In many countries just searching for nude pictures of underage children is now defined as a crime. The age at which something is defined as child porn has been raised from 14 to 16 to 18 and some are calling for a raise to 21. The posession of many legally produced magazines produced in the 70s, 80s and 90s is now forbidden. Some perfectly normal movies with pornographic scenes are now dubious to show and forbidden to be produced.

The child itself does not seem to matter any more. It does not matter if abuse is involved.
Two children photographing eachother is a crime.
A famous photographer doing it is a crime.
Photography at a nude beach is a crime.
Photographing a nude adult who looks younger than 18 is a crime.
Looking at any of these pictures is a crime.

These measures have nothing to do with protecting children from abuse. The governements, under influence of Christian movements, are imposing morals and values on us. It is almost like thought-crime. The content of everyone generating a decent amount of internet traffic is being looked at. That is how they rolled up all those "child porn networks" this year.

I think this will backfire. First of all it will undermine the current succes of faith-based political ideologies. Legislators in these movements are slowly alienating themselves from the general populace by suggesting more drastic moral-based legislation. There are numerous examples.

Secondly the real perverts will now have to organize better and resort to more serious criminal activities in order to obtain material that is now no longer normally available in magazines and the internet like it used to be. Ironically it is the children who are suffering under this.

It should be. Sick fucks looking for child porn should be beaten...

I have no problem raising it to the age of 17. At 18, a person is an adult...

Many things that were once legal are now illegal. If one of these things is child porn, I'm all for keeping it illegal...

What "perfectly normal" movies contain pornographic scenes with children?

Horseshit...

Where, and in what manner?

Should a 15 year old boy be permitted to take pornographic photos of a three year old girl?

If you're talking porn, yes. And it should be...

We have a local nude beach. While photography is certainly frowned upon, as far as I know, it's not illegal...

Where?

Anyone who would want to view child porn for pleasure is a sick fuck who needs to be beaten...

Bullshit...

I'm not a Christian, and I have no problem, whatsoever, with making "child porn" a very broad crime. People who view it for pleasure should be beaten. People who produce it should be killed...

Why do you have a problem with child porn networks being shut down?

Honestly, it really sems as though you're making an argument in favor of child porn. We did that here some time back, and it didn't end well...

Dpn't confuse morality and religion. Each can exist without the other.

And, when it comes to laws to further protect children, the only people the legislators are alientating are the sick fucks who make it and the sick fucks who want to jerk off to it...

"More serious"?

If someone films someone fucking a five year old, it doesn't get much more serious than that...

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Obama's New "57 State Patriotic Pin":




Sayeth John Drake - 10/13/08: "OK, you're right, I admit to LYING"

What Steve said !!!!

Let's hope that they track down all pedo perverts and those whom harmed children should "NOT" simply sit in jail, they should face tougher (decapitating) punnishment.

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Anyone who thinks freedom comes cheap, please put the blindfold on and stand against the wall.

Many times I believe Americans will have to take back the country and start a new government.

Why?


In my country, in Germany and most other places where Christian-democrats have been ruling lately.


Bilitis (1977), Pretty Baby (1978)


Ofcourse I'm aware of this. Im not religious but I have morals and values.


Yes, but that is called abuse, as is any non-consensual sex regardless of age or wether it is filmed. That is not what we are arguing about here.


Many public sites which have been taken out of the air years ago did not display sex or even full nudity. Nobody is suffering from that. I'm willing to bet that current "networks" are not that different from the websites in the nineties, and that for the most part there is no abuse involved. I have no problem with pictures of girls hanging around a pool.

Anyone who's searching for child porn on the internet or any other place should be punished. There's absolutely no excuse for looking at the sexual molestation and rape of children.

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"People try nonviolence for a week and when it doesn't work they go back to violence which hasn't worked for centuries"
Theodore Roszak

erik you might be placing to much emphasis on the letter of the law, rather than how strict the law is in practice.
For instance taking a photo of a nude child is illegal, however it has been a long standing tradition for a lot of folks to take a photo of their nude infant laying on their belly - technically it is illegal, however no one is ever going to be prosecuted for it.
If however someone takes that photo and places it on a sicko site where the intent of the photo is to create sexual arousal in an adult - then it will be prosecuted.
Laws are regularly enforced/unenforced depending on intent.

