keeping child porn illegal is a losing game

Computer animation programs are less expensive than ever, making it possible to produce pornographic images in which children are depicted but no real-life children were involved. The images of children are completely computer-generated. Should computer-generated (CG) child porn be illegal? If child porn is illegal because we want to protect children, who are we protecting when we ban CG images?


In video games, CG characters do all kinds of awful violence and yet the vast majority of gamers do not confuse the video world with the real world. Why would we think that people viewing CG child porn would be more likely than gamers to take the video action and try to move it into the real world? Because people who like child porn are particularly sick individuals? And the gamers are not sick for enjoying violence, for pretending to kill?


With the wider availability of CG child porn, courts will be hard-pressed to distinguish between real children and CG children. More resources will be spent sorting out those issues, instead of trying to find those who abuse actual children.