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When does porn become child porn

In regard to this case......

  • The accused is guilty of possessing child porn

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • The accused is not guilty

    Votes: 18 90.0%

  • There was prosecutorial misconduct

    Votes: 13 65.0%

  • Prosecutors were only trying to convict a child molester

    Votes: 3 15.0%

  • The accused is a potential child molester

    Votes: 4 20.0%

  • It should be illegal for young-looking women to make porn

    Votes: 2 10.0%

  • The prosecutor should be charged with a crime

    Votes: 7 35.0%

  • Sometimes, there is injustice in America

    Votes: 12 60.0%

  • America still has the best system of justice in the world

    Votes: 4 20.0%

  • Don't know/No opinion/This is just to complicated to figure out

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Total voters
    20
danarhea

danarhea

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First of all, watch this video, which appeared on Russia Today, for background on this issue:

[nomedia="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDrHfuLC4H8"]YouTube- Porn star saves dude from 20 years in prison[/nomedia]


OK, there are huge problems with the prosecution, which entered a "fact of evidence" that the porn star was no older than 12, when she was actually 18 at the time she made the video. The man was clearly being railroaded by the court.

But let me also ask this: As young as she appears, is the man who had the video on his computer a potential child molester? Should child porn laws include watching women who look like children? It's pretty complicated, so answer the poll, and let's see what we come up with here.

Note: This poll is multiple choice.
 
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This is where the hypocrisy begins to shine through.
Is it "against the law" to be turned on by women who "look like children"?
First, define your terms.
Are you referring to petite, slender, small-breasted women who shave their pubic hair and have very young faces?
Because that would describe a good segment of the porn market- perhaps 10%.

Or are you referring to women of any size or shape who run around in pig-tails, holding raggedy-ann dolls and sucking on lollipops and claiming that they are children and that they want to **** grown men?
Because that's a fetish market.

Neither should be illegal, IMO.
The second is catering to a fetish, and is kind of silly and gross, in my opinion, but not immoral. The first is a natural preference, and there's nothing at all wrong with it.
Half the actresses in Hollywood would look "like children", by these standards, if you ever saw them without their clothes on, which you never will.
 
I think what happened is technically legal because by the law it's not child porn. However I think they should make it illegal to make pornography using adults that look young like children, it just breeds child molesters and should be a discouraged fetish in society. Technically there were no laws broken so no one should go to jail. Another thing I think that should be illegal is anime porn (or whatever it's called) where they have animated children in it.
 
The guy isn't guilty of anything - it's not child porn because the actress isn't a child. There was prosecutorial misconduct - they didn't even bother to verify whether or not the actress is or isn't of legal age. I'm not saying that prosecutors should be forced to prove that someone isn't of legal age - that would put too much of a burden on them. However, they should at least be forced to take steps to see whether or not the age of the actress in a video can be verified.

And saying that someone shouldn't make porn with women who look younger than they really are is as silly as saying that it's okay for teenagers who look older than they really are to make porn.
 
digsbe said:
I think what happened is technically legal because by the law it's not child porn. However I think they should make it illegal to make pornography using adults that look young like children, it just breeds child molesters and should be a discouraged fetish in society. Technically there were no laws broken so no one should go to jail. Another thing I think that should be illegal is anime porn (or whatever it's called) where they have animated children in it.
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in regard to the anime porn, i dont know about anywhere else, but in Australia, any depiction of a child engaged in a sex act or the like is counted as child porn, whether it be a photo or a drawing
 
spud_meister said:
in regard to the anime porn, i dont know about anywhere else, but in Australia, any depiction of a child engaged in a sex act or the like is counted as child porn, whether it be a photo or a drawing
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I think here in the U.S. the law is that there has to be a disclaimer that says all the characters are depicted as over the age of 18. Don't quote me on that, though.
 
digsbe said:
I think what happened is technically legal because by the law it's not child porn. However I think they should make it illegal to make pornography using adults that look young like children, it just breeds child molesters and should be a discouraged fetish in society. Technically there were no laws broken so no one should go to jail. Another thing I think that should be illegal is anime porn (or whatever it's called) where they have animated children in it.
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Again, define what you mean by "look like a child".
Are you going to prohibit women of a certain physical build from acting in porn?
That's discriminatory. It's unacceptable. You might as well say blacks aren't allowed to be in porn.
As far as looking young, all porn actresses, like all women everywhere, attempt to look as young as possible.
Consumers of pornography would be happiest if every actress in porn were 18 years old (or at least, appeared to be).
I have never yet heard a guy state, "This woman just looks too youthful. It's really a turn-off. Do you have any older women about?" :roll:

Actually, I'm sure there are a small percentage of guys that feel that way, but that's a fetish as well. And there is a type of porn that caters to them. it's called granny-porn.
 
