Pedophile Gets Busted

[SaguratuS]

Do you consider undercover drug busts controversial? The average American doesn't. If it wasn't an undercover cop, and in this case people from Perverted Justice, then it would've been a child.

There's a serious difference between undercover drug busts (passive, people come to them) and going out and soliciting to a large number of people (active), as perverted justice does.

The act of merely soliciting drugs, prostitutes, underage-sex, etc. are crimes. As they very well should be.

Which is exactly what perverted justice does, in order to have a show.

And those people are not standing up for American rights and liberties.

Then the same could be said about privacy and fair use advocates. Do fair use advocates support piracy? Do privacy advocates support terrorism?

[Black Hawk]

There's a serious difference between undercover drug busts (passive, people come to them) and going out and soliciting to a large number of people (active), as perverted justice does.

If that were true there would have been a lot of lawsuits by now claiming entrapment.

[Toology]

There's a serious difference between undercover drug busts (passive, people come to them) and going out and soliciting to a large number of people (active), as perverted justice does.

Which is exactly what perverted justice does, in order to have a show.

The members of Perverted Justice do not solicit sex posing as minors. They go into chat rooms and wait for someone to chat with them. If you watch the show and see the chat logs (which can be read on the site as well) the pedophiles ask "ASL?", they shoot the s*it for a few minutes and it turns sexual after that. At no point do the members ask the men if they want to come over and have sex, nor do they initiate any sexual conversations themselves with the men. They are as you said, passive.

[SaguratuS]

The members of Perverted Justice do not solicit sex posing as minors. They go into chat rooms and wait for someone to chat with them. If you watch the show and see the chat logs (which can be read on the site as well) the pedophiles ask "ASL?", they shoot the s*it for a few minutes and it turns sexual after that. At no point do the members ask the men if they want to come over and have sex, nor do they initiate any sexual conversations themselves with the men. They are as you said, passive.

I haven't done my research on it, so I'll take your word for it. I was under the impression that the controversy was over them going out and moreso soliciting conversations, and turning it from there. If they are doing this passively, then I have no quarm with them.

[OrganicPanda]

Compromising situation isn't defined. You'll have a lot of wrongful oppression when it comes to science and computer graphics. Besides that, what makes such a person a "whacko" to begin with? Would you call someone who sketches nude woman a "whacko"?

no i woulden't because it is healthy to want a sexual relationship with a woman, nude is she so wants, whereas it is not healthy to recreate scenes or sketch pictures which suggest abuse of a child, if you have the desire to do this the you are in my opinion, a whacko... afterall art is about expessing your feelings and with reference to the affore-mentioned controversial art what would that suggest the artist was feeling?

[SaguratuS]

no i woulden't because it is healthy to want a sexual relationship with a woman....whereas it is not healthy to recreate scenes or sketch pictures....

What makes this healthy, and likewise unhealthy to want a sexual relationship with your own gender? different race? different species? different age, say a 20 and 60 year old?

Not everyone is the same, and you cannot claim your own orientation and preferences to be "healthy" without evidence that it is beneficial to physical or mental health, or similarly, detrimental effects for what you claim to be "unhealthy".

The taboo on the issue of pedophilia is that it deals with minors who are not fully developed mentally (and physically for females), and aren't fully aware of the potential religious or physical issues (such as STD's). Pedophilia involving prepubescent minors may also involve the subject having a lack of interest or desire for such contact, and be forced to participate from a statutory influence. That covers the predatory pedophiles, but what about the ones who commit "thoughtcrime"?

I've talked with a few pedophiles who can't explain why they're attracted to minors, and actually hate themselves for it. This may indicate that it is not entirely a choice, much like homosexuality, however it poses a very severe problem for society. Why should passive, non-predatory pedophiles have stones thrown at them for this "thoughtcrime", and how would you differentiate this from racism or homophobia should this be proven to be attributed to physical traits in the brain, or even gentically?

whereas it is not healthy to recreate scenes or sketch pictures which suggest abuse of a child

I can't really say "suggest" is the right word to use here. If someone sketches a murder, suicide, or someone jumping off a cliff, it doesn't mean the artist "suggests" such actions. This is of course assuming you imply suggest as it's first definition of: "To offer for consideration or action; propose". If you mean otherwise, I'd suggest using a different word for this argument.

afterall art is about expessing your feelings and with reference to the affore-mentioned controversial art what would that suggest the artist was feeling?

This goes back to our original topic, should thoughtcrime be punishable?

This argument obviously cannot apply to photos, sketches, designs, or art which are inexplicit in nature. A CG artsit designing and modeling a child in full detail does not imply that they have pedophiliac thoughts. The same could be applied to those sketching a nude male or female in art class.

[Toology]

The taboo on the issue of pedophilia is that it deals with minors who are not fully developed mentally (and physically for females), and aren't fully aware of the potential religious or physical issues (such as STD's). Pedophilia involving prepubescent minors may also involve the subject having a lack of interest or desire for such contact, and be forced to participate from a statutory influence. That covers the predatory pedophiles, but what about the ones who commit "thoughtcrime"?

How many of these non-predatory pedophiles do you think actually exist? If it is at times an innate attraction then how can it possibly be ignored? How could it possibly be suppressed to the point where they do not act upon it? I doubt there are many such cases. One need only at the media coverage of pedophile priests within the church. Not even God or the religion they subscribed to could restrain their attractions and keep them from coming to fruition. "Thoughtcrime" is punished because incessant and insuppressible thoughts often don't just remain harmless thoughts.

[SaguratuS]

How many of these non-predatory pedophiles do you think actually exist? If it is at times an innate attraction then how can it possibly be ignored? How could it possibly be suppressed to the point where they do not act upon it? I doubt there are many such cases. One need only at the media coverage of pedophile priests within the church. Not even God or the religion they subscribed to could restrain their attractions and keep them from coming to fruition.

There's quite a few more than you think, and obviously predatory pedophiles are the ones most prone to being caught, and thus receive media coverage. I'm not very familiar with the pedophiles on freenet, but by far the majority I had talked with were not what I would consider to be predators. Take this with a grain of salt though, as this is taken from an area where CP is freely available and limited to the somewhat competent. There's a lot of predators out there, but I get the feeling that because they can utilize freenet to transfer materials, they don't have such a need to go seek outlets in the real world. This can also bring up the debate as to whether such materials is beneficial to reduce such offenses against minors.

"Thoughtcrime" is punished because incessant and insuppressible thoughts often don't just remain harmless thoughts.

Actually, thoughtcrime is not punished here in the US. Both CG and art of this nature are allowed under free speech, so long as no actual minors are involved. It's not quite the same however in places like New Zealand.

I don't believe "incessant and insupressible" is quite accurate either. As an asexual, I can't quite comment on what the quantity or supressiveness of sexual thoughts would be for a person on a daily basis, but I'm pretty sure this goes just a tad too far. There's no way to gather statistics and evidence on such information either, however I believe criminalization of thoughtcrime will only lead to more violent crimes in the end. If you overpunish sexual offenses against children, you'll see more child molestation cases from predatory pedophiles turn into homicide cases, because they don't want the kid going home and saying anything that might lead to their arrest and prosecution, which may end up carrying a sentence that's not far off from murder. Don't know about you, but if I had kids, I'd much rather see them alive and well with a potentially bad or embarrasing experience.

Edit: Let me rephrase that last sentence. I'd much rather see them alive and well and with a bad or embarrasing experience from the start than rather have even a small chance that they may end up worse, soley because child molestation or statutory rape was overpunished.

Edited May 22, 2006 by SaguratuS