Inquisition 21
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Child pornography - background reading
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Background reading on child pornography
Child pornography - background reading
The assault on the human imagination
Brian Rothery
Every day, we read stories about the new crimen exceptum, the crime that requires that ordinary legal processes be suspended or over-ridden. It carries with it a de rigeur expectation that anyone challenging society’s view of the crime must first declare an abhorrence of it. The crimen exceptum is child pornography, and it is rapidly replacing child sex abuse as the designated perversity. It shares with child sex abuse the charge that it pollutes the designated holy state – the pure and sexless child.
It has greatly increased the fear and distrust already created within society by the moral panic of child sex abuse. In that moral panic, many parents and men in particular felt unsafe in the presence of children, even with their own children in some countries. That panic also generated obsessions about satanic ritual abuse, pedophile rings and recovered memory, perceived by some observers to be a revival of the witch hunt tendency in society. Now the fear has spread to the ownership of computers and, above all, to access to the Internet.
The UK author Frank Furedi, who writes about our culture of fear, once noted that the Channel Tunnel, probably the world’s greatest engineering achievement, was regarded not with admiration and awe but with fear of the horrors it could bring to Great Britain, or in attacks on its users. Similarly, almost from its inception, the Internet was being popularly feared as a medium for pornography. Now it has actually become something much more sinister, a Trojan Horse that can allow police and prosecutors to destroy the lives of innocent people, should the new deadly moral virus of child pornography infect their PCs.
There is enough argument on this web site about the reality and extent of child pornography without repeating any of it here, but suppose we look at it from a different viewpoint. We have had moral panics before, each of them resulting in an inquisition of one kind or another. The best remembered are the original witch hunts, the demonizing of the Jews, the ‘crime against nature’ of homosexuality, the Reds under the beds, and, more recently, the pedophile rings and satanic ritual abuse scares. It may be difficult to recall a time when there was not a moral panic and an accompanying inquisition about some designated perversion.
I am old enough to remember as a schoolboy Ireland’s first trial of a pornographer. A man was jailed for showing black and white movies of sexual acts to private customers in his Dublin garage. What I vividly recall is the sense of black disbelief and horror that enveloped Irish society, and my own appalled awareness that adults were whispering about the heinous nature of what was being projected on that diabolical movie screen – a man and a woman copulating. What one might now see on the more boring late night adult television channels. Only once since have I read of a similar black cloud of moral doom, in Lynley Hood’s brilliant A City Possessed, in which she describes the moral panic that gripped New Zealand during the Christchurch Civic Creche satanic ritual abuse scare. Another New Zealand friend has since told me of the dread he felt as over the past decade he watched a tide of anti-male militant feminism envelop his country.
As UK barrister Barbara Hewson has pointed out elsewhere on this web site, one result of the a priori bias that accompanies moral panics and the absolutism they engender is ‘therapeutic jurisprudence’. I see a version of this as ‘legislating for malice’. Courts routinely act not in the service of justice, but in maintaining and enforcing the ideology of society. What results is a society of fear and maliciousness, where neighbours spy and report on each other, and where police engage in scams and entrapment, and prey on innocent people who may be ensnared by other means also.
Returning to the crimen exceptum, of child pornography, I have become aware that this may be the perfect tool of a totalitarian regime, as it cannot be questioned. Even with child abuse, we had some opportunity, although severely curtailed, of cross examining or assessing the evidence given by children. We have no such opportunities with child pornography. We are not allowed to see what police, prosecutors, expert witnesses and juries are deciding is pornographic. We are forced to accept that all under 18 are children, as far as this crimen exceptum is concerned. Attempts to question it result in character assassination and accusations of pedophilia. It is interesting that ‘pedophilia’ itself cannot be found in older dictionaries.
So what is the different viewpoint I present? That the moral panic about child pornography is part of an even more frightening prospect – that the Internet may facilitate the expansion of the human imagination.
At the simplest level, the Internet has largely created the market for, and very concept of, child pornography, by first making it available in its many variations from simple nudity and eroticism to lewd acts. The criminalization of it may in the first instance have frightened away many of those curious about it, but the longer term results can only be more interest and more value for the genre and new ways of concealing it and trading it. At a more complex level, the Internet has created new possibilities for mind sharing and the creation of fantasies, including the very new ‘shared fantasy’.
Let’s look at the new threats to freedom and innocence brought about by the child pornography absolutism. I could have risked accusations of exaggeration had I said two years ago that no one who owned a PC was now safe. After first hand contact with people whose stories are told on this web site, I can now say with some confidence, and much sadness, that I believe that no man who owns a PC is safe, whether the threat be from teenaged sons and their friends, Trojan Horse intrusions, spams, set ups, viruses, accidental access or misjudgment concerning what constitutes pornography. The result is that like the Channel Tunnel the Internet is being viewed as a threat rather than the great facilitator of the emancipation of the human imagination it should be.
After years of agonizing over this problem and hearing the stories of individuals whose lives have been destroyed, I recently looked for the weakest link in the chain from ideology through initial accusation, and false witness to unjust conviction, and I came up with the same weak link over and over in almost every case I looked at - the one point where the injustice could have been stopped but was not, and it was not the media, but the unavailability of a good defense lawyer.
All moral panics and inquisitions sow hatred and dissension and fear in their societies and breed other related crimes. One great crime associated with the moral panic of child abuse/child pornography is the disingenuousness of the child rights activists, who use the mantra ‘for the good of the children’ for reasons of private profit or power. As we can see from stories on this web site, this can lead to racketeering in the most extreme cases, as in Cambodia.
Another great crime is censorship, especially that scholars and writers are not allowed to examine the judgements of police and prosecutors. One man, whose sad story is on this site, told me about the low educational level and inexperience of the US cop who arrested him and passed judgement on the contents of his hard drive. Over and over, we hear stories about the contempt with which police officers treat older men they believe guilty of ‘heinous crimes’, where often the ‘crimes’ were simply the viewing of nudity or eroticism. It may soon be an offense to suggest that there is a genre of child eroticism. A third great crime made possible by the absolutism is that it gives legislative support to malice.
