> The crackdown by police follows a change to Japanese laws enacted in June last year that criminalised the possession of real images of child sexual abuse. The creation and distribution of such images has been illegal since 1999.
In the meantime in convenience stores everywhere across Japan, kids can get manga showing women or school girls being raped and nobody has any problem with that. I guess I will never understand morals here.
No, they're not sold to kids. And I don't see your problem. On one hand, we have real children being abused in real life. A demand for such pictures would mean a demand for child abuse. On the other hand, we have drawings that most apparently satisfy certain fetishes that people seem to have. I don't see what's immoral with the latter, literally nobody was harmed in the process.
Arguments have been made on both sides regarding legality of simulated images (be they manga or realistic drawings / computer models) when it comes to underage stuff. Some say that it's better for paedophiles to be able to enjoy images that didn't harm any children in their production and that it will help them avoid looking at actual child pornography, while others say it has the opposite effect, that by allowing themselves the fake stuff they're more likely to move onto real images. I've no idea which argument is correct (or maybe both depending on the person?), or if there is any actual evidence other than opinions.
There's also a technical issue that some have predicted in terms of when computer images become too realistic, how do you tell whether it was computer generated or a real child in the video?
Regardless of what side you come down on these arguments, I definitely don't get your parent's point about morals - it's clearly a huge amount less immoral to make or view fake pictures than to actually abuse children and film/photograph it.
> while others say it has the opposite effect, that by allowing themselves the fake stuff they're more likely to move onto real images. I've no idea which argument is correct (or maybe both depending on the person?), or if there is any actual evidence other than opinions.
Well, the evidence is everybody else - saying that pedophiles will go from images of child porn to actually raping children is like saying that non-pedophiles will go from watching porn to raping people. I'm sure many, if not most people have experience with unfulfilled sexual fantasies (that celebrity? this classmate? the one that got away?).
> There's also a technical issue that some have predicted in terms of when computer images become too realistic, how do you tell whether it was computer generated or a real child in the video?
By uploading the source code/models to a police server that is then used to fingerprint videos to determine which are real and which are computer generated.
Most people with unfulfilled sexual fantasies are able to legitimately fulfill at least some of their fantasies - I may not be able to sleep with my favourite celebrity, but I can sleep with somebody I'm attracted to. Paedophiles (or at least exclusive paedophiles, i.e. those not also attracted to adults) don't have that opportunity without abusing children, so the logic is that it's better to try to kill the desire altogether (vs. the other side that non-real pornography gives them an outlet for that desire so as to avoid abusing children or looking at real images).
Personally I think you're right and that simulated images shouldn't be banned, but I also think I don't know nearly enough about psychology to know if I'm right.
edit to your edit about knowing real from fake images: Again, I'm no expert (this time regarding the technology rather than psychology), but there are more issues than your solution fixes. That would protect someone who was creating the images, but let's say you're a paedophile who wants to look at generated images but doesn't want to look at real images, how will you know wherever you're getting them from is telling the truth? You could be told "these are really realistic computer images" and actually be watching a real child get abused. And if the police investigate that viewing paedophile, without having models/etc uploaded (as he wouldn't have access to them) how do they know if they've discovered real or fake porn? Well I guess psychology does come into play here as I've no idea if there are paedophiles who would be willing to watch something realistic enough to not know the difference but wouldn't be willing to watch real images. Though I suspect there probably are.
Maybe you could have digitally-signed fake CP, signed by competent authorities. Any CP real or fake without the DRM would be illegal.
Only sickos who need crime pictures to get off and pennyless pedos would get in trouble with the law...
Not sure I would want to live in that world though. And I wonder how long it would take for all non-DRMed files to be illegal once such a precedent has been set.
Comparing to everybody else doesn't really work. Non-pedophiles have a third possibility between porn and rape: sex with consenting partners. Pedophiles don't have that alternative. For them, it's either keeping their entire sexual desire repressed, or becoming a molester.
> is like saying that non-pedophiles will go from watching porn to raping people.
To be fair (and legally pedantic), following through with a fantasy involving minors is, in most circumstances, going to be legally considered rape, regardless of whether it was consensual or non-consensual.
> A demand for such pictures would mean a demand for child abuse.
That is actually a pretty radical claim, for which I don't know that any evidence exists.
Whatever the facts are, arguing this point is a lot like the Catholic church arguing against condoms because they promote gay and immoral sex acts. There's no evidence either way, and a scientific mind would assume the null hypothesis. Furthermore I would hope we can strive to have the standards for lawmaking be held to science.
