Talk:Child pornography

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(edit of) Effect on child sexual abuse prevalence in society

Here I will attempt to defend my editing of this section. Before my edit, the paragraph was a total misrepresentation of the PDF referenced by (28). (Wolof, Finkehor, Mitchell, Ybarra) The referenced publication says nothing at all about "stimulation". The referenced publication says nothing about "heightened desire" or "urges". The referenced publication most certainly says nothing about "practicing in the imagination". I don't know which one of you edited this wikipedia article, but you basically just made up a bunch of claims and then attributed them to a publication on the internet which does not actually contain those claims. If you attempt to add this baseless pop-psychology to this article again, I will come back and remove it again and tell everyone why. Given the continually-widening definition of child pornography in the legal system, these claims beg all sorts of questions about what is precisely being "practiced" in the mind? Does all child pornography depict some sort of act? Certainly not, as still images of children in small bikinis are now legally child pornography. (Cartoon characters were recently ruled child pornography by a court in Australia). This whole paragraph is asking the reader to make all manner of erronious, knudge-wink connections between things are not even established by the article itself. The article starts off by saying that Child Pornography differs wildly in its definition from locale to locale. But then it wants the reader to imagine what it would mean to "practice" something in the imagination! What would that be? It is as if the article is falling back to a defaulted, common-sense notion of "child pornography" narrowly defined as a video depicting a sex act. Certainly, in today's legal climate, you cannot expect such a narrow, antiquated definition to be applicable! I will remind everyone that the referenced publication PDF makes none of these critical errors. paros (talk) 23:16, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

DIscussion

These are quotes taken from above Jack-A-Roe: Child pornography is about images of children being sexually used by adults, or interacting sexually with other children, where the interaction was forced by the adult producer of the child porn.

That, sir, is just absolutely false. Perhaps (and this is a big maybe).. perhaps had you made this claim 15 years ago you would have a leg to stand on. This common-parlance notion of CP has not been legally applicable for the last eight years or more. And I could easily back this up with verifiable citations of actual laws in parts of the United States. The mere presence of an exposed nipple is now legally Child Pornography in many states, even if the photo was taken by the minor herself. There are absolutely no stipulations in the law whatsoever about an adult having to be part of the production. There are absolutely no legal stipulations that the minor needs to be "prepubescent". The word "prepubescent" does not actually appear in any law regarding child pornography in any of the 50 states in the USA. However, some state laws attach additional importance to the age of 13.

Jack-A-Roe: Child pornography shows images of children being sexually abuse. Not 16-year olds, children. You know, 10 years, 8 years, 6 years, 4 years, 2 years old. That's the reality, and that's why the mainstream references state that it is a photographic or video record of sexual abuse.

I find it fascinating that you say CP is a "photographic record" of some incident, while later on in this VERY PAGE you admit that child pornography is also legally covers virtual drawings made of fictional characters. Then you turn around and pretend like this is not a contradiction by saying that "It's a tiny percentage". You sir, have contradicted yourself. And we have it in writing right here on this page.

Jack-A-Roe: 'The issue of the "fictional" or "virtual" porn is also a diversion. The vast majority of child porn is real photographs of real children in sexual situations. The tiny percentage that is virtual may be growing, but it's still tiny.'

Any literate person on earth can see this is false. In fact, it's doubly false. Talk of the "Vast majority" is the same kind of bogus arguments made by police who say thing like people who possess marijuana are also committing other crimes. (There would be no way to test this hypothesis other than raiding the homes of law-abiding citizens). You are woefully ignorant of what the laws now actually state about virtual child pornography. Japanese Lolicon has recently been made illegal by the Protect Act of 2003, and the number of "children" depicted in this literature is far greater than could be reasonably counted. In fact, the act of trying to even decipher whether a drawing is a child is full of legal conundrums. Does a fairy count as a child? How much hair is to much hair to rule out the depiction of a human child? What if the fictional character has a child's body but is hundreds of years old? Etc etc....

