laws against posessing child porn make no sense

I'm not quite sure what to think about this court decision. The legal distinction between possession and viewing internet content shouldn't be all that tough. Do you possess something by simply looking at it? If I look at photos of a car, do I possess the photo? I certainly don't possess the car, correct? What does it mean to possess the photo? Why is it a crime to possess certain photos? The standard explanation, when it comes to child porn, is that possessing images of children enduring sexual abuse is like abusing the children all over again.


But let's look at the photo of a murder scene. Who would claim that looking at the images of the murdered person is like murdering that person all over again? If I look at images of a child who has been beaten, is that like me beating the child myself? I can't think that anyone would argue that.


Ah, you say, but it should be illegal to get sexual satisfaction from looking at images of child sexual abuse. Okay, so how do we decide if the person downloading those photos got sexual satisfaction or not? Did the person truly get off on this photo or did this person download the photo and immediately delete it? Did the person download the images and watch them while jerking off...or while knitting sweaters? 


Computer forensics can tell us that someone downloaded the images but the science cannot tell us what the person did with the image. Did he enjoy the image? Did he turn in disgust from it? Did he ignore it entirely? Did he hold it on his computer for a long time? Did he look at it more than once? The science cannot say.


What do we do with people who don't need to download images from the Internet in order to get off on the idea of child sexual abuse? How do we know what they are thinking? We don't. Fantasy is completely interior. The difference between this person and the one who downloads images is that fantasy cannot be tracked.


The Gizmodo article says, "Thanks for that, appeals court. You're doing a great job upholding the spirit of the laws that prevent horrendous child abuse." Reading that should stop us all in our tracks. Do those laws prevent horrendous child abuse?


If the laws are meant to prevent horrendous child abuse, we should be able to decide if the laws actually accomplish that. My argument is never that child porn is acceptable, but that the laws against posessing child porn make no sense.