Yeah Henson and his mates (including Turnbull) believe that naked shots of young girls is pornography for the right and art for the left. Somehow the left deny the corrupt nature of human beings despite them having just as many if not more deviants in their ranks.

Let's, for the moment, take at face value the assertion that we criminalise possession of kiddie porn because the very creation of that porn involves abuse of children. Seems reasonable enough and that's certainly the rationale many use to justify censorship and the prosecution of those many times removed from the actual crime.

Take these scenarios:

1. A gifted artist draws a highly realistic picture of an adult man having sex with a clearly pre-pubescent child. Illegal to view/download? What if its made abundantly clear that it is a drawing?

2. A film director casts an 18 yr old girl who is as yet undeveloped (a Twiggy-type) and dresses her to look 14. Then makes a film about her being 'used' by an adult of whatever gender. Its made clear that all actors are over 18. Illegal to view/own?

3. A director casts a bunch of 33yr olds to make a porno featuring bondage, rape, etc. Then, using the technology used by Cameron in Avatar he uses CGI to make half of the actors appear to be 10 yr old kids. The film credits make it clear that no child was involved. Illegal?

If any of these would be considered to be criminal then clearly it isn't about protecting the kiddies but about criminalising activity that others find objectionable.

We've already had a case where a man was found guilty of having child porn being pictures of Bart and Lisa Simpson f..king. I suspect the above scenarios would similarly be found to be criminal.

We are criminalising objectionable activity. Or perhaps we are working on the basis of stopping future crime on the assumption that being drawn to kiddie porn would lead to taking part in kiddie sex. (Minority Report). But protecting the kids isn't the primary goal.

As usual the censors are salving their consciences by claiming they are doing it for the kids. They aren't

I would like to know what correlation there is between viewing images and actual assault of children. Does the viewing produce a release valve for tensions or add to the desire. There is plausible evidence in other areas that relief valves play a role in reductions of actual harm to real people. I've not seen anything to help me form an opinion if that might be the case with child pornography.

I do though regardless of the answer to the first question have concerns around the reality that a child can't validly consent to sexually explicit images being taken, that the images may never go away and if tolerated may come back to haunt the subject in later life. Geographic displacement does not legitimately remove those issues and with growing technology capabilities it may become much easier in the future for such images to be used to harm people in adult life based on images taken as children.

I suspect that our societies issues with body taboo's actually contribute significantly to sexual dysfunction and that we could to a long way to improving things by working towards healthier attitudes to the human body.

R0bert

Here's one that might appeal to you sicko.
http://www.biljanadjurdjevic.com/LivingInOblivion.html

RObert says "I would like to know what correlation there is between viewing images and actual assault of children."
The research I have read on this issue suggests that availability of pornography leads to a reduction in sex crimes and this includes child pornography. Of course this makes perfect sense as pornography tends to act as an alternative to rather than an adjunct to sexual activity.
In any case these laws certainly lack a reasonable rationale when no child is actually harmed in the making of the pornography such as in the case of the written word or child sex dolls.
It seems strange that while we find murder abhorrent, we don't have any qualms about people watching images of it. Horror movies for example. Even real life murders such as the hanging of Saddam Hussain whose execution was watched on the internet by million of people around the globe. We don't think the victim is being further harmed in those cases and as such it seems strange to think that a victim of child sexual abuse is being further harmed when some unknown stranger looks at the images.
However, it would be a brave politician who speaks out against these laws. We can't even get effective drug policy in this country so I would be highly surprised if we managed to get child porn laws right.

So armchair, do you think that ought to be banned/censored?

If so why?