I think for this wikipedia article to be perfectly unbiased and accurate to reality, we will need to describe child pornography as a legal creation. Such an article would be easily earmarked with citations about how the word is defined in different locales. If this were 1985, no such precautions would need be taken. But this is 2008 and the definition of child pornography is highly contentious and woefully misunderstood (As the squabbling in this TALK section demonstrates). I would conjecture that the majority of Americans no longer have any accurate idea of what "child pornography" legally means even in their own jurisdiction.

I think for the purposes of an ENCYCLOPEDIA, this is the only way to proceed and remain professional about it. Instead what we see here on wikipedia is a like a journalistic propaganda poster of pop-psychology, and a litany of apologetics for a legal system that is running amok. paros (talk) 00:24, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Seconded, this hatred developed in the last 40 years against paedophiles to fill the void that came when homosexuality became accepted is the biggest joke the western civilization has to offer. This is propaganda, not an encyclopaedic article. See my input on the top for my rationale, this article direly needs a update. Rajakhr (talk) 12:08, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

POV

Not all CP is child abuse. The opening paragraph contradicts the Sexting section; some jurisdictions have called pictures taken by teenagers of themselves to be CP (cf. "Sexting"). Not all child sexual activity is abuse. Would erotic pictures taken by the children themselves be self-abuse? I'm not denying that most CP production involves child abuse, just saying the production is not inherently abuse. 75.118.170.35 (talk) 21:00, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

How exactly does it contradict the opening. Thanks, SqueakBox 20:33, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Sexting has been classified as CP, but the opening says all CP involves child abuse. 75.118.170.35 (talk) 20:35, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

No, sexting has not "been classified as CP". In a few cases, the CP laws have been used to charge teens for sexting, but those are isolated incidents. Mostly, those teens are being charged under lesser offenses such as lewd behavior. Sexting cannot be included in the definition of CP without reliable sources making that connection specifically, and that means more than just a jurisdiction or two charging some teens using CP laws for lack of other tools. --Jack-A-Roe (talk) 22:53, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Also, in "Child pornography (sometimes abbreviated CP) refers to pornographic material depicting sexually explicit activities involving a child, a form of child sexual abuse.", does that mean "sexually explicit activities involving a child" are "a form of child sexual abuse", or that "pornographic material depicting sexually explicit activities involving a child" is "a form of child sexual abuse"? 75.118.170.35 (talk) 20:40, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

It does appear that the lead was ambiguous, so I've edited it to clarify, based on the content of the sources. --Jack-A-Roe (talk) 22:48, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

I would suggest mentioning sexting in the opening. Saying not all CP is child abuse, though, should not be said. Thanks, SqueakBox 22:00, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Sexting already has a section in the article. It should not be in the lead though, because that would be undue weight for a practice that actually has nothing to do with child pornography and is only related to the topic because law enforcement has no other tools to use to stop the practice. Child pornography is about sexual images of children, not teens. There are no worldwide law enforcement stings to catch teens making sexual images of themselves.

This article should not be diluted by undue focus on barely-related issues like teens photographing themselves for fun when the real issue is pre-puberty children being sexually abused to cater to the desires of adults. --Jack-A-Roe (talk) 22:48, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Another example would be countries such as the UK where images of 16-17 year olds are now "child porn", even though the age of consent is 16. I think the problem here is tackling both a more general definition, and the legal definition. It might well be that "Child pornography is about sexual images of children, not teens" is a common definition, but we can't ignore that "child porn" is also used often to refer to a legal status, which should be defined in terms of what those laws are. I also disagree that laws are only ever used to catch those with pre-teen children - e.g., some countries have even prosecuted people for fictional cartoons, and in the UK, the police chief of the organisation that tackles child porn has stated "teenagers are themselves risking prosecution by publishing indecent material of someone aged under 18." [1] So I don't think that these can be dismissed as irrelevant or unimportant issues, when they are things that Governments and organisations are dealing with.

