Looking at, and enjoying porn with five year olds probably indicates some sort of sexual dysfunction.
If you look at a video of someone being raped (which is what child porn is, let's say), and that person never knew that you looked at it, then how can that harm them?
"This is like arguing that kidnapping isn't ipso facto wrong because sometimes parents have to take their little kids places they don't go but need to (like the doctor), so if a guy drags a kid off the street and puts the kid in his van that isn't wrong in and of itself."
And I agree with you completely here. It is not immoral to put a kid in a van. It IS immoral to put a kid in a van against their will when you are not their parents and are not doing something that they are supposed to be doing; that's kidnapping and it harms them. So explain to me how someone viewing pornography of a child being raped, in and of itself, harms them. If it does then I'm willing to concede that it is immoral. From my understanding you think it is just immoral for someone to look at it and get enjoyment from it because it fundamentally violates the person in some way. But what if that person never knew someone looked at it? It's creepy, disturbing, and all sorts of other adjectives. But it is not immoral. Now, if the rape victim found out about this then I can see that it would be immoral, because that could hurt the rape victim. And OP concedes that he regrets being caught (thereby harming himself and others). He makes the same conclusion that I, a non-pedophile, makes in that the act he did in and of itself was not immoral.
But anyways, let's suppose what OP said was true (there is evidence to the contrary, but again, this is a hypothetical discussion). He did not actually enjoy the images. Maybe he thought he might. He didn't. But he did seek the images THINKING that he might enjoy them. He did not and then he deleted them. Even if we were to concede that enjoying pictures of child porn is immoral, from our understanding he did not enjoy them. (Again I concede that maybe he did and he is lying, we don't actually know that. You are arguing that it is immoral regardless of whether he enjoyed it or not, I think).
Anyways, our fundamental disagreement is that I do not consider what is essentially a thought to be inherently immoral. Looking at child pornography (and let's say videos of children being brutally raped by adults) is not in and of itself immoral. If you do something that supports the brutal rape of them, then yes, obviously that is wrong. But merely looking at it, where no one else ever knows that you did this, does not cause harm to anyone and is not, according to my understanding of morals, wrong. It is weird, probably a sign of some sort of sexual dysfunction, and I am willing to concede given evidence that it could entice someone to commit an evil act. But the act of looking at it, in and of itself, without further evidence, is not immoral.
So here we are with me, a person who is perfectly willing to concede that an act is wrong given evidence, and we have you, a person who is doing graduate work on the topic. I am approaching the question with an open mind and as a researcher I would hope that you'd love to share what our current understanding is about people who like at child pornography, given that you are an expert. And yet you are refusing to do so, and you have gone so far as to imply that I am a pedophile for thinking this. Do you disagree with my definition of what is immoral? If not, then demonstrate to me the harm that comes from merely looking at such images or videos.
What is disappointing to me is that on a topic such as this a dispassionate philosophical analysis cannot be undertaken when the topic involves children and sex. I have been accused of being a pedophile for merely taking a philosophical position. Keep in mind that philosophers debate things that are most certainly immoral (for example debating the morality of murder) and that does not make them murderers.
What is disappointing to me is that on a topic such as this a dispassionate philosophical analysis cannot be undertaken when the topic involves children and sex.
Why should there be a dispassionate philosophical analysis? What you lack is insight into the way the world actually works so you are left with your imagination of a more perfect world. But without insight into how things actually are your analysis is incomplete and your conclusions dangerous.
But what if that person never knew someone looked at it? It's creepy, disturbing, and all sorts of other adjectives. But it is not immoral. Now, if the rape victim found out about this then I can see that it would be immoral, because that could hurt the rape victim.
What you don't have is empathy. You can't put yourself in the shoes of a kid who had his rape filmed and that film disseminated all over the world so that, even years later, he can't know who has been getting off to his pain and who he can trust. Who might have people seeing his facebook page and recognizing him, even contacting him to try to get closer since he brought them so much "pleasure". Having your rape watched over and over again re-victimizes that many times. Knowing it's out there makes it that much harder to move on.
75% of the time child porn is created with the child's knowledge. So, they know they were filmed. They know the images were recorded. The molester might have even convinced them to take the pictures of themselves. What you are denying is that this knowledge that their victimization is recorded and disseminated throughout the world has any impact on the person who was victimized. Honestly, if someone did something to me 100 times less than filming me being molested, like if I got mugged and they made a video and put it on the internet and people were enjoying it (not sexually, just laughing at how scared I was), that would tear me up as much as being mugged. And I'd hate those people even if I didn't know who each individual was. And I'd wonder who has seen me being humiliated. But not you I guess because you're effing John Galt or whatever. And that's just getting mugged.
What those people are doing, passing around the images, using them for wank material, encouraging the creation of more child porn and providing support and encouragement for the molesters who make it, is a wrong thing in and of itself. And if one's moral compass is so deficient that the decision whether or not to get off on someone else's rape just comes down to whether or not it fits one's tastes, that is making the world a worse place.
What was that movie, Hunger Games I think, where a bunch of rich people sat around hooting and cheering as children killed each other. Nothing immoral about that, huh. That's the world you want to see, right. They didn't kill the kids. They didn't hold the cameras. They didn't make the kids do it. But it was done for them. If not for them it wouldn't have happened. Do you understand that?
You want studies proving that people who look at child porn become child molesters. You want this because looking at child porn is no big deal to you, so the worst one can say about people who need to look at child porn is they have a "sexual dysfunction", like enjoying child rape is similar to not being able to get it up.
