted from the relevant law on the same page of their response. It is therefore difficult to interpret the CHIS response as anything other than an attempt to mislead the public, media, and undereducated civil servants.
Before progressing to a further analysis of the children’s charities’ use of misleading information, it would be careless not to mention that the same manipulative tactics are also being used by politicians. When the Ministry of Justice announced the intention to criminalise virtual child erotica, Justice Minister Maria Eagle issued a press release claiming that “paedophiles could be circumventing the law by using computer technology to manipulate real photographs or videos of abuse into drawings or cartoons” (Eagle, 2008). Regardless of whether or not this is true (there is no evidence for or against the claim), Section 69(3) of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act (2008) criminalised the possession, distribution, showing and making of images derived from indecent photographs or pseudo-photographs of children three weeks prior to Eagle’s announcement. In short, the “loophole” which Eagle referred to had already been closed. The implications of her announcement are therefore quite disturbing; either the Justice Minister was unaware of the content of a major bill which had just been enacted, or she was deliberately attempting to mislead and manipulate the media and public into supporting her department’s proposals.
Despite the misleading statements of CHIS, the motivations of the NSPCC themselves are of the greatest concern. The NSPCC has a history of using sensationalism, half-truths and deception in its campaigns for donations. In 2007, it emerged that the NSPCC had mailed fake stories of child abuse - presented as genuine accounts - in order to garner donations from concerned members of the public (The Daily Mail, 2007). Prior to this discovery, Sociology professor Frank Furedi (2004) described the NSPCC as “a danger to the nation’s children”. His article drew attention to the NSPCC’s use of expensive marketing companies and misleading statistics to frighten both parents and children into donating to the organisation. Similar concerns were also expressed in an article in the Observer (Rayner, 1999) and by the Social Issues Research Centre (1999).
Of greater concern with regard to the proposed law against virtual child erotica is the NSPCC’s conflict of interest in responding to the proposal. Unbeknownst to the general public (and possibly even to legislators), the NSPCC conducts a significant number of sex offender therapy programmes (NSPCC, 2008). The amount of funding which they receive for conducting such programmes has not been disclosed, however intense public fears over child sex offenders and the costs associated with finding staff who are prepared to work with such offenders would suggest that the NSPCC receives significant funding for carrying out this service. Considering the revenue which the NSPCC is likely to generate from providing such services, expecting them to provide objective input on a proposal which will increase the number of people who use those services is highly optimistic.
Another argument proposed by the NSPCC and by other proponents of the legislation is that the availability of cartoon child erotica implies tolerance of child sexual abuse, therefore encouraging paedophiles to act out (Hilton, 2009). The first problem with this argument is that the broad definition of “prohibited images” in the Coroners and Justice Bill includes images which simply focus on certain areas of a child’s body and are perceived to be “grossly offensive” or “disgusting” (Coroners and Justice Bill, 2009), even if no sexual activity is depicted. Furthermore, the claim that the availability of cartoon child erotica - even if it depicts sexual abuse - implies a tolerance of child abuse is unfounded and grossly illogical. Firstly, a glance at (legal) discussion boards for paedophiles - such as Annabelleigh.net - indicates that paedophiles are extremely aware of the negativity of attitudes towards paedophilia per se as well as child sexual abuse. Contrary to the argument of the proponents of the proposed legislation, the fact that child erotica is only legal in cartoon form clearly suggests that society is so opposed to any indication of child abuse that it prohibits material which depicts real children in a potentially sexual manner. By criminalising mere cartoons, the government risks providing additional justification for the (justifiable) belief that much of the crusade against paedophiles is a matter of prudism or playing on people’s fears, rather than an attempt to protect children. The prevalence of this belief is clearly problematic for a government whose policies rely heavily on a veiled politics of fear, using the “think of the children” mantra as an excuse for abuses of state power. By providing additional evidence for the belief, the government also challenges any message of the kind which the NSPCC were referring to, as it characterises pornography laws as an attempt to legislate morality rather than a disapproval of child abuse.
One of the original arguments in favour of the prohibition of cartoon child erotica is the belief that contact offenders could use cartoons to “groom” children (The Register, 2007). While this may be true, the act of grooming a child is already a serious criminal offence in the UK. If someone is prepared to violate laws against grooming, committing an offence with intent to commit a sexual offence and attempting sexual activity with a child, they are unlikely to be deterred by laws against the possession of virtual child erotica.
