Be Excellent To Each Other

You're replying to Meems there right? And I agree, as I said, the pictures are illegal because the only way for them to be created for someone to be harmed.

There's nothing harmful about drawing something, nor is there (for instance) about creating a game involving murders which if this law is on the books I struggle to justify.

Indeed. This proposed law is outlawing thoughts, basically, which is something I struggle with.

What next? Banning discussing underage sex? Because that's the next logical step - after all it's where they've gone with the crimes of inciting racial hatred.

I thought these were just proposals and hadn't been agreed-upon or enforced?

And yes, of course, illustrated images are far safer for actual children (as long as they don't actually lead to someone molesting children). I honestly do not know if that is likely or not.

And knowing stuff.

You can get done for knowing stuff.

And yet again, another poorly drafted law which will probably be either never used, or used to get someone when the other charges don't stick. And doesn't the Obscene Publications Act already cover such stuff?

(Best hide your copy of Nirvana's 'Nevermind')

No need to apologise. I think I understand what you were getting at, but it's kind of the wrong angle to come at it from. The typical line about "that's what people used to say about homosexuals" is probably the best place to start, unusually. Obviously in moral terms they're worlds apart, but in terms of sexuality there is a significant parallel. It's ultimately just the object of the desire that's different.

You (Kern) joke but there was a group that kept deleting a very similar cover of wikipedia because they called it child porn.

Despite being told to fuck off by the now-mid-20s (or was it even older) subject OF the cover.

That's what the judges are saying, funnily enough, but the minister on Today this morning dismissed them as being "in the minority". Well, that's alright then. As long as the informed legal opinion is outnumbered by hysterical twats, that's fine. Majority rule's the thing, eh?

Perhaps, but as you said yourself, there's an important distinction in that practicing homosexuality isn't morally indefensible, while practicing paedophilia is, on account of consent.

I wasn't aware of that case, but it makes sense.
The whole 'we-must-protect-the-children' thing really sours innocent relationships between adults and youth. A bit of a sidetrack, but there's this belief that if someone does not have a CRB check, that means they should be considered suspicious even though holding one does not in anyway predict one's future actions.

Picky FTFY.

Indeed. I started a thread on it, in fact.

Seems to be working well in that little village at the moment.

But seriously, did it used to be like this? Or are 'they' just saying this sort of thing to look like they are doing something?

Oh, and can we bear in mind that child porn now includes pictures of 16 and 17 year old girls and boys, unless taken and viewed by their spouses, just to pile on the ridiculousness. Not just under 16s.

And as CGI kids can't be married to the person drawing them that means drawings of 17 year old girls will be illegal (although again, how on earth do you specify the age of a girl in a picture?).

Isn't there some stuff hanging in the National Gallery that may fall foul of this?

I meant that in the moral rather than legal sense - two gay folks screwing is fine. Someone screwing a kid or young teen (assuming they're not a young teen themself, natch) is another matter. Kids shouldn't be having sex - they don't even have an interest in having it (at least not overtly, or to anything like the extent an adult does), because they're kids.

The age of consent bit is another matter altogether, as is the mere drawing/rendering of teens or kids in a sexual context. I've not really touched on those (erk) here.

Of course the age of consent is just an artificial law too, as was the ones against homosexuality...

Practicing homosexuality would have been considered morally indefensible not long ago too...

Not to say I don't agree with your central point but I suspect you'll find a very decent proportion would consider themselves perfectly fine thank you very much.



The morals are your own though, from a dispassionate point of view it's the same as finding two gay guys screwing to be immoral, you've just drawn the line in a different place.

Plenty of people would tell you no-one can consent to gay sex as they are mentally ill for just being gay...

From reading the article it does sound a bit like the original intent of these proposals was to close a loophole where photographs of children were being photoshopped to claim that they weren't photographs at all. Certainly it's going to be a tricky area, suppose that people began generating photorealistic images, however would the authorities separate them from the real ones?

Yes, but only by religious nobs and homophobes. Plenty of people still do think homosexuality is morally indefensible, though they can come up with no rational justification for this.

Practicing paedophilia, though, means taking advantage of someone too young and physically and emotionally immature to take an independent interest in taking part in sex. I don't mean to patronise kids by saying how they must automatically be victims, but how many children initiate sex with adults of their own volition? It's necessarily manipulative and abusive, though conceivably with some rare exceptions in the case of some teens (in which case it's not paedophilia anyway, but that other word that I always forget in discussions like this no matter how many times I'm reminded).