> On one hand, we have real children being abused in real life.
What we have is a law that says that children are being abused, by decree. If you heve sex with someone who's 18 minus a day, abuse has taken place and you are a rapist. Tomorrow, though, it's love.
Child sexual abuse definitely exists, as does adult sexual abuse, but you can't use age of consent, which is a mostly arbitrary legal matter (that historically nobody agrees on), to bolster a moral argument.
Because you think being exposed over and over to something does not harm someone's mind, or change their perception ?
> No, they're not sold to kids.
I'm not talking about adult ones, I'm talking about even the ones for young folks: there's plenty of hard core sexual content as well in. Check it out for yourself.
>the U.S. states in which rapes rose by 53 percent had the least Internet access between 1980 and 2000—and so the least access to Internet porn. States with the most access saw a 27 percent drop in reported rapes.
But there are so many other factors playing into this (with heightened exposure to Internet due to higher income and more free time also comes a higher level of education, which may deter rape), so the debate is still going on, but a clear "porn -> rape" correlation doesn't seem to exist.
Hello ? I'm not saying porn and rape is linked. I'm saying you can get tons of hardcore material everywhere in Japan, so why go only after the ones selling pictures ? Personally I dont see much difference between a drawing a kid being raped and an actual picture, for the end viewer. In both situations you are allowing that person to feel good about it, which is, in my view, wrong anyway.
> Because we don't know if it will lead to real children being abused in real life.
We also don't know whether some arbitrary behavior will result in eternal damnation, so just to be safe let's make everything forbidden in any religious text illegal. This is a very slippery slope, and I don't see any reason why we should FUD our way into banning drawings but reject Sharia law. It's the same logic.
> To repeat what was said earlier: because it's not about the viewer. It's about the child actually being molested.
You would not get (much) child molestation if there was no public for these images in the first place.
So on one side, it's forbidden to share pics of real children (for the reasons you mentioned), but it's fine to check/sell drawings of children being molested. It just seems very counter productive to go both ways at the same time. You can imagine that people who already enjoy drawings would also enjoy pictures and therefore actively look for them.
>>You would not get (much) child molestation if there was no public for these images in the first place.
You don't know that. Also, your argument sounds very similar to those that blame violent video games for actual acts of violence in society; which is also a very dubious position to hold. Afterall, Japan has some very violent Anime and yet I'm pretty sure incidents of actual violence in Japan is lower than most firstworld countries.
> You would not get (much) child molestation if there was no public for these images in the first place.
So what do you want to do with paedophiles (which is, IMO, just as valid sexual orientation as hetero- or homosexuality, and isn't a person't choice)? Kill them all?
I see the solution that allows them a legal fulfillment of their desires (i.e. by jerking off to images) as superior to a solution that only provides illegal sources of pleasure (illegal child porn/child molestation).
We are now entering the "do video games cause violence" discussion hall. We take a number. It's ZY412787A331992. The 90s LED display mounted on the south wall says "unmoderated caucus".
We take a seat, close our eyes, and relax in the echoes of decades of brouhaha.
> We are now entering the "do video games cause violence" discussion hall
Actually we are not. I am merely saying that the market of legal questionable things is likely increasing the market of illegal things, not talking about pictures causing rape directly.
I believe the difference is that in one instance a child was harmed in the creation of the image. Less about morality policing and more about actual victims.
I don't know if it reduces the amount of child pornography created in practice (presumably the type of person that goes as far as creating evidence of such a heinous crime has already leapt off the deep end) but I can certainly see why someone would want to enact those laws. If it reduces the demand in any way and that reduces the possibility of a child being victimized I think it's worth it.
> but this just indicates you're missing the point: It's not at all about enforcing virtue of the end viewer. It's about preventing child abuse.
Don't you think encouraging the behavior to view drawings of child rape expands the market for actual pictures of child rape? I don't think it's too much of a stretch of imagination.
Does playing video games encourage kids to go shoot people?
You are thinking it from the wrong side as mentioned. If someone has those urges, they will look for real or drawn pictures, but if one doesn't, it won't immediately make you want to look for it because you saw it in a manga.
I have never heard anyone advocate that viewing of such drawings be encouraged. Allowed, yes, encouraged, no.
As someone else mentioned: we really do not know how availability of such cartoons affects demand. It is possible that the opposite happens: that the cartoons take the market share of and thus reduce the demand for the real pictures.