A grievous side affect, seen in the Mitsubishi story (See under Child pornography) is that the child porn obsession breaks the trust between customers and their computer repair stores and between staff within companies and their ‘computer expert’ colleagues, allowing a cancer to enter society and those organizations.
Bill C-12, on its second reading in the Canadian Parliament, proposes draconian new legislation which criminalizes the production or possession of ‘any written material the dominant characteristic of which is the description, for a sexual purpose, of sexual activity with a person under the age of 18 years’. It will be a criminal offence to own a copy of Lolita. Bill C-12 will also criminalize observing someone surreptitiously for a sexual purpose, in an offence called ‘voyeurism’. This is ogling, peeping, slyly or surreptitiously glancing, cruising, or admiring or enjoying the beauty of a person under 18.
The next target for the Inquisition may be ‘inappropriate behavouir’. In Sweden this is already enough to have one’s children removed by the state. It has begun elsewhere by the criminalization of ‘inappropriate sexual behavouir’, such as inappropriate looking. ‘Inappropriate’ remarks about minorities are already criminalized under incitement to hatred legislation, so inappropriate sexual remarks may be on the cards. Inappropriate sexual behavouir quickly expands to embrace sexual harassment, and sexual contact between adults where one can be accused of having an inappropriate power or authoritarian position vis-a-vis the other, and where there are significant age differences between the individuals.
It is a simple step to go from inappropriate sexual activity to inappropriate social activity.
Without the Internet, there would have been no child pornography obsession such as that now convulsing society. Journalists are warning of the dangers that we may all see the world ‘through the eyes of the pedophile’. That will certainly make the unfortunate so-called pedophile feel a lot better. Because of the moral panic, we are in fact seeing the world that way and worse than children not being allowed to play outside any more, we are trying to clothe them in mental veils out of fear that their bodies may excite us.
The Internet also created the first great popularization of pornography by making it freely available and finally ending sexual censorship in countries where the Internet was available. Close behind pornography, it created or allowed, cyber affairs, and fantasy sharing. It also created international peer to peer networking and mind sharing, including great new possibilities for fighting injustice and supporting human liberty.
Child pornography has dealt the Internet a major blow. For the first time in its brief and heady history, the Internet can now bring ruin to innocent people. At the same time, the police and the disingenuousness have been empowered.
We must overcome the de rigeur insistence that the central tenets of child pornography cannot be challenged. They are now hurting the innocent, and the deceitful and the hypocritical are profiting from them. Child pornography is at the center of today’s absolutism, and its damage to our society is greater than even that done by the child sex abuse scare. But its threat to the Internet is very great indeed.
It will fall if each and all of these central tenets are challenged and disputed. That recognition of the beauty of child nudity is not solely in the eyes of the ‘so-called’ pedophile. That the censors have indeed made us all see the world through the eyes of the pedophile. That there is a genre of child eroticism. That an image of a crime can be used to help identify a criminal. That there is a place in literature, drama in ballet and in art for the acting out or artistic depiction of sexual crimes against children.
And perhaps the greatest possible assault on the central tenets of the child pornography dogmatists might be - that children can be sexual, and that the concept of ‘child’ itself may require scrutiny and review.
At stake is not just the Internet, but human imagination itself.
The child porn catastrophe
Brian Rothery
For background to the UK legal situation there is no better source than PCA, a web site mainly devoted to the Protection of Children Act 1978, and the only one on the subject, which critically examines the various UK laws relating to child pornography, and exposes contradictions, anomalies and threats to liberty. There is more good information in the articles by Arthur Blair on this web site (front page center).
What I can say here briefly is that the UK appears to have the world’s most draconian and repressive legislation purporting to protect children from the exploitation of child pornography, which in fact from April 2004 criminalized many children and their parents, and attacked commonsense and liberty.
Police spokespersons, such as John Carr, make regular exaggerated public pronouncements about the extent and volume of child porn, and issue warnings to ‘child porn downloaders’ to come clean and confess before they are caught. No admission is made of how raising the age threshold for under age ‘children’ from 16 to 18 has created a huge volume of ‘child porn’ from existing nude, erotic and pornographic images. Always the impression is given of a frightening new child porn deluge, when the opposite is the case – dramatically decreased child porn availability.
The child pornography crusade has been embraced by the child rights activists and police, as the tide turns against the child sex abuse crusaders and more and more cases of false allegations are revealed. While child sex abuse is also a crimen exceptum, allowing normal processes of law and justice to be suspended, child pornography is a crimen exceptum that cannot even be challenged, as only the police and their supporting agencies are allowed to verify its existence. It is an exceptionally powerful tool for implementing an absolutist ideology and its success has been remarkable.
Nearly all of the Internet child porn Hotlines in Europe are staffed either by police or child rights activists, who have a keen interest in the suppression of the freedoms allowed by the Internet itself. News emerged from the May 2004 Rome INHOPE conference (Internet Hotline Providers in Europe) that any information or ‘cultish’ elements which encourage anorexia or bulimia, including web sites and chat boards, are being blocked by the Hotlines working in conjunction with ISPs such as Yahoo and AOL. They regard these as child abuse related Internet issues, and are looking for more such issues.
Adult Sites Against Child Pornography (ASACP) executive director Joan Irvine from LA who attended the conference and saw some examples of what had been blocked said, “All this stuff was absolutely horrendous." This is the surest sign yet that the Hotlines, and the large service providers, are indeed moving towards the maintenance of a regime of preventing inappropriate social behavouir to be expressed or encouraged over the Internet. With so many police forces and child rights activists on the individual Inhope country hotlines this was to be expected.
For example, the UK Internet child porn censor, the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) is managed and staffed by police and its web site boasts of the number of arrests it has contributed to. The IWF claims that there is no justification on the grounds of nudity, eroticism, or art for any image which they prima facie judge to be child porn. They are judge and prosecutor in the matter. When asked if they employed assessment criteria to distinguish between child nudity, child eroticism, artistic representations of unclothed children, they replied: “We assess images under the Protection of Children Act 1978. Taking into account all of the content of the web page/site we ask the question is that an indecent image of a child apparently under age?"
