this post was submitted on 30 Sep 2023
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[–] [email protected] 36 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (14 children)

So this does bring up an interesting point that I haven't thought about - is it the depiction that matters, or is it the actual potential for victims that matters?

Consider the Catholic schoolgirl trope - if someone of legal age is depicted as being much younger, should that be treated in the same way as this case? This case is arguing that the depiction is what matters, instead of who is actually harmed.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 year ago (6 children)

Every country has different rules, standing on wikipedia.

Personally, I feel that if making completely fictitious depictions of child porn, where no one is harmed (think AI-generated, or by consenting adults depicting minors) was legal, it might actually prevent the real, harmful ones from being made, thus preventing harm.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (4 children)

At the same time, an argument could be made that increasing the availability of such a thing could land it in the eyes of a person who otherwise wouldn’t have seen it in the first place and problems could develop.

It could normalize something absurd and create more risks.

I’m no expert and I’d rather leave it to people who thoroughly understand such behaviors to determine what is and isn’t ultimately more or less detrimental to the health of society.

I just know how (anecdotally) pornography desensitizes a person until it makes more extreme things less bizarre and unnatural. I can’t help but imagine a teenager who would have otherwise developed a more healthy sexuality stumbling on images like that and becoming desensitized.

It’s definitely something that needs some serious thought.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

"I’m no expert and I’d rather leave it to people who thoroughly understand such behaviors to determine what is and isn’t ultimately more or less detrimental to the health of society."

One of the big problems with addressing this problem is that NOBODY thoroughly understands these behaviors. They are so stigmatized that essentially nobody voluntarily admits to having pedophilic urges and scientists can only study those who actually act on them and harm children. They are almost certainly not a representative sample of the entire population of pedophiles, and this severely limits our ability to study the psychology of the population as a whole and what differentiates the rapists among them from the non-rapists.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

I think Japan would make a really good case study. Childlike aesthetics and behaviors are strongly sexualized in Japan. They also produce the most simulated CSAM per capita with few laws restricting production. Actual child pornography wasn't made illegal until 1999. They still sell photo books of tweens in swimsuits and stuff in Japan. That, and lolicon, which is basically hentai with kids in it.

There isn't the same stigma against attraction to children, and we see that some 15-20% of the Japanese male population holds some aesthetic preferences that most westerners would consider pedophilic.

I think we'd probably see similar numbers in America if we could cut though the stigma, which some people would panic over, but if anything we should be relieved that despite such numbers, actual sexual abuse of children is very rare.

I mean, the writing is on the wall already. Nothing in the West is more sexualized than youth, we just like to pretend that 18 is some magical age where you looked completely different the day before your birthday or something, and ignore that puberty comes a lot earlier than that.

What really matters is the social norms surrounding these things. We shouldn't care if a 40 year old man thinks a 15 year old girl is attractive, we should care if he tries to do anything about that attraction, because the latter is a conscious choice that does harm, while the former is more complex matter of human sexual response.

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