Not wishing to derail the thread too much, but what about necrophilia? I've always wondered why that's illegal. Is it criminal damage, or something?

I bolded the bit that I think is important.

I suppose if you've been grave-robbing, it could be breaking and entering.

Does anyone else think that PAEDOGEDDON!!!!! is distracting people from the real problem?

You know, the one where most child abuse happens in the home, is perpetrated by members of the childs family (or close family friends) and often gets swept under the carpet?

I wonder how many parents carefully monitor their child's internet access, take them everywhere, and never let them out of their sight, in case PERVERTS ABDUCT THEM!!!!... and then happily let Uncle Roger come around to babysit, despite their child's misgivings.

And yes, Child molestors are not always paedophiles, and paedophiles are not also child molestors, just how the big black guy who butt rapes you in prison isn't necessarily gay.

Pundy - Child of Our Times the other week looked at how restricted 8 year old kids are in terms of being allowed to range away from home now - max 1/4 mile compared to about 10 miles or so 20 years ago. It's all down to the FEAR OF THE PAEDOS, too.

Do people really think we've been breeding more and more paedos, or something? I fail to believe that they're any more prevalent than they've ever been. Any old person will be able to tell you stories about the funny and slightly sinister man who lived round the corner that all the kids avoided. People just knew that all you have to do is NOT FUCKING TALK TO THEM.

But no, let's lock up our kids and deny them any freedom at all, for fear of the phantom paedos.

Did you see the tv programme about the overprotective parents? Real sad, it was. I'll remember what it was called in a moment.

It's an awful, awful situation we've got ourselves into with all that. I was watching Ian Hislop's programme about the Scouts the other day and thinking what a great thing it was for kids to be involved in. It made me sad though because I guess that nowadays hardly any get the chance because not many adult males would want to get involved in that sort of thing for fear of being branded a paedophile.

I completely agree, 100%.
However, I'm not convinced about how far away I'll be happy for the Grimlet to travel when he's older - I'd be interested to hear what you think about your littl'un.

The problem you've got is that even if you think it's safe all the other stupid parents will call you an uncaring bastard for letting him go for a bike ride.

I'd be happy of them to range as far as they'd like, as long as they tell me where they're going and they give me a time by which they'll be home - same as my wife and I did when we were 7 or 8.

The only issue I'd have is with them getting run over - but that's always been a danger since, what, the 20s. And the way round that is to teach them how to cross the road properly.

Plus, we have so much countryside near us that they could wander up our back garden and into the national trust common land and not leave green spaces for a few miles.

EDIT - indeed, markg, and that was a point made by the one parent who did let her kid range around. My response would be "fuck off".

Didn't some protect the kiddies charity recently say that we were being far too protective and needed to let kids out more?

This. A million times, this.

Also what chris said about the paedos hiding under every paving slab on every street, just waiting for a parent to turn its back for an instant.

Kids know who the weirdos are. Kids know how to be safe on the internet. It's a tiny minority of them who are stupid/naive/neglected enough to go off and meet some stranger off the internet, or to get in the car with the guy with the sweets.

1) People are living longer.
2a) We're not being conscripted into long and bloody wars so often.
2b) Quality of life is greatly improved here.
3) It's no longer an embarassment/indecency to be unwed. Which makes it easier to hide kids in your cellar.
4) The last 100 years have popularized radio, television, the internet, newspapers etc. All making it easier to both find a way to fuck kids, and to 'tell your story'.
5) It's only since post-WWII that we've started taking a regular census, and so forth. Don't be shocked that we're only just now going 'Oh! A lot more paedos now, eh?', I'm mostly amazed the populace don't all walk into the bedroom door every morning.

You were married at 7 or 8?

PAEDO SCUM!

Oh, sorry, wrong thread.

I'm very worried about the number of thought crimes that are being thrown around at the moment.

Paedophillia is a very difficult subject because it tugs at the pure emotional sides of our reactions. Typically disgust and repulsion.

The edges of laws fall down when they try and treat shades of grey as a binary crime/not crime.

A 17 year old sleeping with a 15 year old is not a paedophile (as would be two 9 year olds).
A 35 year old male sleeping with a 15 year old female is not a paedophile, but you'll struggle to find someone who will find it socially acceptable.
A 35 year old female sleeping with a 15 year old male is not a paedophile, and a significant proportion of people would pat the guy on the back.