This question was then put to them: “How would you respond to seeing a meaningful dramatic representation of child rape or exploitation, for example in a stage play, ballet or movie (online), where a real child actor is used?"
They replied, "Indecent images of children are illegal whether in a meaningful play or otherwise. - - - Such a theme could be dealt with without showing indecent images of a child."
The first of several major problems with the UK legislation is that, unlike other countries, accidental or unknowing possession is not a defence, so accidental or involuntarily viewed illegal material, as in the case of stumbling onto a child porn web site or receiving an unwanted spam which has an online link to an image so that the image materializes as soon as you look at the message, makes one a criminal. To report an image viewed even accidentally, or received in a spam email, in the UK, risks criminal prosecution. This means that no one in his or her right mind should report any child porn image, however received, in the UK.
Since the April 2004 amendments, the situation has become even worse. Girls are actually being classed as prostitutes, their boyfriends criminalized and their fathers at great risk as the legislation has raised the ages of consent for the posting or accessing of images.
If there is still doubt about the catastrophic consequences of the UK act, there is a clause saying that it is criminal to have data stored on a computer disc or by other electronic means which is capable of conversion into a photograph. It is mathematically provable that anyone who owns a PC has data stored on it that is capable of conversion into a photograph, including indecent images of children. It is possible to draw any image onscreen using a computer art package and a mouse, to draw by hand using a graphics tablet, or to write or use a program that would draw the required lines on the screen. So in more than one way, all owners of PCs and certain software in the UK are 'criminals' according to this clause.
While the subject of child pornography has been studied to the point of exhausting both writers and readers on this web site, what will now be stated, in a kind of summary of the view to date, is that over and above all the arguments about what should and should not be regarded as child pornography, and arguments about freedom of thought and expression, one argument appears for now at least to stand supreme – the disingenuous, and power and profit seekers are using ‘child rights’ and, in particular, the virtually unassailable crusade of child pornography, to move a repressive agenda towards a dogmatism of ‘inappropriate behaviour’. In Cambodia this has already empowered child and women’s crisis groups with draconian police and prosecution capacities, with the altogether predictable result of racketeering and other forms of extortion. Sweden is not far behind Cambodia, although with more polished methods.
Such secrecy and lack of transparency and accountability surround the activities of the police, legal profession and judiciary in matters of child pornography that there is no way of knowing how serious, if at all serious, are the images actually being downloaded. From my conversations with the few people in the industry that know anything about it, I have become convinced that both the legal profession and the judiciary are also largely ignorant about what actually constitutes child pornography. From time to time we get reports that certain images are at the ‘lower end’ of the scale of seriousness. These could be simply child nudity or simulated erotica – such as kids acting as glamour models, even spoofing. As one senior industry expert remarked to me, “The legal people don’t care - they don’t even want to use expert witnesses. Their attitude is ‘We know what it is and it’s shameful’.” So because of this shame surrounding the subject, those caught downloading are pleading guilty in nearly all cases. But guilty of what? We are not allowed to know.
In Ireland, the Child Trafficking and Pornography Act, 1998, criminalizes certain activities that in the opinion of its authors create or use child pornography. The act appears less draconian in its definitions of what constitutes the ‘making’ of an image than the UK legislation, but it has worrying references to ‘documents’, saying ‘"document" includes - (a) any book, periodical or pamphlet, and (b) where appropriate, any tape, computer disk or other thing on which data capable of conversion into any such document is stored’. This could have serious implications for writers. It also has serious implications for anyone who has kept a copy of Nabokov’s Lolita, which was considered to be a classic, but is now criminalized, or who has old copies of UK tabloids in the attic which might contain photographs of nude girl models under 17.
The act specifies ‘representation of a person who is or is represented as being a child and who is engaged in or is represented as being engaged in explicit sexual activity’ and this could include a stage play, movie or a radio drama (as audio is included), and thus criminalizes all artistic or meaningful creative representations of sexual crimes against children, even say a ballet where it is acted out that a child is assaulted by a beast.
It could be an offence to write/publish a book, including a literary novel or a serious non-fiction work, which examines child porn or child eroticism, which is subsequently banned in Ireland. Or not yet banned. A writer living in Ireland, and writing such a book for overseas publishers, or one not yet accepted by a publisher, could be prosecuted, should the police read the offending text.
Perhaps the most repressive paragraph is ‘(d)encourages or knowingly causes or facilitates any activity mentioned in paragraph (a), (b) or (c)’. Which could mean encourages or knowingly causes or facilitates any activity mentioned in these three paragraphs which would be considered by prosecutors and courts to be child pornography, whether or not the facilitator, who may be a writer, is arguing that the particular depictions should not be seen to be child pornography. Therefore, one cannot criticize this law by advocating that certain genres considered to be child porn may be erotic or artistic or simply beautiful and that no such depictions should be deemed illegal, without risking prosecution for encouraging or knowingly causing or facilitating the activities listed.
Differing from the UK legislation where even innocent receiving of an image can be constituted as ‘making’, Section 6 on Possession of child pornography, states: ‘(1) Without prejudice to section 5(1)(e) and subject to subsections (2) and (3), any person who knowingly possesses any child pornography shall be guilty of an offence and shall be liable etc.’ Knowingly is an important word that could protect innocent viewers or receivers.
One can possess child pornography ‘in the exercise of functions under the Censorship of Films Acts, 1923 to 1992, the Censorship of Publications Acts, 1929 to 1967, or the Video Recordings Acts, 1989 and 1992, or (b) for the purpose of the prevention, investigation or prosecution of offences under this Act. On the surface, it would appear that in the absence of legislation naming those exempted from prosecution, any individual or organization should be able to claim that he or it was investigating child pornography ‘for the purpose of the prevention, investigation or prosecution of offences under this Act’. What the court would believe is another matter.
