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

[ataxi.livejournal.com]

I don't really have a problem with LJ indulging in censorship in borderline areas such as depictions of fictional child sex.

My reasoning is that all shared publishing spaces prior to the network-of-friends blog-space also censored content, mostly based on commercial reality via broad reader consensus. In other words: we sell to readers, most readers object to child sex, so child sex is out.

The reasoning behind the censorship is not based on a set of perfectly rational ethical "first principles". It's based on the site moderators' vague interpretation of what is, and isn't a horrible faux pas. This is necessary, because the times when artistic merit beats out the conventional mores cannot be predicted by a simple algorithm.

And therefore quoting from American Psycho (not child sex, but pretty horrible in parts) may be fine, or even par for the course, on LJ, but posting your Harry deep-penetrates Ron fanfic may not, and there's no argument the perps of said fanfic can put forward to trump that -- it's too bad.

The Internet is still a big space and they're still free to post up their "harmless" child sex stories in an alternate part of it. Although leaving the Internet relatively censorship-free in a broad sense may be desirable, I personally prefer to operate in parts of the net that are frequently exorcised of distasteful garbage. Moderation is an Internet norm without which most net communities function badly.

[ataxi.livejournal.com]

"This is necessary, because the times when artistic merit beats out the conventional mores cannot be predicted by a simple algorithm."

It occurs to me this comment is slightly amusing in light of the fact that the first time Six Apart did quash a bunch of "paedophiles" on LJ they were using a simple pattern-matcher to identify them (and thereby got a few arguable false positives).

But anyway. Everyone can find a reason why their chosen vice is "objectively fine". But it's not an objective standard being enforced -- it's a rough clone of a social standard developed by a vague process of consensus.

Unfortunately because the net covers a lot of geographical and cultural space there are some practically disjoint communities, with correspondingly disjoint standards (wacko fanfic writing communities come to mind) that fall under LJ's aegis, and in some cases they may justly feel that having their own widely accepted internal standards on content, they should be allowed to police themselves without outside interference.

In my opinion the correct solution for such disjoint communities is to create their own spaces, so that they can do their own thing, instead of bleating at commercial entities that are permitted to do what they're doing under the terms of use of the sites they're constructing and maintaining at no expense to those communities.

[alias_sqbr]

I agree with pretty much everything you've said, I realise I didn't explicitly say that in principle I don't have a problem with livejournal banning stuff that it feels offends people, regardless of illegality or morality. I do have a problem with the way they've handled things, but that's largely coincidental to my argument.

The conversation went something like this:
LJ: *starts banning people based on "bad" interests*
Slashers: Are you banning people based on their interests? Becuase we can get rid of anything you find offensive.
LJ: Of course not!
LJ: *bans people based on interests*
Slashers: Hey, no fair!
LJ: Everyone we banned is a paedophile
Slashers: No they're not!
LJ:...oh, you're right. *unbans eeryone except definite paedophiles*
Slashers: Hmmph. So what exactly is grounds for banning?
LJ: Being a paedophile, encouraging the abuse of actual children
Slashers: Not fictional porn about fictional children?
LJ: Haha, no, that stuff is totally cool. We're only after actual child molesters here.
LJ: *bans people with fictional depictions of sex involving fictional teenagers*
Slashers: They're not child molesters! Those pictures aren't even of children!
LJ: It was child porn. People who make child porn are paedophiles. Unless you write it down, in which case it's totally cool. Because we're totally cool and love fandom and freedom of speech and all that.
LJ: ...oh, and we're banning anyone who links to this stuff too. Unless we're certain it was an accident, because we're all friends here! We just hate paedophiles.
Slashers: Grrr!
LJ: ...uh. So maybe we'll unban those people. But that stuff is totally against the rules, and it always was.

Basically they're trying really hard not to look like the bad guy or even admit they're doing this for commercial rather than moral/legal reasons, but the only way to do that is to try to make the people they're banning look as bad as possible and pretend the rules they're setting up are obvious and minimalistic. I mean they could definitely be worse, and I understand why they're doing what they're doing, but still.

That said, I think the people who think they can move to a smaller livejournal clone and not have these issues come up are kidding themselves.

[ataxi.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm all for slamming Six Apart for being a bit clueless in their approach to content control.

Re-reading your post and summarising:

One, carnal fantasies about kids aren't necessarily controllable or deplorable, provided they are kept in check and not acted upon. They're not a Good Thing but maybe in some people's cases they can't be helped.

Two, there are valid aesthetic justifications for the depiction of unsavoury activities in fiction, and whilst on the one hand censors must take these justifications into account and not make decisions based on a blunt "ethical" analysis, writers must also not be permitted to defend unjustified and harmful unsavouriness on grounds of artistic freedom.

Three, these issues arise in any sizeable creative community and there will always be transgressive play at the boundaries of the mainstream regardless of how broad or narrow a community's scope becomes.

Four, therefore pursue policy in relation to these matters with sensitivity and wisdom having acknowledged that hard and fast rules simply won't work as perfectly as might be imagined.

[alias_sqbr]

One, carnal fantasies about kids aren't necessarily controllable or deplorable, provided they are kept in check and not acted upon. They're not a Good Thing but maybe in some people's cases they can't be helped.

Agreed. Though something I have learned which changed the way I view this stuff is that not only is most of this stuff about older teenagers (who, lets face it, are attractive to a lot of people, for good or ill) but many of the women writing aren't (or claim not to be) attracted to real teenagers at all. Apparently the root fantasy at the base isn't about being the adult in these scenarios, it's about being the child. As such it's not a cathartic relief of pedophilia, but simply part of a larger pattern of women fantasising about being subjugated or otherwise passive, something which can be seen in pretty much all romance novels ever. (One of the major reasons I Don't Read Romance Novels despite having a soft spot for happy romantic stories when feeling sick)

Which, in my opinion, is still pretty disturbing, but in a very different way :) While I understand intellectually the difference between "Self aware, feminist fantasy using skeezy gender tropes to help women express themselves the only way they feel comfortable after being brainwashed by the patriarchy" and "Offensively sexist tripe", they tend to look identical to me. And in fanfic the place we're supposed to find "equality" is the women-free world of slash (and only in the non-yaoi-eque subset of that), which doesn't feel like a step up to me. Anyway, I digress :)

I agree with all your other points as well. The "It's ok to write wierd porn" crowd divides into two groups: the "I agree we have to be careful about the effects of our works, but I've thought about it and feel it's justified" crowd, who I don't always agree with but understand the POV and the "Anyone who thinks artists should have to bear any responsibility for the effects of their works is stupid and backwards and pro censorship" crowd, who cheese me right off. One of them gave the example of some famous writer who wrote a story glamorising a teen suicide. A bunch of teenagers then committed suicide, and the author added a forward to discourage this. The woman gave this of proof that authors are under this absurd pressure to worry about stupid things their adience may do, while to me it's a perfect example of the sort of thing authors should have to worry about. If you know your work is likely to make a few people kill themselves, then you have to ask yourself: is it worth telling? The answer may be "Yes", but I think the question should be asked.