I appreciate that the slant the article is defining is to give the general "common usage" definition, and then explain the laws are often defined more broadly. Though I wonder if this could be made clearer that the first definition is not the legal ones. In particular, if "record of abuse" is considered to be inherently part of the definition, then it's not merely the case that the laws cover a wider age range, it's also true that they differ in this respect. I'd also question "For practical reasons" - there's just as much evidence that defining the laws more broadly is intentional, and not merely a practicality. Mdwh (talk) 23:03, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Those are good points. We need to address them though without giving undue weight to the legal and political issues of lumping teens in with children. I did not mean to minimize that issue, such as the UK police going after teens as you noted, those are real issues that should be covered. But we do need to keep it in proportion to the much bigger issue of millions of pre-puberty children harmed each year in the production of child porn and the global social/political/legal efforts to stop that violence. I'm not suggesting we brush the other aside, just that we keep the proper balance.

Okay, to address the issue of "due weight". As someone who lives in the UK myself, I have never heard (nor has anyone I know... And trust me with the press in this country it would be known pretty quick) of anyone being charged with CP for anything involving someone over 16, let alone kids of the same age. The reports on CP cases in the papers always specifically mention that the defendants were found in possession of "indecent images of children under the age of 16". I also can't imagine a jury ever convicting someone brought under such charges ("his crime is... being attracted to girls his own age? Over the age of consent? How is he a child abuser? Not guilty"). I don't think the situation in this country, which you for some reason chose to mention, is notable or has much weight to it at all in this regard. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 135.196.27.88 (talk) 09:25, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

I suggest we come up with a sentence or two about the teen issues to be in a secondary place in the intro, and also expand the section of the article currently titled "Sexting", that's so far just a paragraph, with a new section title and a full section to include other issues like the ones you outlined. That would be a way to address those issues with due weight. --Jack-A-Roe (talk) 00:06, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

As a previous posted already pointed out, there has never been a prosecution for CP in the UK involving over-16s, and given that 16 is the age of consent I highly doubt that any judge would convict someone in such a case. In addition, I believe that someone can only be declared a sex offender for crimes against a child (if I recall, there is some distinction between children above and below 13, so perhaps this only applies to the latter) if they are themselves an adult; while it's possible that some asshat prosecutor might try to persue a kid for pictures of someone his age, the maximum sentence he'd get is probably community service (god, the jails are full enough in this country as it is, I doubt they could find room for cases like that even if they tried). I get a feeling that even the craziest of conservative press would be in uproar if anyone ever tried a prosecution like that.

(Also, the case cited in the article you linked is completely different, it talks about people who make and recieve shows for money and as he himself says, falls under child porstitution laws.)

>there's just as much evidence that defining the laws more broadly is intentional, and not merely a practicality

I suppose you refer to the oft-stated idea that lawmakers and prosecutors prefer to define broader laws so that they can go after borderline cases to bolster statistics? Thare may be a case for that (if you can find sources), but In don't think it's really an argument for this article but rather something that applies to crime more generally; maybe take it to Crime or English law? --86.5.85.22 (talk) 01:55, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Some places class even "doodles" as CP. Also " Abuse of the child occurs in the production of child pornography when sexual acts are photographed"? So raping toddlers is fine as long as you don't photograph it? Taking photos is the LEAST abusive part of CP (okay, no, watching it is. But taking photos is a close second). 128.146.46.2 (talk) 16:09, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

That sentence is poor phrasing at best, deliberate trolling/vandalism/POV-pushing at worst; edit it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.5.85.22 (talk) 22:54, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

the word('s) men / man.

The word('s) 'men' / 'man' are used in this article in places where it should be written 'offenders' 'people' '([child]porn)viewers' etc somebody should change the wording here so this article so it isn't biased against men.217.132.95.133 (talk) 15:59, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

I clearly understand your point; however, given that 99.99% of offenders are indeed men, it seems unreasonable to twist the language around to include a minority so small as to be almost non-existant. Still, thanks for contributing, your effort is appreciated. Doc Tropics 18:55, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Theres actually a very sizable number of women charged with CP... that's just from my exp having a brother as a computer forensics person. there's definitely very few reports, and no studies that i've seen that broke down cases. i don't think you could say that it's 99.99%, as there are just no reports that I know of. So i don't think its too unreasonable. 20:58, 12 March 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.250.240.114 (talk)