A second exemption is ‘(3) Without prejudice to subsection (2), it shall be a defence in a prosecution for an offence under section 5(1) or subsection (1) for the accused to prove that he or she possessed the child pornography concerned for the purposes of bona fide research’. No one interviewed by me felt certain that bona fide research covered books, web sites dedicated to serious investigation and analyses of the issues and investigative journalism. This probably criminalizes writers trying to argue a case for distinguishing between pornography and eroticism or artistic depictions or simple nudity.
The Child Trafficking and Pornography Act defines child pornography in the following manner: "child" means a person under the age of 17 years - - -. This gives rise to anomalies. Sixteen-year-olds can engage in, and be photographed for, the Net, in pornographic acts in several countries. The age of consent in some countries is fourteen, and, while all pornography is banned in most Muslim countries, the age for sexual activity in some is twelve. If you look at the legal-elsewhere 16-year-old engaged in pornography, over a PC in Ireland, you commit a criminal offence. If an Irish seventeen-year-old poses for a pornographic image, viewers in the US, and in the UK after April 2004, can be prosecuted, because there the legal age is eighteen.
It is of paramount importance that academics, writers and, indeed, all concerned persons, but, above all, journalists use the clause under the Act that says that ‘it shall be a defence in a prosecution for an offence - - - for the accused to prove that he or she possessed the child pornography concerned for the purposes of bona fide research’. And to go further and demand that the clause be changed from a defence to a right, thus restoring to our democracy the important safeguard of good citizens monitoring the activities of the police, the censors and the judiciary. Especially arrogant censors who see themselves above the law. We should look back over recent history to see how easily the jackbooted bullies emerge. The press in Ireland have been gravely negligent in allowing moral police to exclude them from scrutinizing their actions. Political correctness may be at the heart of this particular failure.
For writers and artists, the most serious consequence is that literary and artistic examination and expression are suppressed and criminalized, questions cannot be asked, and police and the censors, including the self-appointed ones, can look at material that scholars and journalists are not allowed to see.
The child pornography moral panic has swept across the English-speaking world, for possible reasons we give elsewhere in this section. It is quite bad in the US where Jack’s story in See ‘Mitsubishi abandons its employee' illustrates it better than any other we can find.
A supreme irony is that an article written about the extent and nature of child pornography by a leading Internet watchdog and child protector, Professor Max Taylor, of Cork University, has been published as a guide by an international paedophile group. It is reviewed below.
Irish judge caught in Operation Amethyst
Mirroring the irony expressed above is the current mess the Irish government finds itself in as they try to impeach a judge caught in the Irish fallout from Landslide. The case against him was thrown out because of a search warrant error technicality, so now a parliamentary committee has been formed to study the images seized by the police from his PC. The quagmire expands as they in turn now require legislation to allow them to study the images hitherto illegal for them to access. The moral morass also deepens and the danger increases that some innocent may shout out that the Emperor has no clothes.
Latest on the judge
Conundrum emerges as Irish judge accused of accessing child porn holds out
Background
He is not the only judge in the world facing allegations of accessing child pornography, but it is now looking like Judge Brian Curtin in Ireland is at the centre of one of the highest profile child pornography cases in the world. The brief background story is that he was a 2003 victim of the spin-off from the FBI Landslide case, called Operation Amethyst in Ireland and Operation Ore in the UK, when, given evidence of his credit card transactions, the Irish police raided his home and seized his computer and files. They were triumphant at what they found and information about the contents was swiftly leaked to the media.
Legal delays began immediately and the Irish government, already faced with a multitude of scandals, became jittery. As his case finally came to court, his top legal team delivered a bombshell. The search warrant used to enter his home and seize his computer and files was a day late. The presiding judge threw out the case, clearing Curtin in a situation where he could now not be retried for that alleged offence. The government appeared astonished, while some wondered if it had all been staged. The police were seriously embarrassed.
Here now was the extraordinary situation. A judge against whom were made allegations of paying for and possessing child pornography had been cleared because of a legal technicality, which in turn was caused by the police and prosecution service. A government already under intense pressure for not being willing or able to deal with white collar crime had made public statements to the effect that Judge Curtin would not be staying in office. But he was innocent unless proven guilty under the law, and, no matter what evidence the police had found regarding his credit card transactions and the images on his computer, he could not be retried for any offence relating to them. The government began to talk impeachment. They dearly hoped that he would resign. There was speculation in the media about his shame, physical attacks on him, his drinking, and even that he was in a mental institution and that his legal team were no longer able to take instructions from him. Appearing to support all this, he was stopped by the police and charged with drunk driving in his home town. People began to assume that he would quietly slip into the shadows, a broken man.
On June 1 2004, Judge Curtin struck back by lodging a plenary summons in the High Court seeking a declaration that evidence collected unlawfully cannot be used in any proceedings, naming the police, the director of public prosecutions, the government and the attorney general. Some readers may remember that shortly after we and others pointed out that the UK police were breaking the law by viewing seized child pornography last year, a special amendment was created to the UK legislation allowing named persons to view child pornography.
Perhaps the Emperor has no clothes
Special legislation was created authorizing the setting up of a select committee of members of the Irish Parliament to view and consider whatever child pornography images had been discovered in Judge Curtin’s possession, but it was not immediately clear whether or not in so doing they also would be breaking the law.
Curtin is seeking a declaration from the High Court that no further use can be made of the evidence collected by the police, and that it cannot be given to third parties, such as the politicians cleared to look at the images. It has also emerged that Curtin has begun proceedings against the country’s prime minister ‘the Taoiseach’. Amongst his possible proceedings is one for trespass.
On June 30 2004, the committee wrote to Judge Curtin asking for his cooperation and for any documents or disks in his possession. Apart from the police, only another judge, the one that first decided that Curtin should go for trial, has inspected the images, and he did so privately.
