Inquisition 21
 |
 |
|
|
| Log In
|
|
|
|
|
| Search Articles
|
|
|
|
|
| Comments
|
|
|
You don't have to,
but if you log in,
you can add comments.
|
| Page Referral
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
The child victims of Internet porn laws
|
|
|
|
The criminalising of child sexuality
The child victims of Internet porn laws
Posted 13 November 2003
Arthur Blair
How many of the most interesting experiences are interesting despite being unwelcome, perhaps even because they are unwelcome? I suppose that we come to not even notice most of our day-to-day experiences and so the ones that we do notice have the force of being interesting because they deviate from our normal experiences. I run a website[1] concerned with the UK laws on 'child pornography' and occasionally I receive an email from someone who has been caught up in the messy application of those laws. Up to now, only adult males have contacted me. Recently, however, I heard from a boy in his early teens.
I shouldn't have been shocked; I should have remembered a news story[2] I had saved on my PC: on 24 April 2002, a raid carried out as part of Operation Magenta resulted in the arrest of a 15-year old boy. I had made specific mention of the arrest of such a young person in my indexing system. A quick search on the net uncovered other useful material. Because of an article in The Guardian by Max Taylor[3], I was able to tell the young boy that a recognised authority in the field considered teenage paedophiles to be victims too.
Another story of a boy of 13 who was placed on the sex offenders register[4] was useful because it suggests that even, without Max Taylor's 'liberal' view being presented in mitigation, judges (in the UK at least) are unwilling to impose on such a young person any of the harsher sentences available. And of even greater relevance, in August 2002, the Sentencing Advisory Panel (SAP) presented its advice on sentencing in offences involving child pornography to the Court of Appeal[5]. 48. In the Panel's view, the most appropriate sentence for a young offender convicted of one of these offences is likely to be a supervision order with a relevant treatment programme. "However, as we recorded in our advice to the Court of Appeal on sentencing of rape, we are concerned by the apparent shortage of adequate treatment programmes for young sex offenders."
Presumably, the object of such treatment programmes is to alter 'behavioural patterns' so that 'offending behaviour' is not repeated. In the case of 'young rapists' it is relatively easy to see what the undesirable behaviour might be and why it might be beneficial (to the offender and to others) to change that behaviour. But what behaviour is to be treated in the young offender convicted of child pornography offences?
The Telegraph reports some of the judge's comments in the case of the 13-year old: "I accept that you did not go on the Internet looking for this material; your initial reason was to look for innocuous teenage chatrooms. What you found, you found by accident. What you then did was pursued it; you pursued it out of an interest in girls of your own age. While undoubtedly committing a crime, the interest was a healthy one, not an unhealthy one."
The boy was subjected to an 18-month supervision order and placed on the sex offenders register; if he were to be sentenced today, the order would presumably include a condition that he participate in a 'treatment' programme. This would amount to no less than the medicalisation of child sexuality, if such people as child care workers, child protection units, psychiatrists, clinical psychologists, and so on are considered practitioners of medicine. But medicine is an empirical science whereas this kind of 'treatment' involves moralising. Let us instead call it the institutionalisation of child sexuality.
Would the head surgeon of a heart surgery unit permit a person to be operated upon if that person had no heart complaint, or no chance of benefiting from the surgery? To permit such a thing would be dishonest. This 13-year old had a healthy interest in girls of his own age; to 'treat' him would be immoral.