Everyone needs a release
One major concern raised by the proposed prohibition of virtual child erotica is that such a prohibition may encourage some paedophiles to use real child pornography. While viewing or possessing child pornography per se is unlikely to encourage production, the purchase of such material may stimulate production, which must surely be of concern to those who have an interest in protecting children. Criminalising the possession of virtual child erotica will obviously criminalise a legitimate and responsible release for paedophiles’ sexual urges. If virtual child erotica were criminalised, the only available releases (other than clothed and non-erotic images of children) would be illegal activities, such as the use of illegal photographs or harmful behaviour involving real children, or the new offence of using virtual child erotica. While the sentence for possessing illegal photographs of children is slightly harsher than the recommended sentence for the proposed crime of possessing “prohibited [virtual] images of children”, an offender would be outed as a “paedophile” in both cases, with all of the destructive social and financial effects which that entails. It would therefore be unsurprising if anybody who required a release involving some kind of erotic stimuli depicting children chose illegal photographs, as the consequences would not differ significantly from those which would result from viewing cartoons. The greater issue is with the minority of paedophiles who have no concern for the welfare of children or believe that having sex with children is harmless. In the case of people who avoid sexual contact with children solely as a result of the legal consequences - and who desperately require the release which virtual child erotica provides - the consequences of banning virtual child erotica are a major concern.
Conclusion
Children’s charities and legislators are clutching at straws and ignoring the plethora of evidence which indicates that child erotica has a socially positive effect on paedophiles. While the motivations of children’s charities are presumably financial, one must ask why the government are so insistent on legislation which will have no benefit to the safety of children or any other person.
A more cynical interpretation of the proposed legislation would be that the government is attempting to tighten its grip on the population. By exploiting the natural concern of protecting children as an excuse for monopolising power within the state, power-hungry legislators are able to increase their ability to further their personal political agenda. While such a belief could be dismissed as a conspiracy theory, one must consider the possible intentions of someone who chooses a political career; a career which does not provide huge financial rewards for people whose necessary social engineering skills could achieve seven-figure salaries in the private sector. Inevitably, many politicians will be motivated to influence and control others.
Many politicians find that arguing for “child protection” laws is an easy way of soliciting votes from a public which is misinformed by the media and manipulative “childrens’” charities. Politicians may also find that they can persuade the public to support controversial legislation by claiming that such legislation is “for the children”. Furthermore, any elected politician who disagrees with any legislation which is “for the children”, however reasonable their grounds, is liable to lose their position at the next election.
The current political system supports politicians who crusade under the guise of protecting children in order to justify policy types which support their own world view or increase their power over those who they govern. The laws which result from such policies threaten the civil rights of everyone, as they may be used to justify further intrusions into the private lives of citizens. The proposed law against the possession of cartoon and drawn child erotica is one such law, and the effects which it may have should be of significant concern to both civil libertarians and people who genuinely care about children.
This article has been published prior to the collection of full references due to an imminent debate on the proposed legislation. Full references will be published shortly
Proposing, Veiling and Prosecuting Thoughtcrime
January 20th, 2009
In George Orwell’s dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four the government attempts to control not only the speech and actions, but also the thoughts of its subjects, labelling disapproved thoughts with the term thoughtcrime or, in Newspeak, “crimethink”. In the book, Winston Smith, the main character, writes in his diary: “Thoughtcrime does not entail death: thoughtcrime is death.”
In this post, I will present three very real news stories and assess whether in my opinion they constitute thoughtcrime. For the purpose of this article, I will define thoughtcrimes as crimes convicted with laws and/or rationales entailing explicit and deliberate prejudice against the thought processes of a defendant. I do not deny that in reality many child porn convictions are based on faulty rationalisations, leaving no arguable rationale other than thoughtcrime.
1. Concerns over Exeter porn charge man.
“Mr Bennett told the court that other “material” was found at the defendant’s home when it was searched by police. “These images have to be seen against the fact there is clear evidence they are fuelling some very unlawful fantasies,” he said. “This is borne out by the fact that there are artefacts fuelling these fantasies, although fantasies are as far as they go.”"