Even if Judge Curtin decides to cooperate with the committee, it is difficult to see how he could, as he does not have possession of the documents or disks in question, which are still in the hands of the police. Counsel for the police has advised them that it would be a criminal offence for them to pass the evidence to third parties as it contains ‘child pornography’. Muddying the waters further is that fact that because of the flawed search warrant, the police obtained the images illegally. This alone could contaminate the evidence. For this reason the committee wants to obtain the material directly from the judge, and not from the police.
This then is the conundrum. The judge will point out that he cannot pass over the material because the police have it. The police have already stated that they cannot give the material to anyone because it contains child pornography, not even back to Judge Curtin. In the end, the committee may have to order the police to hand it to them directly. If they already have doubts about the legality of this, they may have to add to them the question of the morality of their attempting to decide the criminality of the images, which if, like other images of that nature, are likely to contain depictions of child nudity and child eroticism. This exposes them to the risk of corruption, both through their own and society’s perceived affects of images of child nudity and eroticism, and through their having to make moral decisions about what is and is not pornographic and what others should and should not see. Should this be like previous historical cases, where unusual forms of sexuality were judged to be immoral, and in particular if any of the images, or their genre, should in the future be deemed by society to have become acceptable, this could lead to the committee members being viewed as prejudiced or dishonourable.
No-one has yet suggested that underlying the conundrum are flawed child pornography laws.
Guide to child porn on the Internet
Note- we are interested to see that after whatever is the main story of the day, the subject of child pornography is the most read on this web site, followed by this article.
Brian Rothery
This is a review of one of the most comprehensive articles describing the nature and extent of what has become known as ‘child pornography’ on the Internet, and providing information on the ways one can reduce the risks of being detected while accessing it. It was published by the International Pedophile and Child Emancipation group (Ipce), which has an extensive library of articles supporting its beliefs that we need better understanding and emancipation of mutual relationships between children or adolescents and adults.
The article is The nature and dimensions of child pornography on the Internet and it is a fairly thorough explanation and guide to what kinds of 'child porn' are available over the Internet, and the common ways of accessing it. The author is highly qualified as, according to his article and other press releases issued by him since, he and his organization have over 50,000 images on file. He is Professor Max Taylor, and his organization is Copine based at University College Cork, Ireland.
An early statement in the article reveals Max Taylor’s mind-set. “The nature of sexual and sexualized images on the Internet can be seen from two rather different perspectives: a legal perspective, and that of the adult with a sexual interest in children.”
This is risible, and not just because several judges and a huge number of policemen have been accused of accessing child porn to indulge their private fantasies, but because such labeling of a human sexual activity into the two classes of ‘a legal perspective’ (enjoyed by the designated elite, above temptation) and ‘the adult with a sexual interest in children’ (the pervert who does not have a legal perspective) suggests a staggering level of arrogance and self delusion. Or sheer hypocrisy.
This is a common doctrine found within the absolutism of the Internet police and censors. It is basically that the goodness or loathsomeness, the legality or criminality, of an image are decided not by the nature or content of the image, but by the mind-set of the person looking at it. What is good for Max Taylor and his team to look at may be sick and illegal for you and me, because we may not be considered capable of adopting the ‘legal perspective’, or not allowed to do so.
But lest the reader think that this review is simply an attack on Taylor’s way of thinking, let us move on to what may be the real value of his comprehensive guide. Straightaway he recognizes a problem that he must deal with. How can he and his team study the problem and arrive at conclusions and possible remedies from a legal viewpoint only? Surely they will have to see some of the images from the ‘pedophile’s’ viewpoint, if only to offer remedies? We can be grateful that the author had the broadmindedness to assume this generous viewpoint, as the real value of his research now comes into view. After all, as he puts it, ‘legal definitions do not tell us about its nature’, or why ‘child pornography is produced or collected’.
Now he becomes really interesting. “What makes a picture attractive to such an individual is in part its content, but also the extent to which that picture can be sexualized and fantasized. To understand the nature of child pornography, therefore, we need to understand it from the collector’s perspective. It is the qualities of sexualisation and fantasy, expressed in terms of sexual arousal and perhaps masturbation, that make images of children of value to the pedophile.” One can see the editor in the editorial office of the International Pedophile and Child Emancipation group nodding in agreement, and saying to his assistant, “Yes, it looks like we’ve got another good article here.”
If that editor was still in any doubt about the value of the Taylor article at this early stage, all such doubts would have vanished as Taylor began to describe ‘a wide variety of different kinds of pictures’ which ‘may tell us something about the sexual and fantasy base to collecting’.
“We can identify a number of different kinds of picture types which are attractive to pedophiles, not all of which - - - readily fall into legal categories of child pornography. - - - Pictures that adults with sexual interest in children collect can be categorized as falling somewhere on a continuum, from less explicitly sexual, through nudity to explicitly sexual.”
It is here that his great interest in, and knowledge of, his subject become apparent, especially in the extent of the detail given, which as all connoisseurs are aware is essential to the value of the perceived beauty of the object under study. Because of the importance of his function, and the gravity of the child pornography situation, he maintains as much objectivity as both decorum and his legal perspective demand, but at times one can see his humanity, even his great passion for his work, showing through and we get glimpses of what it is that he is always trying to tell us – that what may be legal for some (and can we whisper it? that they might find beautiful even) will not be legal for others, that the very nature of an image may change depending upon who is looking at it.
The rest of us might have chosen nudity as the first category but he chooses Erotica as the first, which may be understandable given his understanding of it, and because what he says about it is that even children fully dressed can be depicted as erotic. It is understandable if the reader is confused here. Is there a legal perspective from which we can view erotic depictions of fully dressed children as distinct from a pedophile perspective? And hang on, if the one blessed with a legal perspective does not have the dirty mind of the pervert, how does he know it’s erotic? How is the eroticism perceived?
We thought eroticism was felt. We do get a familiar by now Taylor explanation: “Inappropriate possession of these kinds of photographs is probably indicative of adult sexual interest in children, but in all probability, neither their production nor possession will be illegal.”