1069 said:
Again, define what you mean by "look like a child".
Are you going to prohibit women of a certain physical build from acting in porn?
That's discriminatory. It's unacceptable. You might as well say blacks aren't allowed to be in porn.
As far as looking young, all porn actresses, like all women everywhere, attempt to look as young as possible.
Consumers of pornography would be happiest if every actress in porn were 18 years old (or at least, appeared to be).
I have never yet heard a guy state, "This woman just looks too youthful. It's really a turn-off. Do you have any older women about?" :roll:

Actually, I'm sure there are a small percentage of guys that feel that way, but that's a fetish as well. And there is a type of porn that caters to them. it's called granny-porn.
Click to expand...

Actually, I'm wondering when we'll take the step from criminalizing porn with women who look young to criminalizing sex with women who look young. And if we do that, who do we punish, the men for wanting to have sex with the adult woman, or the adult woman who looks younger than she is? And what should be done about it? Are we going to force those women to undergo plastic surgery in order to make them look older? And if we do, should she pay out of pocket, or are we going to raise taxes in order to force them to undergo those procedures?
 
samsmart said:
Actually, I'm wondering when we'll take the step from criminalizing porn with women who look young to criminalizing sex with women who look young. And if we do that, who do we punish, the men for wanting to have sex with the adult woman, or the adult woman who looks younger than she is? And what should be done about it? Are we going to force those women to undergo plastic surgery in order to make them look older? And if we do, should she pay out of pocket, or are we going to raise taxes in order to force them to undergo those procedures?
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That's one direction it could go.
The other... well, I think on some level, I think some people are using descriptions like "looks too young" and "looks like a child" as a euphemism for small-breasted.
Although the stereotypical porn actress has large breast implants, there is a sizable portion of porn viewers who don't prefer large-breasted women.
Are we going to insist that all porn actresses who are not naturally buxom get implants so as not to be mistaken for "children" (and by "children", I'm positive that "teens" is what they really mean).

I see it, potentially, as society once again attempting to commandeer control over women's bodies.
Society is not in charge of what women *should* look like naked, nor what men *should* be turned on by.
The free market decides that.
The role of the law is to ensure that no one under the chronological age of 18 is actually appearing in pornography.
What the adults who appear in pornography look like or what age they appear to be is not a matter for the law to involve itself in, as long as they are able to produce valid identification and prove they are not minors.
 
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The law is finite and absolute in this one. Under 18, uh-oh. Over 18, nothing.

When you start entering subjective arguments to try and circumvent the rules and punish thoughtcrime, you begin a long, slippery slope.

If I want to nail Britney Spears in a belly-tied collar shirt and plaid skirt above her knees with her hair in tails, that's my business - not yours.
 
I've always kind of wondered: Since the age of consent in most states is 16, why would a porno containing 16 or 17yo's be "Child porn"?

Don't misunderstand me, considering everything I've heard about the porn industry, I wouldn't want 16 and 17yo's being allowed in it... it just seems a smidge inconsistent to prosecute someone for child porn when the actress was of the age of consent though.
 
Goshin said:
I've always kind of wondered: Since the age of consent in most states is 16, why would a porno containing 16 or 17yo's be "Child porn"?

Don't misunderstand me, considering everything I've heard about the porn industry, I wouldn't want 16 and 17yo's being allowed in it... it just seems a smidge inconsistent to prosecute someone for child porn when the actress was of the age of consent though.
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In Texas, at least ten years ago (not sure if they've changed it), 16-year-olds could dance in strip clubs and work in other adult-oriented businesses (such as peepshows and jack shacks) with parental consent.
And some did.

They can't act in porn, I suspect, because it's distributed everywhere, including places where the age of consent is higher.
Nowhere in the US is the age of consent higher than 18, so I suspect that's why the minimum age for appearing in porn is 18.
 
Goshin said:
I've always kind of wondered: Since the age of consent in most states is 16, why would a porno containing 16 or 17yo's be "Child porn"?
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Within a state, the age of consent is 16 for most of them. However, the Mann Act was passed by Congress which prohibits the interstate transport of females for "immoral purposes," and nationwide the age of adulthood is 18. This is done to stop people from heading to a state with a lower age of consent just for sex. So since porn can be regulated by Congress because of the Interstate Commerce Clause, porn also has to follow the national age of consent, which is 18. That's my guess.
 
Gipper said:
The law is finite and absolute in this one. Under 18, uh-oh. Over 18, nothing.