The prosecutor is suggesting that the defendant’s fantasies are illegal in and of themselves. But as anyone well studied enough in British Law will tell you, there is no law on the statute that can be legitimately used against pedophilic fantasies. Whether through his own stupidity or opportunism, the prosecutor is therefore talking rubbish. It can therefore be concluded that what we are seeing here is a proposed thoughtcrime, and one from a biased, non legislative source at that.
2. Pervert had sick baby fantasy.
“A PERVERT has been jailed for four years for fantasising about kidnapping and raping a baby before strangling it. (…) Lloyd told how he wanted to steal a baby, rape and strangle it before burning the body to destroy DNA evidence. (…) Mr Roberts said: “Lloyd admitted what he said – but said it was stupid fantasy talk and he never meant it. “He told police he had downloaded sexual images and films on to his girlfriend’s computer from the internet but had deleted them.” Lloyd was sentenced to four years in prison for threats to kill and downloading child pornography.”
Whilst Lloyd’s fantasies are sadistic and fundamentally non-pedophilic, they form an important part of our analysis. Despite his suicidal admission to downloading child pornography, Lloyd was also convicted for threats to kill. One can only assume that whilst there was no solid evidence that Lloyd threatened any particular child or was about to victimise one at random, the court nevertheless convicted the “pedophile” with extreme prejudice. This case can not be described as statutory or explicit thoughtcrime due to the good intentions of the law used to convict and the justification given for using it. However, the conviction may be better characterised as a phantom thoughtcrime - not explicitly stated, but implicit in the prejudices of those who lawyered for it.
3. Judge refuses to reduce 48-year prison sentence.
“A Champaign County judge refused Friday to reduce the 48-year prison sentence of a former Urbana teacher convicted of child molestation. (…) Clem sentenced White in early April on eight counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse to which White pleaded guilty in February. White admitted that he had eight blindfolded girls, about ages 7 to 9, lick sauces off a banana for his own sexual gratification (…) Olmstead argued 48 years was excessive given that the offenses did not involve actual sexual contact, that White never threatened or intimidated the girls, and that his conduct didn’t cause or threaten physical harm. “The acts were made criminal because of what was in his mind, something they couldn’t know,” he said of the victims who played White’s “tasting game.” (…) “Teachers should be safeguarding children in their care. They (children) certainly shouldn’t be reduced to bit players in someone’s sexual fantasies,” the judge said.”
This case differs markedly from the one above. Whilst the charge (sexual abuse) is again, not specifically tailored towards the conviction of thoughts, it is very clear that through the “pedophilic gaze” of the prosecution and judge, White’s thoughts modified a harmless, non-criminal tasting game into an abusive “sexual act”. In deciding whether this case should be described as an explicit thoughtcrime, we may ask ourselves whether there really is anything implicit about redefining “acts” as criminal based on the thought processes of a defendant. On that consideration, only one conclusion is appropriate. From this case alone, we can say that explicit thoughtcrime is alive and well in the United States of America.
Satire: Santa Arrested For Paedo Pics
December 25th, 2008
The Daily Sun: London
CHRISTMAS has been cancelled for a second year, following the arrest of Santa for “evading the prohibition on the importation of indecent material”. According to the Metropolitan Police’s Paedophile Unit, Santa first came under suspicion after he was found to have travelled to Thailand more than 200 times over a period of just 200 years. Upon entering the UK, he was found to be in possession of sick images of child abuse, including copies of a music album which was recently censored by the Internet Watch Foundation.
“Gifts”
Santa protested his innocence, explaining that the records were merely gifts, however these claims were struck down by Shaun Kelly of childrens’ charity NCH. Kelly explained that “paedophiles often use jusitifications such as “it was only a hug”, “it was only a picture”, “this wouldn’t be a crime in any other country”, or “I really do like listening to The Scorpions”, however nobody in their right mind would believe this”. Jacqui Smith explained that “the Home Office will do everything it can to make the public feel safe, whether this means censoring artists, banning photography in public, or manipulating figures on the extent of knife crime in London”.