So we can do legal but inappropriate things. Why is University College Cork in Ireland concerned with the concept of inappropriate adult behavouir? Is it inappropriate according to some codification system that we do not yet know about – some new development of non-Aristotelian thinking perhaps?
His second broad category, which might be our chosen first, involves Nudity in some form. Here is the familiar Taylorism again: “Pictures from nudist publications, for example, fall into this category. Nudism is a legitimate activity of course, and, within that context, it could be argued that such pictures might be appropriate. Their presence outside of that context, however, is again indicative of adult sexual interest in children, although possession may not necessarily be illegal.”
He begins to come into his own as he supplies information which must be new to most of us about a category of image known as covert photographs. He says that there are ‘many thousands’ of such pictures of children accessible on the Internet, often from Japanese sources, ‘playing naked or partially clothed at paddling pools, swimming pools or on the beach’. He tells us that it is possible for such pictures to be taken surreptitiously, using a camera with a high powered lens, even from distances from fifty to one hundred meters away, ‘and of course (if) both parent and child are not aware of being photographed. These pictures ‘sexualize innocent and appropriate play’.
In the next sub category Taylor is perhaps at his best. He calls it posed pictures involving nudity, and he subtitles it, rather appropriately, ‘the child pornography equivalent of adult soft porn’. I quote him: “Such photographs are generally well produced and of high quality, suggesting the involvement of a professional photographer. They are often taken out of doors, sometimes in what appear to be hotel rooms, and sometimes in expensive looking opulent settings. These latter again suggest a professional involvement. These kinds of photographs are generally implicitly sexual, and make great use of stylized provocative posing, rather than showing explicit sexual behaviour. The children involved are generally very pretty, and appear well fed and clean. Not all of these pictures would necessarily be classed as illegal, and in some cases have been justified in terms of their artistic merit. However, they are undoubtedly highly attractive to adults with sexual interests in children.”
It is clear from the above that if they are ‘undoubtedly highly attractive’ to adults with sexual interests in children, they are at least attractive and probably equally highly attractive to many looking at them from ‘a legal perspective’. Indeed these children are so attractive, and often not just pretty and well fed but happy to be photographed, that one would have to be warped to think them unattractive, extremely so to deem them loathsome, as some do. It is abundantly clear from Taylor’s language that he finds them attractive, even if he is using only his ‘legal perspective’. Later in the article, in a more general context, he adds: “Typically pictures show smiling, compliant, even participating children, who appear to be willing and enjoying the experience.” While he immediately adds a qualification that this is not always the case, it is clear from his words, and supported by other striking evidence from elsewhere, that the vast majority of such images are attractive by our normal standards.
He moves then to the final category of photographs he sees as explicitly sexual, describing these as ranging from ‘pictures focusing on genital or anal areas, through a child or children posing in a sexually explicit way, to pictures of real or simulated sexual assaults conducted either by other children or adults’. He makes no allowance for children acting, clowning, or doing burlesque.
He then moves to the contentious issue of pseudo images,but is at his weakest here as he says little about what is a very interesting subject with many implications for human liberty and creativity, and a number which could question the legality of the laws criminalizing such images. Perhaps if he had dealt honestly with a subject such as Japanese Hentai images, and included Japanese attitudes towards what is seen and tolerated as ‘perverse’ (as long as practiced in the imagination), he might have reached an even more open minded attitude about the subject of child eroticism and sexuality.
But he does acknowledge the popularity of the genre. “Recent experience suggests that there is a very large demand for images of children that are either explicitly sexual, or enable sexual fantasy. The Internet is undoubtedly the principal contemporary medium for the distribution of these images.”
He reminds us that the Internet can confer a degree of anonymity. We are allowed a ‘self- determined involvement without necessary compromise of identity’. We can access and participate in newsgroups, both posting our images and downloading new ones ‘without revealing identity’, and we can access web sites anonymously. Before reading the article, I was not aware that one could use services such as Hushmail and other email facilities to enable secure and perhaps encrypted transmission of messages without revealing originating addresses. As he puts it, ‘the individual has a sense of control over the medium, and involvement can be passive or active with relatively secure access from the privacy of the home. The anonymous qualities of the Internet also enable the construction of false or fantasy identities. The 50-year-old can present himself as a teenager, and ‘the weak as strong’. Many will be relieved to know that such safe and anonymous methods of accessing images still exist, and as Taylor well knows new ways emerge all the time.
He tells us about some of these. “A further related feature that makes the Internet so attractive to adults with sexual interest in children is its multi-layered qualities. An individual may passively, and with relative security, download images from newsgroups and web sites, or they may engage more actively in the exchange of pictures through IRC and ICQ, and video conferencing protocols such as CU- Seeme. These same protocols allow both real-time interactive engagement, and secure storage of information.” He does add some warnings however, so anyone interested in trying out any of the above should read his whole article carefully.
He goes on: “A further very important reason for the significance of the Internet in maintaining pedophile activity is the sense of virtual community that can emerge for participants. That is to say, by prolonged interaction with both people and processes on the Internet, a sense of involvement, intimacy and belonging can emerge that mirrors more normal face to face social interaction. Friendships and a sense of constructed personality of the person you are interacting with can emerge. It is of course different from normal social interaction in that the individual never knows in any normal sense who he or she is interacting with, or how accurate the construction is.”
This shows that he really understands the excitement of this kind of sharing of deep values, made all the more worthwhile by its illegality and the intrigue it entails – even if isolated one can ‘engage with others who share sexual interests in children in a non-threatening and secure way. This virtual community is an important source of support, justification, information, and self-help, as well as facilitating the exchange and distribution of sexually attractive images’ - - -.
And on to what is Taylor’s own forte – “Where sexual fantasy focuses on illegal pornographic pictures of children, all of these factors can come together and we see the emergence of the collector syndrome, the compulsive acquisition of pictures for their own sake, rather than a discriminating selection. I believe some of the recent seizures of child pornography collections involving many thousands of pictures illustrate this.” Well, he above all, should know as, by his own admissions, he and his team have what may be one of the world’s greatest ‘child porn’ collections, which some time ago he boasted had already reached 50,000 images.
