WARNING Controversial topic Child porn arrest- Need help with finding a comparison

[legaleagle]

Under the newest laws, possession of child porn makes you responsible for monetary restitution to each victim, no matter how many people possess it.

https://reason.com/volokh/2018/12/10...igned-into-law

[JBaxter]

You don't "accidentally" download child porn. Click a link MAYBE but not over and over. I could never look at anyone the same knowing they are so sick that they sexual activity of children makes them aroused.

[petesgirl]

You don't "accidentally" download child porn. Click a link MAYBE but not over and over. I could never look at anyone the same knowing they are so sick that they sexual activity of children makes them aroused.

Agreed. And even someone who went through therapy and rehabilitation and supposedly changed, gosh, I just don't know--can they really change? And I certainly know *I* personally could never trust them again.

[specialp]

Agreed. And even someone who went through therapy and rehabilitation and supposedly changed, gosh, I just don't know--can they really change? And I certainly know *I* personally could never trust them again.

And that is my issue. It is a sexual interest in children. Period. I do not know how one can be “cured” of being sexually interested in children. Counseling can maybe help with coping mechanisms, but can't make it go away. And that's great and wonderful for the person in counseling and I applaud it (if working on their own demons and not focusing on how judged they are), but that doesn't eliminate the need to protect children. Every child that crosses path runs the risk of being imagined in a horrific way. No child EVER for one second deserves to have someone thinking sexually about them,much less filmed and downloaded for actual viewing. And once one seeks it out, they are ACTING on the interest and that action should never be downplayed because the action hasn’t escalated to touching. The first action of downloading the first images quickly escalated to more. I don't know what to do with people who have a sexual interest in children (address lists don't make me feel better), but whatever the answer is, it can't be at the expense of children.

[TwinFoxes]

You don't "accidentally" download child porn. Click a link MAYBE but not over and over. I could never look at anyone the same knowing they are so sick that they sexual activity of children makes them aroused.

I totally agree, anyone who downloads or enjoys child porn is sick. They are basically getting sexual pleasure from watching children being raped. No matter the excuse they give or how sorry they are, they sat there and got off on watching children being raped. Period. And if the charge was child porn, those kids had to be prepubescent, otherwise there'd be no way to prove they weren't actually young looking 18 year olds.

[khm]

There is nothing to compare this to. There were clear victims that he chose to view. Those children, and future children that will be abused because he supported the most heinous of industry.

This isn't like porn where one can tell oneself that they were "consenting adults" (which is also a lie in many cases).

He watched and sought out and supported the clear and plain and awful abuse of children.

[Globetrotter]

It’s probably hard for you to accept that this man did these awful things, but as far as I’m concerned he shouldn’t be anywhere near children because he sees children in this way. And the children can never be consenting in this scenario so they are victims.

[dogmom]

You don't "accidentally" download child porn. Click a link MAYBE but not over and over. I could never look at anyone the same knowing they are so sick that they sexual activity of children makes them aroused.

Actually, you can.....At least you could back in the day of BBS (bulletin boards) Because I'm a big believer in trying to do research on stuff before making declarative statements one day, years ago, I was, "So what IS out there?"

JUST STOP READING NOW IF YOU DON'T WANT DETAILS....


So you would got to these BBS sites and there would be thousands of posts. There were boards organized, by, ummm.....interests? So say you were interested in "natural breasts" real forum name. You know, not big silicon porn-I'm tempted to put in a slang term here. You would use a third part app and click and just download 20 or more files. Why that many?? Well, go talk to a guy that looks at porn, which is the majority of them. You need to find something that works for you. So it's like digging through a lot of stuff to get porn gold, or whatever. I went through this and if you downloaded 20-50 files I can guarantee you that one of those "natural breast" files would have a pre-pubescent girl. I still have a seared in image in my brain of a 5 yo it looked like. Once again, not from a kiddie forum. (There were also a lot of weird Arabic poems in there, which made me think there was some coded messages, once again weird.) Then there is sort of the whole adults dressing as fetish thing that then can crossover easily. What to see someone in a cheerleader outfit because that did the trick for you at 16 and your libido is tuck there? Sure, there are sites with adults in short skirts, but there are going to be ones that put teens in there. I am not excusing ANYTHING. I'm just saying how this works. The mechanism is different now, more thumb nails and previews, but someone can be clicking through a bunch of stuff and happen upon things. There is such a thing as ethical porn, no really, run by females that are not exploitive, but that is all behind pay walls. Any free stuff is tainted one way or another. Most of the good free stuff is to get you to go to a pay wall. The stuff the is buried deep and pays the best is the least legal. Although there are clearly people who are always going to be pedophiles, I do think the internet has created a subclass of people who get nudged over to an area they would not be otherwise and find themselves, I don't want to say enjoying it, but becoming more excepting? I mean if you are busy stroked yourself flipping through 100 porn pics and there are a couple pre-teens in there are not going to loose their erection. I'm not saying they are blameless. I'm not saying the person the OP mentioned is like that. Certainly a true pedophile is not going to have just one or two pics on their computer of kids, they are going to have hundreds. That was my research, yuck!

I will say the caveats I place on any discussion about child sexual abuse and child porn are these:

It is not necessarily true that sexual crimes have a higher rate of recidivism than other crimes. That's old, bad stats. But there are subsets who probably will. The OP example is probably a good one of someone who probably will not. That is not a comment on what punishment they should get so much as rehab potential.

I think referring to any pedophile or child sexual abuser as a monster is not helpful at all. It makes harder to spot the people who may abuse your child. It does not help at all at understanding how it happens and how to prevent it. It is emotionally satisfying, but in the end does nothing about the situation.