“Mistaken Identity”
Santa Claus, who The Daily Sun can EXCLUSIVELY unmask as Mr Paul Doe from Air Strip One in Oceania, claims that he is a victim of mistaken identity. Mr Doe argued that he was “just pretending to be Santa in order to make some extra money for Christmas”, however CEOP’s Jim Gamble does not believe this claim. He explained that “Mr Doe clearly sought a job where he would have access to young children, so he is obviously a determined and dangerous child molester. We need to send the message that if you work with children in the UK, we will find you and we will prosecute you; there is nowhere to hide.”
The Metropolitan Police stated that “it is our policy to arrest everyone who may have thought about committing a potential crime. Once we have arrested them and provided their details to the local press, we decide whether they are guilty before submitting their cases to the Crown Prosecution Service. It is then for the Jury to decide whether they look like a Muslim, a black youth, a paedophile, or somebody else who must be guilty.”
This incident came just two hours after Santa was turned away from Vatican City for wearing a coat which “looked too much like a dress”. The Pope declined to comment, stating only that he was acting under the authority of a higher power.
The Daily Sun would like to apologise for printing a photograph of Jacqui Smith speaking in the House of Commons, which we have now removed in order to comply with the Obscene Publications Act and complaints from concerned parents.
Possession of Child Pornography Becomes Illegal in Slovenia
November 1st, 2008
The mere possession of child pornography has today become an offence in Slovenia, following the adoption of a new penal code. According to the new law, it will be an offence for a person to possess “pornographic or other sexual material depicting minors or their realistic images”. The maximum sentence for possession is up to five years imprisonment, which is the same as for producing the material.
The amendments to Slovenia’s law against child pornography are presumably a result of the Council of Europe Convention on the Protection of children against sexual exploitation and sexual abuse which was discussed here.
Many people claim that simply downloading child pornography from the internet “creates a demand”, however this is an illogical assumption. The problem with applying the supply and demand theory to people who possess but don’t purchase is that they are not creating a demand, because the supplier is not interested in producing images for people who are effectively “stealing” them by downloading them for free, for the same reasons that artists don’t record music for people downloading it from file sharing networks. Supply and demand is an economic theory which applies to commercial sale, not products being used for free. Producers of any material do not want their material to be used freely, so an increased interest in freely available pornography would only harm them. People would be less likely to purchase child pornography if viewing freely available child pornography was legalised, as viewing freely available child pornography would become the safe [and legal] option. Production levels of child pornography would therefore fall because of a lack of commercial demand, meaning that less children would be used in pornography.
Another argument against the possession of child pornography is that the use of child pornography encourages viewers to abuse children, however nobody has been able to show a causal link between the use of child pornography and the commission of contact offences. A study by Freel in 2003, which focused on social workers with a sexual interest in children, explained that “If someone is fully inhibited from sexually abusing children, no amount of emotional congruence, sexual arousal, or blockage will lead them to abuse children.” Research by O’Carroll, published in 2000, found a correlation between an increase in the availability of child pornography and a decrease in the commission of contact sex offences against children, which suggests that, for some people, child pornography may serve as a substitution for contact offending.
PNVD Harassed By Authorities At Peaceful Protest
October 14th, 2008
Members of the PNVD, a Dutch political party which supports the reform of legislative and social attitudes towards child sexuality and paedophilia, were recently harassed during a protest against EU data retention laws.
Four members of the party peacefully joined the protest in The Hague (Holland) on October 11, however they were confronted by an aggressive fellow protester who, without holidng any authority, told them to leave. When the PNVD refused to forfeit their right to peaceful protest, they were approached by the police. Rather than asking the aggressive protester to cease the harassment of the PNVD, the police demanded that the PNVD leave or face arrest for “threatening the public peace”.
The four members of the PNVD agreed to leave without causing a disturbance, however the police followed them to the station until the activists stepped onto the train. The censorship of the PNVD may contravene Article 10 and Article 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
The original news report can be found here, in Dutch.
Update
August 28th, 2008
Due to inactivity and the increasingly academic nature of contributions, we are going to change the format of this website. This blog will be locked but will remain online, while new material will be written for static pages, outside of the Wordpress format. A new Slashdot-style blogging service will be launched, which will allow anyone to create their own blog, while a central blog will be operated based on contributions from both administrators and readers. These changes will take place within the next two months.
Update, 2008/12/14: We still intend to make these changes; they have simply been delayed.