He comes to the political bit. “In my view, to effectively address the child protection priority, there needs to be a pro-active centralized facility to monitor pictures both from police seizures and the Internet, to establish new from old and to collect and collate intelligence. I believe a substantive research presence also needs to be associated with this facility, because knowledge of the issues involved is very limited; and it is from knowledge that progress in managing this problem will come.”
It is obvious from the above that the staff of the ‘pro-active centralized facility’ will view the images from their legal perspective only, although how they will do that with the beautiful images described by Taylor in the erotic and nude categories above we cannot know. They must take care to use this legal dimension only because Taylor warns us thus: “The reason why adults with a sexual interest in children collect child pornography is to facilitate fantasy generation and sexual arousal. However, the capacity of a picture or series of pictures to induce sexual arousal diminishes with continued exposure. We can refer to this as habituation: I believe this is an important factor in driving the quest for newness that characterizes confirmed child pornography collectors.” I wanted to ask Professor Taylor if this was one of the reasons his collection in Cork was so large, but as will be noted below he refused to reply to me.
As we near the end of the article we have a wonderful understatement. “The relationship between adult sexual interest in children and child pornography is complex and poorly understood. Not all convicted child-sex offenders express an interest in child pornography; on the other hand, very many people who have no criminal record, and who seemingly have no known sexual interest in children, demonstrate an interest in child pornography by accessing and downloading images.”
Can you run that by us again, Professor Taylor?
Max Taylor is Professor of Applied Psychology at University College, Cork, Ireland. He manages a project called Copine, which claims to carry out the forensic analyses of Internet child porn producers and users and to help police track down child porn downloaders. He uses the media to advertise any cases where he claims successful cooperation in the arrest of pedophiles. Both Professor Taylor and the university press office refused to answer my questions about the ‘legal dimension’ of their research into child porn, the legality of the operation, and the particular arrangements of their cooperation with police forces.
His article, The nature and dimensions of child pornography on the Internet, can be read in full on the web site of the International Pedophile and Child Emancipation group (Ipce), at http://www.ipce.info/library_3/index.htm/ or http://www.ipce.info/library_3/content.htm/.
Professor Maxwell Taylor is also mentioned in the UK's Sunday Herald on 19 January 2003. In a reference that appears to follow his assertion that the US is 'the world's biggest child-porn market', he is quoted thus: "It's been said if you nuked America out of existence, you'd nuke abusive images of children out of existence."
After reading the full article, or the above review, you may feel that questions should be put to University College Cork, Ireland, including perhaps asking the reason why both Professor Taylor and the university press office refused to answer my questions as a book author and journalist. If so, please send a comment either below or through the Contact in the main menu.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions
Romeo and Juliet is now criminal child porn
Canadians are at last realizing where the latest child pornography legislation has brought them. The present situation is that the Criminal Code defines child pornography as ‘a photographic, film, video or other visual representation, whether or not it was made by electronic or mechanical means - - - that shows a person who is or is depicted as being under the age of eighteen years and is engaged in or is depicted as engaged in explicit sexual behaviour - - - or the dominant characteristic of which is the depiction, for a sexual purpose, of a sexual organ or the anal region of a person under the age of eighteen years - - -‘. It then goes on: ‘or any written material or visual representation that advocates or counsels sexual activity with a person under the age of eighteen years - - -. Every person who possesses any child pornography is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding five years - - -." We should add that some other countries, such as Ireland, have also criminalized written material that could be considered by the authorities to constitute child pornography or its advocacy.
This criminalizes the writing of certain fantasies even for private use, such the diaries of young girls recording their emerging sexuality, and the possession of many literary classics including Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet in which Juliet is underage, (and therefore a Westside Storyvideo or movie reel), and beyond all doubt the works of Roman authors, Longus and Petronius, Daphne and Chloe and The Satyricon.In the first, Chloe is fourteen and in the second Petronius presents as objects of sexual amusement both young boys and girls, with one girl as young as seven. Beyond all doubt also is Plato’s The Symposium, in which illustrious Greek philosophers praise the love of boys.
Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita, is now definitely on the criminal list, as is any 21st century literary novel that attempts to continue in that genre. Scholarly research has recently produced both written and visual evidence that Lewis Carroll (Charles Dodgson) photographed Alice Liddell's girlfriends in the nude, using the newly developed art of photography, with the consent of the girls’ parents. All attempts to explore this fascinating aspect in the creation of the world’s archetypical girl and the world’s best-known adventure through the human imagination are now at risk of being criminalized. I know of two such manuscripts on hold, or rejected by fearful publishers.
In Canada, a recent CBC story asked if this was really saving children or thought control. Canada has a Charter of Rights and Freedoms, but it is now under attack from the prosecutors who claim that it must be overruled in cases of the crimen exceptum of child pornography. CBC reported the police and Crown attorneys saying they were hampered by toothless laws when trying to catch producers of child pornography.
The current laws were influenced by a January 2001 Supreme Court of Canada ruling in the case of John Robin Sharpe, 67, a retired city planner in Vancouver charged with possessing child porn. Two lower courts in British Columbia had acquitted Sharpe, citing the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, for possessing pictures of boys younger than 14 engaged in sex, and a collection of his own stories titled Kiddie Kink Classics.
In one of the two earlier appeals, the British Columbia Court of Appeal said that the Criminal Code section on the possession of child pornography ‘is truly one step removed from criminalizing simply having objectionable thoughts’. The Province of British Columbia appealed to the Supreme Court of Canada, which upheld most of the law, but said that people cannot be prosecuted for producing written or visual materials, as works of their own imagination, for their own use. The Supreme Court also made an exception for photographic images produced for a person's own use, so long as the photos did not show unlawful acts. It then sent the case back to the British Columbia Supreme Court for retrial in January 2002. In March 2002, that court found Sharpe not guilty of possessing written child pornography, but guilty on two counts of possessing pornographic pictures of children. He was sentenced to four months of house arrest. Justice Duncan Shaw found Sharpe's stories did not advocate committing a sexual crime and had artistic merit, ‘irrespective of whether the work is considered pornographic’.