Puberty could be considered 'physical consent' when the body becomes ready for sex, but the issue of 'mental consent' - the idea of when you are ready for sex is something quite different, and more important. I would say I was ready before I was 16 for instance, but I wasn't at 14.

Regardless I think you can avoid that tricky situation by the fact that mental consent is meaningless until a body is physically developed enough to consent. But that, for better and worse, translates to a fix cut off point of 16.

Whats interesting with the thought crime idea, is that the proposition that "pornography leads to more rape/assault" has never been proven (or as far as I am aware strongly disproven), but it's clearly the same argument here. That virtual child pornongraphy will increase the likelihood of people to commit assaults on children. Where a good argument could be made that such pornography would act as an escape valve for such people. To let of steam.

We've all seen what unnatural celibacy has caused members of religious faiths to succumb to.

It's an area that deserves proper analysis, and I'm unaware of any results (though I do remember a source showing that societies with increased levels of pornography have lower levels of sexual assault with respect to more prudish societies. Though of course that ignores many other factors.

Of course if the opposite is true then you do truly have an issue of thought crime on your hands.

I'm glad I don't have to sort it out.

Also I'ld like to add that it is awesome that we've settled enough to have proper discussions again. We are excellent to each other!

EDIT: 11 posts written whilst I typed this. I am slllooooooowww.

We certainly have 3 or 4 pages of yammering, at least. It's a start.

I don't remember the "are you a paedo" question on the Census. I hope I didn't accidentally tick "yes".

Oh do fuck off. Unless you're joking, in which case "ha!"

As long as you didn't also tick any 'Yes, I am a rapist' box, you should have a defensible position.


Your post that I quote above being a good example of yammering. And most of you don't know what a paedophile is, or how to spell it. But as I said, it's a start.

Is it not? Oh, see now I am confused as I thought that for a 35 year old male to sleep with an underage girl of 15 WAS paedophilia.

At what ages it is paedophilia?

Quick aside - isn't life expectancy going down again because we're all lazy and eat shit all day?

Also, there's a lot of talk about the age of consent being linked to mentally being able to decide whether or not to have sex, but isn't it actually worked out on being mentally able to deal with a baby?

Mimi - paedophilia regards children. A 15 year old is not a child - sex with one would be underage sex. Having sex with a child is not paedophilia, however.

Yes, which was in response to your oh so funny little list. So - you started it.

So what is deemed a 'child' in this sense, according to the law?

And IIRC, statutory rape.

Pre-puberty. There's another word for fancying pubescants that I always forget. Let us call it "irritating wee shite"-ophilia.



Anyone under 18. I have technically starred in child porn, as has any moderately perverted 6th former.

I'm sure I remember reading a news story about an American airline that had introduced a policy of not allowing kids to sit next to men travelling alone on their flights.

This was apparently down to parents complaining about the possibility of paedogeddon.

The question that immediately sprang to my mind was: "Well, what the fuck are you doing letting your kid go on a plane without you nearby?"


Ephebophilia.

Mimi, as far as I am aware, the law doesn't differentiate between anyone underage as far as sex goes. If you're under 16, it's illegal, full stop. It's just as illegal to rape a 3 year old as it is to rape a 14 year old.

"Paedophilia" is used as a shorthand for underage sex generally, but it has a definition in psychiatry or some such field which relates to sexual desire of pre-pubescent children, or something. I'm sure a quick Wiki will answer.

See, but CUS just said that a 15 year old is not a child, which is why I am confused.

Sitting in First, no doubt.

Cheers, mr Chris

No, Mr Chris. My "Oh so funny little list" was a list of serious points. A shame that you can't see that.

A 15 year old is not a child.
16 is the age of consent for sexual intercourse. It is not the age of being no longer child.
Sex with a 15 year old is statutory rape, as Plissken mentioned above.
Sex with a 5 year old, is statutory rape and child abuse.

That was my point. We've got one word that describes a spectrum of very, very different things.

The "Fifteen year old boy bangs smoking teacher - WOW look at the hot pictures we have of her in the courtroom" stories you get in The Sun are both extremely different to the reception the stories would get if you switched the sexes around. I'm not defending these events, but they are both clearly very different to sex with a 6 year old and should be treated as such.

I'm not sure of the definitions under law, but putting them all under the banner of paedophilla isn't helpful in my opinion.

EDIT: Another 11 replies whilst writing this!