An article providing a summary of information on adolescent sex offenders on Health Canada[6] defines[7] an adolescent sex offender as a youth, from 12 to 17 years of age, who commits any sexual act with a person of any age[8], against the victim's will, without consent, or in an aggressive, exploitative or threatening manner (and while adolescent sex offender is not the term used by the SAP, I am sure this is still relevant; child protection people the world over read the same crib sheets). If an adult engages in sexual conduct with a child, that conduct is 'sexual abuse'; where both parties are children, the same conduct is still abuse - it is subject to the same legal fiction that children cannot consent. Therefore, all sexual acts 'committed' by a child with another child are the acts of an adolescent sex offender.[9]
All childhood sexual behaviour is thus criminalized and brought within the scope of the 'caring professions'. Max Taylor: "If a young person is in possession of pictures of children within their own age range, you might think this to be undesirable but understandable as age appropriate exploration. If, as has happened, pictures of very much younger children are included in seized collections, this might be viewed as far more worrying."[10]
A child pursuing a 'natural interest' is thus institutionalised and subjected to a level of sexual scrutiny by these 'professionals' that would get a 'civilian' branded a paedophile, all in the name of rooting out any (future?) desire for younger children. Is this institutionalisation to protect the 'victim' or to 'help' the 'offender'? Taylor again: "We have no knowledge of the effect of early exposure to this kind of material on the subsequent development of sexuality, but have to assume that it is a negative influence. One model we have of the emergence of deviant behaviour relates the association of sexual arousal and behaviour with deviant material and pornography.[11]
So is the problem in the case of the 13-year old distributor of child pornography that he was becoming sexually aroused not to real flesh-and-blood teenaged girls but to photographs of them? Are we saying that, because he was (supposedly) becoming aroused to photographs, in future the age of the targets of his sexuality would ever be fixed, as though they were to always be the same ages as the subjects of those photographs? If instead he had been peeping into the girl's changing room, would this constitute age-appropriate exploration? For Health Canada this behaviour too would be problematical - 'some teens commit only "hands-off" sexual offences such as voyeurism (peeping)'.
Health Canada views the aims of institutionalisation as both victim protection and offender treatment: "We need to take all problematic sexual behaviour of children and teens seriously. Holding abusers accountable, regardless of their age, is important for the well-being and healing of victims. It also brings abusers to the attention of those who can help stop them from harming themselves and others again."
This fear that childhood sexuality might go wrong and develop into 'adulthood paedophilia' justifies the institutionalisation of the whole of child sexuality. Health Canada: "While always potentially harmful to victims, some sex offending behaviour can start with curiosity and experimentation with younger children and siblings then gradually get out of hand. Parents and caregivers should closely monitor the sexual behaviours of children and provide gentle corrective feedback to them immediately."
Editor's note: Taylor's assertion that 'One model we have of the emergence of deviant behaviour relates the association of sexual arousal and behaviour with deviant material and pornography.[11]' is completely contradicted by an Inhope source who informed us that a study of 1500 downloaders of child porn had revealed that less than 4% were found to be actual abusers, but that neither the Hotlines run by the activists nor the media wanted to hear this. Analysis elsewhere has also shown the number of actual abusers to be very small. This kind of information undermines the child abuse monitoring industry. See Ireland and UK child porn pages.
The author can be reached at pca_1978@yahoo.co.uk
[1] author's web site
[2] The Guardian, 25 April 2002, Police use new software to arrest 27 in child porn raid
[3] Max Taylor, Guardian Society, 18 July 2002, Teenage paedophiles are victims too
[4] Telegraph, 15 May 2001, Boy 13 put on offender's register
[5] Sentencing Advisory Panel - Sentencing of offences involving child pornography:
http://www.sentencing-advisory-panel.gov.uk/c_and_a/advice/child_offences/page1.htm
[6] Health Canada, http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/
[7] Health Canada, http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/hppb/familyviolence/html/nfntsxadolinfractions_e.html,
quoting Ryan, G. & Lane, S. 1991, Juvenile sexual offending: Causes, consequences and
Correction. Lexington MA: Lexington Books. Annotated bibliography: Adolescent perpetrators of sexual molestation of children, child abuse and neglect, vol.10, 1986, p. 131
[8] It is interesting here to consider some of the possible permutations: can a female child sexually abuse an older man? Of course not - the man would be the abuser! Can a male child sexually abuse an adult? Well, of course! He can rape a woman. But can he rape a man?
[9] To be fair, Health Canada seems to acknowledge that some sexual activity between children might be consensual - however, consider 'Defining a behaviour as sexual assault or abuse can be difficult. It is easy to identify a sexual offence when there is a wide age gap between the teen perpetrator and the victim or the abuse involves force or penetration. But as the age gap narrows, and if the behaviour involves fondling or an absence of force or aggression, it is necessary to assess it in terms
of coercion, consent, or power differences'.
[10] Max Taylor, ibid (note [3])
[11] Max Taylor, ibid (note [3])
 |
|
|