The Adverse Effects of Child Sexual Hysteria (Part 1)
June 22nd, 2008
If we were to put aside our case for non-contact pedophile rights - just for a moment, how many adverse consequences could we list for society in general? I almost considered grafting extra fingers to count them all. In this half of my post, I consider the negative impacts on Children:
1. Denial of contact with children - a problem that has already seen some coverage in the media.[1][2] When violent and/or illegal acts against children are confused with universal feelings of affection and caring/physical responses, we end up seeing a degree of stand-offishness that denies young people their share of affection, and the right to feel valued. As a result, normal physical contact - common among closely related species and nearly always present in the more peaceful of human societies is characterised as perverse - something the young should fear.
2. Priming of children for victimhood - whereby a child who has been raped, traumatised or has no conception of the “wrongness” of his or her sexual involvements is told that they must be a victim. This is a mechanism of coercion and constraint that contributes to the formation of moral absolutes and the persecution of pedophiles - who according to the proponents of such propaganda, make up the majority of child sex offenders - a false claim.
Plummer[3] applies this to Girls:
“Again, this floods over into their sexual meanings: their sexuality is much more a matter of something that others do to them and define for them. It is something relatively out of their own control. At its most extreme edge, little girls may come to realize that it is totally out of their control — in dim, inarticulate ways they may come to see themselves as the objects of massive sexual terrorism”
3. A lack of guidance for children - when all unofficial, non-parental relationships between legal children and legal adults are seen as exploitative, or at least dangerous (possibly due to their ability to subvert order), childhood becomes a matter of mere indoctrination and replication of “family” propaganda. Children become the property of their parents; exposure to mind-opening and diverse opinions, values and practises is prohibited. Such over-protection in a risk - oriented society is very likely to lead to overly risk-averse adults who have no will to exploit positive opportunities outside of a normative framework that they will in turn attempt to replicate. This kind of paranoia has also been covered in the media.[4]
4. Banning of children - and this can be taken quite literally. When groups involving children and generally accepted children’s activities become risky, the rational response is to impose bans, or risk prosecution. We are seeing at least some compromised reporting of this, from some sources. For example:
“Children could be barred from joining sports and hobby clubs because of the increasing burden of red tape, campaigners fear. Organisations which run activities for youngsters are already struggling to recruit volunteers because they must undergo criminal records checks. But when a new child protection database is introduced next year - which one in four adults will have to sign at a cost of £64 each - it is feared that many groups which admit members of all ages will decide it is cheaper and simpler to exclude children.” [5]
5. Obesity in children - self evident, and a natural consequence of the previous point. As fears of “stalking predators” have been ramped up, parents have become less likely to allow their children to be active outdoors, or join sports clubs - assuming that they have not been banned. With an expansive service economy and an increasing denial of physical outlet, it is important that we do not allow the youngest members of society to grow fat and lazy for other reasons.
In Part 2, I will cover the adverse effects for society as a whole. These are Vigilante Justice, Murders, Expenditure, Validation of Pseudo-Science and False Allegations and Validation of Psychic Mediums.
Reference:
1. http://www.freewebtown.com/newsstand/archive1/1272.html
2. http://education.guardian.co.uk/schools/story/0,,1408828,00.html
3. Plummer, K. (1990). Understanding Childhood Sexualities. In Sandfort, T., Brongersma, J, & van Naerssen, A (eds.), Male Intergenerational Intimacy. New York: Harrington Park Press.
4. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/article1918842.ece
5. Daily Telegraph, 20/06/2008, “Child protection rules could see youngsters banned from sport and hobby clubs”.
Politics of an Obscene Character
May 29th, 2008
The suitably Orwellian-sounding Ministry of Justice has announced that it is to criminalise the possession of “all images of child sexual abuse, including drawings and computer-generated images”.
When the Home Office originally outlined their plans to criminalise such cartoons, I urged people to send a reply to the consultation and many people did voice their concerns. In a display of total disregard to our views, the Ministry of Justice have issued a “Summary of responses and next steps“, which reveals legislators’ intentions in relation to this issue. A brief analysis of this response suggests that the primary aspect of the legislation will look something like this:
-
1. It is an offence to make, distribute, show or possess any visual depiction of a child which is not a photograph or a pseudo-photograph, which shows —
-
(a) An excessive focus on a child’s genitalia; or
(b) A person of any age performing an act of intercourse or oral sex with a child; or
(c) An act of masturbation by, of or involving a child; or
(d) Penetration of the vagina, anus or mouth of a child with a part of the person’s body or with anything else; or
(e) Bestiality involving a child;
and is of an obscene character.