The child pornography law that is causing this and many other confused cases was rushed through Parliament in less than six weeks and became law in June 23, 1993. Even MPs expressed doubts about it and its implications for the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. But the Liberal MP George Rideout made a comment typical of those who allow legislative creep: "If it does not pass the test then we will try to correct it later on." Which describes the road to hell.
That road was made more specific when Cheryl Tobias, a lawyer with the federal department of justice, argued before the nine Supreme Court justices as follows: that the new law was a vital tool in diminishing the market for child pornography, that paedophiles should not have a constitutional right to free expression, because if they have ‘it is dwarfed by the interests of children in our society’. She urged the judges not to ‘sacrifice children on the altar of the Charter’. It is indeed the road to hell.
The nine judges appeared to be split on whether to uphold the existing law. When one lawyer argued that it was highly unlikely that prosecutors would go after someone writing sexual fantasies in a diary, or a young girl describing her first sexual experiences, Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin replied, “Assuming the legislation is overly broad, can it really be saved by saying, 'Trust us to use it wisely'?"
All that the Supreme Court appears to have achieved is the separation of sexual nudity from ‘non-sexual nudity’, such as ‘photographs of a baby in the bath’.
The shock of recognition
Graphic depiction of the genitalia of ‘underage children’
Let’s examine the mind set behind the criminalizing of the graphic depiction of the genitalia of ‘underage children’. The quotes are to remind us that some countries regard under 18 as underage.
Before the criminalizing of all graphic depictions of the genitalia of so-called ‘underage children’, there was a striking cartoon on the Internet of Alice of Wonderland fame. In all respects save one, she was the traditional Alice, who is a part of our culture, blue dress, underskirts, long golden hair, black buckled shoes and white stockings. She sat facing the viewer, her knees together, feet apart. But she was not wearing knickers, and the artist had graphically depicted her pubic mound and vulva, not in any ugly or exaggerated way, just as they would be seen in real life.
The image was shocking in the main sense that we do not normally imagine and certainly not see Alice without knickers. So familiar to us is the fully clothed Alice that we do not keep reminding ourselves that Lewis Carroll photographed her real life model, Alice Liddell and some of her friends in the nude with permission from their parents.
Let us consider the shock of seeing Alice, thus graphically displayed. It cannot be said that what we now see is ugly: on the contrary were it not for our fear and prurience we might see the part displayed as the most beautifully sculpted piece of human anatomy, at the opposite end of a scale with perhaps a cartoon of a judge with an erection at the other.
Both images shock, one because our admiration for sheer beauty is repressed by the fear element in our prurience and the other because it reduces the formerly dignified judge to the ridiculousness of an aroused man taken out of a loving/sexual context.
But both images also create the powerful shock of recognition. We recognize a truth and it shocks us with its very familiarity. It is something we already knew but had been repressing. Judges do get erections. The judge viewing the child pornography that he is judging others for viewing can be aroused by some of it, as can the policeman and censor. Little girls can be very beautiful. Indeed, so called ‘underage’ girls can reach quintessential stages of physical beauty, certainly from twelve to seventeen. The graphically depicted forbidden part of her anatomy may arguably be considered to be the quintessence of human physical beauty, perfectly engineered and expressed in the most beautiful form.
In one of his photography books, David Hamilton publishes an image of the central part of a young girl’s body from budding breasts to just below a pronounced vulva, and titles it appropriately ‘Forbidden Fruit’. That image, available in the bookstores for years, would now surely be seen as child porn if viewed or downloaded on the Internet. It was an honest depiction of a forbidden fruit – forbidden to touch or taste, but now it is not allowed to be depicted or seen.
In the latest production of Eva: Eloge de ma Fille both artist/photographer Irina Ionesco, creator of the book, and the book’s model her daughter, Eva Ionesco, carefully selected the pictures, going back almost thirty years. Eva was 35 by the time the new book went to press. One of their main concerns was to ensure that none of the shots chosen contained the kind of graphic depiction of genitalia that the censors could use to suppress and criminalize the book. Despite this precaution, their distributor Stackpole refused to handle it.
Commenting on the persons at Stackpole who objected to the images of child nudity, Nina Elizabeth Gates of Alice Press said, “This act of censorship sends a message to young girls that their bodies, nude or otherwise, are pornographic and shameful. Stackpole are the ones who should feel ashamed.”
It could hardly be better said.
(To read more about Eva: Eloge de ma Fille see Beauty is immanent.
Criminalizing imaginary images
Arthur Blair
Not only did the Sexual Offences Act 2003 raise to 18 the age at which a person doing something naughty makes a photograph an indecent photograph of a child,
but it also introduced five new criminal offences.
s. 48 Causing or inciting child pornography s. 49
Controlling a child involved in pornography s. 50
Arranging or facilitating child pornography
For the purposes of these sections -
a person is involved in pornography if an indecent image of that person is recorded; and similar expressions, and "pornography", are to be interpreted accordingly.
Section 79 stipulates that
79.- (4) "Image" means a moving or still image and includes an image produced by any means and, where the context permits, a three-dimensional image. (5)
References to an image of a person include references to an image of an imaginary person.
Note that the image can be created by any means.
While this does not create any new creation (& distribution etc) offences, it does criminalise someone creating a painting showing a child in an "indecent" setting (i.e. nude).
Will it be long before paintings are also included along with photographs and pseudo-photographs?
It is very early morning at the moment and subsection 79(5) is currently melting my brain....
79.-(5) References to an image of a person include references to an image of an imaginary person.
Since the only offences to which the definition in subsection 79(5) applies are the offences created by sections 48, 49 & 50, I have this very strange feeling that this now means that (for example) it is a criminal offence to cause an imaginary child
to be involved in pornography, i.e. by painting an image of it, or creating an indecent pseudo-photograph (and pseudo-photographs only since you can't take a
photograph of an imaginary child).
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