Note for example that if the perversions which fuel demand for this stuff are genetically determined, then the above market dynamic is quite likely.
Have you ever considered that these drawings and CG images might prevent more children being abused? ( I don't think it's too much of a stretch of imagination ;) ) I just want to point out that we don't know ... yet what we know is that harming children should be prosecuted.
No, I don't see millions of call of duty players who have shot, exploded, stabbed and otherwise "murdered" people currently out in the streets on killing sprees.
But does it desensitise them to such real-life acts? Just a thought. The constant barrage of horrible images on the news just means that shocking images no longer shock.
Drawing rape, and raping somebody and taking pictures, is exactly as far apart as drawing murder, and murdering somebody and taking pictures.
I'm on board with talking about whether drawing rape and murder is moral, but in no way can it be said to be immoral simply because rape and murder in itself is immoral. If so, Hollywood would be put on trial for crimes against humanity.
I wonder if that manga increases or decreases the number of actual child abuses. Doing a quick Google search, it seems UK and US are in the top 5 countries with highest child abuse rates:
There could be a theory that if you allow things that you'd normally consider crimes and unacceptable in a society, in virtual form, that would prevent the things from happening in real life, as those committing the acts would be "satisfied" by the virtual act, and wouldn't have a desire to do it in real life anymore.
In a way, it kind of already works like that with (regular) porn. Now I wonder - and this is just a crazy idea I'm throwing out there - what if images of abused children, actually cause fewer "real" pedophiles to exist/commit those acts with real children? And what if our current "ban child porn from the Internet" policy just means more pedophiles will go looking for children to abuse in their local towns instead of watching online videos?
Maybe it's just a crazy sick idea, but it might be worth exploring from a statistics point of view, to see whether our current policies are working or are actually making the problem worse. We probably don't even need to "experiment" with any new policy. I think we just need to carefully look at past data, and see what we can learn from it.
> it seems UK and US are in the top 5 countries with highest child abuse rates:
Though, what that actually means is that UK and US have mechanisms to report, investigate and prosecute child abuse cases that would be perfectly legal and normal in other places.
In other news, there are about 30 times as many rapes per capita in Sweden as there are in India, or 80 times as many rapes as in Yemen or Syria. That is, rapes that are recorded in statistics. [0]
It should be obvious that this relates to how things are processed, not what actually happens to people.
> I wonder if that manga increases or decreases the number of actual child abuses. Doing a quick Google search, it seems UK and US are in the top 5 countries with highest child abuse rates
Incidence rates are useless if you are looking for Japan data, because the violence / sexual assaults on women are widely underreported here. Most women will not talk about it. And touching women in crowded areas (subway, trains) is so commonplace in Japan they made laws to criminalize it. That says enough, I think.
>touching women in crowded areas (subway, trains) is so commonplace in Japan they made laws to criminalize it. That says enough, I think.
I don't know how far you need to look into that. It's not like if you tried that here in Australia, the officer would have to let you go because he didn't have anything to charge you with...
You're not going to get arrested for accidentally bumping someone. However, if you get grabby then yeah, you could get arrested. That's known as "Assault". Look it up, it's criminal.
> I wonder if that manga increases or decreases the number of actual child abuses. Doing a quick Google search, it seems UK and US are in the top 5 countries with highest child abuse rates:
As I said in another comment it's not even the point. Is it moral to actually have kids access such depictions in the first place, whether it's actual pictures or drawings, is what I am talking about. Of course everyone will have a different opinion about that, I guess.
Religion is for morality. Your point is fair, but we are talking about prohibition. That is (ideally) not done on the basis of morality alone.
A good reason for a law to exist is to protect people from each other. Hence laws against real murder, and real child abuse. Photos of child abuse are clearly illegal because they mean actual child abuse has taken place. Not because they are immoral, per se. They may be, but that's not as clear an argument.
For the same reason, the discussion about the legality of drawings / enactments of illegal acts centers not around morality, but around whether or not it will lead to more of those acts actually happening.
You're getting downvoted because you stick to making the morality argument, implying that is reason enough for prohibition. HN is a crowd where many people feel it's not.
In the spirit of "Live and let live", I tend to feel the same way.
I'm not asking to prohibit anything. I'm just questioning the logic behind prohibiting one thing and actively encouraging one thing very close to what is being forbidden at the same time.
In the meantime in convenience stores everywhere across Japan, kids can get manga showing women or school girls being raped and nobody has any problem with that. I guess I will never understand morals here.