I guess this is where one of my main problems arises. "Intent" is almost always a judgment call that is hard to prove correct or not. I seems a bit odd that you can have two people with a hard drive filled with children in bathing suits and only one of them will get in trouble (one being a photographer for kid's clothing catalogs and one being a random guy living in a trailer). And yes, people do get prosecuted for having pictures of kids totally clothed, as long as the judge believes that the pictures may have been used for sexual gratification (see how many "if's" there are? Too many to lock someone up, in my opinion).

If someone has a bunch of pictures of children actually engaging in sex acts, their breaking of the law is pretty clear. But, there is a fuzzy line when it comes to the 'other side' of child pornography, where the things aren't so clear, as I mentioned above. I believe there should be quite a big difference between having pictures of an 8 year old in a bikini and having a picture of an 8 year old being sexually molested. In the eyes of the law, it seems like the differences between the two are getting smaller and smaller.

I'm in no way saying that child pornography laws should be done away with. What I am saying, is that a little more thought and oversight needs to go into the creation and policing of child pornography laws. It seems that the crime is so despicable, that no one really cares how questionable the laws become.

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"Anyone that needs what they want, and doesn’t want what they need
I want nothing to do with
And to do what I want
And to do what I please
Is first on my to-do list"
-Gnarls Barkley, "Going On" lyrics

aye - this has been a long going problem in most societies - the habit of swinging too far in one direction or another.
It is a matter of time before these newer, more stricter laws are watered down to the point of being unenforceable...and then we will have the opposite problem.

I agree. But hopefully after sloshing back and forth awhile, the laws will finally settle on something reasonable. That is, actual child pornographers being prosecuted and less time wasted on people who have 300 pictures of Dakota Fanning.

Now that I think about it, though, it almost seems like we have both extremes occurring at the same time, which seems odd. For example, it was recently decided that computer generated or artistic depictions of children engaging in sex acts is legal. But, it's still illegal for two 20 year olds to make pornography meant to resemble child porn. Both of them are meant to simulate child porn, neither of them involve any actual children, but only one of them is illegal.

There are a few other issues like this, where you have two seemingly identical situations, but due to a rather minor difference (no pun intended), one is illegal and the other is not.

__________________
"Anyone that needs what they want, and doesn’t want what they need
I want nothing to do with
And to do what I want
And to do what I please
Is first on my to-do list"
-Gnarls Barkley, "Going On" lyrics

"Why?"

Are you serious??

Well, then perhaps you should be posting this in the International Politics forum...

What if those photos are of naked seven year old girls, and they were taken by a 50 year old man with a camera in one hand and his dick in another?

Sorry, but I always considered you someone I could disagree with at times, but that you were always pretty level-headed.

This thread has altered my impression of you...

__________________
Obama's New "57 State Patriotic Pin":




Sayeth John Drake - 10/13/08: "OK, you're right, I admit to LYING"

Case in point. By even questioning the validity of child pornography laws, one is accused of being a pervert or lacking morals.

I'm sorry to say, Steve, but child pornography laws are extremely convoluted, nonsensical at times, and extremely nebulous in certain areas. It's completely possible to be totally against child pornography and recognize that the laws in their current form are totally bizarre.

I've cited some examples in my previous posts and I can go on to show more.

__________________
"Anyone that needs what they want, and doesn’t want what they need
I want nothing to do with
And to do what I want
And to do what I please
Is first on my to-do list"
-Gnarls Barkley, "Going On" lyrics

I guess the problem is that people can't discuss the laws themselves without letting emotions get in the way. I have yet to see anybody advocating in behalf of child pornography so the hostility and lack of self control is unnecessary and is getting in the way of discussion as it usually does.

__________________
"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

All I can say is if it is Christian movements that are responsible for this, then good! Somethings are just wrong, like child porn.

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"A dog barks when his master is attacked. I would be a coward if I saw that God's truth is attacked and yet would remain silent."
-John Calvin

The way I read it, that's exactly what the OP advocated...

__________________
Obama's New "57 State Patriotic Pin":




Sayeth John Drake - 10/13/08: "OK, you're right, I admit to LYING"

I think it has more to do with a clear definition of what child pornography is and to legislate against it rather than speculation of motives.

__________________
"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"