This little essay was inspired by one of the matching questions on OKCupid. For those who don't know, OKCupid is a free dating site. One of the features is you are presented with the opportunity to answer questions, some presented by the staff, but most created by other users. The questions are all multiple choice. Many of them are designed to split moral or ethical hairs, which isn't a bad idea on a dating site.
And yes, I have a profile there, and yes I have answered a ton of those questions. I will leave it as an exercise for the reader to figure out who I am there. :)
Anyway, one of the more interesting questions is:
"Should possession of computer generated child pornography be illegal? Assume it can be 100% confirmed that no children were involved."I found that an interesting question to contemplate. My reply sparked an interesting response from another member, and that, in turn, inspired me to think some more and write this post.
Let's start out with why child pornography is illegal in the first place.
The act of producing child porn grievously violates the basic rights of children.
Possession of the product is made illegal in an (probably futile) attempt to reduce demand for the product. I am not convinced that it works, but I can at least understand the logic.
Now, let's go to the person who consumes child porn.
His offence here is fueling demand for an industry that grievously violates the rights of children. We want him to stop doing that, so we make possession illegal in order to increase the risks he must accept to have it. The logic follows (for some) that demand will drop, and some of the incentive for producing child porn will dry up. Some will act to reduce those legal risks. Others, who cannot overpower their sex drives, will not. More about that later.
But if no children are impacted in any way in the production of the product, haven't we accomplished the original intent? If computer generated material, as repugnant and offensive as it is, were available, and substituted for the real thing, would that not reduce the demand? It might even reduce the demand to near zero.
Let me say, again, that the ultimate goal here is to protect the kids from predation.
Even if we were to accept the solution is to immediately lock up all of the predators for life (or, I suppose kill them if you are so inclined), they aren't "predators" unless or until a kid has been victimized, so that solution still requires sacrificing a kid to be the victim.
"But if they like the child pornography, even if it is computer generated, they might be predators, so we should lock them up."
True, but they might not be predators. They might hate their disposition and really try to fight it.
In fact, they might be using this non-kid simulated porn as an outlet for their drives so they are less tempted to hurt kids.
And now we have a moral dilemma. Even if such a law were effective (which it isn't), taking away the product does not change the people who want it. In fact, it would make them harder to identify. Is that what we want?
Remember, the goal is to protect the kids from predation.
Human sexual drives being very complex things, some people (mostly male) are sexually attracted to kids. We do not possess any capability to change that, try as we might.
We find the behavior unacceptable, and even find the drive itself to be repugnant.
But the drive is not going to go away.
IF our primary goal is to protect kids from predation, should we be using everything in society's power to help these people channel that drive in a direction that does not involve actual kids?
Taking away every possible fantasy outlet does NOT reduce the drive. Doing so likely leaves these people with only one possibility, one we do not want to contemplate, and experience has shown that the sex drive overpowers self discipline in many cases. (Remember, this is the same thing that is driving a lot of serial killers...)
Is it illegal to have unacceptable thoughts and feelings if they are never actually acted upon?
If that were the case, who not be guilty of SOME unacceptable thought or feeling at some point?
Is it unacceptable to have literature depicting murder, rape, incest? Or is it just illegal to get turned on by that?
No, it is the act that we are forbidding because it is the act that crosses the line from fantasy to grievously violating the natural rights of another human.
Do we really want to protect kids?
Then what alternatives could we provide as an outlet for these drives?
Think about it.
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