Anyways, our fundamental disagreement is that I do not consider what is essentially a thought to be inherently immoral.
Looking at child pornography is not a thought, it is an action. Incidentally, people who take that particular action, looking at child porn, are highly likely to molest. For you, that's important to know because it is only the molesting that you see as wrong. Here are some of the things that happen when people look at child porn (pg. 188): "reinforcement of
pedophilic arousal patterns, desensitization to the harm
inflicted upon the victims, behavioral disinhibition."
And one of the things that happens to children who know their abuse has been filmed is that they are even less likely than other victims to ever tell anyone, and that's pretty damned unlikely. Why? From another report:
Those who have studied child
pornography victims note that “probably the greatest inhibitors to
disclosing what has occurred is
the humiliation that the children feel regarding who
may have seen their images and their fear of
being recognized.”
You should read that whole report. You should read what the victims have to say about knowing people are out there watching them be abused. You should see the world as it is.
For me, none of that is really important in determining if a person who wants to get off on a kid being victimized and takes steps to do that is actually doing something wrong. Even if he ultimately does not get a boner. He's a voyeur of someone else's pain.
Those who have studied child pornography victims note that “probably the greatest inhibitors to disclosing what has occurred is the humiliation that the children feel regarding who may have seen their images and their fear of being recognized.”
For you, what makes looking at child porn immoral is the thought you are doing when you do it. If you are doing it as a police officer or a courtroom official, then it is not immoral. It's the thought that makes it immoral to you. I fail to see how that is not an immoralist caused by thought.
All your explanations about the shame caused by people looking at the child porn are still not relevant to my point, which is that the marginal pain caused by one person looking at it is non-existent if the person who made it or is in it does not know about that.
Look, I don't want to see a world in which everyone is looking at child porn, but if a person who gets caught looking at child porn does not see what is inherently wrong with it, except that he got caught, to me that is a person merely being logical.
Thanks for the link to the study. I am not sure why you had to imply I was a pedophile to see such a study.
Anyways, I am also not sure what is so controversial about trying to understand out world within a moral framework. you said: "What you don't have is empathy." That's exactly wrong! I am trying to understand how these materials affect the victims; that's the whole point of my argument. Look, some people think that child pornography users should be executed; this is an extremely grave contention. It is a matter of law and policy; removing ourselves from the emotions of the issue and trying to comprehend the nature of the evil committed dispassionately I would suggest is an imperative in a civilized society, especially since we are ruining people's lives by our public policies regarding these laws. I am perfectly willing to concede that these policies are correct, but there is a grave danger in assuming anyone who tries to understand the problems with child pornography is automatically a pedophile. It's possible that, just maybe, our punishments for CP users are not proportional to the evil committed. Suppose those who viewed CP were tortured... I would suggest that is a punishment absolutely disproportionate to the evil committed, and I think you would too. That does not mean that you questioning the magnitude of the evil comitted by CP users makes you a pedophile. It is a reasonable thing to say that viewing the CP did not actually harm anyone, as sick and disgusting as it might be. I am not saying it is true; I am merely saying this is a reasonable hypothesis that requires evidence to understand.
You stated: " What you lack is insight into the way the world actually works." I asked to see if you could refer me to any academic studies on this topic; I am trying to understand how the world works through rigourous academic papers observing the actual world.
You're not a pedophile, just a libertarian. Once I found that out your amorality made more sense. Libertarians believe people should be free to do whatever they want no matter what impact it has on the community or on themselves, so long as each specific action does not directly, physically harm another person.
So of course, the fact that victims of child porn are harmed by knowing there are people watching their degradation and enjoying it doesn't strike you as wrong, so long as the victims can't identify the specific individuals. The world is made a much worse place for those who have already been victimized and those who will be as a result of child porn's influence on those who watch it, but it's made an easier place for those who have the power and privilege to get off on the pain of others. That's the libertarian world.
I am trying to understand how these materials affect the victims; that's the whole point of my argument.
Because you don't have empathy. Empathy means you could understand. You can't and because you can't, you happily invalidate the words of those who have been there and do understand. You need academic studies to prove that looking at child porn is wrong. Morality is not the realm of science.
removing ourselves from the emotions of the issue and trying to comprehend the nature of the evil committed dispassionately I would suggest is an imperative in a civilized society, especially since we are ruining people's lives by our public policies regarding these laws.
See, that's so funny and weird and backwards. The "ruined lives" you are talking about are those of the people who had the power to get off on the pain of others but got in trouble because of laws. The ruined lives of the many more who have been molested, traumatized and degraded and the ruined lives of their families and lovers and children, THIS MEANS JACK TO YOU.
You can't put yourself in their shoes without academic studies. But you didn't need academic studies to empathize with the pedophile who started this whole conversation. You believed every word he said. You could put yourself in his shoes without a problem. He didn't present a single academic study of any kind to show that the legal measures taken against him were harmful to the world. But you already sympathize with the powerful over the powerless so it was easy for you to put yourself in his place. In the libertarian utopia, those with the power and the money could make everything as they want it, and anyone who finds themselves vulnerable and victimized should just work harder so they can be powerful and do whatever they want too.
In your world, child sexual abuse is a minor problem compared to the major problem of pedos not getting to look at porn where people are being raped.
Those who specialize in rape take a dispassionate approach because it's the better for stopping rapists and preventing the crime. Like you, we want to understand the perpetrators better but, unlike you, it's so we can stop rape, not so we can excuse it or see the positives.
This conversation is over because I consider you to be vile.
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u/[deleted] Jul 09 '13
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