When you start entering subjective arguments to try and circumvent the rules and punish thoughtcrime, you begin a long, slippery slope.

If I want to nail Britney Spears in a belly-tied collar shirt and plaid skirt above her knees with her hair in tails, that's my business - not yours.
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Well, here is the problem with that. The accused was prosecuted on the basis that there was nothing subjective about it. The prosecutors admitted false evidence into the court, showing that the 18 year old in the video was actually 12 years old. I believe the prosecutor should be charged with a crime in that regard.
 
I'm also not sure that nudity and solo sexual activities- even when they involve a minor- qualify legally as "porn" or "child pornography".

I believe that's what the court ruled in the case of Ashley Dupre, who at 16 appeared in a "Girls Gone Wild" video, nude and masturbating.
She lied about her age in order to do it, but after she was involved in that scandal with Elliot Spitzer, the producer of "Girls Gone Wild" sued for the right to re-release and market that particular episode of "Girls Gone Wild" (including a lot of previously unseen footage of Dupre), and the court ruled that he could do so, despite the fact that Dupre tried to stop him on the grounds that she had been a minor at the time.

The video is currently on the internet and most of it can be watched for free.

Same with the 15-year-old Vanessa Hudgens pics, which featured full-frontal nudity.
They're all over the internet.
They're not "child porn", because she's not doing anything sexual. She's just standing there.
 
Any one ever hear of the photographers either Jock Sturges and or Sally Mann and if so do you consider their work child porn?
 
winston53660 said:
Any one ever hear of the photographers either Jock Sturges and or Sally Mann and if so do you consider their work child porn?
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I'm familiar with Mann; she's an photographic artist, similar to Nan Goldin.
I consider some of this type of art- such as Goldin's Edda and Klara Belly Dancing- to be in very poor taste.
Nevertheless, it's art, not porn.
 
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winston53660 said:
Any one ever hear of the photographers either Jock Sturges and or Sally Mann and if so do you consider their work child porn?
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No, but Google did the trick and now I am up to speed. :mrgreen:

Child porn? Hmmmmmmmmm..........No. Not the pics I saw, anyway.

The difference between artistic nudes and pornographic nudes can be difficult to define. Like the famous quote by the SCOTUS justice, "I can't define it, but I know it when I see it."

Part of the difficulty lies in the fact that those whose fetish is children could be aroused by what most would consider artistic nudes of children.

It has been taken to ridiculous lengths...some years ago a parent was arrested, when the film-developer found a nude photo of their one-year old, the classical baby-on-a-bearskin-rug thing. Ludicrous.
 
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Goshin said:
No, but Google did the trick and now I am up to speed. :mrgreen:

Child porn? Hmmmmmmmmm..........No.

The difference between artistic nudes and pornographic nudes can be difficult to define. Like the famous quote by the SCOTUS justice, "I can't define it, but I know it when I see it."

Part of the difficultly lies in the fact that those whose fetish is children could be aroused by what most would consider artistic nudes of children.

It has been taken to ridiculous lengths...some years ago a parent was arrested, when the film-developer found a nude photo of their one-year old, the classical baby-on-a-bearskin-rug thing. Ludicrous.
Click to expand...

Similarly, a few years ago, a woman was arrested and had her children temporarily removed from her custody when she tried to develop some pictures of her child breastfeeding.

This sort of thing is what happens when we end up going too far in trying to "protect the innocent children". We end up destroying them instead.
I call it the Branch Davidian Compound Effect.

I see no reason to protect anyone of any age from their own naked bodies.
Protecting children from sexual exploitation by adults is another matter, and shouldn't really be as difficult as we seem to make it.
It's trickier to protect teens from sexually exploiting themselves.
Maybe we shouldn't even try, since all we seem to do when we attempt to intervene is make matters worse.
 
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1069 said:
Similarly, a few years ago, a woman was arrested and had her children temporarily removed from her custody when she tried to develop some pictures of her child breastfeeding.

This sort of thing is what happens when we end up going too far in trying to "protect the innocent children". We end up destroying them instead.
I call it the Branch Davidian Compound Effect.

I see no reason to protect anyone of any age from their own naked bodies.
Protecting children from sexual exploitation by adults is another matter, and shouldn't really be as difficult as we seem to make it.
It's trickier to protect teens from sexually exploiting themselves.
Maybe we shouldn't even try, since all we seem to do when we intervene is make matters worse.
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Well, I wouldn't go that far. Personally, I think the answer is that instead of having laws that can be applied so broadly we should instead start writing narrower laws regarding this subject in order to get those adults who truly exploit teenagers.
 
samsmart said:
Well, I wouldn't go that far. Personally, I think the answer is that instead of having laws that can be applied so broadly we should instead start writing narrower laws regarding this subject in order to get those adults who truly exploit teenagers.
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You agree with all these kids who engage in "sexting" with their peers being arrested and labeled child pornographers and sex offenders?
This is already happening in a number of states.

