“Child Pornography” is a relatively new crime, invented in the last few decades. Simple possession of “child pornography” in a computer cache (an automatic storage of browsers) can yield extreme jail sentences, higher then for crimes like non-sexual child mutilation, violent beatings, attempted murder. I will, however, list a host of absurd illogical facts and laws, mainly from Europe.
- Language gets distorted on purpose, for propagandistic effects, worse then under Nazi Minister Goebbels
- in most countries’ laws, children are under 14 years old
- pornography normally are sexually explicit actions, not nude solo acts
- now, suddenly, by definition, under 18 year olds are “children”, and nude photos are pornography. Well, erotic youth photos does not sound as jail-worthy as “child pornography”
- in Europe, specifically in Germany, pictures of someone “appearing under 18” (scheinjugendlich, scheinminderjährig) now is being redefined as “child pornography”. In other words, a young looking 25 year old, that looks like a 17 year old youth, is being called a child.
- I write “child pornography” in quotes, because a picture that neigher contains a child, nor is pornographic can be called “child pornography”
- Until the 1980ies today’s “child porn” was main stream entertainment.
- main stream Hollywood movies like the Blue Lagoon showed underage sensual nudity and and pretended sexual intercourse of underage actors pretending to be underage people. A clear case of child porn by today’s laws
- British newspaper “page 3” nude girls were routinely 16 years or older
- German youth magazines had nude teenage photos, routinely, partially for sex education
- nudes of all ages, 3, 5, 10, 15, 20 years old, were shown in publicly sold magazines about FKK, the german nudity culture
- in Germany nude bathing is wide spread, on beaches and rivers even inside cities like Munich, nudes of all ages can be seen live. So photos of what everyone can see at any time didn’t really look like a crime.
- Antique greek statues show little nude boys with their sexual organs
- In Holland and Denmark, hard core porn with 16 year olds was legal. If someone legally bought or downloaded this, now he is a hard core criminal facing decades of jail. I wonder what the reason is for these laws. Who will be protected by these penalties? Interestingly, most of these movies were quite tastefully erotic, different from many abusive porn movies sold nowadays with over 18 year old actresses (for a negative example, do NOT look at germangoogirls.com).
- Why can a photo of a perfectly legal act be a heinous crime?
- In Europe, Sex with 16 year olds is perfectly legal. So why a photo or movie of such a perfectly legal act is a very serious crime? Production, possession, passing on
- maybe it is a crime if a 16 year old looks into the mirror while having sex? If he films himself and looks at the movie, obviously that is a heinous crime.
- what if our 16 year-olds get caught by a surveillance camera. Who then is the criminal? What if security personell looks at the surveillance movie. Should they delete it or turn in to police?
- What is the purpose of these laws? Do they protect children or adolescents?
- Prohibiting movies that were legally produced in highly civilized countries like Netherlands does not protect anyone. It seems that nobody got damaged when shooting the movie under such perfectly legal circumstances. If anyone got damaged, it is too late to fix it. The movie has been shot already, nothing can be changed. It only prevents the girls or the studio from receiving more income.
- Prohibiting drawings, photoshop art, etc: no child was harmed producing this.
- “watching photos or videos of nude adolescents makes people pedophile so that they will abuse and rape children”. A desperate attempt to justify the absurd. Problems:
- no proof exists for that watching porn makes people rapists, nor watching child porn makes people child rapists.
- It seems to be the opposite. , watching porn can be cathartic so people will NOT become violent
- Why don’t laws prohibit violent movies, chainsaw massacres, shootings, beatings? I think it is very damaging to see movie heroes that never call the police but rather, as role models, beat up the bad guys with their own hands
So much stupidity. So little time to write about it.
Unfortunately, most of the literature I found is in German. Please post quotes of English texts.
http://schutzalter.twoday.net/
http://www.lawblog.de/index.php/archives/2007/01/12/kinderpornografie-ein-blick-ins-gesetz/
http://forum.spiegel.de/showthread.php?t=12149 http://blog.beck.de/2008/11/06/jugendpornographieverbot-seit-05november-in-kraft