Won't somebody think of the children?

[sqbr]

Recently there's been a huge ruckus as livejournal has (inconsistently and hamfistedly) tried to rid itself of pedophiles and visual pornography involving minors. (EDIT: Which I think they're well within their rights to do, I just think they screwed up the execution) One of their more controversial stances has been to lump drawn pictures of fictional characters with actual photographs, calling it all "child porn". (EDIT: they didn't just ban both, they explicitly said they're the same) This attitude is not uncommon in society at large. (I say having read the justifications for Australia's inconsistently strict child porn rules)

This attitude bothers me a lot, and after much thought I've recently realised why. In short: these people have forgoten that child porn isn't wrong because it's gross. It's wrong because making it involves hurting actual children.

The obvious and common reponse to those who object to erotic deptions of fictional minors(*) is to argue that noone is being hurt by the creation of this stuff, and that liking fictional depictions of a given act is not the same as doing the act itself, otherwise everyone who likes horror films is a murderer etc. I think this argument has a certain weight to it in principle, but personally feel a strong intuition that liking fiction with violent or otherwise antisocial themes(**) is not the same as liking porn with those themes, though I'm still trying to think out a reasoned argument to back this up. Anyway, I'm not 100% convinced that violent fiction is harmless, though I like certain violent fiction too much to say it's all bad :)

Also I personally can't stand seeing bad or disturbing things happen to children, real or fictional. It's a thing with me. (I mean I similarly can't stand zombies, so I'm not sure it's a moral thing, but it's certainly a thing)

So I don't object to livejournal's stance out of a strong sense of solidarity with the pornographers. I've realised my problem is people objecting to child porn not out of any concern for the wellbeing of actual physical children but out of moral repugnance for the "unnatural" attraction that creates it. I get the feeling these people would rather an adult beat or otherwise non-sexually abuse a child than think sexual thoughts about them. That they would rather put effort into hounding people who draw erotic depictions of fictional characters than groups who give support to the victims of actual abuse. That they don't want to help the children, they want to punish the perverts, and whether or not those perverts have actually hurt anyone isn't the point.

I'm not saying it's wrong to object to, or even ban, particular types of porn even if the acts it depicts did not actually happen, just that it's wrong to equate "thought crimes" with actual crimes, and that doing so is a disservice to the victims of the latter.
EDIT: See also Polanski, "Hounddog" and 13-year-old voices

NOTE: As always, off topic comments or flames go here. Also PLEASE read all the comments before replying, I've clarified a few things after people made a bunch of different intelligent points. (This paragraph has yet to be neccesary but I like to be prepared :))

(*)Another is that apparently most of these stories involve "children" in their late teens, a group frequently presented as sexual objects in the mainstream media, and who it is often legal to have actual sex with. Which has nothing to do with my point, but I thought I'd bring it up before someone else did :)
(**)There's a huge subgenre of non-erotic fiction about child abuse (Look at Law and Order:SVU), using it as a quick way of creating angst precisely because the audience finds it abhorrent. I still dislike the genre, mind you, but it's not the same as porn on the same subject (admittedly, since I can't bring myself to consume either genre this is all a bit theoretical)

Comments

Re: On that which we disagree....

[alias_sqbr]

Even if everyone who writes and reads this stuff is perverted and messed up it seems pretty certain that few if any of them are actual child molesters. So at worst we have people with a mental illness encouraging each other in their illness. Which, you know, bad, but it's their choice and hurting yourself isn't the same as hurting other people. If there was evidence that anyone involved in these communites was a child molester that would be a different story.

Secondly you gave a pretty extreme example: saying that I think not all porn involving people under 18 is neccesarily harmful (but I'm not sure) doesn't mean I don't think some of it is a Bad Thing. The stuff livejournal banned involved older teenagers. While I personally am bothered by fiction about 17 year olds having sex with their teachers, that sort of story is so common that it's hard to justify calling it a perversion. You are welcome to argue that all porn about pre-pubescent children is automatically bad (you certainly won't get a lot of opposition from me), but then that excludes most of the porn that got banned by livejournal.

Not to get all TMI but: I don't like porn. I am squicked by it in general. I am also squicked by bad things hapening to children, and unequal power relationships (including large age gaps). Also BDSM, polyamory, RPS, gory first person shooters, getting hugs...lots of things(**). I'm pretty neurotic :) So yes, I would be bothered if I found that sort of porn on someone's computer, but I would also be somewhat bothered by any sort of porn (especially if he'd made it himself)(*) Yet I have to accept that a LOT of people own porn, and don't seem any worse for it.

My mum read some of the horror I was reading in highschool and was deeply, incredibly shocked. She can't stand horror, and can't understand how anyone can enjoy it. She genuinely had trouble seeing me the same way afterwards, and I am one of the least violent people you are likely to meet. She also has a strong gut feeling that homosexuality and sex before marriage make people unhappy, though she doesn't think they make you a bad person.

One of the reasons I got involved with these sorts of dicussions (I started going to slash discussions at swancon long before I started reading fanfic) was to try to get my head around the fact that lots of perfectly nice women I know write porn of a sort that bothers me. Specifically, one of my best friends got into Snape/Harry after the first movie came out. Lots of things bother me, and while I do think it's important not to ignore my instincts I also think it's wrong to follow them unthinkingly when there's absolutely no evidence that this behaviour is doing people any harm. I've heard fairly persuasive arguents both for and against this stuff, and I'm still trying to figure out what I think. On the whole, as with most things, I think you can only really judge each piece individually, in context, and grand sweeping statements miss the complexity of the issue.

Note: my cat kept walking over my hands while I typed this, blame her for any typos.

(*)As an aside: as a child I actually came across soft-porn an adult I knew had written on their computer, it lowered my opinion of them because it was so badly written and they had been dumb enough to leave it where people were likely to see it :)
(**)Hopefully it goes without saying to anyone reading this who likes porn, hugs, polyamory etc that I am aware that I am the wierdo here, not you :) A lot of these squicks have become worn down by being constantly surrunded by people who they clearly make happy though part of me is certain that deep down you are all made utterly miserable by your disgusting obsessions with hugs

Re: On that which we disagree....

[mandragora2003.livejournal.com]

On that age gap thing; someone told me about a rough formula to judge the acceptable age difference between a couple. Take your age; halve it; add seven. That's the youngest socially acceptable partner for you. Similarly, take seven from your age, then double to get the oldest you can date before people get squicked. Strangely, this kind of works, although not so well once you're over fifty-odd.

Re: On that which we disagree....

[alias_sqbr]

Yes, I've heard of that. I still find the idea of getting with a 21 year old gross myself, but I have pretty narrow tastes :)