A recent study showed that one out of three high schoolers claims to have sent or received nude or or partially nude text images of themselves/ a peer.

That's an entire generation of "child sex offenders" right there.
I hope the juvenile halls are capacious enough to contain them all. :roll:
 
1069 said:
You agree with all these kids who engage in "sexting" with their peers being arrested and labeled child pornographers and sex offenders?
This is already happening in a number of states.

A recent study showed that one out of three high schoolers claims to have sent or received nude or or partially nude text images of themselves/ a peer.

That's an entire generation of "child sex offenders" right there.
I hope the juvenile halls are capacious enough to contain them all. :roll:
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That's not what I said. If you note, I said I think that laws should be narrowly written in order to go after adults who exploit children. For teenagers who engage in that kind of behavior I think they should be forced to take mandatory sexuality classes that explains proper sexual behavior in our country and our nation's sex laws. I also think that we should discern between non-violent sex crimes and violent sex crimes as well. A 14-year-old boy who has sex with his girlfriend shouldn't be put on the same level as a 50-year-old man who violently rapes a younger child. A 15-year-old girl who e-mails pics of boobies to her boyfriend should not be treated the same as an adult who runs an underground child porn ring for money.
 
Goshin said:
I've always kind of wondered: Since the age of consent in most states is 16, why would a porno containing 16 or 17yo's be "Child porn"?

Don't misunderstand me, considering everything I've heard about the porn industry, I wouldn't want 16 and 17yo's being allowed in it... it just seems a smidge inconsistent to prosecute someone for child porn when the actress was of the age of consent though.
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Simple, because CP is normally a federal crime and the feds say anyone under 18 is a child.

You think your example is bad? How about in my state, where 17 is the legal age of consent. That means an adult male of any age can have sex with her at 17, even get her pregnant, but he cannot photograph or video her in a sexual way without being guilty of "production of child porn" which is now I believe mandatory 20 years in a federal prison.

Our laws are absolutely asinine in this regard. Someone at age 18 who had sex with a 16yo could be a lifetime sex offender in one state, and in another, that not even be a crime. So you could have someone move in next to you who did the same thing you did when you were his age, but in his state it was a crime so he can't go to his daughters school plays but you can, and you're both absolutely guilty of the same act.

I could continue with the absurdities. This is just the TIP OF THE ICEBERG.

Samsmart, I agree with you. But fact is, THEY AREN'T. They are all treated identically under a catch all phrase of "sex offender." Nobody cares what they did or asks the details, they hear that the guy or gal who moved in next door is a sex offender and they think child rapist, period.

Like I said, the absurdities abound and I could post pages and pages of absurdities effortlessly.
 
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The accused is guilty of possessing child porn

No


The accused is not guilty

Agreed.

There was prosecutorial misconduct

I believe there is prosecutorial misconduct.The prosecutor deliberately tried not to prove the age of the girl in the video

Prosecutors were only trying to convict a child molester

Maybe,Maybe not.


The accused is a potential child molester

Don't know.There is no evidence to make that determination.


It should be illegal for young-looking women to make porn

No. Flat chested women should be free to cash in on their looks just as much as the women who have large breasts do.


The prosecutor should be charged with a crime

I believe he should. He deliberately failed get evidence to prove the age of the girl in the video. A quick google search would lead to the porn actress site with a "18 U.S.C. 2257 Record-Keeping Requirements Compliance statement" link on the bottom, there was also a wikipedia page which had links to her myspace page, twitter page and other such info and this only took a few seconds to find.


Sometimes, there is injustice in America
I agree


America still has the best system of justice in the world

I agree
 
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danarhea said:
First of all, watch this video, which appeared on Russia Today, for background on this issue:

YouTube- Porn star saves dude from 20 years in prison


OK, there are huge problems with the prosecution, which entered a "fact of evidence" that the porn star was no older than 12, when she was actually 18 at the time she made the video. The man was clearly being railroaded by the court.

But let me also ask this: As young as she appears, is the man who had the video on his computer a potential child molester? Should child porn laws include watching women who look like children? It's pretty complicated, so answer the poll, and let's see what we come up with here.

Note: This poll is multiple choice.
Click to expand...

Realistic depictions of child porn are illegal because folks don't stop at videos. Pedophilia is something which escalates into abusing actual children.
 
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