Nice guy abusers are the ones that molest hundreds of kids. Often the community will rally around them. Did you see the news about the pediatrician in PA recently? Go find that story and read it.

It's the family and friends, it's the family and friends, it's the family and friends. Can't say that enough times.

Child porn is absolutely NOT a victimless crime. But just yelling about the consumers is not going to fix the problem. There are a lot of people making money off of this. They are really good at getting people to consume their goods, I think better than drug dealers. There are also people that work really hard to normalize this, 8Chan anyone? There are so many fronts to attack this from the parents that make porn with their kids to the internet sellers of it to the end consumers.

OP, this might be a good article for you to start understanding some issues at a different level:
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2...e-of-sex-abuse

[TwinFoxes]

Actually, you can.....At least you could back in the day of BBS (bulletin boards) Because I'm a big believer in trying to do research on stuff before making declarative statements one day, years ago, I was, "So what IS out there?"

JUST STOP READING NOW IF YOU DON'T WANT DETAILS....


So you would got to these BBS sites and there would be thousands of posts. There were boards organized, by, ummm.....interests? So say you were interested in "natural breasts" real forum name. You know, not big silicon porn-I'm tempted to put in a slang term here. You would use a third part app and click and just download 20 or more files. Why that many?? Well, go talk to a guy that looks at porn, which is the majority of them. You need to find something that works for you. So it's like digging through a lot of stuff to get porn gold, or whatever. I went through this and if you downloaded 20-50 files I can guarantee you that one of those "natural breast" files would have a pre-pubescent girl. I still have a seared in image in my brain of a 5 yo it looked like. Once again, not from a kiddie forum. (There were also a lot of weird Arabic poems in there, which made me think there was some coded messages, once again weird.) Then there is sort of the whole adults dressing as fetish thing that then can crossover easily. What to see someone in a cheerleader outfit because that did the trick for you at 16 and your libido is tuck there? Sure, there are sites with adults in short skirts, but there are going to be ones that put teens in there. I am not excusing ANYTHING. I'm just saying how this works. The mechanism is different now, more thumb nails and previews, but someone can be clicking through a bunch of stuff and happen upon things. There is such a thing as ethical porn, no really, run by females that are not exploitive, but that is all behind pay walls. Any free stuff is tainted one way or another. Most of the good free stuff is to get you to go to a pay wall. The stuff the is buried deep and pays the best is the least legal. Although there are clearly people who are always going to be pedophiles, I do think the internet has created a subclass of people who get nudged over to an area they would not be otherwise and find themselves, I don't want to say enjoying it, but becoming more excepting? I mean if you are busy stroked yourself flipping through 100 porn pics and there are a couple pre-teens in there are not going to loose their erection. I'm not saying they are blameless. I'm not saying the person the OP mentioned is like that. Certainly a true pedophile is not going to have just one or two pics on their computer of kids, they are going to have hundreds. That was my research, yuck!

I will say the caveats I place on any discussion about child sexual abuse and child porn are these:

It is not necessarily true that sexual crimes have a higher rate of recidivism than other crimes. That's old, bad stats. But there are subsets who probably will. The OP example is probably a good one of someone who probably will not. That is not a comment on what punishment they should get so much as rehab potential.

I think referring to any pedophile or child sexual abuser as a monster is not helpful at all. It makes harder to spot the people who may abuse your child. It does not help at all at understanding how it happens and how to prevent it. It is emotionally satisfying, but in the end does nothing about the situation.

Nice guy abusers are the ones that molest hundreds of kids. Often the community will rally around them. Did you see the news about the pediatrician in PA recently? Go find that story and read it.

It's the family and friends, it's the family and friends, it's the family and friends. Can't say that enough times.

Child porn is absolutely NOT a victimless crime. But just yelling about the consumers is not going to fix the problem. There are a lot of people making money off of this. They are really good at getting people to consume their goods, I think better than drug dealers. There are also people that work really hard to normalize this, 8Chan anyone? There are so many fronts to attack this from the parents that make porn with their kids to the internet sellers of it to the end consumers.

OP, this might be a good article for you to start understanding some issues at a different level:
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2...e-of-sex-abuse

The person in question had "videos of young girls on his computer." This does not happen by clicking on something. DOWNLOADING and storing child porn on a computer is completely different than scrolling through a porn site and clicking on links and thinking "huh, that cheerleader looks kinda young". I don't get why people are so willing to believe that child porn charges are brought easily. First of all you have to prove that the victims are indeed minors, so they have to be pre-pubescent. There's no way to prove that a 15 year old is not an 18 year old just by looking at them. Child porn is not the same as young looking 18 year olds dressed as a cheerleader. I'm not sure what your research was, but talk to a prosecutor sometime. When they charge someone with child porn, it's not anything accidental.

This is how predators convince people they did nothing wrong. "I just clicked on something, and next thing you know I'm in jail. Woe is me." Show me one case where someone was prosecuted for simply clicking on a link. You say that nice guy abusers are the ones that communities rally around. Well, in this situation the community is trying to keep the pedophile away from kids, and the OP seemingly doesn't agree with this.

I think it's been discussed on this board many times, and I don't think it comes as a shock to anyone here that it's friends and family who are most likely to be abusers. Which doesn't make the perpetrators any less sick.

[California]

Dogmom, you quoted JBaxter as saying "not over and over," and then kind of proved her point. A few files might be accidental, maybe. But when you get to lots of files it's a clear sign of a repeated, conscious choice to view illegal (and more importantly cruelly obtained and unethical) images of children suffering sexual abuse.