Justice Minister Maria Eagle attempted to justify the proposed law by claiming that “paedophiles could be circumventing the law by using computer technology to manipulate real photographs or videos of abuse into drawings or cartoons.” This is blatantly untrue, as Section 69 of the recently enacted Criminal Justice and Immigration Act amended Section 7 of the Protection of Children Act, to the effect that a non-photographic image derived from an indecent photograph or pseudo-photograph is treated for all purposes of the Act as an indecent photograph or pseudo-photograph. In short, it’s already illegal to make, possess, distribute or show cartoons and drawings which have been manipulated from real photographs.
It is also illegal to distribute any “obscene publication” under the Obscene Publications Act, and despite the contrary claims of the Ministry of Justice, it is illegal to take, make, distribute, show or possess a pseudo-photograph, which means that all efforts to implement the proposed new law can have only one effect: the possession of material which is not derived from photographs of “abuse” and which is clearly non-photographic will be criminalised.
Shaun Kelly, speaking for NCH, stated that “this is a welcome announcement which makes a clear statement that drawings or computer-generated images of child abuse are as unacceptable as a photograph“, effectively contradicting his previous claim that indecent photographs of children are wrong because, “for [..] images to be made children were abused.”
It is evident that the Ministry of Justice and NCH are attempting to hide the true intentions of this proposed law. To understand the motivations behind this proposal, a little background is required. As I explained at GirlChat,
The criminalisation of “non-photographic visual depictions of child sexual abuse” was first proposed by “children’s charities” - who are forever desperate to encourage donations by exploiting people’s emotions - in 2006. In 2007, the campaign was backed by low-importance MPs who wished to elevate their profile, but who were most likely uninterested in the issue in question.
The campaign became irrelevant when, earlier this month, any image derived from an indecent photograph or pseudo-photograph of a child became illegal under Section 69 of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act.
Unfortunately, the UK economy is heading for recession and the criminal justice system is under attack due to a lack of space in prisons (the latter is ironically due to silly, politically-motivated legislation). The Labour government recently suffered a horrendous defeat in the recent by-elections, due to their drastic inability to deal with these issues. They have no choice but to use distraction techniques to divert attention from their incompetency.
Paedophiles are being used as pawns for political and economic reasons, simply because we are currently the weakest minority who nobody will speak out for.
The pathetic irony of the proposed legislation is that someone who is convicted of possessing a cartoon derived from an image of a child masturbating will get the same sentence as someone who is convicted of making a photograph of an adult molesting a child, because the person in the former case would be charged under the recently amended Protection of Children Act and the new law, whereas the latter would only be charged under the Protection of Children Act. It is clear that the UK government is not “only” using paedophiles as pawns; it is using children as pawns too.
The Content of “Indecent Images”
May 1st, 2008
It is often claimed that child pornography involves violence and sexual abuse against children. That claim is used to justify a vast amount of funding for organisations such as CEOP, as well as restrictive and illiberal legislation.
The book Child Pornography: Crime, Computers and Society provides insight into the content of indecent images, using a sample of 106 cases in Ireland, between 2000 and 2004. The content of the images was described by police officers who had investigated the cases, and the following (legal) definitions are used:
| Level | Definition |
| Level 1 | Images depicting erotic posing with no sexual activity |
| Level 2 | Sexual activity between children or solo masturbation by a child. |
| Level 3 | Non-penetrative sexual activity between adults and children. |
| Level 4 | Penetrative sexual activity between children and adults. |
| Level 5 | Sadism or bestiality |
The figures below - which can be found in page 123 of the book - refer to the most serious level of images involved in each case:
| Level 1 | Level 2 | Level 3 | Level 4 | Level 5 |
| 44% (47 cases) | 7% (7 cases) | 7% (7 cases) | 37% (40 cases) | 5% (5 cases) |
This suggests that, in roughly 44% of cases involving “child pornography” (in Ireland), people’s lives are being destroyed due to their possession of images which show no sexual activity at all.
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